Round Robin (9 page)

She sighed and shook her head, and when Tim's face brightened she knew he understood that she was granting permission for the project to continue. What else could she do, really? They had installed a basketball hoop for Todd; was a skateboard ramp for Michael any different? Aside from its size, of course, and the expense, and the loss of a good portion of their backyard.

She turned and walked back to the house so that she wouldn't have to think about just how large the skateboard ramp would be if it required so much material. Their backyard was big enough; all of the backyards on
this side of the street were, because they bordered the Waterford College Arboretum. The yards were separated by fences and mature trees, so they wouldn't disturb the neighbors. Really, she couldn't complain.

Tim and Michael worked until supper, then headed back outside as soon as the meal was over. After clearing away the dishes, Diane took her sewing basket and the round robin quilt out to the balcony off the master bedroom, so that she could keep an eye on the construction as she planned her border. But the quilt rested in her lap unnoticed. Tim and Michael worked until it grew too dark to see, and all the while Diane watched them, thinking.

The skateboard ramp took shape that weekend. By Saturday afternoon they had erected a structure of crossbeams that supported a U-shaped curve resembling the cross section of a pipe. It was higher than Diane had expected, and longer, but she clamped her mouth shut and vowed that instead of complaining, she'd buy Michael a helmet.

That evening some of Todd's friends came over to watch videos. From the family room where she was loading piles of folded laundry into her basket, she heard them raiding the refrigerator and arguing about which movie to watch first.

Then one of the boys interrupted the debate with a cry of astonishment. “What the hell is that?”

Todd's reply was barely audible, and she had to strain to catch it. “Something for my brother.”

“But what is it?” another boy asked.

“It looks like a skateboard ramp.” This voice was lower; it belonged to Mary Beth's son, Brent.

“Great theory, Einstein,” Todd retorted. “It only took you one guess.”

Brent laughed. “I didn't know you were a skateboard geek.”

“I'm not.”

“Your brother is.”

“So? That doesn't mean I am. I mean, look at him. He's a total loser. I'm nothing like him.”

Diane's grip tightened on the handles of the laundry basket.

“You better watch out,” the first boy drawled. “You have the same genes, right? It might show up later.”

The boys snickered.

Diane sailed into the room and slammed the laundry basket down on the kitchen table. Todd and his friends jumped at the sound. “Well, hello, boys,” she declared, nailing a grin to her face. “Getting yourselves a snack?”

They muttered hellos and sneaked furtive glances at Todd, all but Brent, who had the nerve to look her straight in the eye and smile. “We were just checking out the skateboard ramp,” he said. “It's really cool. Do you think Michael would let us try it when it's ready?”

Insolent little weasel. “You could ask him,” she said, still grinning.

“Maybe later,” Todd said, shoving his friends out of the kitchen. “Mom, I didn't mean that the way it sounded.”

She would have been more impressed by his apology if he hadn't waited until his friends were out of earshot. “You have no idea how much it hurts me to know you score points with your friends by ridiculing your brother. You, of all people, should defend him.” She snatched up the laundry basket and stormed from the room.

Tim and Michael worked until dusk, and the next morning Diane woke to the sounds of hammers and saws outside her window. They worked all day, taking breaks only for meals and church. Michael tried to convince her to let them skip mass just that once, and Tim looked like he might agree, but Diane would have none of it. “With this thing in the backyard we're going to need all the divine assistance we can get,” she said, herding father and son inside with orders to clean up and change within twenty minutes or she'd cancel construction for the day.

Tim and Michael got back to work after church, and when Diane returned from welcoming a new group of quilt campers to Elm Creek Manor, they were still at it. By Sunday evening the skateboard ramp was finished. Diane and Todd joined Tim and Michael outside for the final inspection.

Michael was holding his skateboard and grinning. “What do you think?”

“Unbelievable,” Todd said, eyeing the structure, and Diane agreed. The U-shaped half-pipe nearly spanned the width of the yard and looked at least twelve feet high.

“It's safe,” Michael assured her. “Really.”

Diane circled the ramp, looking it over. When the supporting beams hid her from view, she seized the nearest one and threw her weight against it. It didn't budge.

“Dad already tried that,” Michael called. “It's sturdy.”

Diane joined them in front. “It seems to be,” she admitted.

Michael apparently took that as the signal to begin the test run, because he put on his helmet. He climbed up a ladder built into one side of the structure and moved onto a platform at the top of the U. He placed his skateboard at the edge, stepped on it, and scanned the length of the ramp.

“I can't watch,” Diane murmured, but she couldn't look away, either.

Then Michael launched himself forward, over the edge and down the slope. His momentum carried him up the opposite side, where he turned at the edge and raced back down again. He shot up the first slope, but this time he soared above the U, crouching down to grab the skateboard with one hand as he turned.

“Big air,” Tim whooped as Michael rode down the slope again. “That's what the kids say,” he added in an undertone.

Diane nodded, her anxiety giving way to amazement as she watched Michael swoop down one side of the U and up the other. He was positively graceful.

Finally he slowed and came to a stop at the bottom of the U. “What did you think?” he called, smiling with triumph and breathing hard from exertion. Somehow he tossed the skateboard into the air with his feet and caught it.

Diane couldn't speak for a moment. He looked so proud and happy. “I'm impressed,” she said. “I'm also terrified you're going to break your neck.”

Michael laughed. “It's not as dangerous as it looks.”

“Thank God for that.”

Michael rode a while longer, until Diane told him he had to go inside
and do his homework. To her amazement, he obeyed without protest.

“What happened to our kid?” she whispered to Tim.

“I don't know, but I'm not complaining.” He put an arm around her shoulders and they crossed the lawn side by side.

The next day, Diane went to the manor earlier than usual to have lunch with the new campers and some of the Elm Creek Quilters. She had the whole group laughing with the story of how she and Tim had punished their wayward son by building him his own skateboard ramp.

“Why does Waterford have such a problem with skateboarding?” Summer asked. “There aren't any laws against in-line skates. How are skateboards any different?”

“I suppose it's because skateboarders tend to be teenage boys who dress a certain way and listen to a certain kind of music,” Gwen mused. “They might be the nicest kids in the world, but they project an image which makes some people uncomfortable.”

Diane was forced to agree. Michael was a basically good kid, but he looked like the stereotypical punk teenager. If he dressed differently, cut his hair, and lost the earring, adults would treat him with more respect. Unfortunately, despite her many attempts to explain, he didn't see the connection.

When she brought Todd home from band practice later that day, Michael was in the backyard with three other boys—no, two other boys and a girl. “Kelly, I suppose,” Diane mused. She had assumed Kelly was a boy, since Tim had not indicated otherwise. She watched them through the kitchen window as they took turns zooming up and down the ramp. When it was Kelly's turn, Michael called out something that made her laugh. One of the boys nudged him and Michael grinned.

Well. That was certainly interesting.

Just then, Michael and his friends put down their skateboards and began walking toward the house. Diane let the curtain fall back across the window and busied herself emptying the dishwasher. They came into the kitchen laughing and talking and looking for food.

“We have apples and grapes in the fruit bin,” Diane suggested, not surprised when they grimaced. She found them a package of cookies instead,
and Michael took four glasses from the cupboard and filled them with milk. Kelly helped him carry them to the kitchen table and paused to thank Diane for the cookies. She was a pretty, dark-haired girl, and Diane decided she liked her.

When they finished their snack, Diane took the round robin quilt outside to the deck so that she could plan her border and watch the kids skate. She swung back and forth on the porch swing in the shade of her favorite oak tree and held up the quilt top. Sarah's border of squares on point used a cream background and varying shades of blue and green, so Diane decided to use similar colors. But what pattern should she choose? She had never participated in a round robin before, and she wished Agnes had given more specific instructions. Should she use squares, too, since Sarah had, or was the point to make each border completely different?

“Yoo hoo. Diane, yoo hoo.”

Diane smothered a groan and tried to hide the quilt on her lap. “Hello, Mary Beth,” she said to the woman peering over the fence. “How are you?” It was an automatic question. She couldn't care less how Mary Beth was that day or any other day. They had never been friends, and Mary Beth had never forgiven Diane for challenging her for the office of president of the Waterford Quilting Guild. Diane would have won, too, if Mary Beth hadn't made an impassioned speech to the guild the night before the election, asking them if they were willing to hand over the responsibilities of the Waterford Summer Quilt Festival to someone who had never won a ribbon. After Mary Beth's reelection, Diane and her friends were so fed up with the silly politics that they left the guild to form their own bee.

For years Diane had resented Mary Beth, but suddenly she realized she ought to thank her. If not for Mary Beth, she and her friends wouldn't have formed their own bee, so they couldn't have invited Sarah to join it, and then Elm Creek Quilts might not have existed.

But Mary Beth's phony smile pushed all gratitude out of Diane's mind. “What do you have there?” Mary Beth asked, craning her neck to see what was in Diane's lap.

Reluctantly, Diane held up the quilt top. “It's a round robin quilt I'm making with the Elm Creek Quilters. One person makes a center block and the others take turns adding borders to it.”

“Oh, I know. I've made dozens of them.” Mary Beth squinted as she studied the quilt. “You do realize you're supposed to put something in the middle? Not just leave it a big blank square?”

“Oh, really? My goodness. I had no idea. I thought it looked strange, and now I know why. Thank you for clearing that up.”

Mary Beth eyed her, as if trying to gauge her sincerity. “You're welcome,” she finally said. She nodded to the skateboard ramp as if seeing it for the first time. “What on earth is that?”

“It's a skateboard ramp.”

“It looks like an accident waiting to happen.” Mary Beth shook her head and made tsking noises with her tongue. “Do their parents know how high it is?”

Diane felt a pang of worry, but she refused to let Mary Beth see it. “Of course. In fact, some of them think it's not high enough.”

Mary Beth's eyes widened. “No kidding? Well, I guess that's fine, then. I wish I were as brave as you. If that thing were in my backyard, I'd never have a moment's peace. I'd be too worried about liability.”

Diane felt a twinge of nervousness. “We've taken care of all that.”

“Of course. Tim is so practical.”

Diane nodded and turned her attention to the quilt, hoping that Mary Beth would take the hint and go away.

“Aren't you worried that a skateboard ramp will attract—how can I put this—a certain undesirable element?”

Diane's head jerked up, and when she spoke, her voice was cold. “That undesirable element you're talking about is my son and his friends. They're under my supervision, and they aren't bothering you, so why don't you just leave them alone?”

For a moment Mary Beth just gaped at her—stunned, for once in her life, into silence. “You don't have to snap at me. I was just trying to help, in case you haven't thought it through.”

“Thanks all the same, but we have thought it through, and if I wanted your advice, I'd ask for it.”

“Fine.” Mary Beth sniffed and set her jaw. “You're wrong, you know, about one thing. This monstrosity
is
bothering me, and it's probably bothering a lot of other people, too.”

“No one else has complained.”

“Not yet, maybe, but we do have rules in this neighborhood, you know, ordinances and things.” Mary Beth gave her one last glare and marched back into her house.

Diane tried to return her attention to the quilt, but Mary Beth's remarks nagged at her. Eventually she put the quilt away and crossed the lawn to speak to Michael's friends. Their faces fell when she told them there would be no more skating until their parents came by and inspected the ramp for themselves. Brandon said his mom could be there in five minutes, but Kelly and Troy said their parents were working and couldn't come over until that evening, at the earliest.

“I'm sorry,” Diane told Michael, and she meant it with all her heart.

Michael scowled, humiliated. “You said we could skate.”

“It's okay,” Kelly said, sparing a quick glance for Diane before turning back to Michael. “We can watch a video or something. We can skate tomorrow when everyone's allowed.”