Step-Ball-Change (15 page)

B
UT
I
DIDN’T
know any such thing. Childhood is the time to cobble together an identity: I am good at this, I could never do that. I love this, I wouldn’t touch that. We put together lists, stake claims. The people around us make assumptions and we grow to fit them. I can remember my mother sitting on the edge of Taffy’s bed at night, combing my sister’s long blond hair and twisting it into pin curls, Taffy sleeping with her head full of pins without complaint, and then in the morning my mother would take out all the bobby pins and carefully brush her hair. Never was there a child with more beautiful hair, heavy yellow ringlets that came halfway down her back. People would come up in the grocery store and ask if they could touch Taffy’s hair. But I couldn’t stand to sit still. When my mother rolled up my hair, it became a battle of wills. The more I jerked around, the more likely she was to poke me with the pins and so the more I complained. I felt like I was sleeping with a head full of nettles, and in the morning when the whole thing came down, my hair was still no competition for the silky cloud that fell over my sister’s shoulders. So I said I didn’t like to have my hair curled. I said that it hurt and that it was a waste of time, which meant there was no place for me in the evening ritual that was now just between my mother and Taffy. I went downstairs and pretended I was interested in watching the news with my father, until finally I was interested. Taffy was praised for her beauty and received pink smocked dresses for her birthday. I was praised for being smart and got a set of
The Children’s Encyclopedia of Knowledge
. I read the books, Taffy wore the dresses, and inch by inch our worlds moved farther apart.

I’m sure the decisions we make about ourselves at six and eight and ten are helpful, but do we still have to live with them at sixty and sixty-two? If Neddy had been my sister’s life’s work, then it was time for her to get another job. The second week that Taffy was with us, I told her to come and work for me.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I’m not saying you should teach point classes, just teach the Intro to Tap. Teach Tap One. Teach the Bumblebees if you want to. It’s a room full of five-year-olds. You like the five-year-olds.”

“I don’t know how to teach.”

“I saw you teach. You were great. You’ve danced every day you’ve been here. You know you can do this.”

“Don’t you have to be licensed?”

“You’re not teaching them how to fly.”

“Woodrow told me I should get a job,” she said.

“Woodrow?”

“He said I was going to go out of my mind if I just kept sitting around. I told him if that was the case, I would have gone out of my mind a long time ago.”

“What does he think you should do?”

“He thought I should learn how to train dogs.”

“Why? Because you did such a good job with the one you have?”

“Woodrow says I have a great rapport with Stamp.”

“He’s only saying that because he hasn’t seen you dance.”

Taffy stalled. She seemed like the most coolly self-confident person in the world, but the idea of teaching rattled her. “I don’t even live here. I’m going to go back to Atlanta eventually.”

“I won’t make you sign a contract. I won’t even pay you. I’ll put your salary in the wedding fund.”

“There’s a wedding fund?” George said. He came in and went straight for the refrigerator. “If Kay has a wedding fund, then it’s only fair that I get one, too. There needs to be some equality in this family.”

“I’m trying to talk your aunt into teaching a couple of dance classes,” I said.

George took a bite of an apple and chewed it thoughtfully. “Well, it would certainly get the piano off my back. If you’re covering classes, it would mean that I wouldn’t have to run down there every time somebody caught a cold.”

“You’d quit teaching?” Taffy said to George. “You’d want to do that?”

“I am in law school,” he said. “I know that law school is very passé around here, but I do have a lot of work to do. I need to get through a hundred pages of reading this weekend for Torts alone.” Then George glanced out the window and his face froze. His mouth was still open and I could see little bits of apple sitting on his tongue.

“Are you choking?” Taffy asked.

“Who is that?” George said.

I turned around and looked out the window. “That’s Erica.”

“Who’s Erica?” He put the apple down on the counter and walked to the window.

“Woodrow’s daughter.”

Erica was wearing blue jeans and a green plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled back. She was getting a shovel out of the back of the truck. When she turned around and saw that all of us were staring at her, she gave a big wave, and headed off to work. Clearly, Erica was a girl who was used to having people stare at her.

“There are four daughters,” George said weakly.

“This is the one that’s still at home,” I said. It was funny. I had never seen George like this.

“You’re telling me she’s been here before?”

“She works with Woodrow sometimes on Saturday.”

“Then why haven’t I seen her?” Erica went out of view and George walked over to the other side of the table and craned his neck.

“Have a little dignity,” Taffy said.

“You’re never home on Saturdays,” I reminded him.

“What does she do?”

“She’s in nursing school.”

“Why didn’t anybody mention this to me before? Woodrow never said a thing to me.” He looked at me and pointed his finger. “You never said a thing to me.”

“It’s rude to point,” I said, pushing his finger aside. “And Woodrow mentioned Erica not two weeks ago. You just weren’t listening.” I put down my coffee and went to the back door. “Erica, could you come here a minute?”

Erica smiled. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it was a fairly dazzling smile. She leaned her shovel up against the truck. Her father was already down in the basement. “You haven’t met my sister and my son.”

“Oh, hey,” she said, holding out her hand to Taffy. “I’ve heard so many nice things about you. My dad talks about you all the time.”

“He does?” Taffy said.

“Oh, it’s Caroline’s sister this and Caroline’s sister that. And this must be Stamp.”

We had all forgotten about Stamp. He had been completely silent when Erica came in, but now he rolled over on his back and let her scratch his belly. “What a good dog you are,” she said.

George waited his turn.

“This is my son George,” I said.

Erica stood up and wiped her hand on her shirt. “Excuse me, I have dog hands now. Hello, George,” she said, and smiled again.

At that moment, if she had said, George, I think we should get in that truck and drive to California for lunch, he would have gone. “Hello,” George said.

She might have stayed longer, but George didn’t come up with anything after hello. “Well, it was great to meet you both. Thanks for calling me in. I should get back to work, though. I’m on the clock.”

“Do you need some help?” George said.

“Working?” Erica said.

“I could carry your shovels downstairs or something. I mean, I live here. I should at least try to help.”

Erica laughed and shrugged her shoulders. “Sure,” she said, “if you want to.” They were walking out the door when Erica stopped and turned around. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just realized that I don’t know your name.”

“Taffy Bishop.”

“Taffy,” Erica said, and smiled again. “Isn’t that funny that Dad always calls you Caroline’s sister?” She waved and then the two of them went off to the truck.

Taffy looked out the window and then looked at me. “Well,” she said.

“Well, what?”

“Well, she’s—” She didn’t say the word
black
, she only mouthed it.

“Either he teaches at the dance studio and winds up gay or he goes out with Erica Woodrow,” I said. “Take your pick.”

Through the window we watched Erica pick up the shovel again, but George took it away from her. He was talking and talking and pretty soon he put the shovel back into the truck. Erica looked like she was listening, but it was impossible to tell by the expression on her face whether or not she liked what she was hearing.

“Can you tell what he’s saying?” Taffy asked.

“No idea.”

George lifted his hands. He put his feet in fifth position and then went up on his toes. Erica started laughing.

“Looks like he’s trying to impress her,” I said.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Really, I think George has amazing luck with this.”

Woodrow came up the basement stairs. When he saw what was going on he came over and stood with us. Stamp whined a little bit until Woodrow reached down and rubbed his ears, but soon he was looking out the window again. It was as if we were watching a flock of especially dazzling birds who had landed on the feeder, streaks of sunlight reflecting off of bright blue feathers. “What is this about?” he asked.

“Court and spark,” I said.

“Is he supposed to be dancing?” Woodrow said.

“Caroline thinks that goes over big,” Taffy told him.

Woodrow leaned forward. “I never tried that myself.”

Then Erica looked up and saw the group of us staring. She slapped George on the shoulder and he immediately put both of his feet flat on the ground and shrugged. They each picked up a shovel and walked away.

Woodrow shook his head. “I’ll be damned.” He walked over and poured himself another cup of coffee.

“If they fall in love and get married, you’ll have to give us the family discount,” I said.

“One conversation and you’re marrying them off?” Taffy said.

“A person gets on a roll,” Woodrow said.

Actually, George’s love life was the furthest thing from my mind, but it was a comfort to know that if anything happened, Woodrow would be the one picking up the tab for the wedding.

A
S FOR THE
issue of that other wedding, I am ashamed to say that we had done absolutely nothing but worry ourselves sick over the whole thing. Every day Tom and I decided to call the Bennetts and explain our limitations to them, and every day we managed an admirable stall. A family’s limitations seemed an especially private matter, and I wasn’t any too eager to lay mine bare in front of people I didn’t know. Instead I found myself trying to navigate the tricky extra bonus stamps on the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes entry form.

“This isn’t the answer,” Tom said, picking up a series of color-coded coupons that had to be matched to a set of numbers that could only be found by reading ten pages of micro-print. It would have been easier to file a hospital claim with our health insurance.

“What is the answer?”

“We call them.”

“You know where the phone is,” I said, going back to my forms.

Tom looked at the phone. It sat quietly on the kitchen table, goading us. “Maybe we should meet with the accountant first. That way we would know what we could offer to pay, realistically.”

That seemed like a very reasonable plan to me. Tom was more than happy to call the accountant. An appointment was made and the stall was comfortably extended.

K
AY, ON THE
other hand, seemed a bundle of purpose and direction. She came by almost every night with a stack of books and planners and articles. She would spread her papers out across the dining-room table and study them so intently that it was almost like she was back in law school. Tom would wander in, but as soon as he saw that Kay wasn’t working on a case, he would change directions and steer off toward the den. “There’s a program on about the Galápagos,” he’d say, trying to make it sound as if that was the reason he’d come in in the first place. “Does anybody else want to watch?”

Kay always smiled and shook her head. A minute later the television came on and we heard the sound of blue-footed boobies splashing into the warm sea.

“I can’t believe how much there is to think about,” Kay said. She tossed her pen down onto a copy of Martha Stewart’s
Weddings
and rubbed her eyes. “I have my first meeting with Mrs. Carlson, the wedding planner, tomorrow and I’m supposed to come in with some ideas, but I don’t even know where to start.” She twisted her engagement ring around on her finger, the eternal flame. “You and Dad were so lucky to be able to just elope.”

Was this the opening I had been dreaming of? Was she subtly asking my permission? “Everyone is allowed to elope,” I said cautiously. “It’s a noble tradition.”

Kay rolled her eyes as if I was suggesting she buy a bag of silk worms and start spinning the thread for her dress. My plan was too
fraught with difficulties to even consider. “I could never do that to people.”

“Do what? Do it to whom?”

“Everyone would be so disappointed. Remember how disappointed Grandma was?”

I waved my hand. “You’re only remembering half of the story. Ultimately she was very glad.”

“Glad about what?” Taffy said, walking into the dining room and picking up a copy of
Bridal Guide
.

“Mom and Dad eloping,” Kay said.

Taffy’s face went ashen. She folded slowly into a chair. “Tell me you’re not thinking about eloping. That was the worst thing that ever happened in our family when I was growing up.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Taffy. You were eighteen when I got married. What did you care?”

“I was sixteen and I wanted to be your maid of honor. I thought you eloped just because you didn’t want me to be in your wedding.”

I wondered if such a level of solipsism was possible, but I remembered my sister at eighteen and thought I would save myself the trouble of asking. “I wasn’t the maid of honor at your wedding,” I said. That was a prize that went to a plump girl with dark eyes named Lydia something or other who had been Taffy’s best friend for that particular six-month period.

“Well, I certainly wasn’t going to ask you after you didn’t even invite me to your wedding.”

“We didn’t
have
a wedding.”

Taffy put her hand over Kay’s and squeezed. “This is why people should never elope,” she said.

Kay gave me an insider’s smile and shook her head as if to say, I never even thought about it in the first place, then she reached into her briefcase and pulled out a book of fabric samples. “If we can go back to the issue at hand for a minute, Mrs. Bennett says I really need to start thinking about choosing my colors.”