Roll with the Punches (25 page)

My heart fell as the members trooped in all at once: Cleo, Hippo, Queen Malevizent, Kween Viktorious, and an Asian girl I'd never seen before. Only E. Lizard Butt smiled at Harley and me. They greeted chubby, graying Helen, who sat reading behind the counter, and sat in a booth. Then they ordered Cokes and lit up cigarettes. Whoa, were they in for it! But then Helen lit one, too.

Kween Viktorious started reading a story about her kindergarten teaching job. Harley and I got up and joined them halfway through the reading. The air around the table stiffened as we pulled up chairs. Out of habit, I took out a notebook to note down nice turns of phrase and things I didn't understand.

Hippo grabbed it. "No note-taking." She shoved Helen's menu at me and said, "Here. Swear on Helen's chicken fried steak that you'll never use any roller derby experience or character or anything you hear here in your writing."

Harley and I swore, and Kween Viktorious finished reading.

Bra-Coli, the Asian girl and one of the Garden Grove Veggie Girls, said she liked it. Harley asked how Kween Viktorious got the kids in her class to journal without knowing how to write words. Queen Malevizent asked why kindergartners have homework. I opened my mouth, but Cleo stared me down and Hippo fingered her skull rings.

Bra-Coli started reading a chapter from her romance novel, which was pretty rough. As everyone was listening intently to this, who should race in and squeeze into the booth but Yvette. After fussing with her papers and her tiny blue purse, she looked up and saw me. Her eyes popped.

I grinned.

She interrupted Bra-Coli. "Rhonda. How did you …? Oh, of course. Cathy and Largot. Twits."

I wanted to punch her, bad.

Hippo grunted at Yvette, "You know them?"

Yvette sighed. "Unfortunately."

E. Lizard Butt said, “Hey, I asked them to come.” Then her phone rang and she ran outside to take it.

Right then, Dad got up and came over, napkin flapping from his shirt neck. "Hey, girls. What do you call a smart blonde?" Embarrassing pause. "A golden retriever. Hey, you telling stories, here? I've got one." He held up his awful blue handicapped card. "See this? It's been through more adventures than most career soldiers. Why, once, it went on a cattle drive in Texas when I was just nineteen—"

Yvette yelled over him, "Girls, I don't think Rhonda's here to learn about writing. She has her own rudimentary critique group, and she's done enough damage there."

Uneasy stares all around as Dad looked quizzical.

I said, "I didn’t do any dam—" at the same time she doomed me with: "I think she's here to spy on me—on all of us."

Hippo rose. Queen Malevizent and Cleo followed suit. Hippo said, "Take Grampa and get out. Now."

I yelled, "Wait. I really am a writer." But they got me and Harley by our shirt fronts and shoved us out the door. "Dad!" I yelled.

Kween Viktorious walked Dad outside as Harley and I regained our footing on the sidewalk. "Sorry," she said, and scurried back inside.

Then Harley saw E. Lizard Butt, putting her phone in her pocket on her way back inside. Harley said, "Geez, girl. How do you ever get new members?"

E. Lizard Butt said, "Hippo's super sensitive right now. Her book draft went missing in June. She wrote it longhand. No copies.”

I stared. "Shit. Longhand? Who does that?"

Hippo bellowed from the doorway and E. Lizard Butt rolled her eyes and went in.

About two o'clock Tuesday morning, I was sleeping the sleep of the truly needy. In a bed. Not my nice king-sized one at my condo, but it was flat and warm and didn't have any seat belt latches in it. Or ponytails.

Dad and I had visited Mom after the writer's group debacle that evening. On my way to Acorn Street to drop Dad off afterwards, James had called and asked me out for a late dinner after our Tuesday night writers' group meeting the next night. Being a working girl, I'd declined.

Not! Slutty Rhonda had immediately forgiven him for the tattoos and said “Yes. Damn yes!” After all, he'd sent me roses, hadn't he? My bliss on hanging up had only been marred by Dad's major huff when I brought up the subject of caregivers again. He had denied any wrongdoing in his entire life, and had stormed around the house for an hour before finally collapsing at midnight. I'd finally gotten to sleep, with Bing at my side.

Now suddenly, I started awake. A hand was clamped on my mouth and someone loomed over me, a knee pinning one arm to my side. My heart started thunking around and my blood raced.

Bing, snoring on my other arm, didn't even look up.

"Wake up, Roller Girl," Dal said.

"Why?" I said through the hand, and bit it.

"Hey." He let go of me. "We have to go in his room. Look for the car key.”

"No." I turned away and pulled the covers up to my chin.

A hand found my neck under the covers and rubbed it slowly and expertly. Like a chef working dough into a perfect dinner roll. Like a kindergartner with Play-Doh. Ahhhhh. Then the hand went down my back, under my shirt, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. So nice.

"Divine," I said.

"Come on, Booty-Ka." He stopped. "Hey. Does that refer to big boots or big butts?"

"Celtic warrior queen. Very mean. Go a little down and to the left." I sighed and snuggled deeper.

"How much you gonna pay me?"

"Nothing. Back rubs are free. Now go right. Yeah, and up."

"That's what you think." The hand whisked up to my shoulder and started down my front.

I sat up, shoved him away, and brandished Bing's front paw at him. "This warrior queen is heavily armed and happens to be going out with someone.”

He said, "Oh, don't worry. I prefer my superheroes with cone bras."

I threw my pillow at him and the ripped neck of my T-shirt fell off my shoulder.

"Or naked," he said.

I pulled it up.

"Look," he said. "We need to do this before he wakes up for his 3:00 a.m. stroll. There's gotta be a car key in there somewhere, and we need to get it."

"But he went to bed so angry. What if we wake him up?" I ran my fingers through my impossible hair. "Besides, how do you know it's in there?"

"I looked everywhere else today."

"Not in my underwear drawer?" My eyes got wide.

"There especially. Not impressive. You need more leather superhero stuff."

I burrowed back into the covers, envisioning him rifling my faded, holey, stretched cotton briefs. Oh, who cared? I was so tired. "This can wait until he's out on a walk tomorrow."

"Neither of us will be here. Besides, he probably has it on him all day. You want him to take off in the car again and run into somebody?"

I crossed my fingers under the covers. "He's a very good driver.”

"You chicken. You're scared he'll go all Hurricane Katrina on you if he can't find the car key." He had Dad and me pegged. "So if he ends up wandering out into the desert and lands on a slab in the morgue, your sister would be good with that?"

I got up. "Where's the flashlight?"

*
      
*
      
*

Five minutes later, two dark ninjas edged into the shadows of torches in the dragon's lair and tiptoed around the giant, craggy, wheezing dragon mound looking for treasure. Okay, not torches. Night lights.

Dal took the chest of drawers and I took the dragon's clothes, draped over a chair just inches from his fire-breathing nostrils. But there was nothing of interest in the shirt and only a Hershey bar deep in a pants pocket. The clink of Music Man's change as I rummaged in his pants pockets brought a loud snort from him. I jumped. My quick check of the musty-smelling clothes closet sent out a peal of music from empty wire hangers banging together. I grabbed them fast and caught my breath.

All quiet.

I swept my hand over shelves, peered past ties, and stuck a hand down each boat-like shoe, envisioning big, hairy, poisonous spiders in residence. Well, no brown recluses skittered out. But no keys appeared, either. Just one daddy longlegs and two silverfish.

Dal, busy with a flashlight in the drawers, chuckled at one point. A lower drawer squeaked as he pulled it out. Music Man rolled over and muttered in his sleep. Then he started snoring, great, humongous, gale-force howls, worthy of wind storms on Mount Washington.

I almost laughed. Done with the closet, I turned to the dreaded nightstand, situated right under Music Man's trumpeting nose. Shoving his chair aside and his cane to the foot of the bed, I said a silent prayer, stuffed half the Hershey bar in my mouth, and dropped to the carpet. Like a Marine in boot camp, I elbowed my way to the nightstand.

Bottom drawer: heating pad and socks.

Middle drawer: books and my lost electronic Yahtzee game. As I pocketed it, my head grazed the big guy's giant hand and I froze. Dal peered over Music Man and made a face at me, daring me to laugh. My father swatted at me in his dreams and sawed on.

Top drawer: a layer of magazines over a large stash of candy. I carefully pulled out the magazines around his outstretched arm, eased in a hand and felt around gently under the various chocolate bars and bits. Nothing metal. As I started to close it, something tapped my shoulder and I jumped again. It was just Dal, handing me a huge magnet.

I held it over the open drawer. Worth a shot, but no luck attracting a key. Another poke came from behind me, and I lurched up in surprise, my head missing Dad’s hand, but hitting the drawer, making the ancient drawer pull clink loudly.

The snoring stopped and I dove for the floor. Music Man reached over, peered at the clock, and sniffed. "Chocolate?"

Oh man. Given away by chocolate breath. I became one with the carpet, my nose embedded in shag, my shoulder squished under the bed. The rest of me didn't fit.

Music Man sat up and stepped painfully on my arm, but then rocked back and reached across the bed. "God damn cane. Never stays where I put it."

Like lightning, I used this break to scuttle back behind the dresser before he got up and shuffled off to the bathroom.

Dal came out of the closet. "How long do we have?"

"Either two minutes or two hours," I said.

We dashed around the room, running our hands over all open surfaces. Five minutes later, I struck gold in the toe of a giant sock. But Music Man was back. This time Dal hid behind the door, and I dropped down by the far side of the bed. The old guy lay back down and fought the covers. The springs shrieked and the bed frame shook violently under his weight. Finally, his breathing evened out.

I was about to head on out when something poked me hard in the leg from under the bed. A rat? I squealed and hopped up.

Music Man snored on.

Across the bed, Dal's eyes glittered from above the sleeping giant's feet, and the evil four-pronged cane appeared and shot right over Music Man's legs to poke me in the chest.

That did it. I plucked up the grabber my father used to pick things up off the floor since his hip surgery and lunged over the bed straight at the Indian's sternum. Unfortunately, my weapon was shorter than his and he got me right in the stomach.

Why do men always get the longer weapon? Their arms, noses, feet, and of course ... In the sword fight that ensued around the room, I only got him once on the arm or leg for every four or five good pokes he got on my torso. As his pokes got increasingly accurate and intimate, I got crafty. I waited for him to lunge, then dodged, and nipped in low, going for his belly.

"Ouch!" he cried, doubling over.

Key in pocket, I ran from the room. My snickers swelled to howls as I bounded out the back door to the yard and plopped down laughing on a swing in the sturdy swing set the folks had bought for Monica's kids. Hmm. Tight fit. My butt had certainly widened since the age of six. But swinging was still blissful under the few visible stars here in suburbia. The tall, black silhouettes of trees in the neighbors' yards showed lacy against the orange glow of the city at night. Was that Ursa Major, or seven airplanes? The swing creaked and I sailed up and down. And slowed and yawned. Bed time.

Two hands came to rest on my shoulders. "You got it?"

"Yeah. Where you been?"

He cleared his throat, the hands massaging me again. "I—um—needed a little ice in a sensitive area."

"Serves you right. Why are you so worried about him anyway?"

He gave my swing a big push. "He's a lot like my grandmother.”

"But she had Alzheimer's."

"Exactly." He sat in the swing next to me and pushed off, ponytail flapping.

"You think he does, too?" I pumped my legs to keep the swing going.

"I'm not a doctor. All I know is Grandma kept leaving the house, usually on foot. Once she took a bike and twice she took the car." He swung forward as I swung back. Swing scissors.

"But Music Man beats me at hearts. And he always comes back from his walks.”

Dal stopped and looked at his hands, his earring glowing in the light from Arlene's yard. "So did Grandma. Until late one fall. She went off in the middle of the night in a new direction. By the time we found her, she'd died from overexposure."

It was fall now.

"Oh. Sorry." I slowed the swing and kicked up dust. "Why didn't you put her in a care home?"

"Is that your solution to everything? Shove them away, out of sight?"

"No, I—you said she escaped all the time, so I thought—oh, never mind." I got up to leave.

He caught my hand. "Sorry, Rhonda." His eyes were dark. "Maybe now it seems like we should have done so, but the nearest assisted living for Alzheimer's was forty miles away in town. Too far for my mother to visit every day.”

"You could have moved closer." Warily, I sat back down.

"No. Mom lives on the reservation." He reached out and pushed my swing hard sideways. It went all crazy and bumped into his, and I yanked on his chain. "Plus, that's just not how we do things."

"Right. The boy named Sioux." Glad for a lighter topic, I giggled and wobbled the swing around, bumping his knee. Despite the hour, we were soon in a swing fight, yanking each other’s swing chains, crashing into each other.