Counting to Perfect
Page 4
“Where’s Mom?” I asked Julia, who was drinking coffee and reading something at the counter.
“Work, silly.”
“Where’s Addie?”
“Sleeping.”
I popped two pieces of bread in the toaster.
“I know you missed your ride to the pool. I can take you. It’s Addie’s long nap, though, so it might be a couple hours.”
“Okay.” I got the peanut butter from the cabinet. The oil had separated. I stirred and stirred, trying to get the peanut butter to look whole again. The way it was meant to. “Um…thanks.”
“It’s not a problem. I want to take Addie out today anyway, before Mom gets home. Maybe we’ll go to the playground and try the swings.”
Addie would probably like that.
Maybe I should have said the thought out loud. So Julia would know.
Not that she needed to hear what I thought. Not that she wanted to.
I started scraping peanut butter across the toast, letting the knife be noisy.
Julia watched me.
She got up, went to one of the cabinets, took out a jar. Set it by me.
Chocolate chips.
“Thanks.” I sprinkled them on my toast, watched them start to melt.
“Maybe with something sweet, you won’t be so grumpy-pants.”
“I’m not grumpy-pants.” I made a paper towel all soapy, to clean the oil I’d spilled down the side of the peanut butter jar.
Julia made a face like she didn’t believe me. She went to the living room with her coffee and turned on the TV.
I stood holding my plate for like five minutes before I followed her. I sat next to her, our legs touching. I crunched my toast and then licked my fingers loud and smacky.
What’s wrong? Julia didn’t ask.
What’s wrong? I didn’t ask back.
Oh, nothing.
Really?
Yeah, sure, really. What would be wrong?
What do you need all that money for?
What do you need all that money for?
Do you like this show? ’Cause I don’t.
Should I change it?
No, keep it where it is, so we can both suffer through it.
Okay, sounds good.
Julia’s body never relaxed.
Neither did mine.
After two hours, Addie woke up and started crying.
* * *
—
Julia dropped me off at the pool an hour later.
Liana and Piper sat on deck along the fence. Had they wondered where I was all morning? Neither of them had texted.
Deciding to surprise them, I snuck up behind them on the other side of the fence.
“It’s not fair,” Piper was saying, “that she missed all those practices and meets, and she gets to move up a lane. I mean, do you think it’s fair?”
Liana paused, and then said, “Is it not fair that she’s better than we are, or is it not fair that Coach would reward her even when she hasn’t been around?”
“Either,” Piper said. “Both.”
“Not really.”
I didn’t yell and surprise them the way I’d meant to. I ran away quietly, showed my tag at the front gate, and got ready for practice. I stood behind lane four. Liana smiled and waved at me from her lane, but I kept my hands shoved in my armpits, my eyes on the water.
I would show them who was better. I got in and swam so hard, but I swam harder than I should have to start out with. I got slower and slower.
“You all right?” Coach asked me.
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s hot today. Get out and have some water.”
Coach sent me home before practice was over. Which was good, because then I didn’t have to talk to Liana or Piper. I said I was calling my ride, but I lied. I didn’t want to explain to anyone why I wanted to come home early. It was only a couple miles, and I knew the way.
* * *
—
When I got home, no one was around. I hung up my swimming stuff, turned up the AC, and lay on the couch until I was freezing.
Still alone in the house, I wandered from room to room, seeing how they felt with no one in them.
Long drapes covered our dining room windows.
The drapes themselves have changed since I was little, but Mom’s always kept something long and heavy.
I stepped behind them and stood there, almost hidden. I knew my feet would be poking out beneath.
* * *
—
When I was little, I made Julia play hide-and-seek all the time. Behind the drapes was one of my favorite spots. She always knew to look there, but she didn’t even have to get close.
“I can see your feet!”
She would come over and pull back the drapes, and I would shriek.
“You hide! You hide!”
Julia was better than I was—she would hide completely behind a couch, under a bed, in a closet. Sometimes I had to look and look to find her. But I always did, in the end.
“Count! Count!”
We had picked thirty to count to. Ten was too short. Counting for this game was probably how I learned to count past ten in the first place.
Another favorite hiding spot was the bathtub, behind the blue rubber-duck-print shower curtain we used to have.
And in her bed, under her purple down comforter.
Once, finding me there, she climbed in and cuddled me, and we were so quiet and missing so long that Mom came to look for us.
But when Julia got older, she didn’t want to play so much. Maybe she’d gotten tired of it, or maybe she was just busy. And I was getting too old for the game anyway.
I was eight the last time I’d asked her to count. She was already in high school, textbook and loose-leaf balanced on her knees while she sat up in bed.
“Please, Julia? Please?”
“One,” she said.
I ran to hide, but stopped in the doorway and looked back. She was moving her pencil on the paper, writing the numbers of her math homework.
The moments beat past, but still, Julia was quiet.
“Why aren’t you counting?” I asked.
“I am. Just…very…slowly.”
She kept working. I waited.
Nothing.
She meant very slowly.
That Christmas, I opened a box labeled To Cassie, From Julia to find a small, flat card at the bottom with a very colorful 2.
The next year, I came in third in freestyle in the finals at our regional meet. When Mom and Dad brought me home, there was a huge decorated poster board in the living room with a big number 3.
“Isn’t that sweet?” Mom had said. But she didn’t really know what the number was for.
I’d flung myself at Julia.
The numbers had continued to come in slowly…for birthdays…written on napkins in my lunch on random days, with tempera paint on the tiles of our shower…arranged in Oreos on the kitchen counter.
Twelve in all.
* * *
—
But I hadn’t gotten one for a long time.
Not since Addie was on the way.
Maybe a while before that.
I stood behind the drapes, the heavy fabric pressing on my forehead, my breath hot, trapped against my face.
No one said they could see my sneakers poking out.
No one was seeking me.
I went to my room and opened my desk drawer, rummaging until I found the wad of bills, rolled and held tight with a rubber band. I threw it onto my bed.
I slid my hands between the mattress and the box spring, finding more bills.
I went to my sock drawer, fished out the pair of fuzzy blue socks, pulled out the money I’d bee
n hiding there.
Unpinned the twenty from my bulletin board.
Uncorked my piggy bank and shook it, carefully extracting the paper dollars.
I went to the closet and found the shoe box with the black dress shoes that were probably too small, yanked out the crumpled tissue in the toes.
Jackpot.
Where else?
My backpack.
My swim bag.
My jewelry box.
The lining of my winter coat.
Folded into my first-ever swimming T-shirt, which was too small but tucked in the bottom of my bottom drawer for safekeeping.
I stared at the bills heaped all over my bed; then I sat and straightened them out, stacked them together from highest value to lowest.
Money. Like, real money.
I sat and held it in my hand.
Julia brought Addie in at bedtime, like always.
How lucky she is, Julia had once said, to have her auntie right here all the time.
Addie was looking super snuggly in pink feety pajamas, but she had a bib on to catch the drool.
She was always drooling. Her teeth were coming in. She had two on the bottom.
“We just had a bath,” Julia said.
“Nice.” It seemed like Julia was constantly giving Addie baths. I pulled Addie onto my lap and sniffed her head. “You still smell like a baby.”
“Bad?” Julia asked.
“No.” I sniffed again. “Good.”
Addie was smiley, and when I caught her eye and smiled back, she squealed.
“She’s so cute,” I said.
“I know.” Julia laughed. “You are,” she said to Addie, in a baby-talk voice. “You are. You are so cute.”
Addie gurgled like she knew she was.
* * *
—
Bathing Addie had been such a big thing when she’d first come home. I didn’t know, before that, that babies couldn’t take actual baths, they had to be washed out of the water. Mom had given Addie her first bath at home while Julia watched—Mom had held her, head in one hand and body along her arm, in the bathroom sink, sponged her off, and cooed at her. Addie howled and thrashed around. Addie’s second bath, Mom had had Julia do while she watched, me frozen in the doorway.
Julia wasn’t comfortable. “She’s so slippery,” she’d said. Talking to Mom.
A few days later, when Mom was out, Julia interrupted me watching TV and said, “Come with me? I want to give Addie a bath.”
“I don’t know how to give Addie a bath.”
“Me neither. But I’m going to figure this out.”
I trailed upstairs after her.
“Sit,” she said.
I sat on the closed toilet.
She handed me Addie.
Then she folded over a towel and made a cushion in the bottom of the bathtub.
She took Addie, undressed her, laid her down on her back on the towel.
Then Julia relaxed, holding herself way less stiffly. She sat back on her heels and smiled.
“There,” she said. “Now I can’t drop you, you squirmy little worm. And you can’t fall.”
She gave Addie a sponge bath.
She spoke only to Addie—not to Mom, who wasn’t there, and not to me. I stayed on the toilet; she hadn’t told me to get up. I might as well not have been there, either.
When she’d rinsed off the baby shampoo, she lifted Addie in a baby towel and held her against her chest.
Addie hadn’t cried at all, not the whole time.
“Better go get a diaper on.” Julia stood up. “Thanks, Cass.”
But I hadn’t done anything.
* * *
—
I reached under my pillow and pulled out a white envelope.
“Here.” I handed it to Julia. “It’s seven.”
She opened the flap and saw the money.
“Seven…?”
“Seven hundred.”
“Seven hundred dollars?”
“Seven hundred twenty-three dollars.”
Julia stared at me. “Are…you sure?”
“I wish you’d say what it’s for.”
“I…I’ll pay you back. You know, when I can.”
“Yeah, okay.”
She put it in her back pocket and tugged her T-shirt down to cover it.
“Thank you.”
Julia sat next to me, and though Addie was between us like yesterday, she leaned her forehead in to rest on mine.
I stared into her eyes.
“Cass?”
“What?”
“Addie and I are leaving tomorrow.”
“Leaving?” I jerked my head and clunked hers.
“Ow,” we said together, and both reached to rub our foreheads.
That’s what we got for being so close.
“What do you mean, leaving?”
“I mean like getting in my car, and going.”
“Going where? For how long?”
“I don’t know. We just need to go.”
I hadn’t meant it, when I’d yelled go away at her. Not like that.
“You can’t.”
“Of course we can. Nobody’s in charge of me but me.”
“But what about Mom and Dad? They don’t mind, about the baby. They’d rather you both be here.”
“About Adele. They don’t mind about Addie. She’s a person, not a thing.”
“I know. I didn’t mean—”
“And I’m a person, too.”
“Who says you’re not?”
She was turning red. “Before you made me all mad, I was going to ask if you wanted to come with me. But you probably don’t want to. So give Addie a good hug. A real hug.”
“I always give her real hugs.”
And I was. I was holding her to my middle so tight.
“But…come with you where?” I asked again. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong?”
“You can’t see what’s wrong?” she asked, her voice getting higher. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
Even though I was still holding Addie, I tried to hug Julia, too. She was stiff and didn’t fall into the hug. Didn’t let herself give it back. She got up and took Addie from me, though she wasn’t even asleep yet like we usually waited for.
“I need to pack some things. You won’t tell, will you? At least long enough to give us a head start?”
She stared me down.
I nodded. I pointed to Addie. Julia lowered her to me, and I kissed her pudgy cheeks, which were cool and smooth and also wet. She smiled at the tickle of the kiss, and I rubbed my finger over the same spot.
I looked up at Julia, wanting to touch her cheek, too, but then, she was gone.
One day in third grade, Julia met me at the bus after school. She met me every day, because Mom worked. But on that particular day, I held my backpack up to hide my face.
“Cass,” she said.
“Yeah-huh?”
She grabbed my shoulder to stop my beeline for the house. Dragged my arm away from my face.
“Cassie!”
“What?”
“You know what! How did you get a black eye? Why didn’t Mom tell me?”
“They didn’t call Mom.”
“They should have. I thought they always called your mom for things like that. Did you go to the nurse?”
“Yeah, for like an hour. They made me sit with ice. I missed math. Now I don’t know how to do the homework.”
“I can help you with the homework. So, how did you get that?”
“Fighting.”
Julia froze, holding the door open for me.
“You got a black eye fighting and they didn’t call Mom?”
“I think I got the wrong kid off the bus.” Julia raised her eyes to the heavens, searching for answers in the sky. “Let’s get some more ice on you. Mom isn’t going to like this at all.”
She took my bag and went to the kitchen for an ice pack.
“Who started it?”
“He did. He called me a bad name.”
“What? What did he say?”
“Um…‘poopies.’ ”
She stared at me from the doorway to the kitchen.
“He called you poopies? You got in a fight over that?”
“No, it wasn’t poopies. I just don’t know a lot of bad words.”
“That shouldn’t matter if you remember what he said. Which you should, if it was worth a black eye.”
She came back to me in the living room, pulled off my coat and dropped it onto the floor, and drew me onto her lap on the couch.
Sitting in the nurse’s office had been awful, me leaning forward, holding the plastic bag of cold chemicals to my face, getting a headache and worrying about what I was missing.
But this was nice, with Julia. She smoothed my hair back from my forehead and pressed our soft freezer compress, cushioned with one of her own T-shirts, to my eye. I relaxed and leaned my head on her shoulder. Her fingers stayed in my hair, sending cool tingles down my scalp.
“Julia?”
“Hm?”
“The other guy was a chair.”
“What?”
“I…I didn’t fight anybody. I fell. In the cafeteria. I tripped and hit my face on a chair.”
“Oh, Cassie…why didn’t you just say that?”
She could feel the slight shrug of my shoulders.
“You were embarrassed?”
I nodded.
“Did everyone laugh?”
I nodded.
“Were you carrying your lunch tray?”
I nodded.
“So there was a big mess everywhere?”
I nodded.
“Did you get to eat anything?”
I shook my head.
“What a terrible, terrible day.” Julia held her hand against my forehead and then my cheeks, the way Mom did when she checked for a fever. Except Julia was way more gentle than Mom.