“We should plant them in the Science labs,” suggested Caro. “So we wouldn't have to go to Science anymore.”
“Yeah, you would,” said Gabrielle. “It'd be cool, because Science'd be like a minefield. So you'd have to get someone to go into the lab first and, like, test out the path to your bench.”
“You'd get Caro to do it,” said Donna.
“You would NOT!” shouted Caro, and they all laughed again.
“Let's run now,” Donna said, when they'd stopped laughing. “You wanna run for a while?”
Then she counted. “One, two, three, and four,” she pointed as she counted, Joanne, Caro, Gabrielle, and Sia, and pointed at herself, “and five.”
She didn't point at Listen.
“Just us five,” she said, without looking at Listen: “Let's run.”
They had funny sparks in their eyes, and smirks, and they all began to run.
Listen was confused for a moment. She thought that Donna had just forgotten to point to her, and she started to run too, but they were running faster, and looking at each other as they ran, like “She's coming with us! What will we do?!”
She slowed down for a moment, to see if they would stop.
They didn't stop. They kept on running into the distance, and around the corner of the oval. They slowed to a jog, without looking back. Then they kept walking, fast.
Okay,
thought Listen,
the idea is to catch up with me on the next round?
Listen walked alone then, forty-seven times around the oval, slowly, to give them a chance, but they never caught up with her once.
On Saturday morning, Marbie explained to Nathaniel, through the bathroom door, that she was going to her parents' place to look through decorating magazines and collect her car.
“Hey, Sporty Spice!” said Nathaniel, coming out of the shower and seeing Marbie dressed up in her sports gear. He pretended to box with her, but Marbie did not have the time.
On the way to her parents' place, she stopped and bought a can of tennis balls. She stayed at her parents' place for ten minutes, and then she drove to the tennis courts. Her old racquet was hidden in the trunk.
The air was still, under a low, hazy sky, with vague swarmings of pollen and specks of black bugs. Crossing to the courts, Marbie felt the dry grass crunch beneath her sneakers, and then, in the distance, she saw the aeronautical engineer. He was already at the court, unzipping his tennis racquet and staring at her. He was dressed all in white, including white ankle socks and bright white tennis shoes. The only other color on him was the black of the hair on his legs and arms.
She herself was wearing the following: black, shiny Lycra shorts; a lemon yellow T-shirt with a faded announcement,
BEAR HUGGER
; a pink, terry elastic in her ponytailed hair; and Reeboks.
From a distance, the aeronautical engineer looked troubled. But as soon as she arrived, he smiled his shiny smile and said, “Warm up?”
“No,” said Marbie. “Let's just play.” If they played, she could call, “Good shot!” whenever she missed the ball, so it would seem to be his skill that made her miss, instead of her lack of skill.
“All right.” He seemed surprised. “Here, I'll spin my racquet.”
“Ah!”
Why does he want to spin his racquet?
The aeronautical engineer spun the racquet, asking, “Rough or smooth?”
“Rough!” panicked Marbie. She waved at a swarm of bugs, and sneezed: once, twice, three, four, five.
“Phew!” he said (about her sneezes), and the racquet hit the court with a low-level thud. “Rough it is!”
Marbie served into the net, twice, and clicked her ticklish throat, annoyed. The bugs touched her tongue and the edges of her nose, and she scratched at her ears and her knees.
“Loveâfifteen,” called the aeronautical engineer helpfully.
“Thank you.” She stamped one foot at the itches and the bugs, and agreed: “Me too! Love it too!”
The aeronautical engineer said, “What?” and then laughed once: “Ha.”
Arriving home, sweaty, Marbie explained to Nathaniel that she had decided to go for a run around the oval after she visited her parents, and that was why she was sweaty, and so now she would just have a shower.
“Listen's gone shopping,” Nathaniel said, following her down the hallway, “but I just remembered I forgot to tell you something she suggested the other day. She had an idea. Okay, let me remember the idea. The idea was, she thinks we should have a housewarming party. She'd invite Donna and the others from school. And she said we should combine it with Cassie's birthdayâhave Cassie's birthday here. She tells me it's Cassie's birthday in a few weeks.”
“She tells you that, does she?” said Marbie, taking off her sweaty sports clothes and stepping into the shower. “I think it's a perfect idea, and I think Listen is beautiful, and I think that you are too.” The last part she gurgled through the shower water.
“Thank you,” said Nathaniel, pulling his shirt over his head, unbuttoning his jeans, pressing them down his legs and over his feet, and stepping into the shower with her. Marbie stared at the fine, light brown hair on his chest, and at his muscular shoulders and arms. He was well built because he was always lifting boxes of bananas. As he kissed her in a warm, wet, shower-water way, Marbie began to draft a letter to an Advice Column inside her head:
Help!
I'm a 28-year-old woman (Sagittarius), and I've just moved in with my boyfriend and his daughter. My boyfriend is an excellent lover. I can confirm right now, even as I speak, that he really is a sensationalâthat he isâ
Anyway, the problem. You won't believe it, but I seem to have had an affair this morning. (Why?)
Well, it wasn't so much an affair. More a game of tennis.
The score was 6-0, 6-1. I lost. And that game I won in the second set was just because he hit four double faults. “Hooroo,” he said (mysteriously) after every double fault, and then he wiped the sweat from his sideburns.
So, that was strange enough. But then do you know what I did? I arranged to have a SECOND AFFAIR. Well, not so much a second affair as another game of tennis. (Why?) I arranged it for next Wednesday, during my lunch hour, at the Sydney University courts. I've got to say though, because this is what's so mystifying and the reason I'm asking for helpâI've got to say, and this is really ironicâbut Nathaniel is really an excellentâthat he's a fantasticâ
The Monday after the Walkathon, Listen watched Donna and the others out of the corner of her eye, waiting to see what would happen. At first she thought,
Well, if they don't want me around, that's fine with me,
and she went to the library at lunchtime. You weren't allowed to eat in the library, so she
saved her lunch to eat walking home. In classes, she decided to concentrate on what the teachers were saying.
It's pretty interesting anyway,
she told herself, but actually it wasn't.
Meanwhile, the others were getting on with life, talking to each other about ordinary things.
The same thing happened Tuesday, but on Wednesday morning, Listen woke up and thought,
This is all a mistake! They think that I'm the one who's ignoring them! It was just a joke, that running away thing at the Walkathon, and now they think I can't take a joke!
How terrible! But such a relief, and she practically ran all the way to school to clear things up.
Caro was arriving at the school gate at the same time as her, so Listen called, “Hi!”
Caro looked around and said, “Hi-i-i,” sort of comical and musical, like the “hi” you might say to a big blue beetle that landed on your plate at a picnic. Everyone would laugh and you'd shake the plate and the beetle would fly away.
“What's going on?” said Listen, walking in step with Caro.
“No-o-thing,” said Caro, quickening her pace.
“SIA!!!” shouted Caro suddenly, and she waved at Sia, who was down in the teachers' parking lot. Sia turned and stared, and Caro sprinted away from Listen, pounding down the driveway. Listen paused, and watched as Caro reached Sia and seemed to hunch over, gasping and talking rapidly, until Sia hugged her as if she needed comforting.
Listen walked on quickly then, in a different direction.
Later that day, packing up to go home, Donna spoke to Listen in a kindly voice. “Can I just explain something?” she said.
“If you want.”
“It's just that we all agreed on this, okay? It's no offense
at all.
See, the other day we had a strategy meeting at my place, and we decided we have to kind of like make the tough decisions? If we're going to survive,
because, you know, I realized that this place is even more of a fundamental shift in the universe than I thought it would be? And we have to shift away from you, if we're going to survive the shift. It makes sense if you think of it that way.”
Listen nodded, trying to figure out what Donna meant.
“And it was a good example at the Walkathon,” Donna continued, looking thoughtful. “It was kind of like confirmation that we'd made the right decision? When we were all making jokes about mines and that, and you were
laughing
but you weren't making jokes yourself. You were kind of like
taking
because you were laughing, but you weren't giving anything to us. And this is really, really hard for us, okay?”
“O-ka-a-ay,” said Listen, trying to give her “okay” a lilting, comical edge.
The next day, Listen stayed home from school. Marbie was taking a day off work because she had a ticklish throat, and she suggested Listen might need a break too. After clearing her throat several times, Listen decided she had a tickle too.
“I'll write a note and say you've got pneumonia,” offered Marbie. So that was settled.
Marbie was reading a novel in the sunny part of the kitchen, and Listen went into her bedroom, stared around the room, and remembered,
It's the Thursday after next! I'm allowed to do the next spell!
It was
A Spell to Make a Vacuum Cleaner Break.
“Well,” she said to herself, “that's a pretty stupid spell.” But then she remembered that their new vacuum cleaner was already broken. It got broken in the move: Grandpa Zing dropped a wardrobe on top of it, in the back of the truck. Maybe a Spell to Make a Vacuum Cleaner Break would have the reverse effect on a broken one? You never knew.
These were the instructions:
1. Wear sunglasses all day. From now on. Quickly, go and get the sunglasses and put them on.
2. Walk backward, but every few steps skip a bit and say “Oh!” as if you've just remembered something.
3. Phone up a Tae Kwon Do class and sign yourself up, then phone again ten minutes later and cancel.
4. Peel fifteen potatoes and sticky-tape the peelings back together.
NOW YOU HAVE TO WAIT SIX WEEKS PLUS ONE DAY BEFORE YOU CAN TURN ANOTHER PAGE! (You'd better put the date in your calendar.)
These were challenging things, but Listen did them all. Even when she and Marbie went out with Marbie's sister Fancy for a coffee in Castle Hill. It was difficult wearing sunglasses inside and walking backward, but she explained that her theory about the flu was to disguise herself and run away from it, so it wouldn't find her. Marbie and Fancy were impressed.
That night, Listen checked in the hall closet, but the vacuum cleaner was still crushed, as she had known it would be.
She instant-messaged Sia, but Sia didn't answer. She found Caro and Gabrielle in a chat room, but they slid off-line when she tried to join the chat. Finally, she phoned Joanne.
“Okay,” said Joanne. “You deserve the truth.” Then she explained in detail the strategy meeting that Listen had missed at Donna's place.
The next day Listen joined a new group.
She chose Angela Saville's group, and each day she asked them questions. For instance, she asked everyone what they did on the weekend, whether they watched the Valerio movie last night, whether they liked it, what subject they had after lunch, whether they liked that subject, and so on. She listened to their answers.
One day, she ordered her lunch from the tuckshop, and it arrived in the basket at the front of the room, in a brown paper bag with her name:
LISTEN TAYLOR
.
GRADE
7
A
.
The lawn was set with its garlands of girls. She saw Angela Saville's group, and she walked on the grass carefully, toward them, ready with a smile. The circle felt funny. Angela and the others saw her coming; their heads bobbed down, and their eyes giggled slyly at each other.
Listen, from not far away, saw that the circle was perfect, and tight. She stopped. She was not going over.
She stood on the lawn among the garlands of girls, and she felt, for a moment, like a Christmas tree. A fading Christmas tree, awkward and bulky in the center of a room, when Christmas had finished weeks before. Stupidly conspicuous and perfectly invisible, both at once. Colored lights were blinking down her legs, her arms were branches slung with rusting baubles, and strings of stale popcorn dangled from her hair.
Seriously! Help!
Well, it's continued, and I can't figure out exactly why.
In the last week or so, I've had three more affairs, well, three more games of tennis, with the aeronautical engineer. I bought a new tennis racquet, thinking it would improve my playing, but it didn't.
It's true that the A.E. is wild and weird and the world needs more of that sort of thing. He's kind of side-on to the universe. But so what? I really, really
love Nathaniel. Anyhow, this morning I played tennis again, and three important things happened.First, when he arrived at the tennis court, the A.E. mentioned that he has read
Madame Bovary
in the original French. “Have you?” I said. “Yes,” he replied.Second, halfway through the first game, the A.E. stopped and took off his right tennis shoe and sock, to check on a blister. The blister was so bad that he had to PEEL the sock away from his foot. It was disgusting. I noticed that his toes are hairy.
Third, and I guess this is actually the only important thing, third, after he'd put a Band-Aid on the blister, and replaced his sock and shoe, he stood up, turned to me, and said, “You want to come to my place, and, you know, fool around?”
Fool around!!
I said, “I have a boyfriend!”
He shrugged. I'm not sure whether his shrug meant “So what?” about my having a boyfriend, or “Oh well” about my not wanting to fool around.
Whatever, we played a set of tennis, I lost every point, and then, of course, I went back to work.
So my question is, Why have I been playing tennis with this man? And why did I invite him to meet me at the Night Owl Pub on Monday night?
Yours,
Bewildered
P.S. I'm writing this in the kitchen while watching Nathaniel stir the pumpkin soup he just prepared for dinner. I can hear Listen's loud music blasting from her bedroom down the hall. And I really love this life; all of it. Which makes you think.