I’m getting ready for my first date with a deaf woman named June. My brother met her at work. He’s an accountant who works for H&R Block nights and weekends during the tax season, and they hired him because he’s trilingual in Spanish and Sign. June had come equipped with a white board, dry erase markers and no idea that there would be a seasonal employee who could communicate with her without the props. When Steve asked if he could set me up with her, I was hesitant. But after he reminded me that it had been three years since I went on a date, I relented.

There’s a knock on the lower part of the bathroom door, so I know its Isabella and not my brother.

            “Daddy, I’m hungry,” she signs.

            “Uncle Steve is making you dinner. Let Daddy finish getting ready,” I reply in both sign and speech.

            She frowns and walks down the hall, but I grab her before she gets too far because I notice that her hearing light aid isn’t on.

            “It’s broken,” she says.

            I check the battery and it seems to be working fine. I know it doesn’t really help her hearing; it’s just for her to become accustomed to having something on her ear before she gets the implant.

            The doorbell rings, or rather, the doorbell light flashes in the hallway. I yell at Steve that I’m not ready yet, so would he please get the door and keep June occupied? I can’t remember the last time I had to match my shoes to my belt, and when I realize that I own only brown shoes and black belts, I quickly swap my shirt for a sweater that will cover where the belt should be. I don’t remember getting ready for a date being so difficult.

            When I get downstairs, June and Isabella are sitting at the computer, with Isabella excitingly showing her new friend a dollhouse for which she’s saving her birthday, Christmas and tooth fairy money. It’s wooden with two stories, a porch, and a family of four. June tells her it’s worthwhile to save her hard-earned allowance for a toy so cool, and it’s at that point that Isabella sees me from the corner of her eye and turns around.

            “Hi Daddy,” she says

            June turns around. I love her smile.

            “Daddy, this is June. She thinks my dollhouse is cool. June, this is my Daddy. His real name is Henry.” She spells my name out and follows the “Y” with a slight pause and then the sign for my name. She’s still learning to spell, and I’m so proud of her for remembering this part of signing introductions.

            June points to my feet and asks if those are dancing shoes. I say no, and she suggests I change because her friend, a bartender, got us a reservation at a Cuban restaurant and bar with a live band.

            I laugh. “I got us reservations, too.”

            “Where?”

            “Nicolina’s Italian Bistro.”

            “But I feel like Cuban.” She scrunches her nose.

            “Okay, Cuban it is.”

            We leave the house and before we’re to the car, Steve calls my name. “You know it’s Saturday, right? My usual night out? You owe me one.”

            I respond with a universal sign that Isabella, thankfully, doesn’t understand yet.

            We order drinks—a margarita for me, a mojito for her. The mojito doesn’t have enough lime or mint, so she brings it back to her friend at the bar instead of relying on our incredibly slow waiter. She brings back two, and says that the bartender gave the second one with compliments to the lady and regrets on behalf of his bartending trainee.

            We order dinner and start eating the chips and three types of salsa.

            June says that she’s in computers, and that it’s boring, really, but pays the bills. She asks what I do, and I tell her I’m in construction. She looks at me like she doesn’t believe what I’ve told her, and grabs my hand.

            “No calluses and clean fingernails,” she says.

             I clarify and say that I’m in construction inspection and monitoring. She says she’s building a house on the east side, and could I come check it out for her? Just to, you know, make sure everything’s okay? I tell her sure, but my rates are steep.

            “But for you, I’ll make you a deal.”

            “Oh yeah?” She finishes the last sip of her second mojito.

             “A second date.”

            She winks and asks me to dance. She’s an excellent dancer, which is quite a relief since I can’t keep rhythm. I ask her for her secret to keeping the beat when she can’t hear the music.

            “I watch people around me and feel the bass,” she says. “Sometimes I can get the rhythm from the way my partner moves, but that way’s not working now.”

            After the second rumba, we walk back to our table, where the waiter has just brought our meal.

            We’re silent for a few minutes and I offer her a bite of my ceviche.

            “Where’s Isabella’s mom? she asks.

            I explain how she left three days after the diagnosis that our child had lost her hearing due to meningitis. She couldn’t handle not having a perfect child.

            “Isabella is a cute kid,” she says.

            “Thanks. We’re starting evaluations and paperwork to get her an implant.”

            Her forehead wrinkles. “Why?”

            “Why not?” I respond, the liquor making my face feel warm.

            I look over at her and she’s shaking her head.

            “You don’t understand being Deaf,” she says.

            I take offense since my daughter has been deaf since she was a baby. I sign, "You don't know anything about what it is to be a father."

            “But I do know what it’s like to not be perfect.”

            I throw a few twenties on the table, get up, and leave.

            June emails the next day reminding me that I had agreed to look at her new house. "I don't want to go out with you anymore," I write back.

            But she is sneaky and calls my office, asking to hire an inspector. And an inspector knowledgeable of Sign, at that. I tell my boss I don’t want the assignment, but he says, look here, she’s paid us up front and double the normal fee. I have no choice.

*          *          *

            Friday morning I meet June at her house site. She greets me with flowers and asks if I have to wear a construction helmet. I toss the flowers in my hot car and tell her my head will be fine.

            She gives me a tour of the framing, telling me that this will be the kitchen, the living room, the dinning room, and then each of the two bathrooms and four bedrooms. I can’t get a word in, otherwise I’d tell her that I could figure it out for myself, based on the rough-in plumbing and electrical.

            Most everything looks up to par, except for a few places where the framing around the large picture windows faces the backyard appears stressed. I suggest that she gets them reinforced, and she seems very thankful.         

            She asks if she can repay me for saving the windows from stress by taking me to lunch.

            “You already paid the firm,” I say.

            So then she asks if she can drop off a movie or cookies for Isabella instead.

            “No,” I reply and head back to my car. “I don’t want to see you anymore.”

            “I think I was right. You don’t know what kind of decision you’re making,” she signs, trying to stay in my line of sight.

            “Why bother me?” I reply.

            “Because someone needs to,” she answers.

            I throw the flowers out as I drive away. Back at the office, I tell my boss to not accept any more jobs from the Deaf woman, and he tells me it’s too late. June emailed and asked that someone be there after the sheetrock’s installed. I tell him to go find another inspector fluent in Sign for that job, and take off to pick up Isabella from pre-school for the last appointment before her implantation.

            Dr. Susan is running late, so we play a game of Go Fish in the waiting room. Isabella gets bored and sits back in her chair. “Daddy, can June come and play again?” she asks.

            “No, she’s not coming over anymore.”

            “Why? She’s pretty. And she likes dollhouses.”

            “She’s just not.”

            Once in the sound booth, Isabella climbs up the tall chair to get her middle ear pressure checked. Then the intern takes her to another room attached to this one with a window between them. She signs that she can see me, and then winks.

            Dr. Susan speaks to me while facing the window and fiddling with various knobs. “So, what’s this I hear about your new girlfriend?”

            “What?”

            “Henry, the Deaf community here isn’t that big,” she replies.

            “She won’t leave me alone.”

            After she tests Isabella, she tells me June had meningitis. Just like my daughter.

            “Won’t even consider an implant for herself. It’s a shame, really,” she says.

            Since Isabella was a big girl and did so well at the appointment, I give her the last fifteen dollars she needs for the dollhouse and we stop on the way home to get it. When we pull in the driveway, she’s excitedly telling me all about how she’ll be the little girl and I’ll be the daddy, and if Uncle Steve comes over he can be the brother. When she sees the visitor sitting on the front steps, she throws her hands up in delight.

            “And June can be the mommy!” she says.

            June comes to the car and unbuckles Isabella from her booster seat while I carry the dollhouse box into the house

            “You can leave now,” I say to June, but she’s busy showing Isabella DVDs that she brought.

            “But I have something for Isabella,” she replies. The first DVD is about fairy princesses and narrated in sign in the bottom right corner by Linda from Sesame Street. The second’s called “A Kid’s Fun Silence.” I read the back; it’s about living without hearing, and how great it is to communicate in sign.

            “Thank you, but we don’t need these.” I give them back to her and motion toward the door. But Isabella has taken a liking to the fairy princess on the front of the first DVD, and she asks if we can watch it right now.

            “Of course,” June says. She walks to the DVD to put it in.

            “No, we can’t. You were just leaving,” I say.

            “Please Daddy, can’t we watch the movie?”

            I sigh and sit on one end of the couch. June sits on the other, and Isabella sits between us, holding our hands.

            As I fall asleep that night, I get angry with myself for thinking that despite being weird to me, June is really great to my daughter.

            Steve comes over for Saturday morning breakfast, and over his second helping of Frosted Mini Wheats, he tells me he’ll be out of town on business the day of Isabella’s surgery. He’s so sorry, but there’s nothing he can do about it.

            I speak so Isabella doesn’t understand what’s going on.

            “You couldn’t have said no? Why not? Isn’t Isabella important to you?”

            “I tried, really. She’s your daughter.”  He stands up and brings the half empty plate to the sink.

            “But I need you,” I respond.

            Isabella comes back to the table to finish her pear slices, and I pull her on my lap and inhale the sweet smell of her fine blonde hair.

            Apparently there are no other inspectors fluent in Sign, so on Monday I’m back at June’s house site. She’s waiting in her car, and doesn’t get out while I walk around the house. The sheetrock is fine. There’s no reason, really, for me to be here. She must know that.

            I go to the backyard to check on the sprinkler installation, and there’s a table made from two sawhorses and a few planks of wood. A bottle of wine sits next to crackers and brie cheese. I hear the back door open, and she walks toward me.

            “I’m sorry I was a jerk,” she says. “I just want to be another opinion, that’s all.”

             “I’m the father,” I say as I stand up. “You don’t know what that’s like.”

            “Please,” she says. “Don’t go.”

            I leave through the back gate and shut it behind me so she can’t follow.

            I pick up Isabella early from school and take her to the toy store to get furniture for her dollhouse. We spend the rest of the afternoon arranging small living rooms, kitchens, dining rooms, and bedrooms. Just the two of us.

            Steve stays overnight the day before the surgery. Isabella has a nightmare, so she climbs into bed with me. I can’t sleep; I watch her body move with her breathing instead.

            We drop Steve off at the airport on the way to the hospital.

            “Call me,” he says, and gives Isabella a hug and kiss.

            We check in, and I sit with Isabella, who is wearing a cloth hospital gown with balloons and teddy bears. She asks if the doctor shaves off all her hair or just a small part. I tell her he won’t shave too much, but she asks me to ask him anyway. She snuggles on my lap until the nurse comes in with the IV. My legs get weak, and when she starts to drift to sleep, I have to remind myself to be in control; I am master of myself, and I will not get upset.

            The nurse wheels her away, and I take my things to the waiting room. June is sitting there, facing the door, waiting for me.

            “Susan told me,” she says.

            “Dr. Susan? Doesn’t that break patient confidentiality or something?”

            She says she saw Dr. Susan at morning Mass, and she had just assumed she knew.

            “Why would she assume that?” I ask.

            She shrugs.

            I change the television channel to a show about seahorses and sea dragons.

            She takes a bag of M&Ms from her pocket and offers me some.

            “I want her to be perfect.”

            “She already is,” she replies.

            “I know,” I say. She holds my hand, and I drift asleep with three candies in my mouth.

            June wakes me a little over two hours later when the surgeons come out to talk to me. The surgery went well; no, they only shaved a small patch behind her ear; yes, we can go back now, but she’s probably still sleeping.

            June looks at me, and I grab her hand. We walk into the room, and there’s my daughter, her head wrapped in a bandage, and the left side of her face swollen. I climb into the hospital bed next to her and June sits in a recliner on the other side of the room. When Isabella and I wake up a few hours later, June is gone. But she’s left something: it’s a little girl for Isabella’s dollhouse, with blonde hair and an implant painted near her left ear.

           

Pygmy Owl

Six months ago, when I moved into my first floor condo on Creek Street, I was all by myself, moving boxes and furniture out of the U-Haul truck. A scraggily man sauntered up to me and introduced himself as Buck. He shook my hand, and I made sure to wash up before moving any more boxes. He carried the heavy furniture, and afterward I picked up a pizza and some beer at a joint down the street. When I came back he was sleeping on my couch. I plopped on the recliner, turned on the TV to Highlander, and threw back a few beers. By around ten I was tired, so I woke Buck and sent him home, but I couldn’t fall asleep until I steam cleaned the couch he had slept on.

The next morning, I woke up to the roar of a lawnmower outside. I put on my glasses and stuck my head out of the window.

“Buck, what the hell are you doing?”

“I can’t hear you!” he yelled.

“I said, what the hell are you doing?” I yelled back.

He turned off the lawnmower. “First time’s free, then you’ll have to pay me.”

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. “How much?”

He raised 10 fingers. “And half a pepperoni pizza.”

“How about at 10 am?”

“Got it.” He left the mower in the middle of the lawn. He came back at 10 and I gave him the other half of the pizza.

The following weekend Buck helped me plant marigolds in my vegetable garden to repel aphids. He wouldn’t dig the hole deep enough, saying that even if not all the roots got under the ground, they’d get there eventually. I followed after him, uprooting, redigging, and replanting. He pretended not to notice, and eventually didn’t even bother with holes, just took the plants out of their cartons and plopped them on the wet ground. Before we got to the last side of the tomatoes, he stood up. “How come I come over here, and you never come to my house?” he said.

“Well, let’s go when we finish up here.”

“No, let’s go now.” He brushed his hands on the butt of his jeans and took off across the street, completely disregarding traffic.

“Buck!” I yelled, but he was already on the other side. He motioned for me to cross. I put a finger in the air to signal “one minute.”

I washed my hands in the kitchen, and from the window over the sink could see Buck jumping around his front yard like he was avoiding land minds. I put a small, sanitized packaged hand wipe in my pocket, just in case.

I crossed the street at the crosswalk, and by the time I got to Buck’s house he was sitting on his front steps. His dilapidated old house nestled into the dry ravine, and mesquite and paloverde trees surrounded the house in an attempt to hide the cracking mud walls. Several saguaro ribs jutted out from the top of the flat roof. A cactus wren perched on one.

“Watch out! Watch out!” Buck yelled as he pointed to my feet, where a dead rattlesnake lay in the path.

He opened the garage door to reveal old Cadillac panted cobalt blue with metal fleck. He stroked her wheels. I touched the headlight, my fingernail scratching off dried bird poop. I discretely used the handi-wipe I brought.

I followed him through a laundry room, devoid of machinery. He threw open the door to his left, admitting a strong gush of air and bright light. Thousands of tiny shards of glass epoxied to the upper half of oneof the walls reflected light from the picture window on the opposite side. Photographs of birds covered the others.

“Did you take these?” I asked, staring at a picture of a pygmy owl perched on a flower of a cholla.

He nodded, and then motioned for me to take a seat on the only furniture—a papasan chair without the cushion.

“No thanks, I want to see the rest.” I started to walk toward a door to my left.

He told me he’d show me around another time, so I went home, took a shower, cooked eggs and asparagus, and watched television until bedtime.

Buck and I developed a routine. I’d order a pizza Saturday night. He’d come over Sunday morning, mow the lawn, and eat the rest of the pizza. Once I convinced him to let me cut his hair. It took several vacuumings to get all his hair out of my rug.

He needed $40 more dollars to buy a new camera. His old one broke when he went hiking, he said. He chanced upon a snake sliding out of a hole in a saguaro. Half a Gila woodpecker was sticking out of his mouth making a terrible racket. He got scared and dropped his camera.

“How terrible,” I said.

I took him to buy the new camera. He insisted on sitting on a towel. “Been having problems,” he said.

“Are you eating well?” I asked.

“Some canned peas, wieners from a can, some powdered milk, a half of a pizza on Sundays,” and he rattled off some other nutrient-deprived, preservative soaked foods.

After he picked out his camera, we stopped at Fry’s, where I bought him to groceries. He went overboard with the Cheerio’s and peanut butter. I pushed fresh vegetables and fruits, but he countered me by saying that they’d just go bad because he didn’t have a refrigerator.

He wore his camera everywhere. “Never know when I’ll see a red-tail hawk,” he said.

I got lazy, so on Saturday night’s I’d just bring the half pizza with me into my room and eat my half while watching movies on network television. In the morning, Buck would rap on my window, and I’d open it just enough to slide out the pizza with a $10 bill taped to the cardboard. We didn’t talk on those days. He’d start eating the pie before the window was shut, and I’d turn over and fall back asleep.


I saw Buck’s car roll over into the ravine. The combination of creating elaborate dinners for one and not having a dishwasher left me at the kitchen sink for at least an hour every night on the days I wasn't eating pepperoni pizza. Once I tried to make my own, and Buck didn’t like it so he wouldn’t cut my grass the following week until he saw the delivery box with his own eyes.

So that particular Saturday, I had made a delightful lunch—grilled pears with ricotta, chicken basted in all sorts of spices, and a simple spinach salad. I had set aside servings to bring over to Buck, but wanted to clean the dishes first. This chicken created quite a mess in my new pan.

I had learned the sound of Buck’s car from a distance, and when I heard the grumbling of the transmission that day, I looked out my window to the exit off of I-10 onto Creek Road. That’s how I saw the accident. He was going too fast, and the wheels couldn’t keep up with themselves. The car rolled over. When I got to the scene, Buck wasn’t moving.

The officers asked me all sorts of questions, and I didn’t know the answers. I didn’t know if he had any family; I didn’t even know his last name. I said he was my friend, he mowed my lawn and he liked Cheerios. Rather than drive away empty, the ambulance took me to the hospital where I was treated for shock. They let me out after a few hours.

The pizza delivery guy arrived at my door at 8:30. “You didn’t call,” he said. “I thought something might be wrong.”

“No, everything’s fine.” I smiled and lied and paid him a big tip. I ate half the pizza still standing in the doorway with the door wide open.

Sunday morning at 10 I awoke to silence. I dressed in my best linen pants and blouse, packed my purse fill of handi-wipes and paper towels, clutched the half-eaten pizza, and jay-walked across the street to Buck’s house.

I set the pizza on his chair, and walked over to the picture of the pygmy owl sitting on the cholla flower. Gently, I removed it from the wall and wrapped it in the paper towels.

The Jameson Place

Fourteen years ago, when I was two, Mom let her cousin Reggie park his Vanagon on our property in return for building our house, while we lived in the Travelodge in the next town over. “It’s better to trust family,” she said. And Reggie trusted that she didn’t know the smell of pot. The result of his endeavor was a two bedroom, one bath cape with red shutters and a blue door. Mom called it her beach house, but it was two streets away from the actual sand. “It’ll be worth a gold mine someday,” she said as a constant reminder as to why we fought the New England winters with a wood stove and warm sweaters. Reggie continued to live in his van in the backyard.

Nate lived across the street and three houses down. Reggie also built his family’s house, and had planted the pot that grew under the front porch. We didn’t realize what it was until the first day of our sixteenth summer, when we saw his dad and Reggie roll it in paper and smoke it like a cigarette. From then on out we did the same every afternoon while our parents were at work. Sometimes we’d go into the back shed, him sitting on the lawnmower and I on a broken Adirondack chair that gave my thighs splinters. Sometimes we’d crawl under the porch and watch the cars go by. Sometimes we’d go to the beach, to this cove accessible only by water or a hike over slippery rocks or the Jameson stairs. We’d bring his dad’s gin and a pipe, and lose ourselves in the salt water. That was our place. He kissed me once there, but said it was an accident, he didn’t mean to, he was high and didn’t know what he was doing.

We only got caught once. Nate’s mom came home from work early with a headache and immediately smelled us out. She yelled at Nate’s dad until her headache became a migraine. From then on we were more careful about when and where to have our fun, if for no other reason than to preserve Nate’s parents’ marriage.

Mid-June, Reggie’s ex-wife died, and their daughter came to live in his van. Most nights, Leanna would sleep in my room. It had purple lace curtains, purple carpeting and a white trundle bed with purple linens. “I don’t think it’s right, a young woman sleeping in a van,” she said. “Plus, I don’t think he showers.”

She was wrong, though. Reggie showered when it rained. “It’s nature’s way of saying you smell bad,” he’d say while taking a towel from our linen closet. And then Mom would shut all the back window blinds.


Leanna and I got jobs working as ice cream scoopers at Shane’s Dairy. She recommended the malted vanilla, while I preferred the black cherry with hot white chocolate fudge. We both gained weight the first week, but by the second had lost the weight by a combination of our lactose-induced diarrhea and sticking fingers down our throats.

Nate didn’t work until the end of that summer. He was a regular at Shane’s, and eventually welcomed himself to a chair between the freezers. “So I can see my two favorite girls and eat my favorite food, all day long,” he said. He liked chocolate caramel ripple, ate about a quart a day, and never gained a pound.

I came back from the restroom once to see them making out, she sitting on the counter, her legs wrapped around his torso.

“What the hell?” I said, and whacked Nate with a towel. “Have you been smoking?”
“Maybe,” he said, and pinched my butt on his way out the door.


In July, Reggie built a treehouse for us. In his mind, Leanna and I were eleven years old and still playing with dolls. But it was well constructed, so we humored him and slept there when the heat made sleeping in the house unbearable. Nate would sneak out to join us after his parents were sleeping.

We didn’t take Leanna to the cove until then. The nearly empty gin bottle was right where we had buried it, with a rock shaped like New Hampshire marking the spot. We finished it off, stripped to our underwear, and ran straight into the waves.

“What’s that?” Leanna asked, pointing to a light on the other side of the cove.

“The Jameson place,” Nate said. “I’ve been there once, when I was younger. My dad fixed a faucet or something.”

“I want to live there,” she said.


That night in the treehouse, I awoke having to pee. Nate was curled up next to sleeping Leanna, his head nuzzled in her brown curly hair, a huge erection in his pants. I kneed his butt just enough to wake him without disturbing Leanna.

“Cut it out,” I said.

“Did you see her at the beach? Those breasts?” he asked. I punched his arm, and he rolled over and went back to sleep.

I couldn’t sleep, so I walked around the neighborhood. I found a dead squirrel on the law of Nate’s house, and went home to get a plastic bag. After double-checking that it was knotted tight, I flung it through his open bedroom window. He thanked me for it in the morning.


August was sweltering. On the first Sunday of the month, the old people at church said it was the hottest on the books, worse than that summer when they were sixteen. That night, we camped in the tree house, Leanna and I. We spread a sleeping bag on the uneven floorboards, and each clutched a flashlight.

I asked her if she liked Nate, and she said no, he’s too scrawny and she only likes guys who are at least six feet tall.

“But, you know, he’s here, might as well.” She shrugged.

I rolled over, facing the wooden wall.

In the morning, Reggie called into the tree house for us to come down.

Leanna fumbled for her glasses and checked her watch. “Reggie, it’s 7:30. Let us sleep some more,” she yelled.

“I got some good news!” he hollered back.

I looked over the spilt rail fence and saw him prancing around the tree without a shirt on and holding a water bottle filled with iced tea. “Do we really need to come down there?” I asked.
“Oh for the love of God, just humor him!” Mom was shaking a rug outside the window of her second story room.

Leanna mumbled something under her breath about being allergic to mornings, and I followed her down the tree trunk.

“I got a job,” he said as he threw his hands in the air, his body leaning slightly backwards as if to open himself to the morning sun.

“That’s all? I’m going back to bed.” Leanna started to make her way to the house.

“I’m building a new porch at the Jameson place. A wrap-around the north and east sides.”

Leanna stopped in her tracks and asked without turning around, “Isn’t that the house on that cove?”

“The same one.”

“Great news, Reggie.” She continued on her way.

“I’m proud of you,” I said. I hugged his shirtless torso and followed Leanna to my room.

I opened the door, and she was already under the covers.



Reggie started working on the porch, and then decided it was too much for one man to do alone. He hired Nate for next to nothing, and the two of them spent a week just cutting the timber and staging the porch. Leanna and I brought them lunch. I’d talk to the guys while trying to ignore their sweaty stench, and she’d wander around the house, looking in the windows at the furniture covered in linen.

“Reggie, can we go in? Did they give you a key or something?”

He said no, that if he needed to go in, he’d get the key from the woman who watches the place during the off-season.


That night, Leanna wanted to go to the cove and then up to the mansion. We made our way along the path, with overgrown grass and weeds tickling our legs. A seagull startled us, causing Nate to drop the booze, which slid down the slick rocks into a crevice, where the waves banged the bottle against the stone. It was decided that Leanna had the thinnest arms, so she laid on a boulder covered with bird droppings, her upper body reaching into the abyss and butt in the air. Nate’s eyes were glue to her rump. I shoved him. He lost and then quickly regained, his balance.

Above those same rocks, keeping guard over the cove as waves and storms and tides abuse her shores, sat the mansion. We hiked the stairs leading to a lawn, where carefully manicured trees line the path to the house. I held two bags, one of pot and the other of marshmallows, Leanna held the gin, and Nate held both our hands until we reached the porch. Nate took a ladder Reggie had left that afternoon and leaned it against the siding. He opened an unlocked window, and told us to wait. He let us in the front door, and using our flashlights we guided ourselves from the entry to a living room. White sheets covered the furniture, but there was fresh wood in the fireplace. We walked past the dining room on the right, a library on the left, and then followed Nate into the kitchen. We stood the three flashlights around the sink.

“We need a fire,” I said, and opened the marshmallows.

Nate pointed to the sink. “Let’s do it here so there’s no smoke from the chimney.” He took a gulp of gin, and then passed me the bottle. Leanna went to the fireplace to gather kindling.

I arranged the kindling in the deeper of the two sides of the white porcelain sink while Leanna took a shot and Nate filled his pipe. In a cabinet, Leanna found dishes in newspaper, and unwrapped a few sheets to stick in the flames. Forks from the fine china became skewers for the marshmallows.

We left the mess in the kitchen and went back to our treetop.

The next day, when we brought lunch to the guys, Reggie told us there had been a break-in at the mansion.

“They left this, can you believe it?” he asked, holding up a bag with the remains of the pot. “It’s local grown,” he said.

Leanna bent to tie her shoe, and I could see Nate’s eyes stroke the curvature of her body.

“Any idea who it was?” I asked.

“Probably some stupid kids,” he said.

Four weeks and no more trips to the Jameson place later, I scopped Reggie some chocolate ice cream from mom’s stash in the back of the fridge.

“I have to go to Portland tomorrow,” he said.

“What for?”

“Collect my money. Porch’s finished.”


The next day, I pressed Reggie’s one and only white shirt and church pants. He sat on a kitchen chair on the porch, and I could hear Leanna asking him when he last had a haircut as she ran the scissors through his curls. “Now go take a proper shower,” she said, and nudged him toward the house. He used my lavender shampoo and Nate commented that he smelled quite lovely. Reggie didn’t own a pair of dress shoes; he had always worn sneakers to church. Nate loaned him his old pair.

“They have no arch support. How the hell am I supposed to walk my way to Portland with no arch support?”

“You’re not walking. That’s too far,” said Leanna.

Reggie said he wasn’t really going to walk the whole distance, he’d get rides along the way from passers-by. Nate called him crazy and said he’d take him, since he wanted to check on a guitar anyway. Leanna and I had to work, otherwise we would have gone with them.


Nate came back without a guitar and Reggie with a new bottle of vodka. He wanted to take us to dinner to celebrate a hefty bonus. Mom told him to save his money, but he wouldn’t listen. So she told him to change, he wouldn’t want the towns’ folk to wonder why he was all dressed up on a Wednesday. And this time he did listen.

He took off his shirt and handed it to Leanna, who examined the thin worn weave. I handed him a glass of iced tea.

Leanna turned to me and whispered. “We need to go back tonight, to the Jameson place.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s our last chance.”


We left at 10:30 for the mansion. Nate was high already and Leanna was drunk after three quick shots on an empty stomach. Neither could walk a straight line, so we took the road rather than the coast. The house was dark, and two of the three flashlights were out of batteries. I took the one good light, and we linked arms. We brought hotdogs this time, and roasted them over the sink fire until their casings turned black and cracked. We each ate two, and left the other two on the window ledge to appease the spirits of the house. We took the sheets off the living room furniture, plugged in the television, and sprawled on the leather sofas. Leanna fell asleep while Nate and I watched the last half hour of Stagecoach. He came over and sat on the edge of the couch.

“Did you know John Wayne’s real name was Marion?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He lay next to me. “Do you love me?”

“Maybe.”

The movie finished, and the lack of noise from the TV woke up Leanna. “Let’s go upstairs,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I want to sleep in a four post bed.”

We took the gin and pot up the grand staircase and opened all the bedroom doors until we found the master bedroom. Behind the curtains, a wall of windows framed the ocean angered by wind. Nate stood on the dresser and unhooked one side of the curtain rod from the wall. Leanna and I removed the curtain and placed in on the naked bed as our blanket. We finished the gin and fell asleep.

I awoke having to pee and looked over at Nate and Leanna. They were sleeping naked, covered in their mixed sweat, his hand on her breast. I stared at the perfect curvature of her form and the way his lips, slightly open, drew in wisps of hair with every breath.

I went down the stairs and into the kitchen. I ate one of the hotdogs from the window ledge, cold and speckled with dirt and dust. Barefoot, I went back up the mahogany staircase.

I paused in front of the open door and stripped off my clothing. As I neared the bed, I stopped, calculating the most precise, most perfect way to position myself on the other side of Nate. I snuggled next to him, smelling the warmth from his chest, and fell asleep.

Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Nate sat up startled. “Do you hear that?” he asked. I did. There was the distinct sound of a car on the rock driveway. I looked out the window, and there was the caretaker’s car making its way toward the mansion. We woke Leanna, grabbed our clothes, and dressed as we ran down the stairs. We raced out of the house, across the lawn, and down the steps into the cove. We fell back on the hard, wet sand and lay there until we caught our breath.

After an hour, or maybe it was two, we walked home, and got there just as Reggie handed a key over to a cop, who then appeared to scold him.

After the cop left, Reggie sat on the front steps. When he saw us approaching, he told Leanna to pack her things; they would leave before lunch. I asked what had happened, and he shrugged me off. Nate went home.

I went inside the house, where my mom was sitting in the living room next to an open window. She said the caretaker of the Jameson place reported to the police that the house was a broken into and that she found a bag of pot. The cop traced it to Reggie, since he had a key to the house and had been warned about his pot garden in the past. And then she asked if I knew anything about it, and by the way, where had I been that morning?

I told her Leanna and I had stayed at Nate’s last night, and I no clue he had brought pot to the Jameson place.

True to his word, Reggie and Leanna left before lunch. I packed them a few sandwiches and a thermos of iced tea. I told Leanna to tell Reggie it was us, and that I would tell my mom and she would straighten things out, and that they didn’t have to leave like this. But she told me it was too late; there was nothing we could do now. Reggie had made up his mind, and they were leaving.

Nate came over to see them off. He kissed Leanna like he meant it, like he had never kissed me. After they left, he told me he didn’t feel like hanging out so much anymore. I didn’t see him the rest of that summer, except for that one time he came to ask for Leanna’s new address. He had a postcard to send her, and I told him I didn’t know where she was, although only the day before she called to say they were in Florida.

Election Countdown Paper Chain

With a flick of her wrist and a slight hop, Marisol shoots the basketball into the hoop above her. I clap and jump up and down. It’s the ninth ball in a row she’s gotten.

Marisol and I always play basketball on the playground at recess. Since Josh Carver and his friends put dibs on the new court, we go to the old one. It’s on the little kids’ playground, but since we’re the youngest on the big kids’ side, we don’t mind. Marisol likes feeling older than the little kids. Today her sister and some of her first grade friends sit on the ground and watch us.

Neither of us really knows how to play basketball. Coach Steve, our PE teacher, taught us how to dribble, so mostly we dribble back and forth for a while, and then we take turns trying to get the ball in the hoop. Marisol is much better than me. She doesn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Spanish. We both know a few words, but mostly we point and make hand signals. It works for us. The other girls think we’re weird. The little girls copy us, even though they all speak Spanish anyway.

Today Marisol and I both wear pink skirts. We didn’t plan on that. Mom bought me two pink skirts at Target because she didn’t know which size would fit. I gave the smaller one to Marisol, and sometimes we wear them on the same day. Marisol calls them our friends’ skirts. That was her first English word—friend.

The bell rings, and we each take our basketballs, holding them in front of us like big bellies. Josh Carver runs between us and hits the top of the balls so they fall out of our arms. I think Marisol is going to cry, so I pick up my ball and throw it at Josh’s back.

I hear Mrs. Howard blow the whistle she wears around her neck when she has playground duty. “Miss Margaret! What do you think you are doing?” She walks over to me. Marisol wipes tears out of her eyes, but her hands are dirty from playing, so she smears dirt on her face. I take a tissue out of my pocket and give it to her.

“Sorry, Mrs. Howard. It slipped,” I lie.

She looks from me to Marisol. “Well, don’t let it happen again.” Mrs. Howard doesn’t like Josh either.

My first day at Palo Verde Elementary, there were two other new girls. Marisol and her sister sat on a bench, waiting for their mom to finish filling out papers. My mom had to fill out papers too, so I sat next to them.

“Hi, I’m Maggie.” I swung my feet because they didn’t touch the floor.

Neither of them said anything.

“Where are you from? I moved here from my old school in Mesa.” There was a big map of Arizona on the wall behind us. I turned around and put my finger on Mesa. “From here to here,” I said as I move my finger to Phoenix.

The older girl put her finger off the map, below Arizona, and traced a line through the desert to Phoenix. Since we were in the same class, we walked there together, and the teacher sat us together. I didn’t mind, because the other girls in the class didn’t look very nice. That recess was the first time we played basketball.

One day, I brought a picture of my old house to show Marisol. She held the picture in her hands, and looked back and forth from me to the picture.

She wasn’t at school the next day, so I played basketball all by myself.

Friday she was at school again. She was a little late, so she rushed to her desk. Before she took out her drawing paper, she pulled a picture from her pocket. It was a picture of a family. I recognized Marisol and her little sister, but there was an older brother I hadn’t seen before. I pointed to him, and she looked sad. My face asked a question. She opened her social studies book to the inside cover and pointed to Nogales, a town on the border of Mexico and Arizona. That’s how I learned what city she moved from.

Josh Carver walked over to my desk. He had a problem staying in his seat. Everyone else was water-coloring desert landscapes we found in magazines. He pointed to Marisol. “Do you know she’s not supposed to be here? That’s what my dad said.” His dad was the principal.

“Why?” I dipped my brush into the blue paint, and a drip accidentally feel on the dirt part of my painting.

“Because she’s illegal.” He walked to the sink, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

“How’s your friend?” Mom puts a bowl of popcorn in front of me.

I put a few pieces in my mouth. “She’s good.” Mom pours a Diet Coke into two glasses, one for me and one for her. I take a gulp of mine. “Josh says she’s illegal.”

Mom takes a breath and sits on the stool next to mine. “Not all Mexicans in Arizona are illegal immigrants.”

“If she is, is that a problem?”

“I guess it can be.” A few minutes later, Mom puts her popcorn bowl in the sink, picks up her book, and goes over to her favorite reading chair. I start going through the mail to see if any fun things came today. We didn’t get any fun catalogues, but we did get some political fliers, and that’s good because Mrs. Howard told us to go through our mail and newspapers to find things to put on our Election Day bulletin board. The board is split into quarters. The top left square has pictures and articles about George W. Bush, and the top right has pictures and articles about John Kerry. On the bottom are ones for the state and national politics.

“Mom, can I have some of your mail?” I yell into the other room.

“What mail?”

“Stuff about the election.”

“Okay, but I want to read it first.”

I start putting them into piles. Three fliers are for senators. Five fliers are about the presidential candidates—two for the Bush board, three for the Kerry. Three pieces of paper are about propositions, which go into the state square. I know about the senators and presidential candidates, but I don’t know anything about the propositions, so I start reading them. One is against a new light rail running across the valley, another is for it. One is called “The Arizona Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act,” but it actually talks about illegal immigration. I hide that one in my backpack.

Mom comes back in the kitchen. “Why don’t you call Marisol and see if she wants to come swimming?” she asks.

I tell her I don’t have Marisol’s phone number, so instead Mom and I make a chocolate cake with peanut butter cream cheese frosting.

I bring two big pieces of chocolate cake for Marisol and me to eat for lunch the next day. We stand in line to get milk, and Josh Carver gets in line behind us. I hear him saying something to his friends and then they laugh. I turn around.

“What did you say?” My hands are on my hips, and I try to look mean.

Josh looks to his buddies and then back to me. “I said that I didn’t know they took her kind of food stamps in the lunch line,” he says as he points to Marisol.

I stomp on his foot. I know it hurts because I’m wearing my new boots and they have a big heel.

Marisol grabs my hand. “Thank you, Maggie.” I like how she says my name.

Mrs. Howard rushes over and tells me that I have to stay in during recess after lunch.

I have to sit at my desk silently. That’s okay with me, because I like doing quiet things. I color a picture of my old house in Mesa, and I draw Mom and Marisol’s mom sitting on the front porch, watching Marisol, Marisol’s sister and me playing basketball. We didn’t really have a basketball hoop at that house, but it’s my picture, so I can draw what I want. And I want to move back there. I wonder if Marisol wants to move back to her old house too. I take a break and say, “Mrs. Howard, what are illegal immigrants?”

She looks up from the spelling tests she’s grading. “They’re people who come across the Mexico/Arizona border who aren’t supposed to be here. They cost taxpayers lots of money.”

“Oh.” I finish my picture and put it in my backpack. Mom will say it’s nice and put it on the refrigerator at home.

After recess, the class comes back and we start Social Studies. Mrs. Howard puts on a silly red, white, and blue hat. That’s how I know we’re going to talk about the election again. That’s all we’ve been learning about lately. Mom says it’s very important and that I should pay attention. In our classroom, we have a multi-colored paper chain across the top of the Election Day bulletin board. Every day the kid with the most gold stars on their work gets to take down one link of the chain. When we get down to no links, it’s Election Day.

Mrs. Howard calls on us to read out loud about our local governments. I never get called on. When we’re done, she has Samantha R. pass out a worksheet, and we’re allowed to work with our table groups. Since I’m pretty good at Social Studies, I let Marisol copy what I write.

“Social Studies is hard,” she says. I nod my head.

Josh tips his chair back, with the toe part of his sneakers grabbing onto the underside of the desk. “See that, Marisol? We have eight links left. And then you’ll have to go home.” His toes lose grip and he almost falls backwards. Samantha R. is next to his table, so she catches his chair before he hits the ground.

Every Saturday, Mom and I go to visit Grandma and Grandpa. Usually Mom and Grandma go to the grocery story, and Grandpa and I play old board games that my mom played when she was a little girl. But today, before going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, Mom has a food box delivery to make. She’s a social worker. The place we’re going to today is in South Phoenix, near 24^th street and Broadway. It’s a bad part of town.

“Do I have to wait in the car?” I ask.

“Are you scared?” Mom replies.

I nod my head.

Mom opens the trunk and hands me a box of pasta, rice, and cereal. She takes the heavy cans and juices. As we walk to the door, I notice several sets of children’s eyes through the mini blinds. Mom knocks, and a little girl answers. She’s the same age as Marisol’s sister, and she has the same scared eyes. Her dad comes to the door, and my mom says something in Spanish. I don’t know Spanish other than the words Marisol taught me, so I only know they aren’t talking about the election or school or chocolate cake or pink skirts. He motions for us to come in, so we follow him into the living room. He takes the box from me, and Mom follows him to the kitchenette. Three little girls sit on the floor in front of the television. When we come in, they run out of the room. I want to tell them not to go, to stay and play with me, but I don’t know the words in Spanish, and the English words stick in my throat. I stand there and watch a few minutes of a cartoon. A clothes line is strung across the room, and I expect to see a pink skirt hanging on it. Mom is still talking to the man, so I take the keys from her pocket and wait in the car. I wish I was sixteen so I could drive away.

I know it’s Election Day today because yesterday we had only one paper link left on our chain. Mom said she’ll wait to vote until after school so I can come with her. She said I can wear her sticker if I want.

Mrs. Howard isn’t at school today. Coach Steve is our substitute. The boys like when he substitutes for Mrs. Howard because they can play baseball in the classroom during free time, and all the math word problems he makes up are about sports. Most of the girls like him because they think he’s cute. I don’t really care; mostly when we have subs, I just sit and do my math workbook, and Marisol colors.

Coach Steve stands in front of the chalkboard with his hands on his hips. “Does anyone know what today is?”

Samantha C. raises her hand. “It’s Election Day. Either George W. Bush or John Kerry will become the next President of the United States.”

Josh Carver throws a paper ball at me, and it lands in my lap. It has writing on it, so I uncrumple it. It says, “What will you do when your best friend is sent to prison or back to Mexico?” I turn around and Josh is smirking.

I don’t know what to say, so I ask Coach Steve if I can go to the bathroom. I take the flier out of my backpack, fold it in half, and stick it in my back pocket. In the bathroom I read it over and over again, and I’m still confused.

A few minutes later, Marisol comes in. “Are you ok?” she asks.

I give her a hug. “Are you going back to Mexico?” I ask.

She shrugs.

We go back to class, where they are reading in our Social Studies books about local governments again. I guess Mrs. Howard forgot we read that chapter already, and no one seems to mind reading it again. I guess they forgot everything already.

“Mrs. Howard said in her notes that Marisol will take the last chain down,” says Coach Steve after we read the chapter.

Marisol knows what’s going on, since we’ve been counting down for a while and she’s learned a lot of English. The last link is pink. She brings it back to our table, cuts it in half length wise and writes both our names with a plus sign between them. She tapes the ends, making bracelets for the two of us.

Mom is a little late picking me up from school, so we leave the same time the bus leaves. I see Marisol in the bus window, and we wave. Mom says our matching bracelets are very nice. When Mom picks me up from school, she always brings me a juice box. Since she’s late, and also since we don’t know how long we’ll be at the voting place, she’s brought some pretzels for a snack, too.

In the parking lot, people walk around wearing and holding signs about the politicians and propositions. Toward the door, there’s a group wearing signs that say “Vote Yes!” about the proposition whose flier is in my backpack. I turn to my mom. “Are you going to vote yes?”

“Not for that one.” She grabs my hand.

We walk through that group, and I see Mrs. Howard on the other side of the crowd. She’s holding that sign too. I stop.

“What is it, Maggie?” Mom asks. She hasn’t seen Mrs. Howard.

“Nothing.” I eat my last pretzel.

Mom and I stay up the whole night watching election results. She is happy about some things, and upset about others. We finish a pint of ice cream with chocolate sauce. When I go to bed, my stomach hurts.

Marisol isn’t at school the next day. I don’t want to be an active classroom participant, like Mrs. Howard says we’re supposed to be. I open my math workbook and start on the second to last chapter. Mrs. Howard doesn’t care. She calls on me to read from the Social Studies book, but I don’t. I don’t even answer her. If I was Josh Carver, I would be sent to the office, but I’m not, so she leaves me alone.

I’m wearing my pink construction paper bracelet. I don’t want it to get messed up when I go to recess, so I put it in my desk. I play basketball by myself, but that isn’t very fun. I ask the boys if I could play with them. Josh Carver says no and they all laugh at me. I stand in line for the swings, but the other girls keep cutting ahead of me. So I go to the basketball court on the little kids’ playground and I shoot hoops by myself. I try to remember how Marisol got so many in the hoop, but I’m no good. When the bell rings, I go back to the classroom and put my bracelet back on. I hope Marisol is wearing hers, too.

Swim Party

Don’t knock, they know you’re coming. You enter the Williamson’s house. It smells of baked goods.

Don’t eat the cookies.

Patricia’s little sister greets you at the door. “Patricia! Eve’s here!” she yells. She takes off for the backyard.

Walk into the living room, where Mrs. Williamson has outdone herself. Besides the chocolate chip cookies, she’s baked an apple crisp, chocolate cupcakes, and oatmeal raisin cookies. The cupcakes are decorated with characters from Charlie Brown and the crisp is topped with Red Hots. The oatmeal chocolate chip cookies appear to be fresh out of the oven, moist and chewy. You look around. No one will notice if you take just one.

The kitchen door swivels open. Mrs. Williamson enters carrying a large vegetable platter and almost trips over Patricia’s dog.

“Allergy! Get out of my way!” she yells at her feet.

While she’s occupied with the dog, you stuff the cookie in your mouth.

“Eve, did you just eat a cookie?” She sets the plate on the buffet.

You swallow. “Yes.”

She frowns. “Should you really be doing that? Your mother will be upset with you.”

Your face turns beet red. “I’ll stick to the veggie platter.”

“Without the ranch dressing,” she says as she wags her index finger.

You check around you to make sure no one heard this exchange.

“Evie!” says a voice from behind you. Turn around to Patricia, whose bathing suit and sopping wet hair create a puddle underneath her feet.

“Happy birthday!” You smile, but not too big. Big smiles make your cheeks fat. “Here, this is for you.”

“Can I open it now?” she asks.

“Fine with me, just don’t let your mom catch you.”

The turquoise gift bag contains a silver bracelet you bought with your mom at an Indian trading post in Albuquerque with the intention of saving it for Patricia’s birthday. Etched silver surrounds five turquoise stones in a flower design.

She tries it on. “Oh Evie, it’s beautiful! I’d wear it, but I don’t want the chlorine to mess it up. Thank you so much!” She gives you a hug, leaving a wet mark down the front of your shirt. “Well, go change! We’re all out in the pool.”

You go to the bathroom to change into your swimsuit. It’s black. Your cover-up shorts are also black. Black is slimming, your mother told you. No one will notice your thighs and your stomach will appear a bit flatter. You wanted to wear your bright pink tankini and boy shorts two-piece. Mom said that suit is only suitable for wearing at home. You brought both anyway.

Put on the pink suit. It’s a bit tight around your waist. You step onto the edge of the bathtub and scan your body in the mirror. Your hands run over your waist as it curves into your hips and thighs, cellulite ripples visible in the fluorescent light. You narrow your eyes, which diminishes the fat dimples. The kids outside will not be squinting enough to reach the same effect, despite the glare of the sun off the surface of the pool.

Look out the window. Three skinny blonde girls are playing a pool game. You would trade places with any of them in a heartbeat.

Put on the black suit and the black shorts. Watch yourself turn into a shadow. Throw a shirt on over your suit.

You open your backpack and take out a bag of M&M’s. A few minutes longer and Patricia will wonder what happened to you, so you eat the entire bag quickly, handful after handful of candy-coated chocolate-covered peanuts. Fear that your teeth are covered in chocolate. Fear that Mrs. Williamson will notice. You cup your hands under the running faucet and bring them to your mouth. Swish the water, then spit it out. Wish you could throw up on command.

You walk to the back patio. The girls swim in the shallow end of the pool. They don’t notice that you’ve come outside. The guys play basketball in the deep end, clueless to even the pretty girls vying for their attention.

“Aren’t you going in?” says Missy, coming out from the sun room.

“Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute,” you reply.

She walks to the shallow end and sits at the edge of the pool.

You forgot your flip flops. The Kool deck burns your feet. Sit next to Missy. Kick your feet in the water.

“Patricia showed me the bracelet you gave her. It’s really nice,” she says.

“Thanks.”

The basketball flies toward you. Missy catches it and throws it back to the boys.

You look at your painted toes. Wonder if the chlorine will ruin the polish.

Patricia swims over. “The boys want to start a game of shark. You two want to play?”

“I’m in,” says Missy.

You freeze. You can’t join them. It’s not possible. They will only see your stomach bulging over the swim shorts. “Not right now,” you say. “I just ate lunch, I can’t swim on a full stomach.”

The game begins. No one notices you sitting by yourself. Go back inside and put on a shirt over your suit.

You leave the party. Walk to the convenience store at the corner of the block.

You put a bag of Fritos Chili Cheese Corn Chips and a Coke on the counter. The cashier smacks her gum and raises her left eyebrow. “You sure you don’t want diet?” you think she’s asking you in her head.

She has an annoying mole above her upper lip that wants to be pinched off. You pay with mostly change. Once outside you chug the cola and open the chips.

Stop in front of the Kane’s yard. Rings of creamy white flowers crown each of their seven saguaros. You would like a crown of flowers for yourself, but the flowers are too high up to pick. So you steal a yellow rose from another neighbor’s house. You never remember their names, so you don’t feel guilty. Put it behind your ear. You should head back to the party.

Twirl your hair, brushing the ends against your cheek, and you realize you forgot to brush your teeth this morning, so you dig through your backpack to find a stick of gum. With chips still stuck in your teeth, you start chewing.

“Evie! Evie! I know that’s you, Evie!”

You turn around to see Karin riding her bike toward you.

“Aren’t you going to Patricia’s birthday party?” She has shorts on over her swimsuit, a pair of goggles on her forehead and a beach towel around her neck.

“Yeah, I’ll be there in a bit.”

“Good, see you there!” She rides off.

Go home the long way to avoid walking by Patricia’s house.

Mom and dad left you a note. “Don’t eat the leftovers from Reynoso’s, we’re saving those for dinner.” They went to Home Depot for more paint for their room. Mom paints their room every year, alternating between Sage Green, Summer Yellow, and something called Mystic Morning, which as far as you can tell is just a shade of lavender.

Go to your room. Lay in bed on top of the quilt Aunt Oline gave you the previous summer. Run your fingers over the hand-stitched flowers as you scrutinize the picture on your nightstand. You, Missy, Karin and Patricia pose for Mr. Williamson in front of the tiger exhibit at the Phoenix Zoo. You stood in the back so only your face was visible. You’ve been told you have a pretty face. Apparently that’s not good enough.

Walk to your dresser. Lean over to get a close view in the mirror. Slightly suck in your cheeks. Lift your hands and cover your double chin. Start to cry. Cover your face and collapse on the berber carpet. Wail, knowing that you are all alone in your house.

A few minutes pass. You stand up and wipe the tears off your face. Change into your pink swimsuit without looking at yourself in the mirror. Don’t put on a T-shirt. Don’t cover yourself with a towel.

No voices. Mom and Dad still aren’t home yet.

Take a clean beach towel from the laundry room. Go outside. Remove the pool fence key from the hook above the porch light and unlock the gate. Don’t close the gate behind you. Take the rose out from behind your ear and place it on a deck chair.

Feel the warm Kool deck under your feet. Get a running start and then jump into the pool. The cold water shocks your skin. Blow bubbles through your nose and watch them rise to the surface.

Swim ten laps.

Reach the steps and gasp for breath. Spread your towel on the grass and lay in the sun. Listen to the birds sing as they eat at Mr. Hager’s birdfeeder.

Get the flower from the deck chair and put it behind your left ear. You walk into the house, almost dried from the sun’s rays.

“Eve, I didn’t know you were here,” says Dad as he turns around in the swivel chair. He’s sitting at the computer doing something involving an Excel spreadsheet. “Patricia just called. She wanted to know why you left. I told her I didn’t know where you were.”

“I forgot something,” you say. “I’m going back now.”

“Do you want a ride?”

“No thanks, I’ll walk.”

Gather your things- your towel, goggles, sunscreen, beach bag. Put on a shirt.

You don’t walk, you run. Run past the Kane’s saguaros, past the elementary school, past the corner where you ran into Karin. Run all the way to Patricia’s house but stop at the front door. Realize you forgot your black suit; you’re still wearing your pink two-piece with a T-shirt. You consider running home to change, but Patricia’s sister bursts through the door.

“Evie! Where did you go? We already opened presents and ate cake and now everyone’s back in the pool.” She grabs your hand. “Come on!”

“Laurel, I have to go to the bathroom first. I’ll meet you out there.”

“Whatever,” she says. For the second time today you watch her run to the backyard.

Notice you’re standing next to the dessert buffet again. All the cookies have been eaten, as well as the crisp. One cupcake remains, the one decorated with a picture of Charlie Brown. Look around for Mrs. Williamson. Enjoy your Charlie Brown chocolate cupcake, every bite moist and rich.

Consider checking your stomach in the bathroom mirror. Don’t.

Walk outside, where the other kids are playing Marco Polo in the pool. Missy is it. She’s swimming after Kevin, but he’s much too fast for her.

Throw your shirt over the pool fence. Start walking toward the deep end. Notice your shadow dancing on the Kool deck. The sun is setting, elongating your outline. You are tall and skinny.

Patricia motions for you to come play.

Missy tags the youngest Williamson child. He looks as if he might cry, so Karin takes pity and swims in front of him. Karin is it.

Step onto the diving board.

Karin swims back and forth under the diving board. Kevin and Charlie swim to the steps and get out of the pool.

Step off the board.

“Fish out of water?” Karin yells.

Take a running start. “You bettcha!” you yell right before you hit the water.

Cannonball into the pool, creating waves.