by Cronk, LN
“Did you see what she did?” I asked them. “That’s the hand signal you’re supposed to do when you sing that so it means she’s reading my lips. She knows what I’m singing to her.”
“That’s wonderful!” Mrs. White exclaimed.
“Does she know any other signs?” Tanner wanted to know.
“It’s not really a sign,” I explained. “It’s just something you do when you sing Pon, Pon. It’s kind of like the Spanish version of patty-cake or something, but we are learning sign language.”
“So are you going to talk to her in Spanish or English?” he asked.
“Both,” I said. “We want her and Dorito to be bilingual.”
“But if she learns to read lips,” Tanner said, “won’t that technically make her tri-lingual?”
“And if she learns sign language too,” Mrs. White said, “then really she’s going to be quadra-lingual . . .”
“I guess,” I smiled. “I never really thought about it that way.”
“I wonder if they’ll make her take a foreign language in high school,” Tanner mused. “I guess she could take German or something and then she’d be . . .”
“Quint-lingual?” I suggested.
Mrs. White laughed. “I don’t think that’s a word.”
“Pent-lingual?”
Charlotte walked over to us.
“Can I hold her?” she asked me, reaching her hands out toward Lily.
“Yeah,” I said, handing her over. “But don’t let her eat her hair clip.”
“You ready for school, Charlotte?” Tanner asked. Like his brother Jordan, Charlotte would be a junior at the high school.
“Do I have a choice?” she asked.
“Not unless I do.”
“I don’t know what you two are complaining about,” I said. “Every year you get the whole summer off!”
“Oh, please,” Tanner said. “This coming from a man who sits around the house all day, every day.”
I was a structural engineer and I worked from home. I decided not to even dignify that with a response.
“What math are you taking?” I asked Charlotte.
“Pre-calc.”
“Are you taking physics?”
“Of course I am,” she said and I nodded my approval.
Lily started reaching toward Laci who was on the other side of the room.
“She wants her mommy,” I told Charlotte.
“You want your mommy?” Charlotte asked her.
“You’ve gotta get her attention first,” I told her because Lily had been looking away when Charlotte had spoken.
“Hey,” Charlotte said, stroking Lily’s cheek. Lily looked at her. “You wanna go see your mommy?”
Lily smiled at her and Charlotte headed toward Laci. Mrs. White started to follow, but stopped and turned back to me.
“Oh, David?”
“Yeah?”
“What did you do to that lasagna?” she asked, pointing to the table.
“Oh, go away,” I said and she grinned at me before she left.
I loved being home.
That night in bed I told Laci what Tanner had said about the Parker’s house.
“We could go by and talk to her if you want,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s check it out.” We’d hardly seen any For Sale signs in our old neighborhood since we’d been home.
“I was talking to Ashlyn tonight,” she said after a minute. “Guess what?”
Ashlyn, Natalie and Laci had all been best friends in high school. Ashlyn was married, lived a few miles away, and was the youth director at our church.
“She’s pregnant.”
Ashlyn already had a little girl named Amelia who was a little bit younger than Dorito.
“No.”
“What then?”
“Well, she said that they had a big summer festival and invited all the youth groups from the other churches to come and none of the kids from Tanner’s church came.”
“How come?”
“Apparently they really don’t even have a youth group. Ashlyn thinks that they don’t have anyone willing to lead it.”
“Oh.”
We lay there quietly for a few moments.
Sometimes I’m so dense. You’d think after being married to Laci for four years and knowing her for my whole life that I’d have seen what was coming next.
“You know what I was thinking?” she finally said.
“What?”
“Maybe we could help out . . .”
“Whatdaya mean?”
“I mean like maybe we could help lead their youth group.”
“What?”
“You know . . . they need someone and there’s really no reason we couldn’t do it . . .”
“Except that we don’t go to that church!”
“We could change . . .”
“What? No way Laci! We’ve been going to our church all our lives and we just got back here! I don’t want to leave!”
“Well they need someone, Dave . . .”
“Well, then let someone from their church lead it.”
“But no one will. These kids really need someone. Think how important youth group was to us. What if Greg’s dad hadn’t of come along and started up a youth group for us?”
I sighed. I was going to keep arguing for a while, but I already knew how this was going to turn out.
“Look, Laci,” I said. “I’ve got enough to do without the responsibility of leading a youth group.”
“But we’ll do it together!” she insisted. “It won’t be hard if we’re both doing it.”
“Right,” I said. “And who’s going to watch Dorito and Lily while were doing youth group stuff? You know as well as I do that I’m the one who’s going to wind up taking them everywhere and doing everything with them because you’re going to be home with Dorito and Lily.”
“No!” she said. “My parents can watch ’em and your parents and Jessica and we can hire a sitter . . . really! You won’t wind up doing it alone.”
“Uh-huh.”
The first thing I wound up doing alone was taking six kids from Tanner’s church to Six Flags three weeks later. Mr. White had taken us on the same trip when he’d formed our youth group, so I figured it was the thing to do.
“Can I turn on the radio?” Stephanie asked me. She was a tenth grader and was sitting next to me in the front passenger seat. The five other kids who’d signed up to go were all sitting behind us in Laci’s van, including Tanner’s brother, Jordan.
“Sure!” I said. When Mr. White had taken us I’d been twelve years old. We’d listened to contemporary Christian music the whole way and I hadn’t known a single song. I wasn’t going to feel left out this time though; it was all I listened to now.
The song that was playing when Stephanie turned on the radio was Casting Crown’s Every Man. It was an old song, but still came on the radio every now and then. It had always been one of my favorites and I was happy to hear it. Then I was dismayed when she hit the scan button.
“AC/DC!” someone shouted from the back seat. “Stop it there!” Stephanie punched another button and before I knew it everyone was singing Highway to Hell.
Everyone, that is, except for Jordan.
When I glanced back at him in the mirror he was stuffing earphones from his MP3 player into his ears. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes and I spent yet another drive to Six Flags not knowing the words to any of the songs.
When we got to Six Flags I made all the kids line up and call my number so they’d have it on their phones and I’d have theirs too. Then I told them we’d meet back at the entrance at five and I let them go off on their own.
After wandering around for about two hours I called Laci.
“How’re you doing?” she asked.
“Miserable.”
“Why?”
“Well,” I said, “did you know that 3-D shows can cause motion sickness?”
“Of course they can. They’
ve got little warning signs out front.”
“Yeah,” I said. “‘Little’ is the key word there.”
“How sick did you get?” she laughed.
“Not too bad. After I figured out what was going on I closed my eyes. ’Course the seats were moving all around too and that didn’t help any. I should have known something was up when I had to put on a seatbelt.”
She laughed again.
“I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all.
“You owe me, big time, Laci,” I said and she laughed one more time.
After an hour or so I was feeling normal. I walked around and as I passed a restaurant, I realized it was the same one that Greg and I had gone to when his dad had brought our youth group to Six Flags fourteen years ago. That day had really been the start of my friendship with Greg. Suddenly I decided I was hungry.
I was staring off at nothing, eating my cheeseburger and fries, when I realized that Jordan was standing in front of me, waving his hand in front of my face.
“Earth to Dave,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, blinking at him. “Hi.”
“Where were you just then?” he asked.
“Childhood . . .”
“Oh,” he said. “Sorry to interrupt. Mind if I sit down?”
He was balancing a tray of food in one hand and trying to keep a giant stuffed panda off the floor with the other.
“No,” I said. “Help yourself.”
I pulled out the chair next to me so he could set the panda down. It barely fit.
“What’s up with, uh . . .” I pointed to the bear.
“Cuddles?”
“You named it ‘Cuddles’?”
“No,” he said. “That’s what the tag says.”
“Okay,” I said. “So what’s up with Cuddles?”
“I won him.”
“You must be very happy.”
“I’m going to give it to Dorito,” he explained.
“You really don’t have to do that . . .”
“No problem,” he grinned.
“Gee,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he nodded, holding up his drink as if in a toast.
“So why did you win Cuddles?”
“Pitching,” he said. “Every time you throw one over seventy-five miles per hour you win and then you keep trading up.”
“So how much did ol’ Cuddles here wind up costing you?”
He thought for a moment.
“About twenty-five bucks.”
“You probably could have bought him for that,” I said.
“I didn’t do it because I wanted a bear,” he said in a tone that clearly implied I was an idiot. “I just wanted to see how fast I could throw.”
“Uh-huh, sure ya did,” I said, nodding my head at him.
“So have you been having fun so far?” he asked, taking a huge bite of pizza.
“Thrill a minute,” I said. “Where’s everybody else?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I was with the guys for a while but they got sick of watching me pitch so they took off.”
“What about the girls?”
“I haven’t seen ’em since we got here.”
“Oh, well,” I said. “I’m sure they’re having a good time.”
Jordan nodded as he started on his second slice of pizza. I wondered briefly if he was going to wind up as big as Tanner. He was already taller than I was, but that probably wasn’t saying much.
“So,” he said after a while. “Tanner says you won’t mind helping me in math again this year?”
“No,” I said. “That’d be great.”
“I’ve gotta do really good this year. The scouts aren’t even going to look at me in the spring if my grades aren’t good enough for me to get into college.”
“Are you taking geometry?”
“In the spring,” he nodded.
“Good,” I said. “I love geometry!”
“And I’m taking a math SAT prep class this fall.”
“That’ll be fun too,” I said. “No problem.”
He shook his head at me. “You’re so weird.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, pushing my tray away from me and wiping my mouth. “That’s what Laci keeps telling me.”
“Are you going to eat the rest of your fries?” he asked.
“You can have ’em.”
“Are you sure?”
“Knock yourself out,” I said. It was just like eating with Tanner.
I worked on my milkshake while he finished off his pizza and my fries. Then he went back to the counter and got a milkshake because mine looked so good.
“What are you going to do now?” he asked when he got back to the table.
“Wander around for four hours I guess,” I said, looking at my watch.
“Do you think you could take him out to the van?” he asked, pointing at Cuddles. “Ya know . . . so I don’t have to carry him around all day?”
“Sure,” I said. “Where are you going next?”
“I’m gonna go win something for Lily,” he grinned.
“Oh, brother.”
I went along and watched Jordan pitch for a while. He was pretty good . . . a lot better than he’d been when I’d seen him play as a freshman. I figured the scouts were definitely going to be interested in him. His arm was getting tired though and it cost him over thirty bucks to win a giant stuffed dog for Lily. After he was done I lugged them both back to the van and by the time I waved my stamped hand under a black light to re-enter the park I only had two and a half more hours to kill.
~ ~ ~
SHORTLY AFTER OUR lasagna bake-off, Laci and I had gone by and talked to Mrs. Parker. Not only did she remember us, but she seemed thrilled that we were interested in buying her house because she “really didn’t want a bunch of strangers traipsing through it”. The wall-to-wall carpet was outdated and worn in spots, but we didn’t care. The builder was friends with my dad and we knew there were hardwoods underneath.
When Dorito started kindergarten in the fall, we were still living with Jessica, but by the middle of September we were able to move in. On our first Saturday in our new house Laci called to me from the living room.
“What’s wrong?” I hollered back.
“Dorito’s gone!”
“He’s fine,” I assured Laci, walking down the hall toward her.
Laci said he wasn’t in the house or the yard, but for some reason I wasn’t worried. Laci wasn’t so calm and she went out into the back yard and started calling for him while I went into the front.
Across the street I saw Jordan step into his side yard and wave at me.
“He’s over here!”
“He’s across the street,” I yelled to Laci over the house and she came around our side yard with Lily on her hip. Together, we walked over to Jordan’s house.
Jordan and his mom were the only ones living in the house that Tanner had grown up in. Their middle brother Chase had moved to Chicago shortly after he’d graduated from high school and Tanner was living on the other side of town. Their dad had walked out on them about six years ago.
I’d spent hundreds of hours in their backyard when I was growing up, but it looked a lot different now. The shop door was wide open and I noticed that all of their dad’s woodworking stuff was gone and the shop had been turned into a mini-gym. There was a weight bench, a treadmill, a stationary bike and a stair-stepper. On the side of the shop there was a large cement pad with a basketball goal and on the edge of the yard was a full-sized soccer goal. A tire, suspended from a tree with a tarp hanging behind it, hung over the ground that was littered with baseballs. There was even a mini driving range with a net to catch golf balls.
“Good grief,” I said. Jordan just grinned at me.
“You are not to ever leave our house again without asking Mommy or Daddy first,” Laci was saying, shaking her finger in Dorito’s face. “Do you understand me?”
He nodded at her sol
emnly.
Jordan turned serious.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I figured you guys had told him he could come over here.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, looking around. “Boy, Jordan . . . I’m disappointed in you. Where’s your batting cage?”
“Trust me,” he said, smiling again. “If I could figure out how to pay for a pitching machine I’d have one.”
“What’s a batting cage?” Dorito wanted to know. Jordan told him what it was and explained to him why he’d need a pitching machine to use it.
“If you build one,” Dorito said, “my daddy’ll come over here and throw balls for you.”
“Yeah, right,” I laughed. “I’m going to get myself trapped in a cage with Jordan smacking balls at my head at 200 miles an hour.”
“Come on,” Laci said. “We’d better go.”
“I don’t wanna go!” Dorito cried. “I don’t wanna go!”
“I’m sure Jordan doesn’t need you over here pestering him . . .” I began.
“Actually he’s fine if you wanna leave him here,” Jordan said, pointing toward the tire. “He was running balls back to me. He’s kind of helpful.”
Dorito beamed.
“Are you sure?” Laci asked.
“Sure, I’m sure,” Jordan nodded. “I’ll bring him home when we’re done.”
Laci and I took Lily back across the street, listening to the thwack of baseballs hitting the backdrop. I glanced over at Laci; she was laughing.
“What?”
“I was just thinking,” she said, shaking her head, “that when the testosterone was being handed out, that family got a double dose.”
~ ~ ~
WE WOUND UP seeing a lot of Jordan. He’d already started getting help from me in math once or twice a week while we were still living at Jessica’s, but after we moved in across the street from him he began coming over even more. I also started giving Jordan a lift to youth group every week because between him and his mom, they only had one car. The first evening we rode together I had the radio on and Jordan started singing along.
“You listen to this station?” I asked him.
