Outside In (14 page)

Mom and Dad, the penniless parents, actually said okay. I thought maybe just this once they would leave me in
charge of Aimée, but Mom said twelve was still too young to baby-sit.

“I’m in eighth grade now,” I cried. “I’ll be thirteen next month!” But in the back of my mind I knew I didn’t want to be home alone, in charge, not the way I would have a few months before.

“Get Joanie,” said Aimée. “She already
is
thirteen.”

They got Lucy DeLuna.

Not much made Lucy nervous, but baby-sitting did. I knew she didn’t like being in charge. But I knew how to take care of Aimée and me. Lucy would be there just in case. Well, that was my view of the situation. Lucy’s view, it turned out, was different.

Uncle Joe arrived on Saturday doing some kind of Spanish dance. He rumbled the whole front porch, snapping his fingers like someone on
The Andy Williams Show.
He wore a wide red tie, black trousers, and—of all things—black cowboy boots. His bristly hair stuck up like always, as if he’d been sleeping on it, except I knew it was just the way it grew.

“Where’s Aunt Bonnie?” Aimée asked calmly, over the dancing.

“Reading the boys”—stomp, stomp—“the riot act!” Clap, clap. Lucy sank into a chair, trying to be invisible.

“Mom!” I yelled insanely up the stairs. “Your date is here!”

Mom was stunning in a light blue dress, her hair up in a bun and wearing my favorite bracelets—big round, shiny plastic hoops in yellow and orange—on her wrists. Her stomach in front of her was like a beach ball under her dress.

“Oho!” hooted Uncle Joe, getting frisky, and did a little dance number in her honor.

“Wow,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“He’s
in the mood.”

“In the mood for what?” Aimée asked.

“Watch it,” Dad said.

Lucy kept her eyes on her fingernails.

Dad’s idea of dressing up was not so very up: a jacket with elbow patches and church pants he’d been wearing just about forever. But his tie—Mom’s Father’s Day present—was paisley, orange and gold and purple curlicues on a green background. It looked good with his red hair.

“Dad, you look cute,” I said. Aimée made a gagging noise.

Aunt Bonnie came clacking up the steps in an embroidered black peasant skirt with a fringed hem, a sleeveless red blouse, and her favorite orangy red high heels. La-di-da.

Aunt Bonnie talked to Lucy and me together, instead of lumping me with Aimée. “Pete will be right over there, all night long,” she said. I glanced at Lucy in time to catch the blush. “Never the twain shall meet,” Aunt Bonnie went on, shaking her finger. “But it’s good to know he’s there.”

Mom called reminders as the others hauled her out the door. “If you make popcorn, don’t get it on the rug. The vacuum’s got a Lego block stuck in it. Go to bed on time. No phone calls, Lucy”—another blush—“and no company, anyone!”

“Not even Pammy?” Aimée’s voice trailed off.

They were gone with a festive clatter down the porch steps and across the road to Uncle Joe’s Volkswagen. They zoomed away.

The small silence that fell was the last quiet moment of the evening. Aimée sat on the floor playing elves, a good child, but I stood up and went to the door. Lucy said, “Don’t go anywhere.”

“I’m just looking—” to see if Dave was looking. If he wasn’t, I’d been thinking of showing Lucy the elf houses. But when she snapped at me that way, Miss Baby-sitter, I didn’t like it.

“I’m only going out on the porch,” I said, but didn’t go yet. I waited to see what she’d say.

“Fine, but don’t go off it,” she said tensely.

I couldn’t stop myself from exchanging a look with Aimée.

“Can’t we go to the circle?” Aimée asked. Lucy shook her head. “Mom always lets us go to the circle by ourselves.”

As if Lucy didn’t know! We were right there in the circle in front of her house, without our mother, every day of her life. But she said, “I can’t baby-sit for you if you’re not here.”

I said, “We don’t need a baby-sitter anyway.”

“That’s not what your parents think,” said Lucy.

From across the road I heard raised voices. Pete and Dave were already fighting. There was a bang, a thump, and Faux Pas burst out the door of the Ascontis’ house and came galumphing across the road. I flung open the door to welcome her in.

“Get that dog out of here!” said Lucy.

I pulled Faux Pas’s collar and took her back out again. Dave was out on his stoop, calling for the dog, while Pete stood behind him, looking guilty, but not remorseful.

Dave came and grabbed his dog’s collar from me, with a grumble to Pete: “This is why Mom doesn’t let her out the front.”

Pete said, “Poor dog never sees anything but the same dog run.” I didn’t think Pete wanted to see Lucy any more than Lucy wanted to see Faux Pas. Ha-ha for them both. I followed the dog across the road to pet her some more.

“Poor Faux Pas,” Aimée said, right at my side.

Lucy stood on our porch, hands on her hips, and called, “Chérie, Aimée, you’re supposed to be over here.”

“We’re coming,” I said, then didn’t. At that moment, a bike came zipping down the road: Sandy coming home. Faux Pas went barking to meet him. Probably Sandy would have stopped, with all of us there like that, but when he saw Faux Pas coming toward him like a hairy cannonball, he sped up to get away. Aimée and Dave and I took off after the dog. Near the entrance to Onion Lane, Faux Pas caught up with Sandy and started nipping at his feet.

Sandy couldn’t keep his feet on the pedals with Faux Pas chomping at them. He careened along, trying to get away.

“Just stop! Get off!” Dave yelled.

Sandy glared at him and kept on weaving.

“Come on, Faux Pas, good girl,” I called. That sent the dumb dog into a frenzy, acting big and trying to jump up on Sandy. Maybe she thought she was defending us girls against the bad bike.

“Faux Pas! Sweetness! Come!” yelled Aimée, doing a pretty good imitation of Aunt Bonnie, but Faux Pas didn’t buy it. All this time Pete stood on his stoop laughing. That’s the kind of friend he was to poor, stupid Sandy.

“Just get off!” Lucy tried to help. “Put the bike between you!” Sandy teetered and stopped, then got off the bike on the other side from the dog.

From the stoop Pete called, “Why’d you sic the dog on him, Chérie?”

“She’s
your
dog,” I said. Faux Pas lunged at Sandy through the bike. Dave and Aimée and I grabbed at the dog, but she tried to nip Dave. It was Aimée and me who hauled Faux Pas away down the road by sheer force of will and shoved her into her run.

The boys disappeared, inside, I guess. Panting and grinning with the drama of it all, Aimée and I crossed the road to our house and were climbing the steps when we saw all three boys riding their bikes up Marvin Road. I kept walking, ignoring them.

They rode onto our front lawn, faces red and set in anger—except Sandy, who looked as if he thought it was all a laugh. Aimée and I ran inside and slammed the door. Outside, the boys thundered up the steps, lugging their bikes with them.

“Go away!” Lucy yelled, sick of us all. She looked out the window next to the door. When she saw her brother, she opened the door and said, “Sandy, you and your jerk friends can just go home right now, or Dad’s going to—”

Pete pushed past her and rode his bike right into the house, with Dave and Sandy behind him. They rode from the living room through the little hall to the kitchen, bumped and banged against the dining room door jamb as they made the turn to go through it, then put on speed as they came through the dining room arch. They left tire tracks on the living room rug, bashed through the metal screen door, and plummeted down the steps—quite a feat. Sandy fell off but jumped back on quickly. Away they rode.

By that time I had run into the backyard for Reshna. I took off after them. Behind me I heard both voices calling after me, Aimée’s bawling plea and Lucy’s furious, deep one: “Chérie, come back!” But I kept going. I stood on the pedals of my bike, pedaling hard, my braids bouncing down my back as I gave chase.

The boys split off, like cowboys in a movie, trying to confuse me. Sandy headed left into the circle, making me laugh to myself. Later, when Lucy complained to her mother, he’d deny that he had been there: “I was home
then, wasn’t I, Ma? How could I be riding a bike through the Witkowskis’ kitchen, huh?” Sly. Weentzy.

Pete and Dave gave their pedals an extra kick as Marvin Road sloped downhill. I saw myself catching up with Pete, knocking him off his bike, pushing his face into the gooshy mud beside the river, leaving him to rot among the skunk cabbages.

At the corner Pete went right onto Glover Street, while Dave headed for the river. Later I told myself that I just didn’t know what I would do to Pete—or what I
could
do to Pete—if I caught up with him. I went after Dave. His bike shot down the hill and around the curve, disappearing, and I went like a rocket after him. He didn’t even know I was there, I thought. Wouldn’t he be surprised when he looked up and saw we were neck and neck?

My tire caught the sand at the end of the mill driveway where the Little River Rangers Club was. I got my balance back and kept going. But where was Dave? Marvin Road was empty. In a second I realized that Dave must have gone down the Rangers’ driveway, not past it. I turned and headed back. As I reached the end of the driveway, Dave came flashing out of it past me, banging one of my braids into my face with his swinging arm as he flew by. “Sucker!” he yelled.

I spun my bike in the sand and lit out after him again, sweaty and raging. I’d catch him before the river bridge. I was at least as fast as he was; I was only this far behind because he’d gotten a head start. But Dave had disappeared again.

All of a sudden I wasn’t mad anymore. I still thought Dave had been acting like a jerk at camp and school, and I still thought it was rude to ride a bike through our house, but I wasn’t
mad.
All of a sudden it was fun, because I’d
escaped Lucy and Pete and I was on my bicycle chasing Dave. So where was he?

I caught sight of him in the grass at the river end of Marvin Road, lifting his bicycle onto the stone wall of the bridge that curved across the river to Neil Road on the other side. I slowed. What craziness was this? Was he going to throw his bike into the river? Sure, it was nothing but a piece of junk handed down from Pete, who was hard on things, Aunt Bonnie said, but it was a bike.

Dave was up on the wall now, too. Was he laughing? Then he got on the bike and rode it along the narrow flat top of the wall. The nerve that took! He looked back once at me, his black eyes serious, where the bridge went out over the river.

I caught that look and grabbed my own bike by the middle and hoisted it onto the wall. The stones of the bridge wall went rolling away beneath me. I concentrated, narrowly avoiding the ruts of the mortar that held the stones together, aware of the glittering river far beneath me, beneath my skinny pale legs and the rubber tires and the spinning pedals and the whirling spokes of Reshna’s wheels.

Up ahead where the wall went over land again, I saw Dave taking off on his bike, but looking back over his shoulder at me, smiling again, my friend again. For a moment I thought that if he kept going that slowly, I’d have a chance to catch him when I got off the wall. When I got to the end, I jumped two-footed to the ground and snatched my bike down.

But before I threw a leg over it, a deep voice said right into my face, “Congratulations. You can throw your bike in the back now and get in the car.”

I looked, petrified, into a face I didn’t quite recognize. I
let hands lift Reshna into the back of his car, a green car, but not a station wagon, and not a familiar neighborhood car.

“Hop in,” he said. I had a second to be relieved that it was someone I knew: Lucy and Sandy’s father, Mr. Boring DeLuna, in his car I’d hardly ever seen because he was the kind of man who had a clean enough garage that he could put his car in it.

“I really don’t need a ride,” I said, but he was already starting off.

“It’s no trouble,” he said. “I’ll take you home, for your mother’s sake, before you do anything else life-threatening.”

When the car pulled up in front of my house, Dave was sitting on his front steps, chewing on a piece of grass, looking innocent, as if he’d never been anywhere or done anything.

Mr. DeLuna took my bike out of the trunk. “Thanks,” I said, not feeling grateful. I whisked Reshna into the garage.

I barreled past Lucy and ran upstairs, slammed my door, and didn’t come out for the rest of the evening. I sat on my bed for a long time and watched Dave whistling on his stoop. For a long time I shook. What was worst? Remembering riding across the wall? Thinking how easy it would have been for anyone to take me away in a green car the way Wendy had been taken? Or worrying what would happen when Mr. DeLuna told my parents what he’d caught me doing?

It took awhile for me to realize that Dave was sitting out there so long because Pete wouldn’t let him in. He got up and banged on the door a few times before settling down to sit in the gathering darkness.

I got in bed and lay watching the shadows of the pine
trees sweeping across the wall as they blew in the breeze. When cars came down the road, I rolled onto my stomach, leaned up on my elbows, and peeked over the windowsill to see if it was the grown-ups. Though I was afraid of what Mom and Dad would say, though I was worried about Dave out there on his stoop alone, though I was afraid that I’d dream of flying off the bridge through the soft air into the unforgiving water, I fell asleep eventually. I didn’t wake up until morning.

In the morning I woke to the sound of Dad singing some dramatic operatic song about an impossible dream. Yes,
Dad.
He and Mom were downstairs acting noisy, wild and happy and goofy, singing strange songs. Guess they hadn’t yet heard from Mr. DeLuna.

Faux Pas was already outside in her fenced yard. Pete was in the front yard, pushing the little power mower, and was nearly done with the job. Dave was not on the porch or anywhere in sight.

The music wasn’t coming just from downstairs. A hi-fi speaker in the Ascontis’ front window played almost the same notes as ours. There were scratching sounds as someone moved the record needle, and then the song blared into the road from both sides.