That said, Mom did buy them their own gardening gloves—Nenny’s are the color of a ripe peach—and give them each a little tool, like a screwdriver with a fork on the end, and there’s lemonade on the table, and Rick promised pizza for dinner if they pitch in and don’t complain. There are worse things in this world than gardening day.
Rick’s up on the hill, hacking away at a tangle of branches and weeds, and Mom and Tiny are working together over by the fence. Even from here you can tell he’s blathering on about nothing. Bubbles is off in the corner, sifting through dirt, and Cosby sleeps in a spot of shade by the pool. Nenny puts on her gloves and sets to work, making little piles as she digs: over here the broken weeds, over here—to show Mom—the weeds with their roots, over here a small pile of stones. What if this is an ancient burial ground? she thinks, spiking her forked tool into the earth. Even if it wasn’t a burial ground, probably an Indian was here at some point, a long time ago, before it was a weed-strewn patch of dirt next to a pool, and before that an orange grove stretching to the mountains, and before that who knows. She pictures an Indian girl weeding in her mother’s yard, then thinks wait, did Indians have weeds? Then thinks they probably ate them, then thinks that’s messed up—is that messed up? By now her piles are more weeds than stones. The Indians who used to live here were called the Serranos. Every year the fourth graders at school research a California mission and build a model out of sticks or sugar cubes, and every year it’s always the same—tiny Indians in the mission gardens, raking soil or planting seeds or forming bricks, or else praying with some priest in a courtyard somewhere, the feeling one of peaceful camaraderie, of a fair and equitable and friendly exchange, and every year, walking through the cafeteria where the models are on display, Nenny thinks, Yeah, right. Everyone knows the Indians were slaves.
Next year, she thinks, when I’m in fourth grade, my model’s gonna tell the truth, and pictures sugar cubes specked with painted blood and little figurine faces twisted with rage.
“Hey!” Bubbles suddenly shouts. “Look what I found!”
He’s still in the corner of the yard where he started. He thrusts a rock into the air and shouts again, “Look!”
“What is it, honey?” Mom calls back, and he runs to her, the rock held before him like a precious stone. “Look, look!” he keeps saying, even though she’s already looking.
Nenny goes to see what all the fuss is about. She and Tiny and Mom stand in a tight horseshoe around Bubbles, who holds out his treasure. It looks like what it is: a rock.
“What is it, sweetie?” Mom asks again, gently, careful not to deflate his enthusiasm over an ordinary backyard stone. Bubbles stares wide-eyed at the rock, his hand quivering.
“I think it’s a geode,” he says, the full weight of his wonder polishing the word.
Everyone’s quiet. “A what?” Mom finally asks.
“A geode.” He sounds like Indiana Jones, stumbling upon some amazing discovery in a cavern somewhere.
Mom blinks. She’s trying to conceal the irritation creeping into her voice. There’s still a lot of weeding to do. “Honey, what’s a geode?”
“What is it?” Tiny repeats, and everyone stares at Bubbles, who stares back.
“It’s a rock with diamonds inside,” he says. “You crack it open and there’s diamonds inside.” It looks like a regular rock—rounder than average, maybe, a little smoother, but there’s nothing special about it, nothing really to distinguish it from any other rock in the yard.
“Honey, I’m not sure…” They all stare at Mom as she searches for words. It’s classic Mom: if she has to let you down, she wants to let you down easy. “I don’t think geodes grow around here.”
“Grow?” Bubbles says. “Geodes don’t grow. They just are.”
“You know what I mean, honey. I don’t think this is geode territory.”
Nenny and Tiny look back and forth from Mom to Bubbles, Bubbles to Mom. Bubbles stares at his rock for a good minute, looking like he might cry, which is maybe why Mom adds brightly, “But who knows! Maybe it is a geode. What do I know about rocks?”
That’s enough for Bubbles. He breaks up the circle and runs to the base of the hill. “Rick!” he calls up. “I found a geode!”
“Oh yeah?” Rick says, still shoveling. There’s sweat soaking through his shirt, and you can tell he doesn’t give two farts about the stone.
“Yeah!” Bubbles shouts. Rick doesn’t say anything else, just keeps shoveling, so Bubbles shouts, “Can we crack it open?”
Rick pauses and blinks and looks over at Mom, who just shrugs. “Sure,” Rick says. “Later. After we’re done.”
It’s a pseudo yes, but a yes is a yes, and Bubbles pumps his fist and runs back to his corner by the fence. There’s no way around it: Bubbles is a strange kid. It’s impossible to tell if he’s a genius or just plain dumb. His grades are horrible and he hates to read and he often seems baffled by simple tasks, like buttoning his own pants, but then again is able to succinctly explain things no one else can, like how come in Back to the Future Marty’s photo begins to disappear. (“Time’s folding in on itself,” he’d said, “making things erase.”) Now he paces back and forth in the corner of the yard, cradling the rock close. Occasionally another rock catches his attention, and he’ll pick it up, examine it, but ultimately toss it aside. From where Nenny’s sitting, they all look the same—boring backyard stones.
Bubbles must get an idea, though, because suddenly he abandons his post and runs inside. If anyone notices, they don’t seem to care. A few minutes later, he comes back with one of the encyclopedia books. She doesn’t have to guess what volume it is.
Nenny sidles over, takes off her gloves, and pretends to sip some lemonade. He doesn’t notice her. “What’re you reading?” she finally asks. Bubbles isn’t like Charles; she doesn’t have to worry about pissing him off.
He taps the page but doesn’t look up. “I told you,” he says, turning the book so she can see.
Told me what? she thinks and starts to read. “A geode is a round, hollow rock containing a cavity lined with mineral matter.” Mineral matter must mean diamonds. She glances up to compare the photos to his rock, which he helpfully holds out so she can take a closer look, though he obviously doesn’t want her to touch it. The shape is basically the same, although the texture looks different. The geodes in the book are all bumpy and gross, like blistered or diseased skin, but Bubbles’s rock is as smooth as, well, stone. It’s a little too perfectly shaped, too egglike, too good to be true.
She shrugs. “Could be one, I guess.”
“I know,” Bubbles says, his voice filled with wondrous hope. He holds the rock close to his face, rotating it in his palm. What does he think is gonna happen? He’ll crack it open and there will be diamonds inside, precious enough to sell for millions? And he’ll take the money and what? Buy a house big enough to fit them all? Everyone gets their own room? Cool appliances like on The Jetsons? Soda pop fountains, slides instead of stairs?
Tiny comes over because Tiny can’t stay away. “There’s diamonds in there?” He points a cartoonishly rigid finger at the stone.
“Maybe,” Bubbles says, a strangely tempered response. “Probably.”
Tiny starts one of his stories. “Manny Hernandez, his dad drives a truck, an’ one time he was driving in Youtah and the wheels got flatted, an’ when he got out to ’vestigate, there was a snake wrapped in the wheels.” He spreads his arms. “A big one.”
“That’s nice,” Bubbles says, and Nenny rolls her eyes.
“Mom!” Tiny shouts. “Can we crack open the geome now?” It sounds like cwack when he says it.
“Geode,” Bubbles corrects.
There’s a pause because either Mom didn’t hear or she’s deferring to Rick, who’s still on the hill. Tiny and Nenny look at Bubbles, who’s quiet and probably hoping Rick has overheard and will intervene. But Rick doesn’t, either overhear or intervene—there’s a tree stump the size of a small beast embedded in the hil
l, Rick digging trenches around its roots with the fervency and the fever of a man who’s dug trenches before.
“Rick said we’ll break it open later,” Bubbles eventually says, his enthusiasm eroded a bit.
But later’s a long time away. They eat a few crackers and drink lemonade, then wander back to work. Bubbles stays in the shade, reading about geodes. The long haze of afternoon slouches across the sky. Nenny finishes pulling weeds from her patch of dirt. She counts thirty-five unbroken ones, uses her rake tool to smooth the soil, neatly organizes her pile of stones. It’s time for the flowers. This is Nenny’s favorite part: moving flowers around, deciding where they’ll go. She takes three containers of pansies and four alyssums and three marigolds and carefully carries them to her spot. She spreads the alyssum packs into a careful arc, then changes her mind and does alyssum, pansy, alyssum, pansy, with three marigold packs arranged in the center. For the first time all day, Cosby rouses herself. She struggles against her own weight and near-atrophied limbs, sniffs for a minute near the edge of the grass, squats rigidly, then takes a massive, man-sized dump on the lawn.
Whatever focus the day had held has evaporated like a spell. Tiny plucks dandelions and makes wishes while Bubbles sits under the unfinished patio roof, no longer reading, just holding his rock and occasionally glancing up the hill at Rick. With meticulous care, as if this were a lasting endeavor, as if these dumb flowers won’t all be dead in a number of weeks, Nenny plants her flowers and with her own stack of worthless stones makes a perfect circle clustered around the marigolds in the middle.
Finally, Rick comes down the hill and slaps his gloves against his thigh, lowers himself into a chair, and takes long, hearty gulps from a giant glass of lemonade. Bubbles sits beside him, clutching his stone.
“Um, Rick?” he ventures, like poking a sleeping bear. “Do you think we could break open my geode now?”
Rick doesn’t even look at him, just grunts, “I said pizza first,” then empties another glass. Rick cannot abide the harmless sentimentality of some boys. It’s clear this has nothing to do with pizza or his sun-drenched fatigue and everything to do with some idea of what it means to be a man.
Why doesn’t Bubbles just break the rock open on his own? He’s almost eleven years old, for criminy’s sake—it’s not like he’s never swung a hammer before. Clearly he could break the thing open without smashing his fingers or toes.
The answer to that is simple, though: it’s not about the rock anymore. Watching Bubbles watch Mom and Rick, tracking them with his sad, quiet eyes, any moron can see it’s about something else.
The afternoon is edging on dusk when Kat and Charles and Windsor return. Charles slams open the back door and runs around the table, swinging an inflatable mallet over his head. Kat goes to Rick to show him her new ring, a little silver sliver on her pinky, and Mom says, “Hi, how was it?” and stands to give Windsor a hug. Rick says, “That’s a nice ring,” though you can tell it’s kind of crappy and cheap, even from here, and Kat smiles and Windsor says, “We had so much fun!” like she didn’t expect to, like she’s surprised.
“Bubbles found a ge-ome!” Tiny says, tugging on her sleeve. “Over there in the yard!”
“A ge-ome?” Windsor says. “What’s that?”
“It’s a rock, an’ when you smash it, it’s got diamonds inside!”
“Diamonds!” Windsor exclaims. “Real diamonds?” And Tiny nods vigorously. She doesn’t look tired anymore. She looks refreshed, calm in a way she wasn’t this morning, somehow more put together after a long day at the fair. Thing is, you can be cursed and not cursed at the same time. Just because you have troubles doesn’t mean you’re troubled all the time.
“Yeah huh, real diamonds!” Tiny says, holding the arm of Windsor’s chair and bouncing on his toes.
“Yeah, right.” Kat snorts.
“That’s great,” Windsor says, turning to Bubbles. “May I see it?”
Bubbles hesitates only briefly before placing it in her hand. He’s been silent and sheepish this whole time, his chin tucked into his chest, the rock hand-cradled in his lap, a fragile thing like a baby bird. But he hands it to her anyway, because it’s clear she won’t drop it or make fun of him or snort and roll her eyes.
“This is a very nice rock,” Windsor says, carefully turning it over in her palm. In case you’re a moron, it should be noted that that’s a really nice thing to do: tell some kid that the rock he found is great, even though it isn’t and, also, he’s not even your kid. Everyone’s kind of quiet for a minute, maybe regretting how they’re always laughing at Bubbles and dismissing him when he doesn’t deserve it. He’s the nicest one of them all.
“All right, get the hammer,” Rick finally says.
“Really?” Bubbles says.
“Sure,” Rick says. “It’s in the garage.” He puts on his hat and stands up.
“Yeah!” Charles yells. “Smash, smash!”
Okay, so say they crack the thing open. Say Bubbles gets the hammer and everybody stands up from their chairs and follows him over to the pavement by the pool, and they all gather around him in the rising dusk, no pushing, no shoving, no snorting or jokes. Say they circle around him respectfully, quietly, like this is some kind of ceremony and they’re all equally invested and involved—what do you think happens? Honestly: what do you think happens when Bubbles brings the hammer up over his head—arms trembling with all his mustered strength, the focus on his face like something pinned there—and then brings the hammer down and smashes it open? Honestly, seriously, what do you think is inside that stone?
Off-Limits
IS IT true of every house that some things are off-limits? Nenny thinks about this sometimes: what do other families not say? Because there’s plenty they don’t talk about at 926 Kensington Drive, that’s for sure. Welcome to our home! Please leave your muddy shoes and most topics of conversation outside.
For example: they don’t talk about Gramma B or what happens when you die. They don’t talk about the people who have died, other grandparents or Uncle Max’s wife. Puberty is a freakish mystery hidden on a shelf. Nenny can talk about her feelings, but only with Mom, and she has to try not to cry if she does. If she cries and Rick overhears, he’ll say, “Knock it off,” like she’s crying just to annoy him. Which of course is totally messed up but will make a kind of sense in the long run, as she ages and certain things are revealed: Rick’s dad smashing dishes and shattering bottles and breaking doors. They don’t talk about that stuff either.
The biggest thing they don’t talk about, though, the greatest silence in the room, is Vietnam.
They dine around and do chores around and argue around and sometimes play around Vietnam. Vietnam sits at every meal, jungle-breathed and bleary-eyed, sprawled across their plates. Vietnam is a hungry dog shivering at the foot of the bed. Vietnam is the constant thing between them. Vietnam, ugly and childish and hiding and damned. It slithers the hallways and skulks the stairs. Vietnam lurks in every room, laughing in the dark, mashing hot paws into its own shit and piss and blood, probing its own wretched body for sores.
Semper Fi, Assholes
WHAT NENNY knows about the war in Vietnam could fit on the back of a napkin. Not a big napkin either, but one of those small napkins old ladies use when they play bridge.
1. Vietnam is a country in Asia. Asia is one of the seven continents, probably the biggest in the world, though sometimes Nenny gets confused. Is Russia part of Asia? Because Russia’s pretty big.
2. There was a war in Vietnam. Supposedly a really bad one because no one will talk about it, and if it is mentioned, Mom grows quiet like when people are unsure what to say—though what makes one war worse than another escapes Nenny, and always will.
3. The war in Vietnam happened a long time ago, before Nenny was even born. Back then Mom’s hair went down to her waist, and Dad had peach fuzz blooming all over his cheeks. They weren’t even married yet, just two kids eyeing each other in the halls at school.
4. Rick was a soldier in Vietnam—but before you get any crazy ideas, he was a medic. That means he was saving people, not killing them. Duh.
Here’s how it went: There was a war happening in Vietnam, and Rick probably saw it on the news and said, “You know what? Those people need saving.” So he signed up for the war, and they gave him a medicine bag and one of those white coats that doctors wear, and he went over there and waited quietly and patiently in his tent until someone got hurt, and then he bandaged them up, put them on a helicopter, and said nice things like “You get on home, soldier.” He went back into his tent until someone else got hurt, and then he did it all over again. If they ever had to march anywhere, he always marched at the back of the line and his white coat made him stand out and the enemy never tried to shoot at him so he was never in danger and he was always fine. The end.
Except that’s not the end, because one day Charles discovers an old can of shoe polish and a bunch of other junk out in the garage. When Nenny finds him, half an hour later, he’s smeared polish under his eyes and ripped the sleeves off his camo tee. He’s Ramboed bits of cloth around his head and wrists, and is busy at work with some duct tape and an old wrapping paper tube.
“What’re you doing?” Nenny asks, because even though she could give two farts, she hates to not be involved.
“Private Joker! You will speak when spoken to!” He doesn’t even look at her when he shouts. She rolls her eyes and goes to the freezer for a Popsicle. She sits on a stool, watching him.
“Is that a gun?” she asks, because they’re not allowed to play with guns. Indiana Jones whip, Nerf rocket launchers, fine—but not guns.
Every Other Weekend Page 8
