The Battle of Darcy Lane (10 page)

When Wendy and her mom
were gone, I helped clean up more than I ever did without being told to.
“Well, aren't you helpful,” Mom said. She never missed a beat.

I wanted to ask her about the office, the baby's room, whether that was happening or not and if not, what had happened. I wanted to tell her that I'd dug my own grave over at Alyssa's. But I couldn't get the courage up.

I
did
find myself just brave enough to say, “I was wondering if we could go shopping.”

“What for?” She was washing plastic tumblers in the sink.

I lowered my voice. “A bra.”

“Oh, honey.” She turned to me. “When you need one, we'll go.”

She'd used that line a few times when I'd asked about a cell phone, too, but I didn't remind her of that, or of how ridiculous an argument it was. I wanted to stay focused.

“Mom.” My ears felt like they were on fire. “I'm telling you I need one.”

She looked up—almost like she didn't recognize me at all—and then her features softened. “Okay, then. Tomorrow morning?”

12
.

I was up and dressed
and ready to hit the mall in record time Thursday morning. But when we got to the store and Mom asked a saleswoman to show us to the “training bras,” I wanted to curl up and die. Or, at the very least, tell Mom to forget the whole thing and just go for a cinnamon bun instead. The wide grin of the saleswoman—a grandmother type—didn't help.

“Mom,” I said, when she tried to follow me into the fitting room. “I think I can handle it from here.”

I ended up having a hard time with the clasps, so the whole thing was taking a while.

“Julia.” Mom's voice was so close. “I can help.”

“I can do it!” Could this be any more awkward? I thought I might dislocate my shoulder. Then it finally hooked.

The first one was too tight around my back, though, and the second one, too big in the cup. I handed them over the door and held my hands over my chest as if she could see through the door. “I need something in between these.”

“I'll be right back.” A minute later Mom handed another bra over the top. It fit just right.

“This is the one,” I said when I came out, dressed again and feeling strangely naked under my top.

“Okay.” She was all business. “We'll get a few more in this same size.”

Normally, I tried to stay at the mall as long as possible if it meant the possibility of Mom buying things for me, even if it really was just a cinnamon bun. But today I just wanted to get home so I could go to my room, put one of my bras on, and study myself in the mirror. Maybe it was true that I didn't really need one, but maybe having one would trick my body into changing that.

I was lying on a float
in the pool later in the day, feeling dozy after swimming a bunch of laps, when the phone rang. I braced myself for a hang-up, for it all to start again. But instead Mom called out, “Julia? It's Peter. He says his mom made cookies and do you want to go over for a while?”

That pepped me right up. “Sure!”

I hurried upstairs to change and headed out to Peter's, my hair still damp.

He was sitting on the front porch with the iPad resting on his bony knees. “Hope you didn't have your heart set on cookies.”

I smiled. “Cookies are overrated.”

He got up. “Let's go.”

He hopped onto his skateboard, and I walked beside him. “Hey, can you teach me to do that—skateboard—sometime?”

“Sure. Whenever you want.”

So we found our spot by the pond and we sat and watched episode two.

Alyssa had told me the truth, at least. After Mack picked up his dead wife's phone and there was a man on the other end who said, “Sorry, wrong number,” and hung up, Mack started to suspect an affair. He and Archer went back to their apartment, in a building now surrounded by bodies and uncollected trash, and Mack went through his wife's things, looking for more proof. Archer was only about six years old, so he went to his room and started to play with Legos, and I got to thinking how nice it would be, to be young enough that when the world was ending, you could still find a way to play with Legos and not just sit around freaking out.

After that, though, I started to have a hard time concentrating. There was a new story line that followed
some other survivors in another city. A couple of the guys looked the same, and I was having trouble remembering which one was which.

“I'm going head to head against Alyssa in Russia on Saturday,” I said when the show was over and Peter closed the iPad cover.

“What? Because you threw the ball at her?”

“I don't even know.” I stood up to stretch and told him about my mom forcing me to apologize and then me taking it back. “Alyssa said I was mad that I wasn't good at Russia, so I told her I could beat her.”

“Julia, Julia, Julia.” Peter shook his head.

“What?”

He just shook his head some more.

“It's complicated,” I said. I started to think that maybe that was something people just said when they really didn't want to explain anything for real. Because, sure, Peter knew she'd been “mean” to me, but I didn't want to tell him all the gory details, like about the prank calls or the fact that Alyssa had made fun of my freckles and flat chest and clothes and bedroom and the fact that I held my nose that
one time
—or that she hadn't exactly come out and said it, but how I knew she thought I was ugly and that no boys would ever like me.

A strong, warm wind blew and the leaves overhead sounded like their own kind of swarm. I looked up and
wondered whether bugs were going to start raining from the sky, and shivered at the thought of it, but they didn't.

“I guess you'll need a coach,” Peter said, and I smiled.

We went to his backyard patio and ran through the whole game so that he knew all the moves. He picked out nines for me to focus on, and I did it maybe thirty times without dropping the ball once.

“Good work,” he said when it was time for me to head home.

Maybe it was a weird, random thing to be proud of, but I felt that way anyway.

13
.

I sprang out of bed
on Friday and started practicing Russia in the backyard. I didn't think about Taylor or Alyssa or the prank calls or candy or babies or anything. None of it mattered but the game. Nothing mattered but concentrating on throwing the ball just so, and staying focused.

Tomorrow, if I could pull this off, everything would be different.

When I was completing my seventh turn-clap-turn move, ready to go for the first time onto eightsies, Peter said “Hey!” and I dropped the ball.

“Crap.” I chased after it. “You made me miss!”

“Sorry,” he said. “I'm coming over.” He pushed something up to the fence and climbed onto a tree that bordered
our yards—the trunk was on his side—and dropped down on my side like a bag of limbs in an orange T-shirt. “That used to be easier.”

“You could have walked around.”

“Takes too long.” He fixed his shirt. “How's it going?”

“Feeling good. I think.”

He ran a hand through his hair, brushing out a leaf, and I wondered if boys' hair felt different than girls' and how long it would be before I found out. He said, “Let's see what you've got,” and sat in one of our loungers and pulled up his sweat socks.

I started the whole game over.

I got up to tens without dropping anything.

Peter said, “She's just jealous, you know.”

I snorted. “Of
what
?”

Boys could be so dumb.

“Of you, you idiot.”

It was hard to count my Russia moves while talking so I stopped midway through tens. “Why would anyone be jealous of
me
?”

He blushed a little, I swear he did, and said, “Because you're smart and, you know . . . pretty and stuff.”

“She
doesn't
think I'm pretty.” The very idea of it was ridiculous.

But then I thought:
He does.

He
does!

He
does
?

My mom brought us sandwiches around lunchtime and asked, “What's with all the balls lately?”

I always thought of my parents as sharing everything with each other, and the fact that Dad hadn't told Mom anything about our chat in the yard the other night surprised me some.

“Just a game,” I said. “It's called Russia.”

I explained the basics, leaving out the bit about the showdown and Peter being my coach.

“Wait, wait, wait,” she said. “I know this! I used to play it. Or something like it! But we called it something different.” She pinched her head with her fingers. “Oh, what was it. Onesies, twosies. No! Leansies Clapsies, Onesies Twosies. Wow. That takes me back. That was a
long time
ago.”

It was a little embarrassing how excited she was.

“Well, that's good,” she said on her way back inside. “It's better than reading trashy magazines, at any rate.”

I felt bad not telling her the whole story, about Alyssa and me being on a path to mutual destruction, but I was too busy feeling hopeful to do anything about it. Because if Mom had been any good at Leansies Clapsies—talk about a ridiculous name—maybe Russia was in my blood.

My arms were jellyfish, but I only had a day to get ready, so I got right back to work.

I was about to throw my last thirteen out of thirteen in what would be my first ever successful run through the entire game when Peter said, “Julia?”

From the way he said it, I thought he was going to say something like, “Don't move. There's a massive cicada on your back,” so I froze.

“Are you wearing a bra?” He was smiling.

“Oh, jeez,” I moaned and looked away. “Shut up!”

“Sor-ry,” he said. “You look nice is all.”

I was no doubt redder than a tomato for real. “I said to shut up!”

“All right, already. Jeez yourself.” Then after a minute, he said, “Do you hear that?”

There was a buzzing sound in the air, faint but distinct, like an electric generator whirring.

“What is it?” I asked.

“The cicadas are really hatching.”

“I'm not impressed.”

I threw my last thirteen and caught it.

Peter cheered.