I: Lemonade

Chapter, Kid: Lemonade

Today I have the clubhouse to myself. My sister is with her friend,
Jamie, at Jamie's house, a place I avoid because Jamie's mother lies on
the living room couch with the curtains drawn and yells when people
make too much noise. My sister has told me not to touch any of her
things that she keeps in the clubhouse, which include a box of
seashells under the cot and an old doll she has practiced hairstyling
on. One side of the doll's head looks like a brain, from when my sister
took a curling iron and tried to curl the doll's hair. The hair melted
and left curved ridges that are hard and purplish.

My sister's things don't interest me, anyway, I get bored quickly in
the clubhouse. It has no windows and it's hot and damp inside. It
smells like dirt, and has spider webs in every corner. So far I haven't
run into any spiders.

I go outside, and when I do I spot Mary, who is about my age but
smaller. She has fine, blond hair that's really a dirty white color. I
don't like Mary. Her house has the only fenced yard in the
neighborhood, a fence that didn't go up until Mary and her family moved
into their house. Also the fence is right behind our house, which means
we have to go around it to get to the next street over. Sticker bushes
and weeds grow into the chain link of the fence, and my father
sometimes makes us pull the weeds. This task causes me to itch and
sneeze uncontrollably, so that by the time we're done, the bottom of my
shirt is covered in snot from wiping my nose. My fingers get scratched
and bloody from the little round stickers that grow hard if left
unpicked for too long.

But the biggest reason I don't Mary is that her dog ate Snowball, the
cat my sister and I found in a newspaper ad and convinced my father to
drive us all the way to Clear Lake to pick up. "Free to a good home,"
the ad said, and for some reason we decided we fit that description.
Snowball already knew how to use a litter box, was two years old, and
had white fur and blue eyes. She came with her own collar and a
heart-shaped tag that had her name and a phone number engraved on it.
We didn't rename Snowball, mostly because my father said she'd come
when we called that way - he was wrong - but also because my father
said he wasn't putting any money out to buy a new tag for her collar.
We didn't say anything about the phone number on the tag being wrong,
satisfied with the cat and afraid my father would turn around and take
us straight back to Clear Lake to drop the damn thing off, which he had
already threatened to do when my sister and I argued about who would
hold Snowball on the way back home.

After two days Snowball slipped out of the house one night when my
sister opened the sliding glass door. She was so fast my sister didn't
have a chance to block her in, so we watched as she streaked across the
lawn, a white ghost zigzagging through the dark. "She's looking for a
tree," my sister said as Snowball jumped the neighbor's fence - Mary's
fence - and disappeared.

"What the hell is going on?" my father asked, coming up behind us, "Why
is the door open?

"Snowball got out," I said. Pam began to snivel.

"You'd better go look for her," my father said. He slid the door shut
hard, and to make sure we didn't come back in, he locked it.

My sister and I searched for hours, missing our television shows and
walking down the street calling Snowball's name until the name ran
together and didn't sound like a name at all.
"Ballsnowballsnowballsnow," we called, which might have been funny any
other time. When we came home empty-handed, my father sent us to our
rooms, a bowl of cold cereal in our hands and a warning that he was
waking us early to continue the search.

The next day we did pick up where we left off, but it didn't take long.
I found Snowball, or what was left of her, on the other side of Mary's
fence. Her dog must have been chewing on Snowball all night. All that
was left was her spine and bits and pieces of cat fur on the grass.
Snowball's collar was somehow still around one end of the spine. My
screams brought Mary's mother and my father outside. One look at
Snowball's remains and Mary's mother began beating the dog, which was
tied on a long rope to a laundry pole. I felt sorry for the dog.

But not for Mary, who I considered so stupid I avoided playing with her
ever since she'd moved into the neighborhood and announced to anyone
who would listen that her father was an astronaut. I'd seen Mary's
father, shuffling around in his yard with his bald head and thick,
black glasses. It was impossible to picture him floating around in
space, or doing anything, really, other than behind over and picking
weeds while we giggled at his butt crack showing over the top of his
ugly shorts. Whenever I see Mary in her backyard I tease her until she
stops whatever she's doing and sticks her tongue out at me. I call her
"Whitey," too, as long as there are no adults around. Once she threw a
sucker at me, which landed at my feet, shiny at red in the sun. That's
how stupid she was, willing to throw away a perfectly good
sucker.

Right now Mary is in her yard, walking around with a plastic bucket and
a tiny shovel. As nicely as I can, I say, "Hello. What are you
doing?"

Mary eyes me suspiciously, not answering. Like me she is barefoot, and
something has stained her lips red. Her white hair lifts in the breeze.
I heard my father call her a pretty girl once, but I think she is
strange looking. She's too pale, a watercolor of a girl who spends too
much time in her yard. She stands with her fists on her hips, the
bucket tilted sideways and spilling its contents down her leg. See how
stupid she is?

"Want to come over and play?" I ask, "I have something to show you in
the clubhouse." I point to the clubhouse, as if Mary can't see it. As
far as I know she's never been inside of it, but my sister has what she
calls tea parties in there all the time. Maybe Mary has already seen
the inside.

I try, "Are you thirsty? We have a lemonade machine in there. It works
and everything. Do you want some?" This gets Mary's attention. It is
hot, the sun making the sky hazy and almost white. Mary turns to look
back at her house, probably to make sure her mother can't see her. She
drops the bucket and runs quickly to the corner of the fence furthest
from her house, scrambling over it and hitting the ground at a run. She
goes to the front door of the clubhouse.

"Well?" Mary asks, jutting her chin at the door. She has a high,
squeaky voice, not unlike her mother, who often stands on her back
porch smoking cigarettes and coughing in short yelps that sound like a
dog in pain. "Are we going in or not?" Mary asks. Her bare foot taps
soundlessly on the grass.

Inside the clubhouse, Mary stands in the center of the room and turn in
a circle. I leave the door open for light, also because I don't want
Mary to lose her nerve and bolt for home. Though I believe Mary is my
age, I decide not to ask. I'm afraid she will say she is older than me,
or make a mean comment that it is none of my business.

"This is my sister's stuff," I tell her, pointing at the box of shells
and the dolls on the army cot, "We can't touch it."

"Who'd want to anyway?" she asks, which makes me mad. Mary should be
more polite when visiting other people, I think. But I want her to
stay, so I tell her she can sit on the army cot, but to be careful and
sit in the middle because the ends of the cot have a way of falling out
from under you. Mary gives me her suspicious look, huffs, and sits
down. Her hands grasp the cot rail on either side of her, as if she
might push herself up and run at any minute. She says, "Well, where's
my lemonade?"

"Right over here," I say, and walk behind a sort of table my sister and
I built on one side of the clubhouse. The table is a piece of plywood
with jagged ends that we are careful not to touch. It sits on two small
barrels that let out terrible smells when it's hot and rainy at the
same time. My sister has covered the front of the table with an old
quilt, the stuffing occasionally falling to the floor or getting
snagged on the plywood splinters. Mostly we use the table to pretend we
are running a bar, or doing an operation on one of our friends. Once my
sister pretended to be a teacher and stood behind the table slamming an
already broken ruler on the surface. That game didn't last long.

"Where'd you get a lemonade machine?" Mary asks, but I don't answer
her. Instead I start talking about the two dogs that had chased me the
week before. Mary listens quietly, so I explain how I was coming home
from buying firecrackers in the next county over and the dogs came out
of nowhere and ran me up into the back of a truck. I leave out the
screaming and crying on my part, and how some man came out of his house
and scared the dogs off. Instead I tell her that I managed to escape by
lighting a firecracker and throwing it at the dogs.

"Where'd you get matches?" she asks. By now I have found the dirty
glass I was looking for, holding it under the table edge.

"I just had them," I say, unzipping the fly on my pants.

"What kind of dogs were they?" Mary asks. She is staring right at me,
the suspicious look gone from her face.

"Just dogs," I say, "Big dogs (a lie: one was a Chihuahua and the other
some type of Beagle mix). Hey, if you want to, you can look at those
shells in that box. They're from the beach."

"I know where shells are from," Mary says, leaning over and sliding the
box from under the cot. I see my chance and pull myself out of my pants
and aim for the glass. I begin to pee just as she holds a shell up to
her ear.

"That one's too small to hear the ocean," I say loudly, trying to hide
the sounds I'm making behind the table. "You need a big one. Like the
one I saw at a store in Galveston. We go there sometimes. Have you been
there?"

Mary drops the shell back in the box and picks up another one, this
time holding it to her nose. "These smell fishy," she says, but
continues to run her hands through the shells. They make a clicking
sound under her fingers.

"Don't break any," I say, and finish peeing into the glass. Before Mary
looks up again, I zip up my pants and put the warm glass on the table.
"Here's your lemonade!"

Mary stands up and walks to the table. She grabs the glass with both
hands and picks it up.

"Why is it warm?"

"Oh, the machines just not plugged in," I say, "But I like it that way.
It's good."

Mary sniffs the glass while keeping her eyes on me. I smile and put
both my hands on the table, which tilts under my weight. She takes a
quick sip, her nose wrinkling. I hear her teeth click against the
glass.

"This tastes like pee," Mary says. Before I can answer, we hear Mary's
mother calling her. Mary puts the glass down too fast, some of the pee
sloshing over the side, and darts out the door. I watch her go.

I am not afraid of getting in trouble, or disappointed that Mary didn't
finish. I don't feel glad that she fell for my trick. Instead, I look
at the glass and wonder how on earth Mary knows what pee tastes
like.