Suddenly I turned around and ran as fast as I could to the end of the board. I leaped off and put my arms straight out like wings. I could feel everybody’s eyes watching me. The air felt light, and everything was in slow motion. I felt like an angel. I hit the water and got the biggest wedgie of my life, but I pulled it out before I came to the surface.
When I came up out of the water, the manny fell to his knees and ripped his shirt off. He began whipping his shirt around in circles like he was Brandi Chastain, the soccer player who had done that after her team won the Women’s World Cup. They show a clip of Brandi Chastain doing that every time there’s a women’s soccer game on television.
Sarah swam to me and told me that my jump was “fantastical and spectacular.”
I climbed out of the pool and could feel my ears smiling, even though I was trying to pretend that it was no big deal.
The manny carried me out to the Eurovan on top of his shoulders like I had just made the winning home run of a baseball game. The kids at the pool stood by the chain-link fence and watched us until we were inside the Eurovan.
We got into the van, and the manny’s cell phone rang. It was Mom. I tapped the manny on the shoulder and whispered, “Tell her I jumped off the high dive.” He didn’t.
They spoke quickly, and then he hung up.
“Your mom said that we should go celebrate by going out to dinner and then ice cream.”
“I scream,” said Belly, and she screamed.
Instead of ordering a vanilla cone, I ordered a banana split with whipped cream and nuts. The manny asked me to tell my jumping-off-the-diving-board story three times. By the third time I had decided that I knew I was going to jump the whole time and I just pretended to walk toward the ladder for dramatic effect.
Lulu rolled her eyes.
When we got home, I ran in to tell Grandma that I had finally jumped from the high dive. I started screaming the news even before I reached the living room.
“Grandma! You won’t believe it. I jumped …”
I ran into the living room. Uncle Max, Mom, and Dad were sitting on the couch. Their eyes were red, and they had balled-up Kleenex in their hands.
Grandma’s big, shiny hospital bed was gone.
And so was Grandma.
August 16
Grandma died today.
I didn’t get to tell her that I jumped off of the high dive.
24
“Somewhere over the Rainbow, Bluebirds Fly”
I’d never been to a funeral before. Nobody that I knew had ever died. I wore my suit, the same one that I had worn out to dinner with Grandma in New York City. There was still a Balthazar matchbook in the coat pocket. I held on to it during the memorial service.
Grandma’s funeral wasn’t like the funerals that I’ve seen on television. On television people sob uncontrollably and yell, “Why? Why?” Mom watched a movie on Lifetime once where a woman threw herself onto the casket and had to be dragged away by her teenage children. The next week, in a different movie, the same woman was trying to find her kidnapped child. She had a very traumatic life. I don’t know exactly what traumatic means, but I think it’s what makes dark circles underneath your eyes, like the ones Mom had the first year of Belly’s life.
Instead of a casket Grandma had an urn. She had been cremated, which meant that her body had been burned, so that she was now ash. She had told Mom that she didn’t want to take up space after she died. Instead she wanted to be thrown into the wind so that she could “dance forever around the world.”
Uncle Max stood up at the service and talked about how much fun Grandma had been. He said that one time when he and Mom were little, Grandma had chased them all over the house and even outside, pretending like she was going to put them in the basement. I looked over at Mom, and she winked at me through the tears in her eyes. Uncle Max and Mom had locked Grandma out of the house and jumped for joy because they had won the game. Grandma surprised them by punching a hole through the screen door with her fist and letting herself in. They stood in disbelief, and Grandma grabbed them and tickled them until Uncle Max peed his pants.
Grandma’s canasta friends were sitting behind us. They laughed at the story. I could hear June’s chuckle turn into a cough. I turned around, and she mouthed “Hi” to me and blew her nose with an embroidered linen hanky, the kind you put in the washing machine when you’re done instead of throwing it away.
When Uncle Max was done with his story, he came back over to sit with us. He sat next to the manny in the row in front of me. When Uncle Max sat down, the manny put his arm around him, with his hand on his shoulder. Uncle Max dropped his head into his hands, and his back started to move up and down. The manny rubbed his shoulder.
I started to cry when I saw Uncle Max cry.
Lulu held my hand.
I looked over at India, who was holding Belly on her lap. India was wearing the pearl necklace that Grandma had given her.
Three more people stood up and told funny stories about Grandma. The time she changed clothes in the back of a cab in Las Vegas. The time she ordered a pizza because there was a spider in her bathtub and she needed somebody to kill it. The time a ballpoint pen poked through her purse and she didn’t know it. She walked around the mall for an hour and a half while the pen drew a big blue spot on the back of her white pants, right on her bottom. She went around the rest of the day asking strangers, “Does this big blue dot make my butt look big?”
I didn’t know that there could be so much laughing at a funeral. Dad said it was because Grandma had laughed so much in her own life.
June got up and said that Grandma had told her that some of the happiest times of her life had been in our living room this summer.
June said, “She had everything that she wanted. A garden. Opera music. And her grandchildren.”
The manny looked back at me and smiled. His eyes were red, and I could tell that he had been crying too.
I thought about Grandma’s favorite opera, La Bohème, and the girl, Mimi, who died with people around her who loved her.
Grandma was like Mimi.
When all of the stories were done, Lulu played the piano and we all sang:
“Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly….”
On the way home from the funeral service Mom held the urn with Grandma’s ashes in her lap. It was a fancy urn with gold trim and red jewels. It looked like if you rubbed it, a genie might pop out and grant wishes. I’d wish for Grandma to come back. The manny drove Uncle Max’s Honda Accord behind us. Uncle Max sat in the passenger seat, and the manny had his right arm up with his hand on the back of Uncle Max’s head. I watched them from the back window of the Eurovan.
Grandma’s canasta friends came over to our house to eat the food that they had brought over the day before. India called it senior-citizen cuisine.
Deviled eggs. Pimento cheese sandwiches. Ambrosia.
I looked up ambrosia in the dictionary. It said that it was anything that looked or smelled delicious. The ambrosia that Grandma’s canasta friends brought over should be called something else. It looked like the pink stomach medicine that Dad drinks out of the bottle during tax season. It smelled like Lulu’s kiwi pectin shampoo-and-conditioner combination.
We ate in Grandma’s garden. There was a light breeze that cooled off the sunny, hot day.
Belly sat on June’s lap and put both hands on June’s round cheeks. She squeezed her face so that June’s lips stuck out and she looked like a puffer fish.
Belly said, “Are you an Oompa Loompa?”
Belly meant this as a compliment, because she loves the Oompa Loompas from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Lulu gasped, “Belly!”
It didn’t bother June. She didn’t know what an Oompa Loompa was.
Grandma’s canasta friends hugged us and said that we were in their thoughts. Thelma and Wanda argued over who would drive home. They had bought a new red Audi convertible together. Thelma won the argument, and
they drove away listening to Vivaldi.
Grandma liked Vivaldi.
Violet carried her pie plates and walked home with Virginia, who had an unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth.
June was the last to leave. Mom had given her Grandma’s canasta cards, the ones that had Grandma’s initials engraved on them. June held them in her fat hands and kissed Belly goodbye.
June said, “She was my best friend, you know. The most interesting person I’ve ever met.” Then she left.
Be interesting, I thought to myself.
After everyone had left, the manny put “Quando Men Vo” on the CD player. It was Grandma’s favorite song from La Bohème. We stood in the garden, and Mom and Uncle Max opened Grandma’s urn and tossed her ashes into the breeze. They blew all around us; some landed on the hydrangea bush, and a piece landed on my forehead. Belly spun around in circles, looking up into the sky, which was dusted with ash. Dad was on his back looking straight up into the air. India and Lulu were lying beside him.
Nobody said anything.
We just watched Grandma begin her dance around the world.
August 19
We watched Grandma’s ashes blow across the garden. I thought I would be really sad, but instead it was kind of exciting. It gave me that same feeling that I get when the barber uses the electric razor to clip the back of my neck. Like I had an imaginary crown on.
When I went out into the living room to put one of Grandma’s garden books on the feng shui coffee table, Belly was lying on her back on the floor where Grandma’s bed had been. She looked like she was trying to catch the air with her arms. I asked her what she was doing, and she said that she was hugging Grandma. I believe her.
Born on this day: Malcolm Forbes, Bill Clinton, Coco Chanel
In the middle of the night I sneaked out of my room to get a glass of cranberry juice. On my way back through the living room I winked at Grandma.
25
I Teach the Children Only Good Things
It’s Labor Day weekend, and there are only a few more days of summer vacation left. School begins on Tuesday. I was hoping to get a brand-new teacher who had never even heard of Lulu, but instead I was placed in Mrs. House’s class. Mrs. House was Lulu’s teacher in fourth grade. I met Mrs. House when Mom took me to back-to-school orientation. She was nice. I tried to get on her good side by admiring her white shoes and asking if they were made by Jimmy Choo. I don’t know who Jimmy Choo is, but I do know that the lady who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress last year wore a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes with her vintage Valentino dress. I read it in an issue of In Style magazine that Lulu had stolen from the doctor’s office.
Mrs. House told me that her shoes were Hush Puppies.
I tried to peek into Mrs. House’s supply closet to see if there was a Lulu shelf, but Mom caught me and grabbed me by the arm.
The manny keeps pretending to forget my teacher’s name. He calls her Brick House. Like from the song.
He said, “I heard she’s mighty, mighty and she lets it all hang out.”
“‘Shake it down, shake it down now,’” I said back.
Mom and the manny took us back-to-school shopping at the mall. I wanted to go to Saks Fifth Avenue, but Mom said that Saks Fifth Avenue was for special occasions and the fourth grade wasn’t considered a special occasion.
I said to her, “Just remember, I can do all sorts of things at school that will make Mrs. House question your ability as a mother. Write on the desk. Paint my face during art class. Accidentally call her Mom.”
Mom said, “That’s so funny I forgot to laugh.”
Lulu thinks that she’s grown up now and talked Mom into buying her a miniskirt. She picked the ugliest color. It is the same color as lima beans. India bought fabric to make a hooded shawl out of. Belly bought an Orange Julius at the food court. She took three sips and then dropped it. It splashed on the shoes of a guy with a mall security jacket on. Mom apologized, but he still kept one hand on his regulation club hanging from his belt until we had the mess cleaned up.
It got Mom flustered.
Ms. Grant got flustered last year when we finished reading Charlotte’s Web in class. She asked us if we thought Charlotte was heroic. The girl with the poofy red hair raised her hand and asked if Charlotte was the spider or the pig. Ms. Grant gave us a writing assignment and put her head down on her desk to rest. I think she fell asleep, because when she lifted her head, there were creases across her hot red cheeks.
When Mom finished cleaning up Belly’s mess, we looked for new jeans for me. I couldn’t find any jeans that fit me right. We tried the Gap, but they didn’t carry a size small enough for me. The saleslady said, “Sorry, maybe you should try BabyGap.”
I wanted to push her into a pile of perfectly folded sweaters.
I ended up having to get a pair of jeans that looked like they were made for first graders or kindergarteners. They were stiff dark blue denim and had golden yellow stitching. On the back right pocket were embroidered the words SMARTY PANTS. When I put them on, I looked like Uncle Max’s junior high pictures, like I was one of the Brady kids. I hated the jeans, but they were the only ones that we could find that fit me.
I bet Saks Fifth Avenue would have the perfect jeans.
At the shoe store Lulu bought shoes that were made out of rubber and made her as tall as Mom. India got a pair of black boots that were made in Italy. Belly got a shoehorn. She didn’t know what it was, but she cried until Mom finally bought it.
I took my shoe off and put my foot on the cold metal thing that measures your foot. The shoe salesman adjusted it, and I pushed my heel forward, trying to make my foot seem bigger.
“Keep the heel pressed on the back,” the salesman grumbled.
My foot had grown a whole size since the beginning of third grade. Even without pressing my heel forward! The bigger your feet are, the more choices that you have in shoes!
The manny picked up a pair of brand-new brown penny loafers and waved them in the air for me to see. They were dark suede and had slots on the top to put pennies in. The salesman went to the back and brought a pair out in my size. They were a little big, but I pretended that they weren’t. Mom let me get them. The manny pulled two shiny pennies from his pocket and bent down and put them in the slots of my shoes.
I wore my new shoes for the rest of our shopping day. I put my old shoes in the shopping bag, and the manny carried it. My penny loafers made me feel grown up. They made me look like a lawyer out with his family, even though I needed to get back to the office, roll my sleeves up, and talk to my secretary through the intercom. I walked around the rest of the day with my hands in my front pockets. Whenever we stopped in a store, I leaned against the wall and crossed my feet like the models in the Brooks Brothers catalog. I just stared at the pennies in my shoes while everyone else shopped.
The manny told other people that I was his colleague. A colleague is somebody that you work with or that you are friends with. I learned it from Sarah’s mom. She always calls me Sarah’s colleague.
A saleslady asked me, “Are you waiting for your mother and sisters?”
“Yes. You know what a dangerous combination women and credit cards are,” I said, trying to sound as old as I felt.
The saleslady laughed and said I was cute.
Penny loafers were not cute. I had to say something grown up.
I said, “Thanks, toots.”
I had heard somebody say it on television once. A guy dressed in a fancy suit said it to a woman with a feathery hat who served him a drink with an olive in it.
The saleslady laughed again.
Mom turned to the manny and said, “Did you teach him that?”
The manny said, “No. I teach the children only good things.”
Then he laughed.
I looked over to see if Lulu had heard him, but she didn’t. She was looking at fake leather pants. She wants a pair, but Mom says she’s too young for leather pants. Even fake ones.
; Mom laughed at the manny too. She knew that the manny taught us all kinds of things. A few weeks before, when Mom and Dad were out to dinner, the manny had come over to make enchiladas and watch movies with us. We were on the couch, and an awful smell came drifting up from the floor in front of us. India and Lulu plugged their nose and squealed, “Ewww.” I held my nose and pretended to gag. The manny held his nose and pointed at the dog.
He said, ‘Oh, gross. Housman squeezed a greaser.”
“Housman squeezed a greaser. Housman squeezed a greaser,” we all chanted.
A few days later Mom took Belly to the beauty shop because Belly wanted a pixie haircut like her friend Analise. When the lady who cut Belly’s hair walked across the linoleum floor, her shoe made a squeaking noise.
Belly held her nose and yelled, “You squeezed a greaser. You squeezed a greaser.”
Mom acted like she had no idea where Belly had learned it, but I think she suspected the manny.
Mom hasn’t been back to that beauty shop since.
When we were done with our shopping, we rested in the food court. Belly had a chocolate-chip cookie with frosting. Lulu and India split a Cinnabon. The manny and I had lemonade from the place where they wear the funny red-blue-and-yellow hats that are too tall for their heads.
After sitting for a while, we gathered all the bags and walked toward the car. The sun was hot on the new, sticky black pavement, and it felt like we were parked miles away. When we saw the car, Lulu and I started to run as fast as we could to it.
“I get the backward seat by the window,” I yelled.
“No. I do. It’s the privilege that comes with being the oldest. Like becoming queen,” Lulu yelled back.
“Firstborn son always gets to be king!” I screamed.
The Manny Files book1 Page 13
