Playing the Field
By Janette Rallison
Copyright 2011 Janette Rallison
Other titles by Janette Rallison
Deep Blue Eyes and Other Teenage Hazards
All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School
Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Free Throws
Fame, Glory, and Other Things on my To Do List
It’s a Mall World After All
Revenge of the Cheerleaders
How to Take The Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend
Just One Wish
My Fair Godmother
My Unfair Godmother
My Double Life
Slayers (under pen name CJ Hill)
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Chapter 1
Mrs. Swenson was one of those teachers who probably got into the profession because she enjoyed making dour expressions. Her expression was especially dour when she gave me the news: “Mr. Conford, unless your test scores improve, and you start doing your homework, you’re going to fail algebra.” Mrs. Swenson likes to call us by our last names. I guess it sounds more dour.
When my parents found out about my algebra grade, they used my first name. Repeatedly. With increased volume every time they said it.
“McKay, why haven’t you been doing your homework?”
I had been doing it. I just hadn’t been doing it right.
“McKay, why didn’t you study for your last test?”
I did. Sort of. During the commercial breaks. I mean, it’s October for heaven's sake, and the World Series is on.
“McKay, if you can’t do the work right, you’ll have to get a tutor and pay for it with your own money.”
With the amount of allowance I got, I couldn’t afford to hire anyone who actually knew more about algebra than I did. (By the way, I didn’t actually say any of this; I just thought it. I may be failing algebra, but I’m not stupid.)
“McKay, if your grade hasn’t improved at least to a C by the end of the quarter, you’ll have to drop off the baseball team. That gives you just over a month to turn your grade around.”
My parents know how to pack a threat. Granted, at the moment I was just playing fall ball. The regular season wouldn’t start until spring, but baseball was a way of life for me, and I couldn’t imagine not playing it. Besides, this year the league was having a districtwide fall ball tournament at the end of November, and my team was sure to win. I had to play.
I don’t know why adults are so hung up on algebra, anyway. Why should I care what the letter x equals, when 4x + 7 + 8x = 43? I have my life all figured out, and it doesn’t involve algebra. I’m going to be a professional baseball player. All the math I’ll need to know is how to add runs, how to average batting scores, and of course, how to calculate interest on all of the money I’ll make. I don’t care which train reaches Philadelphia first—the one leaving from New York and traveling 55 mph. or the one leaving from DC going 40 mph. I live in Gilbert, Arizona. When I’m a professional ballplayer and do start to travel, I’m going to use a private jet.
I’ve tried to explain this to Mrs. Swenson. On the last test, when she asked one of those stupid train questions, I wrote, “Professional ballplayers let their managers worry about their travel schedules.”
Mrs. Swenson has no sense of humor. When I’m famous, I’m never going to autograph a baseball for her.
That night I sat down at the kitchen table and tried to do the next day’s assignment. I wrote 2x2 + 12x = -18 neatly on my piece of paper. Then I stared at the mysterious x for a while, hoping it would give me some hint to its identity. I tried to remember how Mrs. Swenson had explained these problems to the class, but I hadn’t been listening carefully, so I didn’t get very far.
When Mom walked by, I asked her if she could help me figure it out. She sat down next to me at the table and picked up the book. She scanned over the equations and then said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve done this type of math problem.” She tapped my pencil against the table, then wrote down some numbers. “Let’s see, I think you’re supposed to divide both sides of the equation by twelve . . . wait, that’s not it . . .” She wrote down a few more numbers, then scribbled them out.
“Just wait until they put those equations on trains and send them off to Philadelphia,” I told her.
She laid down the pencil. “Maybe your father will remember how to do this stuff.”
We looked at one another silently for a moment. Dad is the one who refuses to balance the check book because he can’t get his figures to match the bank's. He sits at the kitchen table, shaking his head at the bank statement, and insists that the bank has messed up again and computers can’t be trusted.
Mom let out a sigh. “Or maybe we really are going to have to get you a tutor.”
I slid my paper back in front of me and stared down at it with determination. “I don’t need a tutor.” My allowance doesn’t even cover the cost of decently updating my baseball card collection. The last thing I wanted was another expense. “I’ll call Tony and see if he knows how to do this.”
Mom raised an eyebrow. Tony is my best friend, but not the best at algebra. “Isn’t there someone else in your class you could ask?”
“I’ll ask Tony first.”
“Well, don’t spend too long on the phone. Remember, you don’t do anything with friends until your homework is done.”
“I know, I know.” I picked up my math book and trudged over to the phone. I bet Cal Ripkin Jr.’s mother had never given him these types of lectures when he was growing up.
Tony tried to explain the assignment to me, but it still didn’t make a lot of sense. I just couldn’t get some of the equations to work out. Instead of my trains meeting anywhere, I think they both got derailed in hideous wrecks.
My dad wasn’t much more help when he got home. Before bed he looked over my algebra problems, but it was only a symbolic gesture. It was because my mom made him. He held my paper up and got a studious look on his face. “Well. Yes. I see. Very interesting.” He put the paper down and nodded. “It’s nice to know some things never change. After all these years we’re still searching for the meaning of x.”
My mom glared at him, but he ignored her and leaned closer to me. “This is exactly the reason I became a plumber.”
Mom said, “Bill, you’re not helping.”
“Well, I would if he ever brought home assignments about installing water lines.”
In a lower tone Mom told him, “United we stand, divided we get kid-sized footprints on our faces.”
“Uh, right,” Dad said. Then he patted my shoulder. “Do your algebra, go to college, and become an aerospace engineer.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “If you’re not being serious with McKay now, how do you expect him to take us seriously when we tell him he has to pass algebra or quit baseball?”
Dad shrugged. “I told him to do his algebra. What’s not serious about that?”
“I think I understand it now,” I said because I hate it when my parents fight.
Mom looked at me skeptically. “You understand it now?”
“Yeah. Tony did a good job of explaining it to me. See. I finished all of the problems.” I picked up my paper and showed it to her.
She looked it over. “X equals 5.342? Shouldn’t x be a whole number like 7 or 12 or something?”
“Not necessarily,” I said.
How could she argue the point? After all, she didn’t know how to do the problems any more than I did.
She handed me back the paper. “All right.”
“See,” Dad said. “McKay is on his way to engineering school right now.”
Mom didn’t say anything more and left the kitchen.
Dad watched her leave. “I don’t think she likes engineers. Maybe you’d better become a brain surgeon instead.”
* * *
The next day at school when we went over the assignment in class, I got thirteen out of twenty right. That’s only sixty-five percent. I may not be great at algebra, but I’ve been figuring out percentages since I could read the back of a baseball card. Sixty-five percent was a D. Not exactly the kind of grade that would get me into medical school or keep me on the baseball team.
I felt sick for the rest of class. This time I’d really tried to do the homework, and I had still failed. All through lunch I kept saying, “I’m doomed. My baseball career is over.”
“No, it’s not,” Tony said. “You’ll get a tutor, and you’ll be fine.”
“I’m doomed, and my allowance will be gone,” I said.
“Maybe you could get someone at school to help you for free.”
“You helped me, and I only got twelve problems right.”
“Someone who’s better at math than I am.” Tony nodded toward the other side of the cafeteria where Serena Kimball sat.
Serena was good at math. In fact, Serena was good at everything. She was not only a straight-A student, but she was also the vice president of the eighth grade. Every year, while the teachers looked on in admiration, she played a piano concerto for the school talent show. In all the years I’d gone to school with her, I’d never once seen her long brown hair out of place.
“Right,” I said. “I’ll just waltz up to her and ask her if she’d like to come home with me and run some equations.”
“You could at least talk to her. You know, be friendly. Chat about things. Then when you mention you’re having a hard time with your math, if she likes you, she’ll volunteer to help you.”
“If she likes me?” I asked. “Why would she like me?”
“Why not?” Tony said. “If you tried, you could be—” He waved his hand over me like he was performing a magic trick. “Irresistible.”
I picked up my empty sandwich bag, crumpled it up, and threw it at him.
Tony had shown an increased interest in girls since we’d entered the eighth grade, but I still thought of them as odd creatures who couldn’t throw a ball the right way and always went to the bathroom in packs. Oh sure, there had been Stephanie Morris in kindergarten—we held hands during recess, and she told me she wanted to marry me. But after a couple of weeks of walking around like a small paper-doll chain, she said she’d decided to marry Randall Parker instead. No explanation. She led Randall around the playground for the next few weeks until she got tired of him, and then she started holding hands with Bobby Friedman.
That’s when I decided girls were more trouble than they were worth.
Still, I looked over at Serena. She was leaning across the table and telling her friend Rachel something. Both of their faces were animated and laughing. The end of Serena’s hair brushed against the table, and her face tilted sideways like she was about to tell Rachel a secret. I tried to imagine Serena sitting at my kitchen table, talking and laughing like that. Somehow it just didn’t seem likely.
Tony nudged me again. “Serena would be tons better than a paid tutor. Don’t you remember that tutor my sister got for her French class? It was some college student who spit when he talked and smelled funny. You don’t want to pay some guy to come over to your house and spit at you, do you?” He nodded toward Serena again. “Trust me, Serena is the way to go. You just have to think of some casual way to talk to her.”
“Like what?”
“You know, go up to her and say something.”
I looked from Serena back to Tony. “Like what?”
Tony wadded up his lunch sack and made a hook shot into the garbage can. “Don’t you know anything about girls?” When I looked at him blankly, he said, “It’s a game. The next best game after baseball. Only instead of a bat to get on base, you use your words and a Hollywood smile.”
I gave him my most skeptical look.
“Watch a master at work. I’m about to turn on the old Manetti charm.”
Ever since Tony had noticed girls, he’d been drawing upon his Italian heritage to help him radiate charm. He was also working on what he called a “cool walk.” It was sort of a cross between a rooster strut and a cowboy swagger -although sometimes, when he didn’t coordinate it right, it looked like he had something stuck on the bottom of his shoes, and he was trying to scrape it off. Now he walked up to Serena’s table doing the cool walk, and his strut and his swagger were almost perfectly timed. I followed him with my hands shoved into my pockets.
“Hi Rachel. Hi Serena.” He stopped a couple of feet away from them. “What are you guys doing?”
Rachel and Serena glanced at each other, then looked back at us with somewhat puzzled expressions. “We’re eating lunch,” Rachel said.
“Right,” Tony said. “We just finished.”
“Oh,” Serena said.
I gulped and swallowed and mostly looked at Serena’s shoes.
“The lunch was pretty good today,” Tony said.
“Oh really?” Rachel asked. “We brought sack lunches.”
So had we. I was glad the girls didn’t know this little fact, as they would have thought we were total idiots. As it was now, we might be able to escape this situation with the girls only thinking we were partial idiots.
“Yeah,” Tony said. “Lunch was good.”
The girls nodded at us with the same patronizing stare you use when you’re talking to four-year-olds.
“I guess we’ll be going now,” Tony said.
“Okay,” Rachel said.
As we turned and walked to the door, I could hear the girls erupt into giggles. I was glad my back was to them so they couldn’t see my face turn red. I shook my head at Tony. “That was a master at work?”
“It was a start,” Tony said.
“I think it was a strikeout.”
Tony pushed the cafeteria door open with more force than he needed to. “It was breaking the ice. Now it will be easier to talk to them next time.”
“Next time?” Even though we were out of the cafeteria, I could still hear Serena and Rachel’s laughter in my mind. I shook my head again and walked a little faster. “I think I’d rather pay all of my allowance to have some funny-smelling college student come over and spit at me.”
Chapter 2
After school, on the days we had baseball practice, I always walked home with Tony. His dad then drove us to the baseball field for practice. Mr. Manetti was the coach of the Gilbert Coyotes, the best team in the East Valley league; that’s how Tony and I originally became friends. We were on the same team in fourth grade and have played ball together ever since. Tony plays third base. I’m on second. We have our system down pat. I can field a ball and deliver it to Tony before the base runners even know where it's at. We call the space between second and third “no-man's land,” and we let no man cross it without feeling our wrath.
Tony’s dad is a real estate agen, but I think his real passion is baseball. He was an all-star in college and even had an offer from the Angels to play on their farm team, but he decided realty was a more stable profession so he’d followed that instead. Sometimes I wondered if he regretted the decision. For someone who’d rather be selling houses than playing ball, he spent an awful lot of time on the baseball diamond.
As we were fixing ourselves a snack in the kitchen, Tony’s older sister, Jenna, came in and sat down at the table. Her dark hair was twisted up in curlers, and she held her head perfectly straight so as not to jiggle them. She opened a bottle of fingernail polish and began painting her nails light purple. In between painting them, she blew on them.
After she was done with one hand, she glanced over at Tony. “I’m seeing Adam tonight. I’ll need your help again.”
Tony and I had just finished off half a bag of potato chips, and now he grabbed the peanut butter from the cupboard. “I’m busy eating.”
“You can talk and eat at the same time,” she said. “You do it all of the time.”
Tony opened a package of bread and handed me a couple of pieces. “Adam is into baseball,” he told me. “So now Jenna wants to be an expert.”
She held up her hands and examined her nails. “How complicated can it be? You play it all of the time.”
Tony ignored her and got the jam from the refrigerator. Jenna turned to me. “You’re a walking baseball encyclopedia like my brother. You tell me something.”
“Like what?”
“Like who was the best-ever pitcher?”
“Cy Young,” I said.
“Nolan Ryan,” Tony said.
“Make up your minds and tell me why.”
“His pitching record,” I said.
“Because he throws with style,” Tony said.
Jenna shook her head. “Are we talking about Young or Ryan?”
“Yes,” we both answered at once.
“Oh, never mind,” Jenna sighed dramatically. “Tell me about both of them.”
We gave her statistics for both Young and Ryan, and she repeated them as though she were trying to memorize a foreign language.
Tony finished off one sandwich, then got out bread to make another. “How could you have lived with Dad and me for so long and know so little about baseball?”
“It’s been hard,” she said, “but I’ve gotten pretty good at tuning the two of you out.”
“Thanks,” Tony said.
Jenna shrugged. “Well, I can’t help it if I don’t like baseball. I mean you hit a ball with a stick. How interesting is that?”
Tony gave her a long look. “Why don’t you just give up now and tell Adam you know nothing about the sport?”
“Because he’s the best-looking guy in the junior class. Maybe in the whole school.”
“You can’t just fake that you’re a baseball fan forever.”
“Yes, I can.” She got a dreamy look in her eyes and slowly smiled. “For Adam, I can.”
Tony looked over at me. “What did I expect her to say? We’re talking about someone who streaks her hair, puts on makeup to get the mail, and wears shoes that make her look an inch taller.”
“Oh,” she replied tartly. “And I suppose the reason you’ve been lifting weights lately is because the barbells need to be elevated several times a day. It airs them out.”
Tony blushed. “Lifting weights helps my batting technique.”
“Right,” she said. “As in, you want a bunch of girls to bat their eyes at you.”
“A lot of baseball players lift weights,” Tony insisted. “We also jog.”
“Oh really?” Jenna’s voice sounded studious again. “What else do you have to do?”
We told her what went on at practice, but in the end she decided to come with us to watch. She also took paper and pencil so she could take notes. Then while we played, she sat in the bleachers, pencil poised, and observed us.
It made practice that much harder. Every time I messed up, I wondered if Jenna was jotting it down. Later on she’d corner me somewhere and ask, “So, when you hit a ball straight up in the air and the pitcher runs up and catches it, are you supposed to drop to your knees and scream, or is that just your own personal ritual?”
Usually I’m a great batter. My average is .410.
I tried to ignore Jenna the best I could.
As Tony and I walked on the field to toss long balls, Tony brought up the subject of Serena again. “We walk by her locker on the way to math class. Tomorrow we should, you know, stop by and talk with her.”
“What exactly would we talk about?” This was always my problem when it came to girls. What did you say to them? With guys it was easy. You could say anything to a guy and not worry about it. Even if you said the most stupid thing in the world, he wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t make a big deal about it and sit around with his other friends giggling about you. Now I’m not saying absolutely that this is what girls do. But if they’re not laughing about boys, why is it you always see them huddled in groups, giggling as certain boys walk by?
Tony shrugged. “We could talk about math class. You know, you could say, ‘Hey Serena, did you finish all your math homework? That Mrs. Swenson is such a slave driver. She never gives us a free moment, does she?’”
That didn’t seem too hard to say, except when I pictured myself walking up to Serena’s locker and actually saying any of it. I know by the time boys are in the eighth grade they’re not supposed to be afraid to talk to girls, and a lot of my friends weren’t. Tony wasn’t. But Tony isn’t me. He has that “old Manetti charm” working for him.
I looked skeptically at Tony. “You don’t think she’ll think I’m a loser?”
“Naw. Why would she? We’ll just talk to her. Lots of people talk to each other. It’s no big deal. But remember, you’ve got to say something this time. Otherwise she’ll think I like her, and where would that leave you?”
“Peacefully sitting in algebra class enjoying my dignity.”
“Peacefully flunking your algebra class,” Tony said.
I opened and closed my glove a few times in an attempt to loosen it up. “All right. Tomorrow I’ll talk to her.”
* * *
Tomorrow came much sooner than I would have liked. First, second, and third period also went too fast, and then I was walking down the hall with Tony toward Serena’s locker.
I thought about trying to imitate Tony’s cool walk, but I figured I’d better practice in front of a mirror before I undertook anything so major. Instead, I grabbed my math book as hard as I could while still trying to look casual.
“What do you think about Rachel and me?” Tony asked me as we walked.
“Rachel and you what?”
“You know,” he said, lowering his voice. “Rachel and me as a couple.”
“Do you even know Rachel?”
“Sure.” Tony smiled a little. “I’ve seen her around. She’s cute.”
I slowed down a bit because we were coming up to Serena’s locker, and suddenly it was all I could do to drag my feet across the floor. “Yeah, but do you know anything about Rachel?”
“I know she’s Serena’s friend. Just think, if you become a couple, and Rachel and I become a couple, we could do things together.”
“We don’t need girls to do things together. We do things together all the time. Like right now we’re about to go make total fools of ourselves together.”
“Speak for yourself,” Tony said.
I took a swing at him with my math book, but missed. I was thinking of some really good insult to fling back at him, but we'd reached Serena's locker. She was kneeling down to get something at the bottom, and Rachel was leaning against the next locker over waiting for her.
I had never seen the inside of Serena’s locker, but I should have guessed it would be spotlessly clean. All of her books stood neatly stacked across the shelf, and there were no crumpled papers littering it up like there were in mine. She even had pictures of horses taped to the door. In my locker there’s nothing on the door but the wadded-up gum someone stuck there last year that I’ve never bothered to clean off.
Serena looked up at me, and I cleared my throat. I tried to remember what it was Tony said I should say. Somehow under the pressure of her gaze I forgot the first part of my speech. Instead of saying, “Hey Serena, did you finish all of your math homework? That Mrs. Swenson, what a slave driver. She never gives us a free moment.” I just croaked out, “Hi Serena, we never get a free moment, do we?”
Her jaw dropped a little, like she couldn’t believe I’d said that—which made two of us, since I couldn’t believe it either. With one hand still in her locker she said, “A free moment to do what?”
“Algebra,” I said quickly. “There’s never a free moment to do algebra.”
“Oh.” She nodded slightly and stood up. “I did my assignment last night. Didn’t you get it done?”
“Oh sure, I did it. I’m just not certain I did it right.” Tony hadn’t told me what I was supposed to talk about after my first statement, and suddenly I felt myself grasping for anything to say. “You know, I always think x equals one thing, and Mrs. Swenson has other ideas. That’s the problem with math. There’s no room for different opinions.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tony shake his head, but I plunged on anyway. “And why do you think they use the letter x so much in math anyway? We hardly ever use it in English class. I mean, how many words can you think of that start with x?”
“Xylophone,” Serena said.
“Exactly my point,” I said. “How often do you use the word xylophone?”
Serena and Rachel walked toward the math classroom, and Tony and I followed them. Although I hate to admit it, I was still spouting off my feelings about the letter x to her all the way down the hallway. “You see, it’s a difficult letter,” I told her as we walked through Mrs. Swenson’s door. “And that’s why they use it in math class. Math teachers want these problems to be hard.”
“Uh-huh.” Serena smiled at me before she took her seat, but I’m not sure whether it was the kind of smile that meant, I think you’re nice, or whether it was the kind of smile that meant, Which of your multiple personalities was I just speaking to?
I sat down sullenly in my own seat and opened my book to our assignment page. Tony sat down in the next row over. He was still shaking his head.
I tore a piece of notebook paper out and wrote, “I talked about math class to her. I thought you said she’d offer to help me.”
While Mrs. Swenson wrote equations on the board, I passed the note to Tony. He read it, wrote his reply, and passed it back to me. It said, “With your speech on the letter x, it’s amazing the school counselor doesn’t offer to help you. Besides, this was the first time you ever talked to her. Give it awhile. Say hello to her a few more times.”
I made myself listen to every word Mrs. Swenson had to say during her next algebra explanation. I hoped that if I listened instead of doodling pictures of baseball stadiums on my notebook, then suddenly everything would make sense. But it didn’t. And the worst part of it was, I knew it was my own fault. If I had paid attention from the beginning, if I’d asked for help when it first got hard, I wouldn’t have these problems now.
I scanned the room looking for someone else that might be willing to help me out. Brett Parson? He thought he was too good for everyone. He probably wouldn’t slow down in the hall long enough to say hello to me, let alone spend time with me and a math book. Rich Shefler? He’d been mad at me since that basketball game when he’d been hogging the ball so I’d refused to throw it to him no matter how open he was. Ian Thompson? I didn’t know him that well, but maybe . . .
As I looked around the room, I caught Serena’s eye. She smiled at me, then turned back toward Mrs. Swenson.
Or maybe, I thought, maybe Serena wasn’t such a bad choice after all.
Chapter 3
When I got home from school, the first thing I noticed was that my little brother, Kirk, had gotten into my dresser and dumped my clothes all over the floor. I put my backpack on my bed and went to find the little shrimpola.
I was an only child for eight years before Kirk came along, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t appreciate my onlyness. My parents had tried to have more children for years but weren’t able to. They’d just decided we were stuck being a three-person family, then Kirk surprised us all. When my parents told me I was going to have a brother, I was so happy I went wild. That was five years ago, before I realized a little brother’s main purpose in life is getting into his big brother’s stuff.
I walked into the family room and found Kirk watching TV wearing only my underwear. “Kirk, what are you doing?”
“Watching TV,” he said.
“I mean,” I said a bit more forcefully, “what are you doing in my underwear?”
“Watching TV,” he said again.
I went and stood in front of the TV. “Number one, you’re not supposed to get into my dresser. Number two, you left all of my clothes on the floor. And number three you’re not allowed to wear my things.”
He stood up and put his hands on his hips. “Get out of my way or I’ll tell Mom.”
“I’m not moving until you put my clothes back in my dresser and get out of my underwear.”
Kirk scowled and tried to push me. I put my hand on his head and held him away until he got so frustrated he yelled for Mom.
Mom came into the room two seconds later and looked at me accusingly. “You can’t even be home for five minutes without fighting with your brother?”
I let go of Kirk but didn’t step out of the way. “He dumped my clothes on the floor, and he’s wearing my underwear.”
Now mom’s gaze turned to my brother. “Kirk?”
“I spilled milk on myself and got all soaked, and I didn’t have any clean underwear.”
Mom sighed, mumbled something about doing the laundry, then said, “Go pick up McKay’s clothes and put them back in his dresser.”
“And my underwear?” I asked.
“It won’t kill you to let him borrow your underwear.”
“But Mom—”
“You’re not using them right now, and he needs some.”
This just goes to show you how unreasonable mothers can be. After all, a guy’s underwear ought to be sacred. I mean, what if somebody came over and saw those size 16 boxers hanging off of Kirk’s skinny little body? They’d know they were getting a firsthand look at my private matters.
Kirk gave me a smug look and left the room.
“Put everything back in the right drawers!” I called after him. Then I followed Mom into the laundry room.
“I need my own bedroom,” I told her. It was a matter we’d discussed before, but Mom always used one of three excuses to tell me I had to stay put: (1) It’s too much work to move somebody out; (2) Kirk will be lonely without you; (3) We don’t have the room.
We have a three-bedroom house, and the smallest bedroom is used as an office. My mom works at home as a medical transcriptionist, so she needs a computer, a filing cabinet, and that sort of stuff. In addition, she has every sewing project and craft she ever planned to finish stuffed into the closet. It’s probably the most crowded room in the house, but to my way of thinking, where there’s a will, there’s a way to get Kirk out of my room.
This time Mom started out with excuse number three. “We don’t have the room for separate bedrooms in this house.”
“Then let’s get a bigger house.”
“We’ve gone over this before. We don’t have the money for a bigger house yet.”
“Well, when is ‘yet’ ever going to happen?”
“Either when you and Kirk stop outgrowing your clothes on a monthly basis, or when Daddy or I get a raise.” She picked out some whites from the laundry basket and threw them into the washer. “Neither of which,” she muttered, “is likely to happen soon.”
I leaned against the dryer. “Couldn’t you just move your desk and all that office stuff into your bedroom?”
Mom threw a few more clothes into the washer. “You know how early your dad gets up. If we had the computer in our room, then I couldn’t work on things at night because he’d be sleeping. Besides, I’m not sure all of that stuff would fit into our room.”
“But Kirk constantly gets into my things. He has no respect for my property.”
Mom sighed. “I’ll talk to him about it.”
“When my friends come over, we can’t hang out in my room because he always follows us in there.”
“He looks up to you,” Mom said.
“I’d like him to look up to me from a different bedroom.”
Mom dumped some soap in the machine and turned the dial slowly. “I’ll discuss it with your father.”
This was farther than I’d ever gotten before on issue number three. “Really?”
Mom shut the lid of the washer and picked up stray socks from the floor. “Right now it’s just talking.”
“Right,” I said. But after Mom left the room. I did a little victory dance anyway.
When my dad came home from work, I was a model child. I complimented him on how clean he kept his truck. I got him the mail. I even made Herculean efforts not to fight with Kirk.
When dinner came, I remembered to say please and thank you as the food was passed around. Then I asked him how his day had gone.
“My truck, the mail, and now my day, huh?” He nodded at me knowingly. “You’re in some sort of trouble, aren’t you?”
I put my hand across my chest as though I’d been wounded. “I’m just trying to be the thoughtful kind of person you’ve raised me to be.”
Mom rolled her eyes but didn’t contradict me.
Dad broke a roll in half and spread margarine on one side. “My day . . .” He took a bite of his roll and seemed to contemplate this for a while. “I took a shower half way apart to find a leak, and then I fixed a couple of toilets—had to take one of them all the way off –and then I spent nearly two hours installing a reverse osmosis system. It was the most annoying piece of equipment I’ve come across in a long time, and the worst thing is it was our own RO system.”
The water in Arizona has roughly the same aftertaste as cough syrup, so most people either buy bottled water or filter their water through an RO system.
“Hendricks plumbing has their own RO systems?” I asked.
“They do now. About a month ago, they bought out a local RO company. So now not only do I have to install the stupid things, I’m supposed to be pushing them too.”