Spinning (23 page)

“Am I bleeding?” I said, staring up at the ceiling.

Billie hovered above me. “I don’t see any. Are you okay? What happened?”

“I’m not sure…how’s the turkey?”

Spring pointed to the only plant I had in my dining area, a Fishhook Cactus, which now resembled a turkey piñata. “Look! It’s full of needles!”

“Can we save it?” With that, the bird slipped from the cactus itself and into the potting soil.

“Doesn’t look good,” Billie said.

“Couldn’t we wash it or something?”

“I think we’re talking major bacteria potential at this point.”

Billie helped me get up. “What are we going to do?”

“Don’t worry, we have everything but the main course, and although it cost at least one of my bonuses, you can make it up to me later. What if I fix something?”

“We don’t have much,” I hinted, knowing what filled the cupboards. Besides, Billie was no Betty Stewart. “We’ll go out.” I’d been planning to do that with Spring anyway.

“Spring is not going to a restaurant on Thanksgiving. Let me see,” Billie said, checking every place we stored food. Then, she checked the refrigerator. “Not much here, plenty of microbrews and takeout leftovers. What’s the green stuff in the bag?”

“Old tofu.”

“Better get rid of that, huh? This is what you have to feed Spring?”

“No, this is
not
what I feed Spring. We’re a little low on groceries right now. I was planning to go shopping tomorrow.”

Billie put on a face of mock at least I think it was mock exasperation and pointed to the living room. “Out,” she said. “Spring, take D to the couch, and both of you out of the kitchen. Go watch the rest of the parade. Go!”

Billie clanked around the kitchen for a while, and by the time she announced lunch, it was still well before noon. Seeing how I ruined the turkey, I wasn’t going to raise any objections.

“Brunch!” Billie said, presenting the table with a flourish.

Spring frowned. “It isn’t lunchtime.”

“I didn’t say lunch. I said brunch.”

“Brunch?” Spring looked at me.

“That’s what she said.”

“What’s brunch?”

“It’s a meal you eat between breakfast and lunch. Now get your little behinds in here.”

Spring looked appalled. On the table was a pizza. “I hate pizza.”

Billie seemed stunned. “You do?”

“Uh huh.”

“This isn’t normal icky pizza. This is a special pizza I made just for you.”

Spring peeked at it and made another face. “Macaroni?”

“This is gourmet macaroni on the cheese pizza I found in the freezer. ”

“Is that thing still in there? Jim brought it over sometime last year.”

Billie shrugged. “It looked all right.”

Billie pointed to the artificial orange-colored pasta and warned. “But we only have one, Dylan, so you can have some, but you can’t handle it. And there’s lots of other stuff like potatoes and corn and stuffing. Well, you two can eat the stuffing. I’ll have extra carrots or something. And we have cheesecake for dessert…unless Dylan decides to hurl it.”

“Don’t say hurl. Bad omen.” I looked at the pizza. “You made this? I’ll alert the media.”

So for our Thanksgiving brunch, we ate leftover macaroni and cheese on a frozen pizza, along with takeout carrots, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, and stuffing. Although Billie said she wouldn’t eat any, I saw her take a nibble or two. On top of that, I didn’t even mention the obvious fact that the pizza had to be loaded with fat. We finished it off with cheesecake and shared a bottle of sparkling white grape juice that I’d bought a couple of weeks back just in case Spring and I ever had something to celebrate. Spring drank hers from a sippy cup, of course, but since we didn’t have one for Billie, I chose to go the more formal route. By noon, we were stuffed a full three hours ahead of schedule, had my grandmother made the meal. This was the first time I had ever had a big dinner at my own place.

“I want to propose a toast to the two most beautiful women I know.”

“Don’t forget smart,” Billie said.

“And smart…”

“And funny…”

“Shut up. To the two most beautiful, smart, and funny women I know: Billie and Spring.” I wondered how they
would look in 30 years, knowing they would both still be beautiful.

With a couple of clinks and a dull thud from Spring’s cup, we touched glasses and drank our first toast together. Spring slurped, then hollered for a movie. Since the Giants weren’t playing, it sounded like a good idea.

“Can you keep a secret?” Spring said to Billie in her loud whisper.

Billie looked at me. “Me? Can I keep a secret?”

Confusion crossed Spring’s face.

“Just say yes or no,” I said. “She’s stalling, Spring. It’s what she does.”

“Yes, I can keep a secret.”

Spring leaned over and whispered something in Billie’s ear. This time, I couldn’t hear the little girl’s quiet words.

I waited for them to share. Spring kept whispering and then Billie whispered back to her.

“Hey, aren’t you going to tell me?” I said.

The two ladies looked at me like I’d just asked for insider stock information.

“It’s a
secret
,” Billie said and then leaned over to hear more. Then, they returned to watching the movie like nothing had transpired.

“What? Tell me…”

Spring shook her head.

“Billie?”

“Sorry, D-Man.”

Spring patted me on the leg. “Sorry, D-Man.”

Although my mind was on their shared secret, we continued looking at the television. A part of me was a little insulted at being excluded, while another part was tickled at the exchange and the fact that Billie had responded so naturally to it.

When Spring paused the DVD player and ran to the bathroom, I saw an opportunity to get in on the fun. “Okay. You can tell me now.”

“Tell you what?”

“What was the secret?”

“It’s still a secret whether Spring is in or out of the room.”

“It can’t be a
real
secret. She’s a kid.”

“A secret is a secret, D-Man. That’s all there is to it.”

Spring ran back into the room. “Did you tell him?”

“Of course not. It’s between the ladies and this guy over here is no lady.”

I frowned.

Spring flopped onto the couch next to me. “Good.”

“I have a secret, too,” I said.

Spring’s head popped up. “You do?”

“Don’t listen to him, Spring. He’s trying to trick us.”

“Me?”

“That means he’s guilty.” Billie poked me in the leg. “Listen here, mister. If you think you’re going to make us spill our guts…”

Spring laughed.

“…you can forget it.”

“Yeah!”

While I was sure that Billie had plenty of secrets, I didn’t think Spring had any. After you live with a threeand-a-half-year-old for a while, she might think she has
secrets, but she doesn’t. Or did all men think this way? I couldn’t be sure.

“I have a secret and I’m not telling either of you.”

“Fine,” Billie said and looked back at the screen.

Spring turned away as well. “Fine.”

I waited. I stared. I shifted. “You’re missing out…” I said.

“Don’t wanna know,” Billie said and Spring shook her head. “You can try until your guts fall out…”

Spring laughed again.

Billie chuckled. “You like that, don’t you?”

Spring nodded.

“You almost spilled your guts out laughing.”

Spring laughed and Billie snorted.

I rolled my eyes, though I had to admit that I enjoyed being the brunt of this kind of joke.

We watched the movie for an hour before I thought of Diane sitting in her urn next to the TV. I looked up at the urn and wondered why I had ever placed it where I did. The pictures next to it were dusty, and I had returned the robins-egg-blue box. It should have been Diane sitting next to me and Spring, not Billie. It should have been Diane bringing dinner and making the pizza, though she would have eaten the cactus before she ate a frozen pizza. It should have been Diane drinking the toast, and it should have been Diane nestling into my side instead of Billie.

Billie dozed, as her arm dangled across my legs touching Spring’s shoulder. Billie and I had done this sort of thing dozens of times on lazy Sunday afternoons before Spring and Diane moved to New York. It felt as comfortable as an old sweatshirt.

Billie twisted in her sleep and put her hand on my chest. Spring didn’t move. I had a little girl who wasn’t mine on one side and a big girl who decidedly wasn’t mine on the other. Somehow, I was okay with this.

For the next few weeks, we meaning Spring and me but not always together saw Billie a few times a week. At first, it was nothing more than Billie dropping by to make her special mac and cheese pizza. Spring began to encourage Billie to come by with bribes: if she dropped by, she didn’t have to do animal impressions before bed. In Spring’s mind, that was incentive. Did she think that Billie would have to do animal impressions if she
didn’t
come over? But I think Billie liked being bribed. She begged off because of dates a couple of times, but otherwise didn’t require much coercion.

I asked Billie to come by to help us decorate our pathetic Christmas tree. I hadn’t had a tree in years and pretended not to remember knowing where or how to hang the lights. Spring agreed that it would be a good idea to have Billie help. I probably should have taken Billie to help buy the tree, as well.

I had promised Spring that we would get a tree she and Diane had used a plastic tabletop one in the past and on my way home, a guy was selling blue spruces out of the back of a truck. While this was not an official designated Manhattan Christmas tree stand, he said he could make me a good deal. I’m not usually that gullible. Wearing an orange ski mask and a camouflage jacket, the guy said the trees only appeared to be shaped funny because they had been on top of each other in the truck. After it was inside, the branches would “lay down.” I repeated this to Billie and Spring, as if I knew that a blue spruce was capable of “laying down” after it had time to relax and get used to its environment.

Instead, the branches never assumed the position I hoped they would. We decorated it anyway. Billie added lights where branches hadn’t grown or pointed in a funky direction. She said if makeup worked for people, lights probably worked for Christmas trees. Spring agreed. The lights did help, but only when they were on, and I adopted a very liberal Christmas tree light illumination policy. After all, I had been the one to buy the flawed tree.

One afternoon, Billie took Spring Christmas shopping. When they returned, in addition to the shopping bags they toted, they were smiling and said “shhh” a lot. Again, I was cut out, but I took it manfully.

“What’s this?” I said when Billie handed me a little bag.

“We brought you a surprise. ”

“You did?”

I opened the bag and found a half-eaten sugar cookie. They giggled to each other.

“This is my surprise? What’s in the other bag?”

Spring tightened her grip around the bag, bunching it into her arms. “Don’t look!”

“He’s kidding you. He’s jealous because we went shopping and had cookies.”

I looked at Billie. “Ms. Fat Gram Police ate cookies?”

“‘Tis the season. Besides, it was only a nibble or two.”

“She ate a whole oatmeal cookie,” Spring said.

“You ate an
entire
oatmeal cookie? Are you planning to fast until Wednesday?”

Billie stuck her tongue out at Spring. “Blabbermouth. It was an oat-meal cookie; it’s made out of oats. They’re healthy.” She was spinning. “Don’t make me feel guilty, or I’ll leave right this second for the gym.”

Spring’s eyes grew wide. “No! You promised!”

“Now she’s kidding
you
, Spring,” I said. “What did you promise? Or is that a secret, too?”

“I promised I would help Spring wrap your present. Tape and scissors, please.”

They disappeared into Spring’s room. A full 30 minutes later, a package with my name on it went under the tree. Spring instructed me not to touch or shake the present.