Mendocino And Other Stories Part 8

"Hi," I said. The table was set for four, and my mother had even used cloth placemats; lately even the usual woven straw ones had gone missing more often than not.

"Hey, Elizabeth," he said. "How's it goin'?"

I looked up at him and shrugged. "OK."

He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. First they were on the counter behind him, then they were clasped in front of his fly, then crossed tightly over his chest. "What do you go by?" he said. "Liz? I've got a cousin Liz, just about your age."

"Elizabeth," I said.

"We used to call her Bit, though," my mother said. "Didn't we, honey?"

"We?" I said.

She pursed her lips. "Danny did. He couldn't say Elizabeth, he said Elizabit. Then it was just Bit. Right, Dan?"

"A few hundred years ago," Danny said.

"Well, anyway," my mother said to me. "We were thinking maybe after dinner the four of us could play a game. Monopoly or something."

"Can't," I said. "Math test tomorrow."

My mother yanked a square of paper towel from the roll and began arranging the wet lettuce leaves on it.

"I used to be pretty good at math," Bobby said. "If you need any help."

"That's OK," I said. It was in my mind to say, I'm pretty good at math, too; but I managed to stifle it. "Thanks, though."

There was a silence. I was still holding my records, so I went upstairs to put them in my room. The guest room door was ajar and I pushed it open. A couple of worn-looking green duffel bags were lying on the bed, with T-s.h.i.+rts and sweat clothes and towels spilling out as if they were someone's cast-offs at a garage sale. I tiptoed across the room and opened the closet door. It was empty except for three pairs of high-topped white leather sneakers arranged in a row on the floor. I bent over and picked up a shoe. It was longer than my forearm and it smelled: of dirty laundry and of sweat, but of something else, too-a sharp, leathery scent. It was, I decided, the smell of arrogance.

THE FOLLOWING FRIDAY, at the lunchtime rally that was the official end of the school day-during football season we got out early for away-games-I stood by myself and studied the football pompon girls' new routine. They would do it again at halftime later that afternoon, but I wasn't going to the game; none of my friends ever went, and I was too shy to go to an away-game alone. If I'd been asked why I wanted to go, I would only have been able to say that it had something to do with my father dying: that it wasn't the game so much as the way everyone looked after the game as they poured onto the field from the bleachers, uniform expressions of joy or despair on their faces.

I rode my bicycle home through the college, thinking that I would have the house to myself for the afternoon. Students were lying on the gra.s.s in little groups, and I looked at them more carefully than usual, wondering if Bobby was among them. I hadn't seen him since the day he moved in. He had a meal plan at one of the dorms and he studied at the library, so all I knew of him so far was the sound of his footsteps on the stairs as I was falling asleep. He didn't even leave his toothbrush in the bathroom.

The guest room door was closed. I went into my room, put my books on my desk, and lay down on my bed. I closed my eyes and waited to see what would materialize-the glittering ballroom, the dark restaurant, the umbrella-shaded outdoor cafe: at that time the arena of my fantasy life was limited to places where I would not be alone with the object of my idylls. After a moment, the restaurant hovered into view. The walls were lined with smoky mirrors, the tables covered with pale pink linen and set with gold-rimmed china. I was tall and sleek in a clingy silver gown sewn all over with s.h.i.+mmering little beads. A handsome, square-jawed man-with whom I never, in all the adolescent hours I spent in his company, exchanged a word-met me at the door and guided me to our secluded table, his hand in the small of my back. (I had just learned about the small of your back; it was where you were supposed to aim your tampon, and although that was nearly as unpleasant to think of as it was to do, the idea of that spot had a kind of power over me. It suggested romance-not the candlelight and flowers kind, but something easier, more intimate.) I heard a noise from Bobby's room. It wasn't much of a noise: low and repet.i.tive and only vaguely vocal. But before I was really even aware of the sound, I'd convinced myself that s.e.x was taking place on the other side of the wall.

I turned my radio on, loud, and sat at my desk looking at my Latin book, my heart pounding. A moment later I got up and clomped past the guest room and down the stairs. I paused in the kitchen, but the idea of the two of them-Bobby in pajama bottoms, a tousle-haired girl in the matching pajama top-coming down in search of something to drink sent me out to the garage.

Leaning against the wall was a brand-new basketball hoop attached to a backboard. I looked it over for a minute or two: the backboard was white with jaunty red trim; the basket itself was a metal circle from which hung a flimsy-looking white net. I bent my knees and tried to lift it, but it was surprisingly heavy.

"Careful with that, it's heavier than it looks."

I turned around and Bobby was standing in the doorway, his long arms dangling by his sides.

"I was going to put that up for Danny this afternoon," he said. He was wearing gym shorts and a grey T-s.h.i.+rt, and there were big dark stains where he'd been sweating. I must have been staring, because he said, "I was doing sit-ups."

"Danny's not much of an athlete," I said.

"Everyone likes to shoot baskets."

"Does my mother know?"

He gave me a funny look. "She bought it."

I turned from him and examined the hoop again. "These strings don't seem too st.u.r.dy," I said.

He laughed and came over to where I was standing. "They're not meant to hold any weight. They hug the ball when it goes through so it'll drop down gently instead of flying all over the court. Stick around while I put it up and I'll show you."

"I have homework," I said.

He nodded. "More math?"

"Latin."

"Can't help you there. The only Latin I know is pig."

I edged toward the door. "Well," I said. "See you later."

"O-say ong-lay," he said with a smile.

A FEW NIGHTS later my mother came into my room on her way to bed. I was rearranging my closet, and she sat at my desk and watched me.

"I guess we should get you a new parka this year," she said.

"This one's OK." I hung it on a hook inside the closet door.

"Maybe a down one," she said. "I was thinking we should go up to Tahoe in February. Try again." When I was eight or nine the four of us had spent a miserable weekend trying to learn to ski; we'd never gone back. My father had liked to say that we were the only family in California who didn't love the fact that the mountains were only five hours from the beach.

"Down jackets aren't good for skiing," I said. "Too bulky."

"Elizabeth," she said. "Why do you have to be so difficult?"

I looked at her; her lips were pressed into a narrow line. "I'm not being difficult. I just don't happen to want a down jacket."

"That's not the point," she said. "I mention skiing and you don't react at all. Can't you at least say, 'Yes, Mother dear, a ski trip would be lovely,' or 'No, Mother dear, the idea of trying to ski again makes my legs turn to jelly'?"

I turned back to the closet. Very quietly, I said, "I'll go if you want me to."

"I want you to have an opinion."

I shrugged, but suddenly there were tears running down my face. I stared at my clothes.

"Eliz?"

"I can't."

She came over and touched my shoulder and I turned around. "What is it?" she said. She pulled me close and held me, and my shoulders started to shake. "What is it?"

I shook my head.

She ran her hand up and down my back. "Tell me," she said. "Poor baby, to have such a brute of a mother. Tell me."

I pulled away from her, got a Kleenex from my desk, and blew my nose. "Why do you have to get so mad at me?"

"I'm sorry." She sat down on my bed and shook her head. She looked very small, sitting there; small and tired. There were wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, and her hair looked thin and lifeless.

I heard the sound of someone-Bobby-opening and closing the front door and coming up the stairs. A moment later, the guest room door closed.

"I'm sorry," my mother said again. "I'll try to be better."

I held my forefinger up to my lips, then pointed at the wall dividing my room from Bobby's. He can hear us, I mouthed.

She smiled at me. "He doesn't care," she whispered.

"Well," I whispered back, "I do."

WITH THE COMING of the basketball hoop Bobby was around more, and I had to find a new place to work on my pompon routine. I moved down to the bas.e.m.e.nt, and against the m.u.f.fled yet insistent sounds of the basketball bouncing on the asphalt and-thud-hitting the backboard, I settled on the Beach Boys' "I Get Around," and began to ch.o.r.eograph my moves.

Late one afternoon, when my routine was going badly and the Beach Boys' falsettos were all but drowned out by the hammer of the basketball, I decided that I'd had enough. I marched up the stairs and out to the driveway, icily polite equivalents to WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT UP running through my mind. But when I saw Danny standing there looking at the ball, which seemed bigger around than he was, I couldn't say anything. I watched.

"OK," Bobby said, glancing at me, "dribble a couple of times and then when you shoot try for some backspin." He held his hand up, palm to the sky, and flicked his wrist a couple of times. "Roll the ball up your fingers."

Danny bounced the ball, then threw it at the basket; it hit the rim with a metallic clang and careened past me. I turned and ran after it, then carried it back and handed it to Bobby.

"Want to try?" he said.

I shook my head.

He gave the ball back to Danny. "That was better," he said. "Try again."

On the fifth shot, the ball hit the backboard, rolled around the rim, and went through the net. "Great," Bobby said, giving Danny's shoulder a little shake. "That's the stuff."

He took the ball and without looking at me backed up so that he was standing just a few feet from me. Without seeming to aim, he tossed the ball and it sailed through the air and went cleanly through the basket without touching the backboard or the rim. "Swish," he said.

Danny caught the ball and came running over. "Can we play HORSE?" he said.

Bobby looked at me and smiled. "Only if your sister will try a shot first."

"Blackmailer," I said.

Danny handed me the ball and I moved closer to the basket. I held the ball in front of my face, closed my eyes, and threw.

"Two points," Bobby yelled. "Whoo!"

Danny clapped and called, "Maybe you should try out to play instead."

"Ha ha," I said. I tugged at my s.h.i.+rt, which had ridden up and exposed my stomach when I threw the ball.

"Play HORSE with us," Danny said. "Please?"

"HORSE?" I glanced at Bobby; he stood there with the ball tucked under his arm, looking at me. "I don't think so, Dan."

"You don't even know what it is. Let me at least explain it to you." Danny held out his hands and Bobby threw him the ball. He bounced it and looked up at the basket. "Say I go first. I stand wherever I want and try for a basket. If I make it, the next person has to stand in the same spot and shoot. And if they don't make it they get an H. And you keep moving around and whoever spells out HORSE first loses. Get it? They're a horse. Come on, it's fun."

"Sorry, kid," I said. "Got to practice. I have no time for this 'fun' of which you speak."

"Your graciousness," he said, and bowed to me.

"Your majesty," I said, bowing back.

I turned and headed for the house. "Bye, Elizabeth," Bobby called to me as I reached the kitchen door. "Nice to see you again."

I NEEDED SOME white gloves. My mother had said not to worry; she had several pairs I could choose from. The Sat.u.r.day before tryouts I asked her to let me see them.

She led me up to her bedroom and pulled a s...o...b..x from the back of her closet. "I know you can't believe it," she said, "but your mother used to be the picture of elegance."

We both laughed; she was wearing blue jeans and an old checked s.h.i.+rt, her usual weekend attire. Even when she went to work I thought she looked a little mannish-she dressed in somber colors, never wore jewelry.

She slipped the top off the box and pulled away some tissue paper. "G.o.d," she said.

I looked into the box, and it was a strange sight: over a dozen gloves, some white, some beige, even a single navy blue one, all lying in a tangle. "How orderly," I said.

"Don't give me any lip, kid," she said, smiling. She set the box on the bed and we began sorting through it, putting the gloves in pairs.

"Where's the other blue one?" I said.

"Long gone." A dreamy look came over her face and for a moment I thought she was going to tell me a story. But all she said was "Lost to another era."

There were four pairs of white gloves in all, but none of them seemed right to me.

"What's wrong with these, Elizabeth?"

"The rules didn't say anything about b.u.t.tons."

"Well, what about these?"

"There's a huge stain on the left one."

"It's on the palm, no one'll see it."

"Mom."

"These?"

"Too long."

Finally she sat on the bed and looked at me, her mouth in a half-frown.

"I'll ride over to the shopping center and buy some," I said. I began piling the gloves back into the box.