My mother is a very good athlete, which is probably why she can handle her pregnancies so well. She’s really into cycling, but she kind of takes the bike shorts a little too far, in my opinion. Early in your ninth month, maybe you shouldn’t be wearing maternity bike shorts, even if they make them.
“Welcome, class, welcome!” The teacher, Monica, is bright and sparkly and also pregnant, but not nearly as far along. “I’m so glad you’re all here to begin this wonderful journey with me.” She looks at me and smiles, with a semiconfused look on her face.
I want to tell her: Nobody could feel more confused about me being here than I am.
“As you probably know, this class will teach you various methods of preparing for the joyful experience of giving birth to your child,” Monica continues. “You’ll learn valuable relaxation and visualization techniques, do breathing exercises—and of course we’ll practice some ways to make you more comfortable during your labor.”
“Like anyone can be comfortable during labor,” Mom says under her breath to me.
I start to giggle, and Monica suddenly fixes her gaze on us, like we’re the problem students that need to be reined in early to set an example for the rest of the class. “So, why don’t we start by introducing ourselves?” she says, her smile a little less wide. “Perhaps you could start.” She gestures to Mom.
“I’d be glad to,” Mom says in her super-cool radio voice. “I’m Christie Farrell, and—”
“Christie Farrell—from KLDV?” a woman across the room asks eagerly. My mother nods. “Oh, my gosh, I listen to your forecasts every morning.”
“Well, thank you very much,” my mother says with a polite smile.
“You’re usually right. Except about that snowstorm back in March,” the woman says.
“Yes. Well, the moisture indicators simply weren’t there, what can I tell you?” Mom’s smile fades as the woman describes how she was stranded without a coat or a windbreaker and how awful it was. Mom hates having her forecasts criticized. She’s a perfectionist, like Dad—she’d do her forecasts over if she could. She has this framed Mark Twain quote over her desk: “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Then she has a neon-pink Post-It stuck onto the glass that says, “But I’ll keep trying.”
Monica clears her throat and says, “I’m sorry, could we get back to the introductions? Please?” She holds out her hand toward my mother. “Christie, if you could continue?”
“Yes. Well, this is Peggy,” my mother says, still disregarding that I’d rather be called Fleming. “She’s going to be my birth coach this time. I thought it would be fun for us to do this together. I’ve been here before, of course, but this is all new to Peggy.”
Monica studies us for a second. “You know, I’m so glad you’re here. This can be a very bonding experience for a stepmother and daughter.”
“Yes, well, I’m her mother. Not her stepmother.” Mom smiles awkwardly. “Just to sort of clarify. I know we don’t look much alike right now, but that’s because I’ve got this baby here and I haven’t been able to get my hair highlighted. But you can see she got my height, and we’ve both got lots of freckles. You see, what happened was, my husband and I had Peggy when we were quite young, and so then we decided to wait a while before we had more children. So we waited, and now we have three little ones at home, and we’ve definitely got our work cut out for us with another baby coming, don’t we, Peggy?”
Work cut out for me, you mean, I’m thinking. They love Mom at KLDV, because she can talk and talk and talk and easily fill dead air and easily fill in for sick DJs and easily do a remote from a car dealer or a new store or even the rodeo. But when I’m with her? I wish she wouldn’t.
“Before we start today, can I ask anyone else if they get really bothered by all this high pressure?” Mom goes on. “I feel like it’s so dry that my body on purpose starts retaining more water than it needs to. I mean, I could just use a nice, heavy rain for a couple of days.”
Oh, my God. I’m dying here. Why does she have to do this? Why does she have to talk about water retention and weather? I ignore her voice and count to ten. When I stop counting, she’s still talking.
“Excuse me, Christie? We’d better get going with the rest of our introductions,” Monica says, still smiling. She moves on to the next couple, who can barely talk. They’re just staring at us like we rolled in from a traveling carnival, like we’re in the Rodeo Roundup Days Stranger than Fiction stage show.
Mom reaches over and squeezes my knee. “You look sick. Are you feeling all right?” she asks softly. “It’s so hot in here, isn’t it? I feel a little faint myself.” She leans back against me and stretches out her legs.
Deep breathing techniques can’t come soon enough for both of us.
Everyone Looked Dead
“Hey, it’s Tonya Harding. What’s up?” Denny is in a cheery mood when I show up for work on Monday at 5:45 a.m.
I glare at him. I can’t believe he’s calling me “Tonya.” I’ve just been almost chomped on by the Doberman, who got so close that his slobber rained on my leg when he barked at me. I grab my checkered apron from the closet in back and put it on over my red-striped T-shirt and black capris. Not a good outfit, because the apron is so long I look like I’m not wearing pants, but I was too sleepy to think about it when I got dressed at 5:00. I go behind the counter and start prepping the machines, brewing coffee, organizing sweetener packets, restocking the cups, filling the Thermos containers with milk and half-and-half.
“Hey,” Denny says when there’s a break in the action. “Did you hear what happened at the Conoco on Twelfth yesterday?”
“No, what?” I ask.
“They got held up last night,” Denny says. “It was even on TV because I guess that’s the fourth robbery around here in the last two weeks. They had a reporter there and everything. The lighting is really terrible at that Conoco. Everyone looked dead. I mean, if we get robbed, we’ve got to think about where we should stand when they interview us.”
I’m not thinking about being photogenic. I’m still stuck on the words dead and robbery. “Did anything bad happen?” I ask. “Did anyone get hurt?”
“Nah. They hadn’t safed the money yet, so they lost several hundred bucks. But don’t worry,” Denny says. “I got the guy’s description. They said he’s between five-six and six feet tall, and he wears sunglasses and a baseball cap as a disguise.”
“That really narrows it down,” I say.
“Hey—it’s something to go on,” Denny says. “Also, he has brown hair and a mustache.”
“Again. We’re talking about half the population of Lindville,” I say. The other half either don’t want a mustache, or includes guys, like Denny, who obviously want one but can’t grow one. His has gone from lint to fuzz, but seems to have paused there.
Denny shrugs. “The guy supposedly has this fixation with scratch tickets. At least that’s what he pretends to buy. Then, while the clerk reaches down to tear them off for him, the guy pulls out a handgun and asks for all the cash in the register.”
“A gun? Really?” I don’t want to imagine a thief walking in here. I decide that I’m never filling in for anyone on the gas side of Gas ’n Git. I’ll only serve coffee. I won’t go near scratch tickets. “So, do you think he’ll ever come here?” I ask nervously.
“One can only hope,” Denny says.
“Hope?”
“Don’t you want to be on TV?” Denny asks.
“That depends. Will I be alive or dead?” I ask.
Then again, I have such bad luck that I probably work at the only place that won’t be robbed. Nothing that exciting will ever happen here.
About five minutes later, a guy in a baseball cap and sunglasses comes in and tells Denny he wants one “Six-Bun Salute” ticket and one “Prospector’s Gold Nugget.” Denny looks over at me and grins before reaching under the glass to get the tickets.
He’s the kind of person who really would enj
oy being robbed. He could set the scene to music, something by U2, of course.
The customer asks for cigarettes, pays, and leaves.
“Yeah, well. Maybe next time,” Denny says with a loud sigh.
I feel sort of fidgety and start restocking the mint and candy dish. Then I take paper cups and fill them with mints, too, and stagger them along the counter so there’s no way people can miss them. World’s Worst Coffee Breath is on his way, and I will get to him sooner or later.
I don’t know how this wall of mints will save me from a man with a handgun, though. I’ll pretend it’s a fort, and duck.
I feel very stupid as I get onto the Lindvillager at noon and hand Kamikaze Driver his cup of coffee. I hold the cup out to him and feel everyone on the bus staring at me, maybe a little jealously. This could establish a dangerous precedent. Soon I’ll be carrying trays of coffee to the bus. I’ll be the world’s first bus attendant.
“You didn’t say whether you wanted cream and sugar.” I give Kamikaze a handful of sugar, sweetener, and nondairy creamer packets, which he stuffs into various compartments and cup holders in the dashboard.
“Cream, next time. The real stuff,” he grumbles.
“Okay, but I don’t take the bus every day,” I say. “Usually Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, but—”
“I know your schedule,” he says.
The way he says it makes me think of a TV movie. He Knew Her Schedule: The Peggy Fleming Farrell Story. Since when is a bus driver keeping tabs on me? And why? Just because he needs coffee? So why not bring a Thermos in the morning, like a normal person?
Then for some reason he keeps looking at me, not closing the door. He’s waiting for something. “Fare, please,” he says.
I drop my quarters into the box.
Then he holds out his hand.
“I just paid,” I say. “See the green light?”
“Change, please,” he insists.
I sigh and take out some change from my pocket. I can’t believe he wants change back from his coffee purchase. I delivered it onto a bus. This guy has no idea what I went through, carrying a hot paper cup up a steep slope.
I am about to say something when he shuffles the money around in his hand and then gives me back a quarter. “Thank you,” he says. “Next time there will be more in it for you.”
“I’m so grateful,” I say.
Kamikaze sips his coffee, then charges back into traffic before I can even take a seat. I reach out for a seat back to hold on to, but the bus swerves and I fall onto the end of a seat that’s already taken, right into the lap of none other than Mike Kyle.
I’m shocked. Mike’s never been on this bus before. This runs against the laws of nature. I’m just so stunned that I can’t help blurting, “What are you doing here?” completely impolitely. Then I realize I’m still sitting on his lap. There’s a really awkward moment where I have to untangle my bag from where it’s wrapped around Mike’s knee. “I mean, sorry,” I say as I get up and move to the seat behind him.
“No problem, don’t worry about it,” Mike says. He sort of smiles. His face has that lean and chiseled look, like he could pose for something, but I’m not sure what. Maybe a calendar of hot high-school guys who don’t go to class all that often.
“Sorry,” I say again, putting my bag on the floor in front of me. “It’s just . . . his driving. It’s hard to stay uninjured.”
“Yeah. So what was that? You brought him coffee? Like, personal delivery?” Mike asks. “Is he your dad or something?”
“No!” I say firmly. “We’re not related. He asked me to do it, and I have to take this bus three days a week, so . . .”
“He’s kind of scary, so you do it. I get it. You know, he almost just took out a guy on a moped back there.” Mike gestures to the back window.
“You’re kidding,” I say. “No one rides mopeds here. That’s like something out of my French book.”
“Your what book?”
“French? Summer school?” I shake my head. “Never mind.”
“Yeah, okay.” He turns back around and looks out the window for a minute.
I stare at the back of his head, at his dark brown hair. He’s good-looking, but in an unconventional way. I never really noticed before, because when he’s around, Steve’s around.
Mike turns back to me and asks, “So what are you doing this summer? I thought you went to work at some camp.”
“No, that was my friend Suzanne,” I tell him. Again. “I’m working at Gas ’n Git, and, well . . .” I decide not to go into the birth-coaching, debt-paying, baby-sitting glamour of it all. “That’s pretty much it.”
“Oh. Well, that’s cool.”
This is bizarre. Mike Kyle is actually making conversation with me. He’s barely ever acknowledged my existence before. He always sort of looked at me vacantly, as if either he or I weren’t there. Is it because we’re both stuck on a bus with a crazy driver? People definitely bonded in that Speed movie.
I think maybe I should keep the conversation going. If I can talk to Mike, maybe I can get closer to Steve. This has never been my m.o., but obviously my previous M.O. wasn’t working all that well and I clearly need to make adjustments.
Kamikaze honks the horn at something, pulls over at another stop, and then spins the wheel. We’re back in action, as another rider lurches into her seat.
“So. How come you’re riding the bus?” I ask. “Is your Camaro in the shop?” I lean forward and rest my elbows on the back of his seat.
“Ha. Good one. My Camaro.” His lips get this pinched, skin-too-tight look, like being alive and breathing suddenly hurts.
“Oh. Sorry,” I say quietly.
“It was my dad’s. He took it back. He got really mad at me because Gropher and I were racing it Saturday night, out in the fields.”
“Saturday night? You mean . . . after I saw you?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah. My dad said I didn’t respect the car or something. Just because I ran over some cornstalks.”
“Cornstalks?” I ask, my eyes widening. “What happened? How did he find out about it?”
“There was corn in the driveway. I mean, not actual corn corn, because it’s too early for that, but there were stalks. He was furious. He cleaned out the car and he’s selling it now. He gave me this lecture. It completely sucks. I can’t do anything for the rest of the summer, basically.” Mike rolls his eyes. “I have to take this bus or ride my bike everywhere. It’s the pits.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m in the same boat. I mean, um, bus.” I laugh nervously. There’s a very awkward moment of silence, where I wait for him to say more, and wait for me to come up with something else to say. I decide to plunge right into what I really want to know. “So what are you and Steve going to do now?” I ask. Besides hang out with IHOP hostesses? “I mean, it’s kind of a long summer if you don’t have a car. Trust me.”
“Yeah. I know. I guess I’ll have to get a better job,” Mike says. “Earn enough money to buy my own car.”
“What about Steve? Why doesn’t he buy a car?” I ask.
“I know.” Mike slaps the seat back of the older passenger in front of him, startling him. “God, he makes me mad. He’s holding on to all his money so he can buy a van or a truck next year and drive all over the country. Some stupid plan like that.”
I smile. Some stupid plan that I want to be in on. Although the van concept is a little disturbing. I remember my aunt and uncle’s conversion van, completely decked out with furniture and a fridge—and tacky decorations.
I tell myself to stop picturing a van with wall-to-ceiling leopard-print carpeting, and focus. I’ll never be anywhere near that van unless I get close to Steve again. I have weird goals. I realize that. “So, um, what are you doing for work now?” I ask.
“Delivering the Gazette,” Mike says. “On my bike.”
“You?” I squeak, before I can stop myself.
“Yeah, me,” he says. “Why is that so surprising?”
“You have to be up . . . really, really early,” I say. “I always thought you were one of those, I don’t know. Night owls. Staying up all night watching movies with Steve or whatever.”
“I don’t sleep much,” Mike says. “I kind of don’t like sleeping.”
I stare at him. Who doesn’t like sleeping?
“Whoa, here’s my stop.” He pulls the wire to let Kamikaze Driver know he should think about pausing. “See you around.”
“See you,” I say as I watch Mike stand by the steps, ready to get off the bus. He has no butt to speak of. He has bony hips and then his jeans just sort of free-float until they hit his red flip-flops.
“Back of the white line,” Kamikaze grumbles at him loudly.
Mike turns to me and rolls his eyes. “Help me,” he mouths.
And we exchange smiles.
Then the Lindvillager screeches to a stop at the corner of Twelfth and Arizona, Mike nearly falls down, and then gets off the bus, and we’re back on the road in under five seconds.
I just had the longest conversation with Mike Kyle that I, or perhaps anybody, has ever had. I learned that he’s an insomniac with a paper route and an urge to destroy crops. He’s really not so bad.
Sunny-side Down
After French class on Wednesday, Charlotte and I go to IHOP, even though I tell her it’s pointless, that Steve and Jacqui are an item now.
“It’s not pointless,” she says. “You give up way too easy, Fleming.”
“I do?” I ask. Because I thought I actually held on way too long.
“Yes,” she says. “Make the guy see what he’s missing already. Besides, I’m hungry.”
Before we go inside IHOP, Charlotte and I pause in the parking lot of the hardware store next door so I can brush my hair. Charlotte insists on quickly braiding it into a thick French braid that, from what I can see in the hardware-store window, looks pretty good. I’m wearing low-cut faded jeans and a mint-green cap-sleeved T-shirt which fortunately doesn’t have any coffee stains, thanks to my lovely Gas ’n Git apron. Charlotte pulls a tube of essential oil out of her purse and I put a few drops on my neck.
Unforgettable Summer Page 23
