Imperfect Birds (9 page)

H
er early days of summer were more full than she had meant them to be, with VBS every morning, and tennis lessons with Mr. Tobias.

But she loved the lessons, too, and was good at both. By the end of just one lesson, she had managed to untangle his forehand, at least when she hit him balls from her bucket at the net, but when she tried to incorporate what he had learned, by rallying, he regressed to his former duffer ways, hitting with his weight on the back foot, swinging late, slashing at the ball like a swordsman with arthritis. His serve was like nothing Rosie had ever seen, with a leap straight into the air at the point of contact, a pirouette without the courage of its convictions. But the ball usually went in. The first time Rosie tried to straighten things out for him, to get his body weight forward, he ended up smashing himself in the shin with his racket head, which was how they ended up sitting together in the grass.

He held a cool can of Coke to the mass below his knee while they sat on the knoll beside the public court, talking about his lesson. She could smell his sweat and soap-clean skin so strongly that she had to wrap her arms around her shoulders and look away.

“You don’t have to pay me for today.”

“Of course I’m going to pay you. It was my fault. Besides, I’m not done. I’ve still got a little left in me. But do I really have to change my serve? It successfully throws
every
body off. No way even Agassi could touch it.”

Rosie did not know how to say delicately that he risked serious bodily harm if he continued to serve using only the strength in his arm, without getting his whole body behind it. “I’ve just known some . . . older people who’ve gotten shoulder injuries from serving wrong. Tennis elbow—bursitis.”

“Older people?”

“I didn’t mean that.” She flushed.

“I’m barely thirty!” He held up his racket, as if he might smack her, and she ducked, feeling flirty and forgiven.

“Why take lessons if you don’t want to do it properly?”

He did not hurt himself playing after that, although she could not figure out a way to correct the way he moved on the court, lacking any shred of elegance or athleticism, herky-jerky rat-dashes that made him run too close to the ball, and compensate with wild side steps and spin. Two lessons a week, which was forty dollars for her. He always brought two icy cans of Coke, and gave one to her. He couldn’t practice between lessons, though, because he had three kids, the two she had seen on the beach, and a baby, named Morgan. His wife must be the luckiest person on earth. He reminded Rosie of James, but handsome; all the kids at school loved him, and she felt privileged to spend time with him.

She got to have fifteen minutes in the grass with him after the second lesson, drinking water and watching the very good players on another court.

She’d thought of stuff she could casually bring up with him that he’d like to discuss. Like today, she’d begun the lesson at the net, where she had said, “So the universe is three spatial dimensions, right, moving through time, the fourth dimension, at the speed of light, right?”

She had practiced it with her mother, dropping it into the breakfast conversation.

Elizabeth had said, “Jeez—no wonder I’m so tired all the time.” Then James said, “In practical terms, this is why, after we dry our laundry, we fold it before all the creative motion and heat slow to a seeming halt—and inertia sets in and manifests as wrinkles.”

But Mr.Tobias had nodded respectfully at the net, and went on to explain an early experiment that proved this. It was great when someone took you seriously.

She continued, “The reason I mentioned it was, don’t you see how incredible it is that on top of it all, you are semi-successfully hitting a moving ball while running around the court? That everything is in motion, including the ball, our arms, our legs, the court, the earth, and yet every so often we hit a perfect backhand?”

He looked utterly charmed for a moment. “Well, you do,” he said.

“Oh, you’re doing just great. You’ve come so far, so fast, Mr. Tobias.”

“Robert,” he said. “And that is very sweet of you to say.” She could feel her cheeks redden again, and she jerked her thumb back to his baseline, as in, “Go.”

“Ready position,” she barked a minute later, and hit him a hard low forehand that she knew would give him a chance at a hard low return.

Later he asked her what her mother did for a living. “She doesn’t really do anything,” Rosie said. “She stays at home, and takes care of James and me, picks up the house, pays the bills. James vacuums, she makes dinner most of the time. Also, if one of us needs a bag lunch, like if James takes off to do research or tape something in the city. She does the shopping, makes appointments. The garden is her big thing. Nothing in terms of real work. She’s like a subsistence farmer.”

I
’m going out tonight,” Rosie announced at dinner.

“I want you home early, though, Rosie. You get up so early for VBS.”

“I don’t remember asking for you to be my employment agency, Mom. You’ve got me working twenty hours a week. I don’t have any time to be a kid having a summer vacation.”

“Oh, Rosie,” said Elizabeth, passing her a bowl of butternut squash. “It’s a great job, and you get to see Rae every day. And you need the dough for your clothes in the fall.”

“Yeah, but you did it behind my back. I’m just asking for some consideration.”

“What about thanking your mother for brokering this?” James snapped.

“God!”

“Stop, Rosie. Everyone stop and breathe.”

James stabbed a cube of tofu, slick with peanut sauce, flecked with Thai chili and basil. Rosie drew her knife across the pile of silver noodles. “I’d had a great story I was going to tell you, but now I’m not going to, because it would be wasted on you.” James looked at Elizabeth and shook his head. “You’re such an asshole, James.”

“Rosie, go to your room,” her mother said calmly.

“I’m going out,” Rosie said, getting up and flouncing off.

“You’re not going anywhere tonight, Rosie,” James said. “Plus, you just lost the car for a week, for breaking Rule One: Don’t be an asshole.” Elizabeth glanced up at the refrigerator, where James had posted his Updated Family Rules a year ago:
1. Don’t be an asshole. 2. Wait a few moments before entering a crosswalk. 3. When all else fails, follow instructions.

“Yeah? Then how do I get to the child labor job you trapped me into?”

“You can use the car for work.”

Rosie stalked toward her room.

“And I want your laundry done tonight, too,” James added.

Rosie screamed.

Elizabeth smiled at James. “It’s so hopeless, darling.”

“It really is,” he said. “Maybe we’ll kill ourselves tomorrow, okay?”

“We can’t. Rae and Lank are coming for dinner.”

T
hey were doing the dishes together when they heard Rosie stomp around in the hallway, open, and then, after a few moments, slam the door to the garage, where the washer and dryer were.

“I can’t find my best jeans,” Rosie yelled. “Where did you put them, Mom? They were right here.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Half of Rosie’s sentences now began with “The reason I want to move out is,” and in a moment, Rosie delivered. “The reason I want to move out is that you are constantly messing with my stuff. . . .”

“I didn’t touch your pants,” Elizabeth yelled back. “Keep looking.”

“I can’t find them anywhere. Why do you always do this to me? I hate living here. I am going to go crazy if I don’t get out soon.”

James handed Elizabeth a plate to dry, and kissed her. The silence in the house was pristine. “I love you,” she whispered.

“Mom,” Rosie shouted. “Will you grant me emancipated-minor status?”

J
ames went to bed early to read, as usual, while Elizabeth stayed up and puttered, stacking mail she wanted to get to tomorrow, fluffing the couch pillows. She sank onto the cushions. Rascal leapt up beside her, rubbed his head against her shoulder. One of his eyes was runny. “What are we going to do, Rascal?” Elizabeth whispered. He climbed into her lap, clawed in a push-push motion on her thighs, butted her face with his great tabby head, and finally curled into an improbably small ball and nestled in her crotch, like a bird sitting on its egg. Rae had once made a room-sized weaving for Audubon’s Bolinas Lagoon Preserve, of egrets and herons nesting in redwood trees, and Elizabeth remembered now the secret ribbon woven into one branch, which bore the words of Rumi: “Each has to enter the nest made by the other imperfect bird.” It was a beautiful line but a lousy system if true, as it offered only the most meager support. And what did it really mean? That you encounter the divine in only the most humble, improbable places? Or that the solace and support the world has to offer are through your tiny tribe’s inner, patient hospitality, its willingness to accept your impossible lacking self. Could this be enough? And whose imperfect nest could she enter? James’s, Rae’s, Lank’s. But not Rosie’s these days. Teenagers offered their nests only to one another, far from their parents’ attention. Elizabeth closed her eyes. Rascal purred from her lap like a leaf blower. The house creaked. A siren went off in the distance, and instantly she thought of Rosie in the back of an ambulance, Rosie in a burning house—but Rosie was right down the hall, wasn’t she? Her stomach tightened. Elizabeth tried to calm herself by stroking Rascal, but his claws dug into her, and she imagined Rosie shooting dope. Climbing out her bedroom window after their fight, heading to the Parkade. Elizabeth knew it was crazy, but she got up anyway and padded toward Rosie’s room to check.

Rosie was at her computer. She quickly closed up the site she’d been studying, got up and went to the door, where Elizabeth stood. “I’m sorry we had a fight, Mommy. But I never found my best jeans. And I paid for them myself.” She held the door like a shopkeeper trying to close up, with one last customer lingering in the doorway.