Bounce
Natasha Friend
To my brother, Nick.
How can this not be for you?
Here is how Birdie drops the bomb:
He takes us to the best restaurant everâCook's, on Bailey's Islandâand he says we can order whatever we want. This means a full lobster dinner for Mackey and a tuna roll for me, plus fries. He waits until our tongues are busy celebrating before he lets it fly.
“Kids, I'm getting married.” Then, “We're moving to Boston.”
And there you have it. Blammo!
Life as we know it, over.
Mackey keeps eating like nothing has happened, grabbing steamers by their slimy black necks and dunking them in butter. All he does all day is eat and play computer games. You would think he'd weigh five hundred pounds by now, but he doesn't; he's a beanpole. Six feet two skinny inches, and he's only fifteen. I know a lot of people call him Lurch behind his back, or Pizza Face because of his zits, and he is not exactly the most popular kid on the block, but I have to confess he is my brother. Who right now is my only ally.
“Ahem,” I say, and kick Mackey under the table. But he just grunts and grabs a bunch of fries off my plate. So I stare
across the table at our father. “How are you getting
married
? You
just met.
”
“I know,” Birdie says, smiling. “Isn't it remarkable?”
Remarkable.
Nauseating is more like it. Stomach-churning. Upchuckingly unbelievable is what it is.
Birdie asked Eleni Gartos to marry him and she said yes.
After two months of dating, she said yes. To
Birdie.
Why?
Don't get me wrong. I love my dad. I do. But there are some indisputable facts here. First, the name: Albert. His friends call him Bert, and we call him Birdieâweird, I know, but we come from a proud line of hippies who call their elders whatever they want. Anyway, it's Albert. Then there's the beard with oyster cracker crumbs in it. And the big dork glasses and beak nose. If you really want to know, there are also a few black fingernails from when his hammer slipped. And he wears overalls, which aren't what you would call fresh off the clothesline. Sometimes you want to take him by the shoulders and say, I know you're a carpenter, man, but come on! A little effort here, please!
But Birdie would just laugh. He doesn't care about looks or what people think. His theory is: Why shop at The Gap when you can get the same thing at Kmart for less? He is baffled that I want jeans with a certain label on them, not that we could afford them anyway. We are not exactly rolling in it. Which leads me back to my original question: Why would she want to marry him?!
“I can't believe this is happening,” I say.
“I know,” Birdie says. “I
know
!”
But he's missing the point, which is I can't believe he is doing this to us, his own children, who only left him alone for eight weeks.
I think back over the letters he sent me and Mackey at camp. Letters about our dog, Clam, and about how the tomatoes were growing. Letters with cutouts from the Sunday funnies. Jokey letters. Harmless letters.
Until a few weeks into it, when he started adding these stupid P.S.s at the bottom.
P.S. I'm working on a cottage in Kennebunkport. The renter's a college professor, from Boston. Very interesting woman. Great cook.
P.S. In case you were wondering (was anyone wondering?) her name is Eleni. Eleni Gartos. She has a Ph.D. in art history. Care to know the difference between Monet and Manet? Let me enlighten you!
P.S. Eleni doesn't have plans next weekend. I thought I'd bring her along for Visiting Day. Any objections?
And what did I say? Nothing. Absolutely zilch. I didn't even write back. It kills me that I didn't write back. It kills me that when she came for Visiting Day her presence barely registered. I was too concerned with where we would stash the candy Lindsay Meyer's parents brought, so our counselors wouldn't bust us.
“Ev?” Birdie is looking at me now. “You okay?”
I don't say anything.
There's a blob of clam chowder in his beard. Normally, I would point this out, and he would waggle his eyebrows and say he's saving it for later, and I would laugh.
But right now I don't feel like laughing.
I rack my brain, trying to remember what Eleni looks like. Whether she's divorced like Birdie's last girlfriend, LeeAnn, or a widow like Jill, the nurse he dated a few years back. Whether she has children. I vaguely remember Birdie mentioning a daughter.
“She has a girl, right?” I say. “My age?”
Birdie clears his throat, nods.
“Great,” I say low. I stick my straw in the ketchup, smear it around on my plate, make a masterpiece.
A stepsister. Just what I need. My friend Ann has a stepsister, Brittany, and she's the devil. Now I too will have someone to steal my jeans and photocopy my diary.
Mackey grunts. “I thought it was a boy.”
Birdie picks up his iced tea, takes a sip, sets it down again. “It is. I mean, you're both right. She has six kids. Four daughters and two sons.”
Six kids.
Six.
Six kids that we will soon be related to.
It's too much even for Mackey. A mouthful of chowder flies out of his mouth and onto the table. “What is she,” he says, “Irish?”
Birdie hands him a napkin. “Greek, actually.”
I wait for Mackey to give him the business, say,
Well, we're not moving to Boston with a bunch of strangers. I don't care if they're Irish, Greek, or Siameseâyou can just forget it!
But Mackey doesn't say that. He says, “Can I get two desserts?”
Typical.
Fifteen-year-old brothers miss the point just the way fathers do. It's that apple-and-tree thing. They are the same kind of dense.
I am more of the feeler type, with my heart big and swollen in my throat. Our world has just been blown to smithereens. The Linney family, annihilated. How anyone could eat strawberry shortcake right now is beyond me.
When I was little, I spent all of my birthday wishes on the same thing: a mother. Also pennies in the fountain. And gray-headed dandelions. Stars. Turkey wishbones. Loose eyelashes. I would close my eyes tight, like the rules say, and whenever someone asked,
What did you wish for, Ev?
I would keep my mouth shut. Because if you tell, it won't come true.
The trouble with wishing is you get your hopes up every time. You really believe it will happen, and then, when it doesn't, you're depressed. Plus you have wasted your wish on a long shot when maybe if you had just asked for something reasonable like an A on the vocab quiz, the wish fairies would have said,
Okay, let's give her this one.
One thing I've learned from my wishing over the years is how childish it is. Right up there with Santa Claus and training bras. If you're thirteen, you are too old for wishing. You are the age when you need to learn to make things happen for yourself.
Well, I am thirteen today. And my present to me is no more wishes. When Birdie puts that cake down on the table, I will do the blowing-out part, but that's all. It takes some pressure off, knowing I don't have to hit all the candles in one shot anymore. I can take as many breaths as I want.
It will be weird, though, not wishing. I have so many mother-daughter movies stored up in my head.
There's one with us in the kitchen, punching out bread dough side by side. She's wearing an apronâred with white checksâand has a smudge of flour on her cheek. I'm wearing a mini version of her outfit. There are flowers on the tableâusually tulips, sometimes daffodils. When the timer dings, we take the bread out of the oven and slather it with butter and cinnamon sugar, and it's so good we'll eat the whole loaf.
Then there's us at the mall, walking into any store we want, not just the bargain basements. We are dressed to impress, both of us, in jean skirts and leather shoes. Pumps for her, loafer flats for me. Her hair is perfect, swept up in a red-gold twist on top of her head, and when she reaches over to zip me into some new dress, she smells so good you want to breathe her in deep. Lemons and lavender and vanilla wafers at the same time.
Sometimes I picture us on a blanket in the backyard. The sky is black and stars are everywhere, billions of them. “Hey, Ev,” she says. “See the Big Dipper?” Oh yeah, I tell her. And there's the North Star. “Polaris,” she tells me. And takes my hand.
One person who has never made it into my movies: Eleni Gartos, college professor and mother of six, saying, “Sure, Birdie, I'll marry you and be Evyn's new mom!”
The only mother I have ever imagined is Sarah Elizabeth Linney, whose picture hangs over the fireplace. She is very beautiful and warm-looking. She has long, straight hair and
green eyes like a cat's. And with that she made my father fall in love in two seconds, at a party. Birdie was a goner.
The reason the fairy tale ended was a car crash. When I was one year old and Mackey was three, she was coming home from the drugstore and it was raining and she lost control of the wheel and hit a tree.
I don't remember her, not really. But she's in my head anyway.
Whenever I ask Birdie about my mom, he says the same thing:
She was too good for this world.
Also in the top ten:
She was the most optimistic person you'll ever know.
Her smile could light up a room.
She didn't walk; she bounced.
I've heard it all, memorized every storyâlike the time she and Birdie went to McDonald's and she insisted on talking entirely in
Mc's. McHi. I'd McLike a McChicken McSandwich with McFries and a McCokeâ¦McHoney? McWhat would you McLike?
She was always doing things like that, cracking Birdie up. You can tell, just by the photos, what a happy person she was. In every one, she's smiling. You look at that smile and you feel better. That's the kind of person she was. That's why she's the only mom I ever wished forâthe only one I still want.
“You're going to love Eleni,” Birdie says at dinner, passing around the chicken bucket. “She's great. And man, can she cook!”
“I
like
KFC,” I say. I take a biscuit, slice it open, stuff in a pat of butter.
“Also,” Birdie says, “she's brilliant.”
I take a bite and say nothing.
“Ev. Just give her a chance, okay?”
“It's my birthday, Birdie,” I say. “Could we not talk about this today? Please? For my birthday?”
Mackey stops shoveling food in his mouth for once and looks at me. “It's your birthday?” There's a corn kernel stuck to his lip, like a wart.
I break off a piece of biscuit, throw it across the table at him, peg his shoulder. “Yes, corn lip,” I say. “It's my birthday.”
Mackey shrugs and resumes steam shovel mode. Not even an ounce of guilt in his eyes. The food matters more.
“Thirteen,” Birdie says, shaking his head. “I can't believe it.”
“Me neither,” I say.
There are so many things I can't believe right now. Too many to count.
At night, I talk to my mom. I know what people would say.
Talking to a dead woman? She must be nuts.
But I'm not.
Here's how to do it:
Turn off all the lights. Get comfortable in your bed. You should close your eyes, too; this is the best way to see her. Also, dress her in something comfortable, like a nightgown, hair loose, holding one of those tiny flip phones. That's what I do. Then, start talking. One tip: Don't expect her to always talk back. Sometimes she will and sometimes she won't. You just have to go with the flow.
I started talking to my mom when I was little. And I have always called her by a special name, Stella. Where I came up with that, who knows. Last year in Latin I learned that
stella
is another word for “star,” which makes sense since I have always pictured my mom looking down on me from above, making sure I'm okay.
I know, I know. Heaven probably doesn't exist, and I'm probably a hypocrite because I never go to church except on Christmas, and that's only for the reindeer cookies. I don't know if God is real, but there is one thing I can tell you: When I talk, Stella listens.
Tonight our conversation is short.
Stell? It's me.
I think Birdie has a screw loose. That is the only explanation I can come up with for why he's doing this. WHY? Why is he getting married? Why do we have to move? Why did he give his thirteen-year-old daughter fluorescent-green leg warmers for her birthday? I don't even dance.
I'm looking for answers, but Stella doesn't have any for me tonight. She just smiles like always. She smiles and shakes her head as if to say,
That Birdie of ours. He's a funny one.
