Bingo Summer, page 3
“Weren’t you listening? Chloe didn’t say anything. He told her to help me. I’m not going with her.”
Mom brushed cookie crumbs off her hands outside the door before she shut it. “Don’t be ridiculous. She looked very nice.”
“Nice like a piranha maybe. Registering me is your job.”
J.C. clucked her tongue. “You’re such a grump.”
“It will be good for you.” Mom fluffed her hair in the mirror next to the door, distracted.
I suddenly felt claustrophobic. I needed air and headed for the door.
On the porch, I hopped off the brick steps, catching a stone planter with my knee. Pain shot up my leg, but I gritted my teeth and let the pain boil inside me. The grass felt cool underneath my bare feet, but I barely noticed. How would going with a high schooler who already hated my guts be good for me?
There was a little orchard of apple trees in the southwest corner of our yard. Some of the apples were already blushing pink, beginning to ripen. I walked up to a tree with two low-hanging branches and used both of them to pull myself up. Once I was about ten feet above the ground, I found a sturdy branch to sit on, resting my back against the trunk. I closed my eyes, and let the breeze brush my face, felt it cool the sweat on my forehead and fan my anger.
While I sat there with the rough bark cutting through my t-shirt, I thought of the last time I had climbed a tree. It had been a couple years ago, in the wooded lot behind Dana’s house. We met there for secret club meetings in a twisted sugar maple with its perfectly-spaced branches for sitting. Sometimes Lauren and Erica came, but it was mostly Dana and me. We talked about our crushes. Trevor Norton was hers—practically since birth, and mine was Donnie Harrold, until Christmas break in fifth grade when I found out he gave plastic reindeer rings to all the girls in my class except me. We talked about how we would both own the Chicago Cubs someday, and then we could get free Dippin’ Dots any time we wanted. We peeled the bark off a spot where we sat and cut our initials into the soft flesh with Dana’s brother’s scout knife that she’d swiped for the occasion.
The slam of a car door snapped me out of my daydream. I twisted around on the branch until I could see the Bain’s house. From the tree, I had a clear view of their driveway over the tall hedge. Mr. Bain sat behind the wheel of his slinky, red sports car. Chloe stalked out of the house to the passenger’s side. I hunkered down and froze, so she wouldn’t see me spying. Even from far away, her pout stuck out far enough that I could have pegged her lower lip with my pea-shooter if I had it on me. From the scowl on Mr. Bain’s face, I’d bet one of my Kerry Wood rookie cards that she’d get a talking-to once she was in the car.
I sighed and settled back against the tree. If this was what I had to look forward to in Dorrance, I was in real trouble.
CHAPTER 5
In the kitchen the next morning, Mom sifted through the mail, while I slapped turkey between two pieces of mustard-coated bread and kept an eye out the window for my Ride of Doom with Chloe.
“Read this for me, Sugar Pie,” Mom asked, waving a letter at me. Mom wasn’t a very good reader. She said she “slipped through the cracks,” even after nine years of schooling in Richmond County Unit District #15 in southern Missouri. Until Mom found a reading program to “brush up on the basics,” J.C. and I were stuck reading the mail and doing her bills.
“I can’t. Chloe will be here any minute,” I said. “Remember? You and Mr. Bain set me up.”
“It won’t take long,” she said, slapping the letter impatiently on her palm. “And I didn’t set you up.”
“Fine.” I slipped a finger underneath the envelope flap and ripped it open. “Who’s it from?” I asked, noticing the Paducah return address.
“Beats me.” Mom chewed on her fingernail.
“Okay, here goes…oh, this…this is just great,” I said when I saw the name at the bottom of the note.
“Would you just please read it?”
“Hey Baby:
Long time, no hear! Since you didn’t give me an address, I thought I’d write and let the post office find you. Heard you’re rolling in the dough now! That’s wild news!
I caught Mom’s eye. She glanced at me then tapped the letter again. “Keep reading.”
“Give me a ring when you get a chance. I’m staying at a buddy’s in Paducah until I get my own place. The number is (505) 873-2117 and ask for me.
Hi to the girls. I’d like to visit, see the new digs.
Frank”
I folded the letter and tucked it back into the envelope. “You’re not going to call him, are you?”
Mom looked at me like I’d lost my marbles. “I was married to the man. He’s J.C.’s father. He has a right to know where his daughter is at least.”
A car horn tooted. I peeked through the filmy front window curtains. In the driveway, Chloe sat in a yellow convertible with the top down.
“I should have told him before we left Stanton.” She took the letter. “You’d better run.”
“This is just great,” I said under my breath.
“What did you say?” Mom said sharply.
“First, we move up here to get away from the weirdos who wouldn’t leave us alone —”
“Summer — ”
“And now the weirdos find us anyway. We should have stayed in Stanton.” Then I was out the door.
At the car, I couldn’t get the door open. I yanked on the handle a couple times.
“Easy!” Chloe snapped. She clicked her key chain until the door lock popped up.
I plunked down into the seat and latched my seat belt in a hurry since she was backing out even before I closed the door.
“Let’s get something straight. I’m only taking you because my dad said I have to. Being neighbors doesn’t make us friends,” she said as she wheeled out into the street, shoved the gear shift down, and lurched down Church Street. “Besides, you’re, like, in eighth grade. A baby.”
“Not a problem.” I dug my fingers into the seat upholstery, holding steady as she took a tight curve.
Her hair whipped behind her. She glanced my way with her enormous white sunglasses. “Good.”
When we zipped into the parking lot, almost taking out a red SUV and a bike rack, Chloe shut the car off and pulled some lip gloss out of the glove compartment.
“You’ll go in that side door there,” she said, smoothing pink gloss onto her upper lip in the rear view mirror then using the applicator as a pointer.
“You’re not registering?” I asked.
She snorted. “Not in the junior high, dummy. I’ll be waiting here.”
I flexed my hands into fists. How could Mom do this to me?
While Chloe glossed her big mouth, I headed toward a door with a “Registration — Enter Here” sign taped to it. Inside, I found myself in the cafeteria with a long, zig-zaggy line of kids and parents at different lunch tables, filling out forms. Of course, the end of the line was a zillion miles away on the other side of the room by a case of trophies. I slipped through the crowd and tried to look like a registration pro.
Waiting, I shoved my hands into my pockets and tried to blend in. Two girls in front of me, wearing white Dorrance Bulldogs t-shirts and blue spandex shorts like they’d come from a practice, put their heads together and whispered when they saw me coming. The taller girl with a blonde ponytail looked me over head-to-toe real slow, like she didn’t care if I saw or not.
I wondered if I had a mustard smear or something weird on me. Nothing. Just my Tri-County jersey and basketball shorts. I carefully picked it out because well, I was pretty proud that I made the travel league this past spring.
“Can we help you?”
I jumped. A registration lady at the first table looked at me over the tops of her glasses. The line had moved up while I checked for stains, and the two blondes, now at the next table, brayed like donkeys.
“I need to register.”
A mumbled “duh” came from the next table.
“Your name?”
“Summer Haas.”
The registration lady scanned pages of names; and when she came to the end of the list, she went through it again. “I’m sorry. I don’t see your name.”
I felt my face heat up. “Well, I’ve never been here before.” My fist tightened around the checkbook. “I’m new.” I should have just hung a sign around my neck that said CLUELESS NEW PERSON. Thankfully, Blonde Thing One and Two had moved on to another table in a different aisle.
“Well, that explains it,” she said, relieved. “If you’re new to the district, you need to go to the office. Follow that hall to the end, and it’s on your left.”
After filling out a forest of papers and collecting the ones I needed Mom to sign, I stumbled out to the parking lot again to find Chloe. Two boys and a girl stood around her car, talking. When she spotted me, Chloe turned on the car in a panic and announced suddenly, “Okay, gotta go!”
When they left, I got into her car again and let my head rest against the back of the seat.
“Thanks for not coming to the car right away. My friends, they wouldn’t understand. And you don’t exactly fit in with those clothes.”
“What’s wrong with my clothes?”
She shook her head like I was hopeless. “No one dresses like that. Open your eyes.” “Whatever,” I groaned and looked straight ahead. I could feel her studying me.
“Plus you’re an eighth grader,” she said.
“No kidding.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Where should I start? “Nothing.”
“You’re talkative.”
A laugh gurgled in my throat. I was so mad it was funny. “I. Don’t. Feel. Like. Talking.”
“Fine then.” She put her Hollywood glasses back on, and backed out of the parking space. “Be unfriendly.”
Chloe didn’t drop me off in my driveway. Instead, she pulled into hers and made me walk through the hedge dividing our yards. With each scratch I got pushing through the branches, I vowed to move back to Stanton someday whether Mom and J.C. wanted to follow me or not. But for now, I had to look on the bright side: if I couldn’t be in Stanton, at least the best part was coming to Dorrance. Dana was coming for a visit.
CHAPTER 6
Dana caught an Amtrak a few days later in DuQuoin, making good on our promise of no good-byes. We met her on a Sunday at Chicago’s Union Station. Her baseball cap looked like a pink life preserver bobbing in the sea of people walking through the lobby.
“Long time, no see,” she said, grinning and swinging her backpack at me.
I jumped out of the way. “No kidding.”
“Thanks for letting me come, Maggie.”
“Glad you could come, Sugar Pie,” said Mom. “Maybe you can get Summer out of the house more. She hides in her room like she’s one of those hermans.”
“It’s hermits, Mom, and I’m not that bad.” When she thought I wasn’t looking, J.C. mouthed “riiight” at Dana.
We shuffled through a rotating door, which pushed us onto Canal Street and into the heart of the city with the people and honking taxis and buildings so tall that you couldn’t see but a postage stamp of sky.
Dana’s mouth shaped itself into an “o” as she took it all in. Then she grabbed my arm. “Don’t you just love it? This is so much more awesome than Stanton.”
“It’s more crowded. It’s noisier. And has less trees,” I said. J.C. and Mom walked ahead of us, looking at a street map. “Everything is more expensive, too.”
“Like you have to worry about that anymore. You’re so lucky.” Dana sighed.
When I didn’t answer, Dana poked me again in the side. “Lucky, right?”
I smiled as best I could. “Yep, real lucky.”
As soon as we got back to the house, Dana wanted the grand tour.
“This place is like a palace,” she said, as she took her hat off and shook her hair. “It’s bigger than our school.”
“You have to see the pool room,” said J.C., pulling her by the arm.
Dana’s eyes bugged out. “You guys have a pool? In the house?”
“And a Florida room,” said J.C. “It’s like a big glass porch where Mom’s gonna keep tropical plants and bamboo furniture. Oh, and there’s a game room, too. But no games—yet. Well, except for a dart board, but I don’t like darts. C’mon!”
“I’ll show her. Get lost now or else!”
When J.C. stomped away, I tugged Dana in the opposite direction, down the hall toward the pool.
“Can you believe this is yours?” Dana said, gaping at the small, square pool from behind the glass window in the hall. Mom decorated the brick-walled room with orange-striped cabana chairs. The sun shining through the skylights painted patches of light on the water’s surface. We walked through the swinging glass door. I inhaled the chlorine-scented air. Dana plunked down next to the edge, kicked off her flip-flops, and dipped her legs in the water.
“No, I can’t. It’s really weird, like a dream,” I said, looking down at her. “Sometimes, I wonder if someone will tell us to pack up and go home, that it was all a big joke.”
“I can’t imagine having so much money. Not ever running out.”
I snorted. “It’s not gonna last forever the way J.C. and Mom are buying things.”
Dana gaped at me. “What about you? Now you don’t have to buy things second-hand anymore.”
I looked down at my jean shorts and the Cubs t-shirt. I felt like me and no different than I felt two months ago before we won the lottery. Okay, maybe now I could finally buy one of those authentic team jerseys for two-hundred dollars that I’ve wanted forever, but that was really it. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to start acting different.”
“I think it would be hard to stay the same. I mean, after a while, I’d think that you’d get used to living a certain way, that the newness would wear off. Buying new clothes at the best stores would become the new normal.”
“Well, let J.C. and Mom get all stuck-up. I’m not changing.”
We ended the tour in my bedroom. Dana oohed and aahed about the little door that led to my own private balcony. Outside, we practiced waving like queens until someone walking on the footpath behind our property saw us. We ducked behind the potted plant, giggling.
She loved my new canopy bed, my new desk with the attached bookshelf, and even my closet with the built-in organizer. She gushed about the life-sized Kerry Wood poster and even the Stanton Warriors flag that I’d hung on the sunshine yellow walls, though I wondered why they looked so different to her here than when I had them back home. And when Mom happened to turn on the music downstairs that piped the sound all over the house, and Katy Perry blasted through the four little speaker vents in each corner of my room, Dana clutched her chest and fell over backwards on my bed.
“I love this place. I want to move here. Do you think your mom will adopt me?” she said, lying there with her eyes closed and a goofy smile twisting her lips.
“Sure, if you were adoptable.” All of my problems would be solved if Dana lived here, too. Suddenly, I wanted to get outside and do something normal, something that we used to do together back in Stanton. “Let’s go to the city pool.”
She lay there, still smiling, not saying a word.
“Stop swooning.”
“See? You’re spoiled already. Let me bask in your money awhile, will you? You have your own pool anyway.”
“There’s no one to look at here except J.C.” I grabbed her hand to pull her off the bed.
“Fine. Promise you’ll let me swoon some more later?”
“Anything you want.”
CHAPTER 7
It was a fifteen-minute ride along a winding, tree-shaded road to the community pool. Along the way, houses as big as the White House popped up in the treetops. Sometimes, I could only see the chimneys or a steep-pitched roof. And there was always a high-iron fence with spikes or thick brick walls to keep people out.
We coasted into the parking lot and braked at the bike racks, grabbing our bags.
A pool guard lounged just inside the window to the pool house, feet propped up with a soda in his hand. His head was thrown back against a lawn chair, eyes closed. He drummed out some beat on the arm rest with the can. His eyebrows were so thick they looked like caterpillars. Dark brown curls touched the collar of his Cubs t-shirt. He was tall, I guessed, by the way his legs were folded at extra angles, so his feet could rest on the desk.
I thumped my elbows onto the window ledge to get his attention.
He looked up, glanced over his shoulder as if he thought I had business with someone else there, and then looked at me again with a blank expression.
I decided at once he was stuck-up and lazy. He probably lived in one of the houses we just passed. He was probably related to Chloe in some way.
“Hi?” I said.
“Hey.”
“Do you work here?”
“Who needs to know?”
I snorted. “I do if you don’t want us walking in without paying.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “I’m filling in for someone for a few minutes.”
“So that’s why you don’t look old enough to work here.” I pretended not to see him glowering at me. Dana leaned into my shoulder, digging her elbow into my side. I felt stupid, not knowing the procedure. A clipboard rested on the window ledge. “Should I sign in?”
“This your first time here?” He glanced at J.C. who was staring off into the parking lot as a group of older kids poured out of a Jeep. Then he rubbed his face with both hands, frowning at me. Dana cleared her throat.
I nodded. I wished he’d stop staring.
“You’ll need to fill out something,” he said, finally lifting his feet from the desk. He twirled in his seat to grab a notebook off a rolling cart, fumbling through Teen People magazines and newspapers. No sooner had I noticed Kerry Wood’s name on the back of his t-shirt (my favorite all-time player), then he slapped one of the forms onto the counter. “Here. Just the top half,” he grumbled. He handed me a pen and watched me fill out my name, tilting his head to the side to read my writing. I wished he’d go back to napping.
