Captain Hook, his eyes widening over and over in surprise. The course is surrounded by a high chain-link fence, and within that, a wooden split-rail fence, a vestige from a more honest time. My sisters are sitting on the wooden fence, leaning back against the chain link, waiting for their turn to putt past the Indians. They are ten feet away from me, if that. I can see the diamond rumpling of their shirt backs through the chain link, the pink elastic around Courtney’s ponytail, the silver hoops in Laura’s ears, oval sweat stains beneath her arms. Ghosts don’t sweat. Do they?
I feel emboldened by the past month; I am no longer the timid girl on the beach. As I move toward them, I feel almost angry: Stop terrorizing me. Be or don’t be. Get off the fence. I let my bike clatter to the sidewalk. There is a little incline from the sidewalk up to the base of the fence, and I take it in a leap. One of their companions, a too-tan blonde, barks a warning “Hey!” that causes my sisters to twist around in their perches and then leap down. I am danger rolling in.
“You’re Laura and Courtney, right?” I ask. It’s the wrong question, but it’s what comes out.
A boy asks them, “You know this girl?” and though they shake their heads, they look at each other, and a message passes between them.
“Where do you live?” I ask. A serial killer’s question. “I mean, where do you come from?”
“Fuck off,” the boy tells me, and puts his arm around Courtney. She shivers him off, and she and Laura walk briskly away from me toward the interior of the park. Their putters lean up against the fence. Their hair swings. Their friends shift on the fence and glare at me. My sisters disappear behind the crocodile, where the park office is. The boy who spoke ambles over to leer through the chain link. His nostrils are wide and round, and his lip is hairless. He says, “Weird girl, I’m coming over the fence for you.” He mimes it, tensing his muscles as if to jump. “I’m coming. You better run. I’m coming.” It is beneath me to respond. I can hear him gloating as I collect my bike.
I wait for my sisters outside the gate, but they don’t emerge, and soon I see the manager’s big bald head bobbing toward me behind the rigging of the pirate ship. He doesn’t have to tell me to scram; by the time he gets to the gate, I’m gone. My sisters don’t want to talk to me. They disdain me. Maybe they are nothing more than normal city girls on vacation, like the girls who sometimes crash our parties, drink all the beer, and stand in a knot in the corner, laughing. Maybe their familiarity is only in my head, a healthy thing that everyone experiences, like déjà vu. Maybe the best, most sane thing I can do is to forget all about them.
I SIT IN the kitchen with my summer geometry catch-up worksheets , and my mother sits knitting me a cardigan, blue and brown. Blanche lies panting at her feet. I stare at a diagram of an isosceles triangle, and I think of how new everything is, how changed, how many-angled. But here I sit, reeking of kisses and the respect of my peers, grown five foot five, and still, the house is quiet and changeless. My mother hums over the crackle of the radio-broadcast news, and a pot of water for pasta boils over behind her, spitting and seething. If this were a photograph, I could cut myself out and replace myself with five-year-old Olivia, ten-year-old Olivia, any Olivia. I could paste in a picture of Laura, a picture of Courtney, and there would be my mother, knitting blue and brown stripes, ignoring the boiling water. It is difficult to bear.
until this summer, I have submitted to nonsensical obligations, as children must. I have cleaned empty cribs in the same spirit in which I have slapped the roof of the car at yellow traffic lights and worn nylon stockings: just following instructions. And in this spirit, I have submitted for as long as I can remember to church. James picks me up every Sunday in his
I feel emboldened by the past month; I am no longer the timid girl on the beach. As I move toward them, I feel almost angry: Stop terrorizing me. Be or don’t be. Get off the fence. I let my bike clatter to the sidewalk. There is a little incline from the sidewalk up to the base of the fence, and I take it in a leap. One of their companions, a too-tan blonde, barks a warning “Hey!” that causes my sisters to twist around in their perches and then leap down. I am danger rolling in.
“You’re Laura and Courtney, right?” I ask. It’s the wrong question, but it’s what comes out.
A boy asks them, “You know this girl?” and though they shake their heads, they look at each other, and a message passes between them.
“Where do you live?” I ask. A serial killer’s question. “I mean, where do you come from?”
“Fuck off,” the boy tells me, and puts his arm around Courtney. She shivers him off, and she and Laura walk briskly away from me toward the interior of the park. Their putters lean up against the fence. Their hair swings. Their friends shift on the fence and glare at me. My sisters disappear behind the crocodile, where the park office is. The boy who spoke ambles over to leer through the chain link. His nostrils are wide and round, and his lip is hairless. He says, “Weird girl, I’m coming over the fence for you.” He mimes it, tensing his muscles as if to jump. “I’m coming. You better run. I’m coming.” It is beneath me to respond. I can hear him gloating as I collect my bike.
I wait for my sisters outside the gate, but they don’t emerge, and soon I see the manager’s big bald head bobbing toward me behind the rigging of the pirate ship. He doesn’t have to tell me to scram; by the time he gets to the gate, I’m gone. My sisters don’t want to talk to me. They disdain me. Maybe they are nothing more than normal city girls on vacation, like the girls who sometimes crash our parties, drink all the beer, and stand in a knot in the corner, laughing. Maybe their familiarity is only in my head, a healthy thing that everyone experiences, like déjà vu. Maybe the best, most sane thing I can do is to forget all about them.
I SIT IN the kitchen with my summer geometry catch-up worksheets , and my mother sits knitting me a cardigan, blue and brown. Blanche lies panting at her feet. I stare at a diagram of an isosceles triangle, and I think of how new everything is, how changed, how many-angled. But here I sit, reeking of kisses and the respect of my peers, grown five foot five, and still, the house is quiet and changeless. My mother hums over the crackle of the radio-broadcast news, and a pot of water for pasta boils over behind her, spitting and seething. If this were a photograph, I could cut myself out and replace myself with five-year-old Olivia, ten-year-old Olivia, any Olivia. I could paste in a picture of Laura, a picture of Courtney, and there would be my mother, knitting blue and brown stripes, ignoring the boiling water. It is difficult to bear.
until this summer, I have submitted to nonsensical obligations, as children must. I have cleaned empty cribs in the same spirit in which I have slapped the roof of the car at yellow traffic lights and worn nylon stockings: just following instructions. And in this spirit, I have submitted for as long as I can remember to church. James picks me up every Sunday in his
Similar Books
