When Life Gives You O.J. (4 page)

Outside, the car horn honked twice.

I grabbed the handle of the Dumb Old Jug, the leash trailing behind, and went outside, slamming the door behind me.

“Can you wait a sec?” I asked my mom. “I’ve gotta, uh, walk the Dumb Old—Uh, I mean, O.J.”

My mom looked irritated. “Didn’t you take care of that already?”

“I’m hot!” whined Sam from the backseat.

“Close your window, Sam,” said my dad, “I’ve got the air conditioning on.” He leaned across my mom and told me, “Hurry.”

“Okay,” I said. I put the Dumb Old Jug down and dragged it across the driveway to the grass edging our walk. I unscrewed the cap and upturned the jug.

A thin stream of watery brown liquid trickled out.

But nothing else.

I looked into the jug. Brownish, dog-food-colored gunk was firmly stuck to the bottom of the jug.

My whole family stared at me, along with our neighbor Mrs. Brownell, who was coming around the corner walking her poodles, Maddy and Luna. Ordinarily, I’d run over to say hi and pet them. But right now I had my hands more than a little full.

“Come ON!” I said through clenched teeth, shaking the jug. I smacked the bottom of it with one hand. Luna perked
up her ears at the sound, like she thought it might mean she was about to get a treat.

The weight inside the jug shifted, and a small, wet blob fell out. At first, I thought it was a brown marshmallow, but then I realized it was a nugget of dog food, only swollen to twice its size. With several additional smacks, more wet, messy lumps came rolling out. Eventually, most of what was inside the jug plopped itself out onto the ground, forming a disgusting-looking soggy brown pile.

Ugh.

Across the street, Luna pulled hard on her leash, like she was dying to meet the new “dog.” Determinedly, she started to drag Mrs. Brownell and Maddy over for a visit. Maddy didn’t look so thrilled. She began to bark.

I took out the bag and quickly tried to use it to pick up the sloppy pile of pretend dog poop. On my first try, I got some—but nowhere near all—of it into the bag. Using a stick, I tried to push more of the mess into the bag. All this did was get the outside of the bag muddy and rip a hole in it.

“Zelly?” My mom had rolled down her window. “Could you hurry it up? Please?”

I stared at her in disbelief. What did she think I was doing? With frantic prodding, a tiny bit more of the mess made its way into the now-leaking bag.

“I’m done, all right?” I said, just as Mrs. Brownell approached, talking to me and the dogs at once. “Hello, Zelda, dear! Luna, stop pulling! Maddy, for heaven’s sake, be quiet!”

I turned to toss the bag in the trash can before Mrs. Brownell could see what I was doing. But I forgot that I had left the Dumb Old Jug right behind me. I lowered my foot, but I kind of half stepped on O.J., who was empty, so he went flying forward.

“Rrrrowf! Arr, arr, arr!” Maddy went haywire.

“Wurf! Wurf! Wurf!” Luna chimed in with her squeaky little barks, skittering toward O.J.

Everything happened fast. I leaned forward to grab O.J., but Luna’s leash tripped me, making me stumble and almost land on her, so I stepped backward—

“Whoops—” and tripped over Maddy—

“Waaah—” and tried not to fall—

“Whoaa—” and sat down—

Oof—

—right in the middle of what was left of O.J.’s poop.

Maddy stopped barking. She sniffed where I was sitting for about half a second.

Then she began to chow down.

“Maddy! NO! Bad girl!” said Mrs. Brownell, trying to pull her off. “I am
so
sorry!”

“It’s okay,” I told her, trying to stand up and get out of the mushy pile. One of my flip-flops slid off, stuck. “It’s not what it looks like,” I tried to explain to her.

Mrs. Brownell told me she understood completely. But just then she remembered she had left something on the stove, so she set off down the block, pulling a disappointed Luna and a still-barking Maddy behind her.

“HEY, KID,” said Ace, who had come out of the house and was standing on the front step watching me. “THAT’S WHAT THE BAG IS FOR.”

“I know that!” I told him.

Ace put on his lucky fishing hat and walked past me to the car.

“COULDA FOOLED ME,” he said.

I gotta say, sitting in a pile of wet, smelly dog poop—even if it was fake dog poop—pretty much convinced me that the deal I made with Ace was a bad one. Luckily, my mom found me a clean pair of shorts and hosed down my flip-flops while I changed. We left to go cherry picking before I got the chance to tell Ace that the deal was off. The whole way there, Ace entertained Sam with one of his famous long-winded fishing stories. This one was about the fishing contest he once had with his old friend Charlie O’Brien.

“AND, WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT? AFTER FIVE HOURS ON THE WATER, CHARLIE AND I ARE NECK AND NECK, MATCHED—”

“Fish to fish,” said Sam.

“FISH TO FISH!” echoed Ace. “WHEN ALL OF A
SUDDEN, KABLOOIE!” Ace smacked the armrest on the car door for emphasis. “OUT OF THE BLUE, THIS CRAZY FISH COMES FLYING AT ME! NO HOOK, NO NOTHING, THIS ONE. JUST PLAIN HURLING ITSELF OUT OF THE WATER INTO MY LAP.”

“And not just any fish!” added Sam.

“AND NOT JUST ANY FISH,” continued Ace, “THE MOST MESHUGGE FISH IN THE SEA. A SEA ROBIN! SO WHAT DID I DO, YOU MIGHT ASK?”

“So what did you do?” asked Sam, on cue.

Sam never gets tired of Ace’s fish stories. I do. The O’Briens were my grandparents’ neighbors back when they used to live in Brooklyn, right near us. Every time I’d be over at my grandparents’ apartment and we’d run into the O’Briens, Mr. O’Brien would say to me, “Tell that grandfather of yours I’m going to have him arrested for fish fraud!” Ace would bellow back, “QUIT YOUR CARPING!” Bubbles would always shake her head. “You two get more pleasure out of kvetching about those fish than you did catching them,” she’d say.

Ace kept right on going, through the climactic part about how Charlie had a fish on his line at the time but then suddenly a sea robin—which is this weird, ugly fish with legs like a lobster and wings like a bat—jumped into the boat and onto Ace’s lap, startling Charlie so much he dropped his rod and
his
fish slipped off the hook. Ace was almost at the part where he kissed the sea robin triumphantly.

“How come Charlie didn’t win?” I interrupted.

Ace stopped midstory, turned, and stared at me. This wasn’t in the script. We were supposed to say our parts at the right times, or keep quiet and listen.

“HOW COME WHAT?” he said.

My heart beat faster, and I began talking to match it. “The contest was for catching fish, right? Like with a fishing rod. You didn’t catch that sea robin. It just sort of landed on you. So it shouldn’t count.”

Ace studied me. “YOU ARE SUGGESTING IT WAS A TIE?” he asked slowly.

“No,” I said, feeling dangerous. “I am suggesting that Charlie won. Because he actually hooked one more fish than you did.”

Ace was silent. For a second he was going to congratulate me for making a good point. But then I saw my dad glance nervously in the rearview mirror.

“NOT BEING A FISHERMAN,” Ace started, “YOU MAY NOT REALIZE THAT
CATCH
IS IN FACT A TERM OF ART. WHEREAS …”

As soon as he said the word
whereas
, I knew I was sunk. My dad had warned me about this shortly after we moved to Vermont and Ace started living with us. The subject came up because of Ace’s beloved golf shoe collection. His golf shoes had spikes on the bottom, so they left these little polka dot prints all over the living room carpet and made clicking noises on the kitchen floor. Every time my mom would remind Ace to leave his golf shoes at the door, Ace would launch into
a lecture about arch support. Finally, my dad solved the problem by getting this tool for unscrewing the spikes.

“I am the Zen master,” said my dad proudly after Ace walked off, happy yet spikeless. “Let this be a lesson to you, kids. Never argue with your grandfather.”

“Why not?” I asked. My mom says that the fact that my dad doesn’t enjoy arguing is one of the reasons she married him. But, unlike my dad, sometimes I can’t help it.

“Because,” said my dad, “Ace has high blood pressure, and when he argues, it gets elevated, which is not good for his health. Besides, with Ace, you will never win.”

“But what if—” I started to ask, but my dad raised a hand to stop me.

“You will
never
win,” he repeated.

Sure enough, Ace went from
whereas
to the rules, the regulations, and what he called the “social morays” of fishing. By the time he was finished, I felt like a total idiot for suggesting that there was any doubt in anyone’s mind that Ace had won the fishing contest, fair and square.

“Morays?” asked Sam. “Like a moray eel?”

Ace stared at Sam for a long moment. Then he broke into a smile and let out a huge belly laugh. He put one arm around Sam’s shoulder and gave him noogies with the other while Sam protested, chortling with laughter.

It was official. Ace loved Sam, and Bubbles loved me.

Boy, did I miss Bubbles.

Bubbles became Bubbles when I was a baby because I got
bubbe
, the Yiddish word for “grandma,” and
bubbles
, like in a bath, all mixed up and it stuck. When I was little, Bubbles and Ace lived in Brooklyn, right near us. But when Ace retired “from the bench,” he and Bubbles surprised everyone by announcing they were moving to Vermont. I guess it was so they could have more space and Bubbles could have a real art studio. Bubbles loved Vermont and claimed the light there was better for her painting. “And there’s no traffic, and not so much noise,” she used to say, for Ace’s benefit. Ace often replied, “SO WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO KVETCH ABOUT NOW? THE COWS?” “You’ll think of something,” teased Bubbles.

Bubbles and Ace’s house in Vermont was called The Farm, even though there weren’t any cows or chickens or anything. There was a field out back, though, and Bubbles would take me on walks through the tall, sweet-smelling grass. I would hide and she’d say loudly, “Oh no! Have I lost her again?” I’d wait until I felt like I might burst, then I’d spring up and surprise her. She would always explode with laughter and what seemed like genuine relief, and then she’d take my hand and walk me back to put the kettle on. Along the way, she’d find me some sort of treasure—part of a robin’s egg, or a dragonfly wing, or a curly piece of silver tree bark—that would appear like magic.

For a long time, I believed Bubbles was part fairy.

She was beautiful, and her ratty old paint-splattered clothes only made her look even more so, like Cinderella before the ball. Bubbles tossed around Yiddish words, like Ace, but they were always nice ones like
kvell
, which means “to be proud of something or someone.” Or she’d say
nem a shtikl
, which means “have a little piece of something.” “Nem a shtikl, Zeldaleh,” she’d say when our tea was ready, pushing a plate of cake toward me: honey cake or coffee cake, or my favorite, lemon.

But then Bubbles got sick. And it turned out she had cancer. She had it real bad, and it changed everything. At first, she wore scarves on her head, but her eyes still sparkled and she could still sit out behind The Farm and paint. But then she got so tired that even painting was too much, and my mom and dad started talking about moving to Vermont. The plan was that we’d go help her out while she got better.

But here’s the thing: She didn’t. Get better, that is. When she died, we flew to Vermont and stayed at The Farm for a week while Bubbles and Ace’s friends and neighbors kept showing up with platters of cold cuts and pastries. The whole thing didn’t feel real. I kept expecting Bubbles to appear at the door like she had with the giraffe card. “Surprise!” Flying back to New York and even going back to school felt like a huge relief. Until a few weeks later when I heard my dad on the phone, talking about how many boxes we’d need.

“What do we need boxes for?” I asked.

“Oh!” said my dad, looking surprised and maybe even a little guilty. “Well, remember how we were planning to spend some time in Vermont this spring?”

“Sure,” I said. “But that was before Bubbles …” My voice trailed off.