Nest (4 page)

“Let’s just sit for a while,” she says. She puts her arm around me. We watch two bright blue damselflies zip and dip and chase each other. We watch a bunch of minnows swim right up to our toes, then dart away. We watch a pickerel, like a dark green flute, floating around in the reeds. My plan was to
put the kayak together and paddle us around the pond, but right now right here is just right.

“Whew, hot, hot, hot.” Mom slowly leans back until she’s stretched out in the water. “Ahhh,” she says, and when she laughs, her belly makes ripples. I lie down, too, warm water filling my ears. I hear my breath. I hear my heartbeat. The sky throbs, as bright blue as the damselflies. A flash of yellow. Goldfinches! Mom grabs my hand and squeezes.
Yes! Yes!
I squeeze back.

“Naomi Eva—”

Everyone giggles.

“—Orenstein?”

“Here.”

That’s the way it works. You always giggle at everyone’s middle name when it’s read out loud during attendance on the first day of school. I turn around in my seat and try to look mad, which is what I’m supposed to do. Actually, I like my middle name, because it belonged to my great-grandmother on Mom’s side, who was one smart Russian lady who knew enough to hide out in a field from the Cossacks for three days and nights with her two daughters and just one little bit of cheese and a piece of bread so they wouldn’t be picked on and maybe even killed
for being Jews. After today, Miss Gallagher will skip our middle names. And by the end of the week, she’ll skip our last names, too, except for the Lisas, who’ll get an initial, since there are two of them. Lisa R. and Lisa B.

Miss Gallagher tells us that she assigned the lockers boy-girl, boy-girl because she assumes that we know how to treat each other respectfully now that we’re in sixth grade, which means, of course, no hair-pulling or name-calling or trying to see underpants, like we did when we were little. I think she’s brave to even say the word
underpants
on the first day of school, or maybe because she’s a new teacher she just doesn’t get it. Sean O’Keefe starts laughing, and Joey Morell whispers, “Where, oh, where’s the underwear?” which makes Sean laugh so hard he starts to slide out of his seat, and they both get sent out to stand in the hallway and think about whether this is really the way they want to begin sixth grade.

“Let’s talk a bit about our summers,” Miss Gallagher says, but she’s still shuffling papers on her desk and not looking at us, so everyone keeps talking.

“Hey, Chirp”—Dawn Barker leans over—“are you taking the bus home?” which she’s asked me, I swear, every day since first grade. Mom says maybe it’s like a nervous tic and Dawn can’t really help herself. I always take the bus home, since there’s no other way to get home. And I always sit next to Dawn, who is
pale and skinny and mostly still reads picture books, because there’s something not quite right with her brain.

“Yup. Do you want to sit together?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Dawn says, smiling, and hands me a green SweeTART.

“ONE, TWO, THREE,” Miss Gallagher starts counting, and since she forgot to tell us what number she’s counting to or what the consequence will be, we all quiet down out of surprise.

“Of course, I know we’ll have a terrific year together,” Miss Gallagher says, but her eyes are flitty, and I don’t think she’s convinced. I try to show her with my eyes that I’m paying attention, because most of the other kids aren’t and I’m already feeling sorry for her. The end of the school year is a long, long time from now.

In the middle of her speech about how we’re all part of the classroom community and need to follow the same class rules so we can work well together and benefit from the opportunities that learning offers us, Joey and Sean must be getting bored out in the hall, because they start making peace signs in the window in the door and Lori Paganelli and Debbie Leland crack up, because they think everything Joey and Sean do is hysterical, period. Then the boys bump against the door,
wham
, but Miss Gallagher must have bad hearing, because she doesn’t do anything.

“Shouldn’t they be in here listening to the rules?”
Claire DeLuca asks in her breathy voice. Lori and Debbie glare at her, and I know she’ll be sitting by herself at lunch. Just as I’m picturing her at the picnic table all red-faced and nervous, nibbling on her ham-and-pickle sandwich and trying to ignore Lori and Debbie, who will sit really close and touch each other’s hair and trade Fritos for potato chips, she mouths
Lunch?
to me from across the room. I hold up my book.

“Is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the class, Naomi?” Miss Gallagher asks.

“Uh, no thanks,” I say.

“If you’re not planning to share your book with all of us, perhaps I should—”

She’s coming at me with her hand out, but I’m already shoving my book onto the wire shelf under my chair.

Sally gives me a thumbs-up, because she’s the biggest bookworm in the world and understands how important reading is to me. Claire gives me a thumbs-down, because she’s mad that I’m going to read during lunch instead of saving her from Lori and Debbie. Meanwhile, Dawn is humming the chorus to “I Woke Up in Love This Morning” by the Partridge Family over and over so quietly it sounds like the buzz of the lights on the ceiling but much worse. First day of school, and it’s not even halfway over.

“Doesn’t sound like you were in the best hands today, kiddo,” Mom says when I tell her about underpants and peace signs and almost getting
The Burgess Bird Book
snatched away by Miss Gallagher. She buzzes around and I follow her while she pulls on her black leg warmers, puts up her hair, and grabs an apple.

“Maybe she was just having beginner’s bad luck,” Mom says. “I bet she’ll get the hang of it soon. Don’t you think, Chirp?” She touches my cheek with her warm fingers. Her fingers are always warm. “Change out of your school clothes. I’ve got to hurry to rehearsal. I’m still taking it a bit easy, so I’ll be home soon, definitely in time to make dinner.” She’s so happy to be rehearsing again. The Saltwater Dance Brigade is having a show soon to protest the war in Vietnam, and Mom’s a dead soldier. She choreographed the dance, which is something she hasn’t done since before we were born. I watch her purple dance bag bonk against her hip as she walks down the front steps.

“Mom?” I yell.

She turns around.

“Nothing!” I yell. She gets in the car and slams the door. “Be well,” I whisper.

Now it’s my turn to buzz. I eat four Fig Newtons, change into my jeans, grab my knapsack, and head out. There’s no time for hopping or counting steps, since it will be dark before too long and darkness isn’t where I’m supposed to be when I’m alone. Last week I
tried to find out what could happen to me in the dark. Mom and I were reading together on the porch when I saw an eastern wood-pewee flap by. I jumped up and told Mom I wanted to follow it for as long as I could.

“I understand that twilight is the best time for watching birds, but I don’t want you out alone in the dark,” Mom said.

“But—”

“Absolutely not,” Mom said.

“But what will happen to me in the dark?” I asked.

Mom sighed, hugged me, shook her head, looked sad, looked worried, but didn’t answer my question. Sex is usually what it’s about when grown-ups don’t answer questions, but I’m not sure which neighbor would be outside doing sex in the dark, since everyone has bedrooms, which is a lot more private. If I catch Rachel in the right mood, I’ll ask her and she’ll tell me. In the wrong mood, she’ll look at me and shake her head and say
That’s an inappropriate question for a girl your age
, and I’ll want to knock her block off, since
inappropriate
is one of Dad’s words and it makes me mad when she copies him instead of just being a normal thirteen-year-old sister who tells me what I need to know.

Right now what I know is that I’d better start watching if I want enough watching time, even though I’m not in my pitch-pine perfect spot yet. I pull out my binocs and keep walking. I see a red-winged blackbird pecking dried-out blueberries off
a bush. I see some fishing line wrapped around a cattail. I see a seagull standing so still by the edge of the water it looks like a windup toy that needs to be wound up. I check out the sky, and it’s still daytime blue with no purple dusk swirled in. I check out the seagull, and it still needs winding. Up, blue sky. Down, stuck seagull. Blue sky. Stuck seagull. Blue sky. Stuck seagull. My careful observing makes me dizzy. I let the binocs dangle from the strap around my neck and just look with my eyes. And then I see him. A little man in a lumpy green jacket, sitting right in my perfect spot. His back’s against my tree.

Without my binocs, I can only tell what he isn’t. He isn’t a fisherman, because he doesn’t have buckets and boxes. He isn’t a landscape painter, because he doesn’t have an easel. He isn’t a hippie singer, because he doesn’t have a guitar.

With my binocs, he’s a she. She’s rubbing her face, and her hands are wrinkly and her hair is snarly and dried-out and really needs conditioner. Mom thinks conditioner is an unnecessary expense, but Dad says that she’s being overly influenced by the deprivation in her past and he would like his daughters to be freed up from that pain, which means that my hair is extra soft and shiny and smells like coconuts right after I’ve showered. The lady’s jacket is too big, and she’s kind of snuggled down inside it. Her eyes are closed, but she’s thinking, not sleeping. I can tell by the way her mouth twitches and her forehead is
all scrunched up. She doesn’t look upset, but she doesn’t look peaceful, either. I guess she looks like she’s trying to figure something out.

She’s got half a sandwich sitting on top of a plastic bag on the ground next to her. She must not be from around here, or she’d know that if you leave a sandwich out, the black ants call a party. Maybe her family all died and now she’s wandering around the country trying to find a new home with decent people who will love her. Or maybe she’s the one who’s sick and she ran away so that she wouldn’t be a burden to her family.

I could sneak out food and blankets to her and help her make a home in the woods out of branches woven together with dune grass. Sometimes in the summer Rachel and I sleep outside in the woods or in the sand at the edge of the salt marsh, and if you remember that the crunchy night sounds are just chipmunks and birds, it’s really peaceful. I could let the lady stay in our toolshed with the snow shovels and flowerpots when it gets too cold. I’ll lend her my sleeping bag and old copies of
National Geographic
so she won’t feel too lonely at night, and I’ll bring her hot soup in a thermos when it snows. Mom’s been teaching me how to make soup, and so far I can make mushroom barley by myself, which is a good winter soup. The lady probably isn’t Jewish, but if she is, I’ll show her how to make a menorah by poking holes in a raw potato and sticking the candles in, so that she
can keep her tradition alive and feel connected to her ancestors. Dad says that it’s important for people to feel connected to where they’ve come from and to understand their past so they can make sense of their present, which is what his work as a psychiatrist is all about.

Now the lady’s standing up and waving a stick so I’m sure to see her.

“Hello!” I shout, waving back. Maybe she got disoriented in the sun and needs me to give her directions out to Route 6. Before she goes, I could let her borrow my binocs so she can check out the birds.

I start walking toward her. She’s waving the stick harder.

“I’m coming!” I yell. “I’ll be right there.”

She’s waving her other hand above her head, too. She must be in some kind of a hurry.

Like a speed walker, I take long steps and swing my arms until I’m right in front of her.

“Hi,” I say, nice and gentle, like I’m talking to a lost dog.

She doesn’t say anything, just keeps on shaking the stick and shaking her hand.

Maybe she’s hard of hearing. Maybe she only speaks Portuguese, like some of the early inhabitants of Provincetown that we learned about last year in social studies.

“Hi,” I say again, nice and loud and slow. “Do you need me to show you how to get to Route 6?”