We’ve been taking candid snaps of Paul since fifth grade. It started as a joke, but the stack has accumulated to the point where we could reclassify Paul Pelicano as our friendly obsession. None of us has a visual eye, so every picture catches Paul in the throes of some bland act, such as standing in the outfield or waiting for the bus. Paul Pelicano, the face that launched a thousand stomach-cramping questions, and all of them starting:
What would you do if Paul Pelicano . . . ?
Tonight, I would trade a Paul Pelicano photo for one of the girl in the lifeguard chair. Just so I could look at her some more, to figure out what sets her apart from the rest of us.
Mom and Roy are talking on the other side of the wall that divides the bedrooms. Their voices have that out-of-tune sound that’s not a fight yet, but has potential.
I refold the envelope and I think about the lifeguard girl, and I think about Paul Pelicano, the only person in this world I ever thought I could gaze at worshipfully all day.
Something thuds against the wall, rattling my lamp stand. Fight. I stand up to lock my bedroom door, since Mom has a habit of swooping in, post-fight, for a teary chat—without ever acknowledging the tears, or the problem.
I press my ear to the wall, but I can’t tell if Mom is crying yet.
So I get in bed and open
Lolita
and turn up the volume of the words to block out the sound on the other side of the wall. There’s no way this book is going to have a happy ending. Right from the start you can tell pervy old Humbert Humbert is up for anything. Here he’s taking this girl, Dolores, on a road trip for the express purpose of slurping all over her, on and on about her round toes and her red, red lips and the way she chews gum—and all Dolores does is eat, which kind of reminds me of hanging out with Whitney, and then suddenly I really, really miss Whit, miss watching her loop mozzarella around her finger while we rank all the guys in our class from cutest to most repulsive, and I miss our Humbert-ish Paul Pelicano surveillances, and I wish that, for once in my life, my summer could have turned out to be better than hers.
Lainie Astonishes Me
BY THE NEXT DAY, I’ve schemed up a plan to ask the lifeguard girl if she wants to pose for my notebook. Although I can’t think of a single occasion when I’ve asked someone to sit for me, I figure there’s a chance that one of three things might happen.
1. She will be flattered that I’ve asked her to be my muse.
2. She will be impressed by my scrupulous, artistic attention to her hairstyle.
3. She will be astounded that I am familiar with so many Great Women of Literature.
Or maybe all of the above. All I know is that my notebook is my best shot.
“But I want to play Food Chicken,” Lainie protests, “or Who Died in This House?”
“Tough luck. I want to go to Larkin’s.”
“Mom says I got too sunburned yesterday.”
“Which means you tattletaled that I didn’t bring the right sunblock. Thanks a lot, Lainie.”
“I didn’t tattletale!” Lainie squeals. “I didn’t say anything! She
saw
my sunburn!”
“All right, fine. Stop crying. It’s a beautiful day and you’ll just have to suck it up, because Evan wants to go to Larkin’s, too. Right, Evan?”
But Evan mumbles, “Food Chicken.”
“Funny.”
“I’m serious.”
He’s serious. I give him the dirty eyeball, but he doesn’t elaborate about why he wants to stay in. Maybe he’s shy at the prospect of seeing the lifeguard girl again, after their intimate moment of CPR. Maybe he’s just being stubborn to resist my bossing. Either way, it’s a pain, especially since Food Chicken isn’t even that good a game, considering I was forced to make it up on the spot last year when I discovered there was no television to plunk the kids down in front of.
Lainie-plus-Evan, however, is a brat-force to be reckoned with. Or, rather, to not bother reckoning with. “Fine. Go get your money.”
The kids dash upstairs. In the kitchen, I fill three glasses with water and set a silver mixing bowl on the table. Then I get the poker chips from the games cupboard.
“Handfuls for food, spoonfuls for spices, half cups for liquid. Dollar bets,” I call up.
“Fifty-cent bets,” Evan shouts down.
“That was last year. We have to adjust for inflation. And two bites!” I add.
“One bite!” shrieks Lainie.
“Two bites! New summer, bigger challenge.”
The kids come bouncing down, Lainie shaking her fishtail-sequined purse and Evan lugging his iron mini-vault that probably cost five times more than anything he’s got saved inside it.
We ante up. Lainie starts the game by tossing a handful of raisins into the mixing bowl. Evan adds his chip and shakes in some dry oats.
“Cowards,” I tell them, and drop in a spoonful of horseradish. We each eat two small teaspoonfuls of the mix, which tastes like spicy, uncooked raisin oatmeal.
“Second round,” says Lainie, adding a spoon of sugar, which Evan scoffs at, but he uses his turn to pour in a half cup of water. When I squirt in some ketchup, the kids turn on their whine sirens.
“This is called Food Chicken, okay?” I remind them. “It’s not called Let’s Make Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. It’s about testing your stamina. You play or you forfeit. By the way, that’s very good advice for becoming an adult.”
“Sugar’s more of a cop-out than water,” Evan mutters.
For round three, Lainie shakes in some frozen peas, Evan adds baking powder, and I finish with a half cup of soy sauce. I figure Lainie will call quits on this round, but she scrunches her face, holds her nose and gags her spoonful plus its encore.
“Nice form,” I praise.
“Diss
-guss-
ting,” she groans, but there’s a flush of pride in her face. Unless it’s the effects of the horseradish, which is making me feel a little hot under the skin myself.
Round four is a drizzle of honey, a handful of cornstarch and from me, onion powder.
We spoon it up. On my second bite, I get a frozen pea stuck in my throat and have to waste most of my allocated water to choke it down.
“Rrrround five,” Evan calls.
Lainie hesitates. “Five chips,” she says, “equals a lot of candy bars.” She looks up at me. “But I’m
not
going to lose.” She antes up.
“Big talk,” mutters Evan.
“Pick your poison,” I say.
Lainie looks like she might cry, but instead she hops up from the table, trots over to the fridge and returns holding an old, crusty jar of farmer’s chutney. “Mom’s had this forever!” She smirks at me. “You hate yucky old stuff like that, ha ha, don’t you, Irene?” She opens the lids and sniffs deeply. “I remember you told me so when we played Food Chicken last year.” She digs out a spoonful of the glop and plops it in the bowl.
“Well played,” I say. “You’re finally using some strategy.” I repress my shudder.
Evan adds in some relatively neutral leftover macaroni and cheese. Both kids scream as I crack a raw egg. Lainie and I slurp it up record time.
It’s Evan’s turn and he freezes. Puts down his spoon. Then stares at the lumpy, brownish pink stew. It is not an edible color.
“It’s easier if you don’t look,” Lainie whispers encouragingly.
Too late. The horrendous mixture has its grip on him. That’s a real pitfall of Food Chicken—if you’re not careful, you can get yourself into a frozen-on-the-diving-board moment. And Evan’s locked. He wags his head. “I can’t. I can’t do it.” Scowling, he eyes all the chips in the middle of the table. “It’s not worth it, anyhow. Stupid game.”
“Well, I’m
not
going to lose,” Lainie says as she spoons up her second mouthful, washes it down and wipes her lips with her arm. “Go, Irene.”
I try not to think about that jar of chutney decaying in the Prior’s fridge for Lord knows how long. At my second sickening bite, I feel myself waver. It’s only the dread idea of losing to Lainie—and what an obnoxious winner she would be about it for the entire rest of the summer—that gives me the courage to swallow.
“Round six,” I gasp.
Across the table, Lainie’s brow is furrowed. I know she is doing her best to keep from crying.
“Time-out.” Evan signals Lainie over for a private summit. Their heads bow together, whispering. “Good! Go!” He slaps his sister on the back as Lainie scrapes her chair over to the fridge and pulls down a tin from the top.
“Yummy, yummy. Christmas fruitcake,” she sings. “This is the
way
oldest food we have in the house.”
“Ancient!” Evan raises his knees to his chest and slaps his hand over his mouth.
“Primitive!” yelps Lainie as she trots over with the tin.
“Prehistoric!”
The smile I fake doesn’t let on that I’m all but doomed. I hate fruitcake, even in its most fresh-baked attempt at Christmas cheer. The concept of eating it in July might just be beyond my human capacity.
Grinning, Lainie unwraps the foil and breaks off a piece, dropping it into the bowl in all its toxic glory. She mashes it up with the spoon. “On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me!” she screeches. Annoying as this is, I’ve got to tip my hat to Lainie for an unprecedented show of competitive spirit.
Unfortunately for her, that’s why I have to make the decision to add in the dog food. It’s a cheap shot—what is it about little kids’ fear of eating dog food? I pour in the cupful of kibbles over Lainie’s shrieking, wriggling protest.
“That’s against the rules!” she wails. “You said it has to be edible!”
“It’s edible to Poundcake. Two bites won’t kill you. I’ll go first if you want.” I dip my spoon, close my eyes against the evil vision and swallow. The fruitcake sticks to the back of my throat, and I am pretty sure I can taste ancient, bacterial microbes. I gag and reach for my water glass, draining the last of my reserve.
Lainie is watching me in a state of gloomy shock. “Are you gonna puke?” she asks.
“Not a chance.”
“You can do it, too, Lainie,” murmurs Evan. “You can!”
Lainie’s mouth is set. “I’m
not
losing from dog food,” she says. And she tries. She really does. She plugs her nose and holds her glass of water ready. But when her chin starts to wobble, I can smell the money.
“You lost, you lost!” crows Evan in full turncoat mode. “You lost half your savings! Ha ha ha! Are you gonna be a crybaby about it?”
Lainie’s eyes well up.
“If you cry, he wins,” I whisper.
“Then Evan wins
and
you won,” bleats Lainie, “and I don’t win anything!”
She’s got a point. Anyway, there’s no consoling her when she’d wanted it so badly. I sweep my eleven dollars’ worth of chips into a pile. “And now I’m trading chips for the real cash. Rules are rules.”
Lainie and Evan hand over their money with sad eyes but no argument. For a moment, I feel awful, and I contemplate giving both Prior kids their money back. But then I remind myself how easily they come by their allowance, and always for tasks like taking out the trash or making their beds. Chores that, in my house, Beth Ann Morse calls “pulling your weight.”
So I decide that this time I’ll take the cash, but going forward, I’ll set a correct, babysitterly example. “Next time, we play with chips, for chips, and only chips,” I assure them.
Evan bunches his mouth as Lainie wipes her nose on her arm. They both look pretty defeated. “Um, so are we going to Larkin’s now?” Evan asks.
“Goodie! Larkin’s!” Lainie hiccups.
Only I’m not feeling so great. I think I can still taste desiccated fruitcake in my molars. “I’ve got another idea,” I say. “How about I just turn on the backyard sprinkler and we run through it and then go watch TV?” The sprinkler was a favorite diversion of last summer.
For a second, they don’t say anything, and I really think they’re going to punish me. Force me to get on Judith’s three-thousand-pound bike and ride them over to Larkin’s, just to spite my stomach’s queasy churning.
“Yeah, okay. You don’t look too good,” says Lainie. “The sprinkler’s around back.”
“Let’s do mud slides,” says Evan. “We did that last year. Remember how you were the mud monster?”
“Sure,” I say. How did I manage to scheme up so many activities for the Prior kids last year?
“Goodie! Mud monster!” Lainie is jumping up and down. Evan is already running for the door, and I know I’m off the hook. The Priors are sweet kids, mostly, and not too hard to please. Probably I don’t give them enough credit for that.
I Am Slightly Slighted
JUDITH DROPS ME off at the town library so that I can restock. After everything that Humbert Humbert has put me through, I need a more sensible love story, and Sister Soledad has recommended
Jane Eyre.
Then again, she’d also recommended
Lolita.
I am coming to realize that Sister has eclectic passions.
I have to walk all the way home. Mom and Roy are sitting on deck chairs out back. They look fairly tranquil, despite last night’s fighting. Good. “Hi!” I call out. “Yum, is that steak I smell?”
“Roy’s grilling. But I thought you stopped eating red meat!” exclaims Mom. Code: None for you.
“I’m grilling chicken for you, special,” calls Roy. Code: Don’t touch the steak.
“Cool!” I call. Code: I am not going to whine about it. Whether Roy didn’t remember that I’d switched back to eating red meat, or he didn’t want to pay up for the extra steak—either way, it’s not worth making into an issue. And Mom and I both know she can’t give me any of her steak since Roy might be upset by the violation of his romantic gesture. Mom is Roy’s mood-o-meter. She can detect the ghostliest signal that he is impatient or tired or has “low blood sugar”—Mom’s pseudo-scientific “evidence” in defense of Roy’s random personality swings.
“Real sorry ’bout the steaks, kiddo.” When we meet up in the kitchen, Roy gives me a jittery smile that makes me jittery, too. “The chicken’ll be up in ten minutes.”