Egg-Drop Blues (8 page)

Jury excused himself to go to the restroom.

When Jury finally came back, my father made a few lame attempts to get us to say something about how we felt about them getting married, but neither of us were biting. Finally Lilly kicked him under the table and he stopped trying to get us to talk about it.

All things considered, breakfast was pleasant enough. It's hard to mess up breakfast food for me. It's just the opposite for Jury; he hates breakfast. After he came back from the restroom he didn't eat any more, and he'd only eaten a few mouthfuls before he left. I was pretty sure he threw up while he was in there. I know his sick-to-the-stomach look.

After the announcement, things were a little strained. Daddy promised to call us later in the evening so just the three of us could get together to go bowling. He used to ask our mother along for stuff like that, but I guess those days are over. I love to watch them compete; they both play hard.

Jury and I stood outside and waved good-bye to Daddy and Lilly. "Are you okay?" I asked Jury as we walked up the porch steps.

"Except for my insides being twisted in knots, I guess so. Did that come out of the blue for you too? Or was it just me?"

"I suspected it was something like that—marriage, living together, engaged. It's all the same." I sat down on the top step and he sat next to me.

"He and Mama will never get back together."

"I never expected that."

"But didn't you hope it?"

"No. I like them better apart. Have you forgotten how it was just before they separated?"

"No, I remember. But I figure they've grown up a lot since then. It seems to me that if you just wait these things out they get better. Look at Grandma and Grandpa Jenkins; they don't even talk much to each other anymore, but they seem happy."

I didn't have anything to say to make him feel better. I would have sat longer, but it occurred to me that our mother hadn't come to the door. Usually, when we go somewhere with our dad, she's right there with a lot of questions when we get home. She always pretends that she's just showing her motherly interest, but it's more than that. She still cares about everything Daddy does.

I decided to go see how she was taking it. There was no doubt in my mind that she knew, either by instinct or because my father had told her already.

What I saw when I opened the door made me laugh so hard Jury came in from where he was sitting. Our mother had brought her stationary bike down from her bedroom and she was pumping away while watching a cooking show on television. She was wearing a silver sweatsuit-type
thing I'd never seen before and there was a green avocado mask on her face.

"Come on, it's not that funny," she said between puffs.

When I got closer I could see her eyes were red, and I wondered if she'd been crying.

"I decided if I moved it down here, I could use it while I'm wasting so much time watching television every night with you guys."

"I beg your pardon; that's the quality time everybody talks about."

She threw a towel at Jury and he seemed all right again. She climbed off her bike.

"If either of you want to talk I'm here."

So she knew.

"I've got a headache; do you have anything?" Jury asked.

That was probably the third time in my life that he's said anything about having a headache.

"Go get my purse, Brother."

I looked in the usual places for her purse and found it on the kitchen table. She dug around until she found a tin of tablets and gave Jury two.

"Why don't you go lie down."

I didn't like the sound of that; it would mean all of the Saturday chores would fall on me.

"Do you want me to take your books back to
the library for you?" I asked Jury. Our books weren't due for another couple of weeks, but better the library than cleaning.

Luckily, I caught Mama off guard. She actually thought it was nice of me to offer to take Jury's books back with mine.

"Maybe I'll read up on something I can use next weekend while I'm there."

"Okay, baby." She kissed me at the door. I felt terrible; I do have a conscience.

The library is about six blocks from our house, so I rode my bike. I'm not part of the Saturday crowd, but I saw a few people I knew and each of them felt the need to tell me that Faye and Angela had just left. I guess that's the trouble with being part of a group; everybody expects you to always be together. I went over to the magazines and grabbed a handful of good ones, then I settled down in one of the big comfortable chairs.

A couple of hours later when I got home, our father called to say he wasn't going to be able to take us bowling. One of my uncles was having a little get-together for some of my father's old friends to meet Lilly. He invited us, but I think he was relieved when Jury said he didn't want to party with a bunch of old people. We would have been the only kids there. When he hung up, Jury
mumbled something about his head still hurting.

Sunday we all went to church—we go about once or twice a month. My mother told us early in the week that we were going this Sunday because we hadn't been all month. Lilly and my father were there, sitting right next to my Grandparents Jenkins, which is on the same pew that my Grandparents Reynolds, my mother's parents, sit on. Usually we sit with them or right behind them. My mother sat on the opposite side of the church. It was my first time ever sitting over there.

My mother wore the dress she bought for her company's Christmas party. Also, she wore a little more makeup than usual. She looked really pretty. After church almost everybody told her how nice she looked. I think it started to have the opposite effect before long. I think she heard, 'You're not as young, pretty, or slim as Lilly, but you look nice, too.'

"Let's get out of here," she whispered to us at some point. It's a really friendly church—after service they have coffee and doughnuts in the basement. It's the only part I look forward to, but I was with her about leaving. I knew it was just a matter of time before one of the grands
asked us how we felt about Daddy's announcement.

We ended up eating big ice cream sundaes at a place that advertises the "best ice cream this side of the Mississippi." When we got home our mother asked me to move the stationary bike back to her room.

The week before the rally was probably my most intense week ever. Jury summed it up pretty well on Friday when he said, "The one week I needed a pom-pom tackle game every day, twice a day, and I've only had time to play once."

After school on Friday we had a going-away party for Miss Bailey. Her student teacher's term was up and she was going back to teacher's college. She kept apologizing about not being able to be with us on Saturday, but we understood. She'd made reservations to fly back to Michigan during her term break before she knew anything about being our Einstein Rally adviser.

"I'm glad your mother is doing better," I heard Miss Bailey say to Ms. Hennessey as she was gathering up her junk to leave.

"Thanks. I hope I wasn't too hard to be
around. Her condition has really been on my mind a lot."

That explained things. It explained why Miss Hoffer was offering to pray for Ms. Hennessey and it explained why her mind always seemed to be elsewhere and her attitude wasn't the best. If my mother was really sick, I wouldn't be the nicest guy to be around either. I made a mental note to tell the posse.

Our grandparents Jenkins took us out to dinner on Friday night. We went to a steak house that my grandpa likes. It was okay, but I'm not really a steak person; I'll take a hamburger over it any day. It seemed like my grandmother was gushing over Mama a lot. I guess my mother saw it too because at some point in the evening Mama reached across the table and took Grandma's hand.

"Ma, I loved you before you were my mother-in-law; I'll always love you. I'm happy for Rus and Lilly. Do you know what I'm saying?"

Grandma nodded. I kind of wish she hadn't known what my mother was saying because I needed further explanation.

The grands didn't come in after dinner. We went in and got in our usual positions for television. Within what seemed like seconds after sitting down, my mother was fast asleep.

"I don't know why she even bothers to sit there," Jury commented when she started snoring.

"I guess it's not that unusual; Angela and Faye both said their parents fall asleep as soon as they sit down, too."

"You'll talk to people about anything, won't you?"

I didn't answer him. Just because he wants to play the strong silent type doesn't mean I shouldn't talk to my friends. I left him in front of the set at eleven when the news came on. Watching television and denying that we had a big day ahead of us wasn't going to make it any easier.

The next day started off like any school day, which wouldn't be unusual except it was Saturday. Our mother called us at 6:30, only today she didn't leave soon after her wake-up call. And this morning we didn't ignore her call to wait for the alarm. We showered, dressed, ate breakfast, and were ready to go without mentioning the rally and without anybody asking anybody else if they were excited or nervous. I do know when not to talk.

I was glad the whole posse decided to ride over to the campus with us. My mother was complaining in a playful way about the gas it took to pick up Tommy, Faye, and Angela.

"Next time we'll just have them meet us at our house," I suggested.

"No. By the time they walk over here, they might as well walk to the campus," she said.

The entrance of Southwest Kentucky Teachers College is only about three blocks from our house, but the campus is huge. It's built across two different rolling hills.

"So what you're saying is you should go pick them up?"

She swatted at Jury, but he ducked out of her way before she could make contact.

We picked up everybody and they were all going through a quiet thing, too. After everybody said their good mornings, we all just stared out the windows and rode. We weren't sure if we were supposed to go over to the school first or not, so we did, since we had time to spare. Ms. Hennessey and a couple of parents were there with the kids who needed rides. They followed us over in a caravan.

Almost as soon as the van went through the big green gates, I knew it was going to be a special day.

"Feel the electricity in the air," Faye said as
her feet touched the ground. She started twirling around like the good witch had just zapped the ruby slippers back on her feet.

Like I said before, Faye and Angela can be quite dramatic. But I had to agree with her this time. A band from somewhere deep in the campus was playing some marching-type music. Every time the drum beat, I could feel it inside like it was my heart. For some reason, I thought about how athletes must feel during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. There were all kinds of kids there, wearing all kinds of T-shirts. Angela and Faye had had a big argument last week about Angela going to the student council and getting them to buy matching T-shirts for all the Einstein Rally participants from Faber.

"We're going to look so lame, so babyish," Faye complained.

I don't know how Angela was able to call this one—sometimes I think the girl is psychic—but nearly everybody had on matching school T-shirts or hats or both. One school even had matching jackets.

Most of the kids seemed to be carrying something like cars made from shoe boxes or weird-looking stuff like mobiles made out of vegetables or spools of thread; one kid even had some animals shaped out of what looked like dryer lint.

"Check out all the babes," Jury
thought
he whispered. Like I needed him to tell me. Angela and Faye gave him the "you pig" look, but I know they were checking out the dudes—and there were probably twice as many guys.

Tommy and Jeff, the boys on the question bowl team, had moved ahead of the Faber group. I guess they were acting as our scouts. If the red-and-white T-shirts Angela picked out weren't so visible, they might have gotten lost in the maze of people. They stopped just before they got to the registration table. We caught up to look at something that was so cool I immediately developed a new appreciation for science.

There was a square section of lawn about as big as half a football field blocked off by yellow plastic police department crime scene tape. It stretched away from the crowd over grass that had been covered with some kind of white stuff that looked like salt. Inside, where the tape was about waist-high and held up by caution signs all the way around, were ten lawn-mower-powered cars being driven by kids who didn't look much older than us.

"This is my event next year," Tommy said. I didn't have to ask to know that all the guys agreed with him. The kids in the cars wore helmets and some kind of padded suits, but they
were on the far end of the square moving faster than I would have expected any lawn mower to go. I could have stood there watching that all day, but the adults caught up and Ms. Hennessey told us we better go register before we got too fascinated by anything else.

It's a good thing Ms. Hennessey told us to move on. When we got to the registration table, we learned that the question bowl was scheduled for 9:45, less than fifteen minutes away. Our event was at 11:15, just ten minutes after the scheduled end of the question bowl event. That seemed like enough time to get from the LS&A (literature, science, and arts) building to the physical education building. The campus is getting smaller as I get older, but it still seems huge to me. I've taken summer recreation classes in the phys. ed. building and Angela's father's office is in the LS&A building, so I know the campus as well as I know my back yard. When Ms. Hennessey asked, "Does anybody know where the LS&A building is?" all five of the posse members pointed at a building up the hill behind her head.

"Somebody in group A—that's the sixth-graders—has to wear this and somebody in group B has to wear this," Ms. Hennessey announced as she held up two pins that said "captain" on them. Every hand in the B group shot up. All of us sixth-graders just looked at the B group and shook our heads. You would think that by fourth and fifth grade, they'd know better than to volunteer for something without knowing what they were volunteering
for.