Imperfect Spiral (13 page)

“Obviously I've learned nothing. Remember the article about the Red Cross babysitting course?” I say.

“No, no, that's not what I'm talking about at all. I mean what you've learned in a deeper way. You know, kids our age don't think about death. You must be so far beyond that now.”

“Becca, I don't think so….”

We're walking side by side, and she squeezes my shoulders. “It wouldn't be about the neighborhood conflict, or the immigration thing. Just you sharing your personal insights.”

“There's an immigration thing?” I ask. “There's a neighborhood conflict?”

Becca stops to look at me. She seems about to say one thing; then I see her shift gears. Oh, how Humphrey taught me to read the little wheels grinding away inside people's heads.

“It's probably not a huge deal,” she says. “I get all kinds of so-called inside scoop because I'm such a news junkie. I'm sure half of what I hear isn't true.”

“Tell me the half that you think is true,” I say. We're walking again.

“Just that some of your neighbors want to use the accident
as a reason to make changes along Quarry Road, and others say changes would ruin the neighborhood.”

“And the immigration thing?”

“That the people in the van that—that hit Humphrey were illegal aliens. Or rather, undocumented immigrants. And that brings up a bunch of other issues, at least for some people.”

So the accident has become an issue, or a bunch of issues, and I've missed them. Including something that some people say will ruin the neighborhood.

“I had no idea,” I say.

“Like I said, probably
normal
people have no idea,” Becca says. “But—speaking of ‘walking, talking'—I'm a walking, talking blog. The neighborhood thing hasn't gotten any publicity yet, but it will. And the immigration thing—it'll probably come up at the county council, or even the state assembly.”

“Why would that happen?” I ask. “What does the state assembly care about an accident in puny Franklin Grove?”

“Because,” Becca says, “lots of other places have these laws against undocumented aliens who get in trouble for other reasons. For reasons other than being here illegally, I mean, like getting a traffic ticket. Like, if you're an undocumented immigrant and you get a speeding ticket, instead of just getting a ticket, you also end up getting reported to immigration authorities, and they could kick you out of the country. So now some people want a law like that here, too. They think that's a good way to fight illegal immigration. And whenever an
undocumented immigrant is involved in a traffic accident, people always get up in arms and say things like, ‘See, if it weren't for illegal aliens, that kid wouldn't have died.'”

I wince; I can't help it.

“Sorry,” Becca says. “I talk too much.”

I don't say anything to that.

“My point was supposed to be that my article wouldn't be about all that. Like I said, it would be about sharing your insights from going through something so profound. Very personal and deep. I think kids would really relate. I think it could help kids when they have tough stuff to deal with.”

We're back at school.

“I'll don't know, Becca,” I say. “Sharing my insights—not really my thing.”

“It might be good for you,” she says.

It might be good for
you, I think, but don't say. Bare my soul for a newspaper article? Talk to Becca as a newspaper reporter, with some kind of “distance” that's supposed to make it easier? Easier for who? Whom?

I'm thinking I might need to put those quotation marks around our “friendship” again.

Before Becca proposed that I become her ticket to a Pulitzer Prize, or whatever prize it is that they give out to fifteen-year-old journalists for writing a profound, insightful article about my, um, profound insights—before proposing that really appealing idea, she said it was good for me to be talking about “all this.”

I wonder if she meant something in particular by “all this.” There's the “all this” that's about what happened with Humphrey, and there's the “all this” about me in general. Right now I'm having a hard time separating the two.

Then there's the “all this” about Humphrey as a person, a cool little person, not just a kid who was killed in an accident. But I know for sure Becca wasn't saying
it would be good for me to talk about that category of “all this.” No one is.

I was an unspeakably incompetent babysitter this summer. I became a babysitter this summer because I assumed I would be an incompetent CIT. I assumed I would be an incompetent CIT because I was an incompetent Bat Mitzvah girl, and that unforgettable incompetence has clung to me and made me an incompetent high school sophomore.

I know that having a fear of speaking in front of people is not so very abnormal. But fear of raising your hand in class? Fear of leading a group of seven-year-old campers in a rousing rendition of “Kumbaya”? Perculiar, is what Humphrey would say.

“Would Humphrey have said that?” Dr. Gilbert asks. “Would he have said you were peculiar?”

I can barely bring myself to look at her after reading all that.

“Actually,” I say, “I have more to read.”

I suppose that I am, in fact, a fairly peculiar person. Here are a couple of random oddities: When I was six years old, I loved my turquoise corduroy pants but was distressed by how easily they got wrinkled, so when I wore them I
tried not to sit or squat or bend or do anything to make them rumpled. I tried to wear the corduroys when I knew I'd be doing a lot of standing.

Then when I was nine, I loved one particular pair of perfectly faded and softened jeans so much that I rationed them. I did not allow myself to wear them more than once a week, because I didn't want them to wear out from washing. By the time I was ten, they no longer fit, and they weren't close to being worn out, and I have never found another pair so perfect. All those days spent wearing jeans that were merely adequate, when I could have been wearing the perfect ones.

What any of these random things have to do with “all this,” I have no idea. Why they come to mind when I'm thinking about Humphrey and the accident, I can't begin to imagine.

“Now I'm done reading,” I say to Dr. Gilbert.

“Why don't you try to imagine why these things are coming to mind?” she asks.

“I just said: ‘No idea.'”

“If Humphrey had said to you that he had a favorite pair of jeans that he only wore once a week because he didn't want to wear them out, but you knew that he would grow so fast that he'd outgrow them before they wore out, would you think he was strange? Or peculiar, to use your word?”

“No. I would think that he was cute.”

“But looking back at yourself when you were younger, you label that same behavior as evidence of something wrong with you. So Humphrey gets to be cute, but you have to be peculiar. Why don't see yourself as cute, too?”

Need I point out to her that being a string bean of a nine-year-old girl and being cute are mutually exclusive? Need I say that if there's one more heartbreaking thing I'd rather not imagine, it's Humphrey saving a pair of jeans to wear in a future he didn't get to have?

I don't have to; our time is up.

Later that afternoon, after I've stopped at home to drop off my stuff, I walk to the park. I have an overpowering urge to visit the Bumble-Boos in the land of Thrumble-Boo.

“Hey, Bumble-Boos,” I say to the sad-looking faded little creatures on springs. “I come in peace.” I bet no one has ridden them since Humphrey.

I'm too big to sit on the Bumble-Boos, so I plop down on the roundabout, our spaceship. In the trees over by the picnic table area, some crows are loudly arguing. I can hear the cars on Quarry Road, the evil eastward-bound rush-hour-traffic-carrying lane of Quarry Road.

When I think about the accident, it's like watching a movie with the sound turned off. Actually, that's not quite it. It's like watching a movie with the sound turned off and with one of
those white noise machines turned on, so my ears are filled with
whoosh-whoosh-whoosh
. I can't hear the sounds of the street or of Humphrey saying anything. Did he cry out?
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh
.

“Hey, there.”

I jump a little; I didn't hear anyone approaching.

It's the same boy from last month, when I stopped here the Monday after the accident.

“Hi,” I say.

“So—you're here again,” he says.

The start of another brilliant conversation.

“The start of another brilliant conversation,” he says.

Did he just say that?

“How're you doing?” he says.

“A-okay,” I say. “And you?”

“Good, good. Just out for, you know, another day at the park.”

Awkward. But not awful.

He's holding a football.

“Where are your friends?” I ask.

“They're not coming. I'm just out for, well—”

“I know, another day at the park,” I say. “But you're carrying a football. Football isn't a solitary sport. Did they stand you up?”

“No. I'm just—carrying a football. I guess it's my security blanket.”

“Huh,” I say.

“Not that I'm feeling insecure,” he adds.

“I'm sure you're not,” I say, laughing a little.

“Want to throw it around?”

I wouldn't have thought so, but I do. It feels good to run around, to pass, to catch. We don't talk, other than the occasional “Nice.” We back up from each other as we continue throwing, until we're far enough away so that we're launching bombs. Then he starts running from Point A to Point B so my passes have to follow him, and I do the same when it's my turn to receive. I do like a good game of catch.

My arm gives out before his. We move over to the picnic tables and perch on top of one of them.

“You're good!” he says.