meet your friends whenever you want.”
I nod.
“Does Dad know we’re back?”
“I have no idea,” she says.
“Can I go up there?”
“Now?” She looks at her watch. It’s only two-thirty.
I get my bike out of the car and put the wheels back on it.
It’s Labor Day, and Ashing is clogged with cars and pedestrians streaming off the train from Boston, making the trek to the beach. Some kids my age are hanging out on the steps of Bruce’s Variety. I recognize a couple of them, but I don’t know anyone’s name. I’ve gone to the same private school all my life and only know the kids from Ashing who go there too.
“Reggie,” one of them says as I pedal by. I’ve heard this word before. I think it’s a blend of rich and preppie. I don’t know, when they say things like that, if they know me specifically, or just that I don’t go to school with them.
I live in Water Street Apartments now, I want to call out. My mother doesn’t have a job and she’s worried my father won’t pay the child support.
I pass the yarn shop. No orange Pinto. I look for Neal in every face I pass. When I get to Dad’s I’ll call Patrick and find out everything about the summer. Mallory’s at her aunt’s on the Cape until Wednesday.
I ride straight up the hill and then take a right at the blinking light to the stucco house on Myrtle Street with the halfmoon driveway. I stop there, like a tourist. The front of the house is a facadeno one but the mailman uses, with pretty white stones instead of regular gravel, and slate steps that wind up through the rhododendrons to a wide terrace. Through the windows is my father’s den but he wouldn’t be in there during the day unless it was raining. Once, when I was in second grade, I was dropped off here after a birthday party by a parent who didn’t know any better. I climbed up all the steps and was greeted at the top by a stray dog who was lapping up rainwater that had collected in the wide saucer of a planter. He attacked immediately, knocking me over, ripping open the skin on my arms and left ear. I screamed and screamed but no one heard. I remembered the goody bag full of jelly beans in my coat pocket and tossed it down the steps. The dog leaped after it and I got myself inside. I still have faint lines on my arms from that attack. The front of this house is fake; all the activity is in the back. I can hear shouting coming from the pool.
I keep going down Myrtle Street and ride up the back driveway, through the small patch of woods where sometimes in winter rain will gather and freeze and you can skate all around the trees, to the poolhouse and the hum of its machines. Home. Finally I am home.
Mrs. Tabor, water sluicing off the bottom of her bikini, is just stepping out of the shallow end of the pool.
Patrick’s clipping the grass around the little toadstool lights. He’s the first to see me. He drops the shears.
“Daley,” he says.
“Daley?” His mother laughs, as if he’s making an old joke. And then she sees me and says, “Oh my God.”
It’s a little bit like coming back from the dead, a little bit like Huck and Tom when they show up at their own funeral. Only Frank, Patrick’s older brother, ignores me, launching himself off in a swan dive and gliding along the bottom of the pool like a stingray.
“Sweetie pie, when did you get back?” Mrs. Tabor says, quickly putting her head through a terry-cloth dress before coming over to me.
“Today.”
She hugs me. She’s cold from the pool and water from her hair drips down my neck. Her black hair is no straighter wet than dry and hits the small of her back in a straight line. She is normally pale but now her skin is like copper. She must have spent a lot of time beside my pool this summer.
“Well,” she says, looking down the driveway, then at the house. I wait for her to start asking me questions—she was always so full of questions for me when I went over to Patrick’s house. “Your dad will be sorry
I nod.
“Does Dad know we’re back?”
“I have no idea,” she says.
“Can I go up there?”
“Now?” She looks at her watch. It’s only two-thirty.
I get my bike out of the car and put the wheels back on it.
It’s Labor Day, and Ashing is clogged with cars and pedestrians streaming off the train from Boston, making the trek to the beach. Some kids my age are hanging out on the steps of Bruce’s Variety. I recognize a couple of them, but I don’t know anyone’s name. I’ve gone to the same private school all my life and only know the kids from Ashing who go there too.
“Reggie,” one of them says as I pedal by. I’ve heard this word before. I think it’s a blend of rich and preppie. I don’t know, when they say things like that, if they know me specifically, or just that I don’t go to school with them.
I live in Water Street Apartments now, I want to call out. My mother doesn’t have a job and she’s worried my father won’t pay the child support.
I pass the yarn shop. No orange Pinto. I look for Neal in every face I pass. When I get to Dad’s I’ll call Patrick and find out everything about the summer. Mallory’s at her aunt’s on the Cape until Wednesday.
I ride straight up the hill and then take a right at the blinking light to the stucco house on Myrtle Street with the halfmoon driveway. I stop there, like a tourist. The front of the house is a facadeno one but the mailman uses, with pretty white stones instead of regular gravel, and slate steps that wind up through the rhododendrons to a wide terrace. Through the windows is my father’s den but he wouldn’t be in there during the day unless it was raining. Once, when I was in second grade, I was dropped off here after a birthday party by a parent who didn’t know any better. I climbed up all the steps and was greeted at the top by a stray dog who was lapping up rainwater that had collected in the wide saucer of a planter. He attacked immediately, knocking me over, ripping open the skin on my arms and left ear. I screamed and screamed but no one heard. I remembered the goody bag full of jelly beans in my coat pocket and tossed it down the steps. The dog leaped after it and I got myself inside. I still have faint lines on my arms from that attack. The front of this house is fake; all the activity is in the back. I can hear shouting coming from the pool.
I keep going down Myrtle Street and ride up the back driveway, through the small patch of woods where sometimes in winter rain will gather and freeze and you can skate all around the trees, to the poolhouse and the hum of its machines. Home. Finally I am home.
Mrs. Tabor, water sluicing off the bottom of her bikini, is just stepping out of the shallow end of the pool.
Patrick’s clipping the grass around the little toadstool lights. He’s the first to see me. He drops the shears.
“Daley,” he says.
“Daley?” His mother laughs, as if he’s making an old joke. And then she sees me and says, “Oh my God.”
It’s a little bit like coming back from the dead, a little bit like Huck and Tom when they show up at their own funeral. Only Frank, Patrick’s older brother, ignores me, launching himself off in a swan dive and gliding along the bottom of the pool like a stingray.
“Sweetie pie, when did you get back?” Mrs. Tabor says, quickly putting her head through a terry-cloth dress before coming over to me.
“Today.”
She hugs me. She’s cold from the pool and water from her hair drips down my neck. Her black hair is no straighter wet than dry and hits the small of her back in a straight line. She is normally pale but now her skin is like copper. She must have spent a lot of time beside my pool this summer.
“Well,” she says, looking down the driveway, then at the house. I wait for her to start asking me questions—she was always so full of questions for me when I went over to Patrick’s house. “Your dad will be sorry
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