Nest (6 page)

“Very clever,” Dad says, staring at the screen. “I’m actually quite impressed.”

“Yes,” Rachel says. “It’s really impressive.”

“The dialogue is well written and certainly holds its own,” Dad says.

“Yes,” Rachel says, “it really does.”

I want to yell,
MOM, I KNOW YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE LAUGHING
, but she’s trying so hard to be a good sport, nodding and giggling and holding Dad’s hand, so I just touch her hand and smile.

“My bird girl,” she says, looking away from the TV for a second and right at me with her dark brown eyes, and suddenly I want to tell her about the marsh lady and her shooing stick. Then I see the purple circles under her eyes and I know it isn’t right to say anything. Mom is sick and I am fine.

Dad says, “This is terrific, watching TV together. Isn’t it?”

So I laugh when Agent 86 takes off his shoe and uses it as a phone, and I laugh when the Cone of Silence comes down on Agent 86 and Chief and they start yelling secret things at the top of their lungs for everyone to hear. I fill the room up with my
haaaa
so there’s no room for anything else.

When Rachel and I are upstairs in the bathroom brushing our teeth, she says, “You know, Mom will die if she has to give up dancing.”

“No, she won’t!” I say. “Take it back.”

“It’s just an expression. Don’t you know that?”

“Take it back anyway.”

“No,” she says. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Just take it back!” But she shakes her head, all
stuck-up and stubborn, so I elbow her in the ribs and she spills water all over the front of her yellow nightgown, which makes what she’s got on her chest totally obvious.

“You’re
such
a baby. Look what you did!” she yells.

“Girls!” Dad shouts up from downstairs.

“Sorry, Daddy!” Rachel shouts back.

We’re both red ashamed, because Mom and Dad need our fighting right now like a hole in the head. But still Rachel doesn’t take it back. She rubs her nightgown really carefully with a towel, like she thinks that what she’s got might disappear, and stomps off to her room. And I go to bed without saying good night.

Miss Gallagher has pink lipstick on. She’s put Dixie cups filled with Hawaiian Punch and a plate of store-bought sugar cookies on Claire’s desk and is saying, “Please, everyone, make yourselves at home, have a cookie, and then we’ll get started.” Mom could make herself at home much better if there was a couch she could stretch out on, like in our living room, and if everyone wasn’t staring at her, trying to figure out if there’s anything else wrong with her,
poor thing
, besides her draggy leg.

Yesterday in assembly our principal, Mrs. Mitchell, said that it’s a bold new adventure to invite students to accompany their parents to back-to-school night,
and she’s sure it will be a worthwhile experience for us all. I’m not so sure. For example, Tommy is wearing a white button-down shirt and a navy-blue tie that must be strangling him, because he keeps pulling at the knot, even though Mr. Gale glares at him and whispers, “Cut it out, boy.” Joey doesn’t have a parent problem, because his parents didn’t even show up. He’s sitting by himself with at least five sugar cookies stacked up neatly on a napkin on his lap, but no one says anything to him, since he’s probably allowed to have extras to make up for the fact that he’s all alone. I don’t know how he got here, but if Mom and Dad offer him a ride home, I’ll say
Race you to the car
and I’ll get a head start so he’ll chase me and he won’t end up walking behind Mom and having extra time to see her draggy leg. My final example is Dawn, who’s circling the classroom with her parents following her. She’s trying to find some of her work to show them. The trouble is, none of her work is pinned up, because she hasn’t finished one single thing since school started over three weeks ago.

“Over here?” Mrs. Barker asks, pointing.

“Nope,” Dawn says.

“Over here?” Mr. Barker asks.

“Nope,” Dawn says. Round and round while the rest of us sit here, waiting for Miss Gallagher to get started.

Finally Miss Gallagher says, “Pilgrims and—?” We’re supposed to say “Indians!” to show that we’re
paying attention, but this doesn’t feel like school, since we’re sitting with our parents, so we don’t say anything.

“PILGRIMS AND—?” She tries again, louder.

“INDIANS!!!” Dawn yells, and her parents smile and rub her back.

“Welcome,” Miss Gallagher says. “Let’s begin by having the adults introduce themselves and say one thing that they’re looking forward to in this new school year.”

Maybe no one told her that in the off-season this is a tiny town and all of us kids have been in school together since kindergarten, except Joey, and the parents are always bumping into each other at Flanagan’s Market and at the Savings and Loan. Claire’s dad, Mr. DeLuca, even took Debbie’s mom, Mrs. Leland, out for a fancy dinner at the Oyster Bar and Grille, and they clinked wineglasses and touched each other’s hands, because they didn’t think anyone would see them at such a snazzy place on a Tuesday night a few miles out of town, but somebody did. Lots of families have lived here for
generations
, which is why Mom and Dad say it’s a hard community to break into and maybe they would have given up and headed back to New York if Dad hadn’t absolutely fallen in love with the Cape way back when he was an intern at the Thorne Clinic and dreamed of meeting a woman who’d love it like he did. Then he met Mom at a party in Boston and brought her to the dunes
in Truro on their third date and she did love it; she loved it so much.

Mrs. Barker says, “I’m Gloria Barker, Dawn’s mother, and I’m looking forward to Dawn improving her reading skills and really, well, reading,” and Mr. Barker says, “Ditto,” and most of the moms and a couple of the dads smile and nod, and if I were Dawn, I’d be embarrassed, but she waves her hand above her head, all happy.

Joey’s sitting next to Dawn, and there’s a long silence and no grown-ups jump in to save him, so he says, “Joey Morell. Field trips, like to the P-town lighthouse. My brother dropped me off tonight, because my parents couldn’t come. He just got his license.”

Then Lisa B.’s parents. Then Lisa R.’s parents.

Mr. Paganelli says, “I’ll leave this to my wife,” and Mrs. Paganelli starts a speech about how pleased she is that Miss Gallagher has joined our community and how we all wish her great success in leading our children forward in their educational pursuits. Whenever Mrs. Paganelli decides to wrap it up is when it will be Mom’s turn, so I look over at her next to me and her eye is flicking side to side, like she’s reading at supersonic speed. I don’t think she notices. She’s just looking calmly at Mrs. Paganelli with her other eye. I don’t know what to do. I poke Dad, and I guess I look scared, so he leans in front of me and sees what’s going on. He whispers in Mom’s ear, and she covers her supersonic eye with her hand. Then Dad
says, “Excuse me. I hate to interrupt, but we need to leave right now.” When we stand up, our chairs squeak,
eeeeeeee
, and Mom wobbles, so Dad holds one arm and I hold the elbow of the arm with the hand that’s covering her supersonic eye. Joey jumps up,
eeeeeeee
, like he wants to help, but Dad and I, we’ve got it covered, and that’s the end of back-to-school night for us.

Twinkies, Yodels, Ring Dings, potato chips, and Screaming Yellow Zonkers! At Sally’s house, you can just open up the cabinet next to the stove and dig in.

“We’re well stocked today, honey. Help yourself,” Mrs. Trowbridge says, grabbing a pink can of Tab from the fridge and heading back to the sofa in the den to catch the end of
As the World Turns
, her favorite soap opera.

I’m crouched in front of the open cabinet, staring.

“C’mon, Chirp, let’s go to the basement and work on our dance routine,” Sally says, biting into her Ring Ding.

“Hold on,” I say. I love looking at the pictures on the boxes. I love reading the descriptions: “Frosted Creme-Filled Devil’s Food Cakes.” “Sweet Glazed Crispy-Light Popcorn Snack.”

“You can always come back for more.”

I’ve been playing at Sally’s house since I was little,
but I still can’t quite believe that the treats won’t disappear,
poof
, as soon as I walk away.

“Chirp!” Sally’s tugging on my shoulder.

I grab a Ring Ding and a Yodel and another Ring Ding and follow Sally down the steep wooden steps into the basement. By the time my feet hit the green shag rug, I’ve eaten all of the first Ring Ding and half of the Yodel.

“Don’t your parents feed you?” Sally laughs, shaking her head so her wavy blond hair bounces around.

“Yeah,” I say, “a strict diet of Fig Newtons with a few Oreos thrown in.”

“You’re
too much
, Chirp.
Too much
,” Sally says, which cracks me up, since she sounds exactly like her grandma, who I see every year at Sally’s birthday party.

Sally walks over to the record player. “What part of our routine should we work on?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I can barely remember what we came up with last time.”

We’ve been choreographing a dance to “Help!” by the Beatles since we were in third grade. Our bad habit is that we let too much time go by between practice sessions, and then when we finally get together, we’ve forgotten the routine or it feels babyish.

“I have an idea,” I say. “How about if we have a dance party instead?”

“But we should finish—”

“I could
really
use a dance party.”

Sally opens her mouth like she’s about to argue with me, but then I see in her eyes that she remembers Mom and back-to-school night last week, though I know she won’t say anything. Sally doesn’t talk much, especially about hard stuff. When we get together, we eat and dance. Dance and eat.

“Party!” Sally shouts, plugging in the lava lamp on the Formica bar top.

“Party!” I drag the beanbag chairs out of the middle of the room.

You can stack six 45s on Sally’s record player and they’ll play in a row, which is perfect for a party. Sally chooses our tunes.

“Let the
r-r-r
-records
r-r-r
-roll!” I yell.

“For our first song, let’s see you get down and dirty to Stevie Wonder’s ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’!” Sally says, like she’s a DJ.

I start out calm enough, but soon the thumping of the music sneaks inside me and settles in my feet. I’m stomping, stomping, stomping, and Sally is, too. Faster! Louder! We’re teenagers in the high school gym, stomping on the metal bleachers, cheering for our basketball team.

“Jump!” Sally yells, and now we’re jumping up and down with our arms above our heads.

“Twist!” I yell. We twist and jump like wild rabbits getting their kinks out.

When I start whirling in circles, Sally copies me. Our hair’s whipping around and the room’s spinning.
We’re bonking into the beanbag chairs. Watch out! We’re shiny silver balls in a pinball machine! Sally takes the hem of her T-shirt and sticks it through the collar and yanks it down so it turns into a T-shirt bikini top. I turn my shirt into a bikini top, too, and now our bellies are out. Our bellies are out and we’re wiggling them. We’re wiggling our bellies and we’re wiggling our hips and we’re wet with sweat, and when David Cassidy sings
“I think I love you,”
we know he’s singing to us. He’s got to be singing to us, because we’re just so filled up with everything good and bright and shiny that how can he not be crazy in love with us?