Nest (19 page)

“C
OWABUNGA
!” J
OEY YELLS
.

“Bowacunga!” I yell.

We’re jumping in the slush. We’re clomping through the water. We’ve got our winter boots on, but our jackets are tied around our waists. On the walk to the bus this morning, the world was still gray and frozen winter-quiet, like it’s been for months. Now, walking home from the bus, there’s strong sun, warm air, everything suddenly so wet and bright and drippy. March thaw.

“A shower, lady?” Joey says, grabbing a branch above my head and shaking it. Drops of cold water sprinkle down on me, along with a few clumps of wet snow that stick in my tangly hair.

“A bath, mister?” I say, and kick icy water at him from the little river that’s running along the side of our road. Joey dodges it.

“Missed me, missed me, now you gotta kiss me!” he yells, but I know he doesn’t mean it, because he hates germs, and anyway I’m pretty sure that kissing doesn’t really start until seventh grade. At Dawn’s holiday party, we played spin the bottle in her basement while the grown-ups drank eggnog upstairs, but everyone just kept arguing about where the bottle was pointing, and the one time that it was really obvious who was supposed to kiss who, Tommy reached around Lisa B.’s head like in the movies, and we all shut up because it looked like he was going to pull her in and really give her a good one, but he covered her mouth with his hand and kissed that instead.

My mittens are sopping wet. My tights are sopping wet. My hair is sopping wet.

“We’re a little damp,” I say, giggling.

“Crap,” Joey says, as if he just noticed. He runs his fingers through his hair, surprised that it’s drenched. He starts wringing out the cuffs of his brown corduroy pants. He shakes really hard, like a dog after a bath. “My mother’s going to kill me.” He flaps his arms, as if that will get the water off. “Crap,” he says again. “My mother’s going to tell my father, and my father’s going to kill me.”

“It’s just water.”

“Try telling that to my dad,” Joey says. “It’s a rule. I’m supposed to be careful with my school clothes.”

“But it’s just water. It’ll dry.”

“No messing around in school clothes. That’s the
rule. When I came home with grass stains, he said the next time I decided that his hard-earned money meant nothing, he’d …” Joey stops talking. His eyes are darting all around like he’s watching a hummingbird.

“But, Joey, can’t you just tell him that the water will dry?”

Joey’s not listening. “This isn’t good. This isn’t good. This isn’t good,” he keeps whispering to himself.

“Joey.”

“This isn’t good. This isn’t good.”

“Joey!” I yell.

He stops whispering, but he doesn’t look at me.

“It’s not a big deal. You can just put your clothes in the dryer,” I say. “And you can hang your jacket up and it’ll be dry in the morning.”

“Maybe she’ll be watching her program.” He’s still looking at the ground. “If it’s on, maybe I can sneak into my room and change into my play clothes without her noticing. She doesn’t know what I wore to school today. She was still sleeping when I got up. Maybe I can sneak past her on the couch. Maybe she won’t see me.” He’s shuffling his feet around like he needs to pee, but I think he’s just worried. “Maybe she won’t see me.”

“Or you could put your clothes in our dryer. No one’s home at my house. My dad doesn’t get home from work until at least six, and Rachel always goes to her friend’s house after school.”

Joey stops shuffling. “Your house?”

“Right.”

Joey bites his lip. He’s thinking about it. He looks at me. “You just want me to take my clothes off,” he says, smiling. “You just want me to strip like the weirdos in
Hair
.”

“Gross!”

“Let’s go, you sicko!” he yells, and takes off. This time he leaps over the puddles, ducks under the wet branches, dodges the melting hunks of snow, and I follow behind him. He stops in front of my house.

“Hold everything,” he says.

“Dick Tracy calling Joe Jitsu.”

“No. I mean it. I’m not kidding. Both cars are in your driveway.”

Even though it’s still sunny afternoon, there it is, Dad’s green Dodge Dart, parked in front of the station wagon. Dad’s home, and it’s nowhere near six o’clock. Dad never comes home from work early. If Dad’s home, then something special’s going on.

I’m running up the front walk. Water’s sloshing in my boots, but I don’t care. I can’t believe it.

“Chirp!” Joey yells.

Dad said that he’d be picking her up sometime in March, but he just couldn’t say when. This must be when. She’s here. She’s home. I fly up the staircase two steps at a time.

“Wait! What about me?” Joey yells. “You’re forgetting about me!” but I can’t slow down long enough to even turn around.

Lemon. That’s what I smell when I shove open the front door. She’s in the dining room, spraying Lemon Pledge on the table. She’s wearing her cashmere sweater the color of dried sea lavender, and blue jeans, and green wool socks. Her hair is in a dancer bun.

“Mom!” I yell.

“Snap Pea,” she says. Mom puts down the spray can and cloth and opens up her arms. “I’m home, my girl. I’m here, honey,” she says, squeezing me tight. “You’re soaking wet,” she says into my neck. “You should go change your clothes,” but she doesn’t let me go. I sniff and sniff. She smells like her.

“Let me take a look at you,” she says, pushing me back and holding me by my shoulders. She looks at me. I look at her. Dad stands in the hallway and looks at both of us.

What I see is that she still looks tired but just normal-tired, like she stayed up too late at a dinner party drinking white-wine spritzers and talking about Merce Cunningham and bringing the troops home. She seems nervous, because her eyes are kind of flitty, but maybe she thinks I’m mad at her for not sending a thank-you note for the lemon meringue pie, and for not answering my letter that asked for her recipe for latkes, and for not sending Hanukkah presents or even just calling or sending a card with a picture of a menorah lit up bright with candles and
some message like
Hope your Hanukkah is filled with light
or
Wishing you a year of miracles
.

“I’m glad, not mad, Mom,” I say. She tips her head to the side like a robin.

“Oh, Chirp,” she says. Her head’s still tilted, like she’s trying to figure something out, but I don’t know what. People think that when robins tilt their heads, they’re listening for worms underground, but actually they’re looking for mud bumps that are signs of wormholes so they can know where to poke their beaks in to get food.

No one’s saying anything. The quiet feels too loud, so I say, “What kind of bird is always out of breath?”

Mom smiles a little and shakes her head,
I give up
.

“A puffin!”

Mom grabs my hand and pulls me close. “There’s a lot that’s bumbling around in my brain right now,” she whispers in my ear, “but one thing I know for sure is that I’m very happy to see you.”

Dad takes a few steps into the room. He stands apart from us and shifts around like a little kid who wants to be asked to come and play. He smiles when I look at him.

“Mommy’s home,” he says. “She’s not going anywhere. She’ll still be here after you change out of your wet things.”

When I come back in my snuggy-dry clothes, Mom’s stretched out on the couch. I sit down near her feet. I hear Dad’s study door close.

“I’ve been gone a long time, haven’t I?” Mom says.

A trick question. If I say yes, she’ll feel bad for being gone so long. If I say no, she’ll feel bad that I didn’t feel like she’s been gone for so long.

“I’m glad you’re home, Mom.”

“Yes.”

She’s looking all around. She’s checking out the room like she’s in someone else’s house.
Those ferns need water. A fireplace! I like that bookcase jammed with books!
is probably what she’s thinking.

“It’s been a long day,” Mom says. “An enormous, gigantic day.” Her eyes start to close, but then they pop back open. “Wow,” she says, and gives me a tired smile.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, honey.”

A car door slams. Maybe it’s Mr. Morell getting home from work. I hope he doesn’t kill Joey.

“I’m doing fine, you know,” Mom says. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“I know,” I say.

I want to cuddle with Mom, but I feel shy. I reach out and hold her foot in her green wool sock.

“You have to tell me everything about everything,” she says, but her eyes are fluttery.

“It’s okay, Mom. You can sleep.”

“Just for a few minutes, honey.” She lets her eyes stay closed. “Wake me up when Rachel gets home.”

I hold her warm foot and hum songs from
Hair
while the daylight slides out of the room. When the
streetlight comes on, it makes a square the color of frozen pond on the wall above the couch. Mom’s breath is loud,
iiiiiiinn-out, iiiiiiinn-out, iiiiiiinn-out
. I wonder if they had a good-bye party for her in the café with speeches and balloons. Maybe there were special treats, like brownies and root beer floats, and then the nutbars and the staff lined up and everyone gave her a hug good-bye and said
Good luck
, except the cowboy in the checkered shirt, who waved his straw hat and said
Adios, amigo
.

My hand’s tired of holding Mom’s foot, and this is way too much sitting still for me, but if I squirm around, I might wake up Mom, which isn’t something I should do after her enormous, gigantic day. I wish she’d wake up on her own and ask me again to tell her everything about everything. I squeeze her foot just a tiny bit. I count to six. I whisper every verse to “Frank Mills.” Before I can decide what to do next, I hear Rachel clomp up the front stairs.

“Too much homework,” Rachel says when she shoves open the front door and sees me standing right there in the hallway, looking at her. Rachel doesn’t get the Dad’s-car-is-in-the-driveway clue, like I did, since it’s almost dinnertime when she gets home and Dad’s car would have been there anyway.

“Chirp, I can’t hang out. Stop bugging me,” she says, even though I haven’t said a word. I grab her cold hand and she squawks like a starling.

“Come on.” I start pulling her along.

“I said I have stuff to do. Let me go!”

“Trust me.”

“Can’t I even take my jacket off?” she says, but I keep pulling her arm, like we’re playing damsel in distress and she’s fainted dead away on the blue raft in Heron Pond and I’m towing her ashore.

We’re standing in the middle of the living room. Rachel smells like cold air and watermelon lip gloss.

“So?”

“Ahoy.” I point to the couch.

Rachel gasps and puts her hand on her cheek like an actress in a movie. “Mom?” she whispers. Even though it’s kind of hard to see without the lights on, who else would it be, lying on our couch?

Rachel leans forward and pushes her face in Mom’s direction. She almost tips me over, since we’re still holding hands.

“She looks fine. She looks like her,” Rachel says. “I was worried that—”

And suddenly I realize that maybe the electricity could have turned Mom’s hair frizzy or her skin hot pink like sunburn or her teeth black and witchy, but I don’t know, because I never asked. I’m shivery-scared of what could have happened, of the answers to the questions still inside me, even though Mom is right here sleeping, looking just fine.

I don’t want to be, but I’m crying. Rachel starts crying, too.

“We’re such dorks,” she says, squeezing my hand.
“I mean, she’s home. We should be laughing, not crying.”

“Dumb dorks.
Cock-a-doodle-doo!
” I stick my thumb in my armpit and flap my wing.

Rachel giggles. I’m flapping my wing, and Rachel’s shaking her head and laughing, and suddenly Dad’s hand is warm on my shoulder. The three of us are in a huddle, snuffling and giggling and sighing, when Mom opens her eyes and looks up at us.

“Wow,” she says, “I guess I really am home.”

“Hi, Mom.” Rachel’s voice is slow and shaky, like she’s afraid she has the wrong answer to a math problem. She reaches down just as Mom reaches up. Their thin, long arms and thin, long hands stretching toward each other in the icy-blue light, it’s beautiful, like dancing.