a dork!”
This is a private joke between me and Kale. We throw out as many funny versions as we can of greetings when we first see each other, and of goodbyes when we part ways. We don’t generally do this in front of other people. The whole thing started when our third grade teacher—Mrs. O’Connor—taught us letter writing—business letters, personal letters, postcards. For some reason, we found the word salutation a riot. This is the part of the letter where you say Dear so and so, but in our text book, it gave alternatives, like Greetings! Or Top of the mornin’ to you! That one cracked us up. We collected these like other kids collect scout badges or baseball cards. Ta-ta! Toodles! Regards to the family! All the best!
“That is so a sign, dude,” Kale says, lying back down and going under cover.
“Sign of what?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Violates one of the goals on your wall.”
“Tell me or I will have to pummel you senseless.”
Kale lifts the cover off her eyes for a sec, to give me a certain skeptical look she has.
“What?” I say.
“That last comment. It’s sort of not funny, given events in your recent past.”
“True,” I say. “Ugh. Totally poor taste. Sorry.” And for a minute I’ve got that kicked in the gut feeling again. Kale has seen me when I slide into this funk.
“You okay?” she says.
“Yes. But tell me, what is ‘ta-ta’ a sign of?”
“Just that you accidentally felt comfortable enough with one-who-saws to use our private language. It’s like intuitively you know he’s worthy, like of being in our inner circle. Her Royal Highness Bower would call this foreshadowing.” Bower is our English teacher. Bower resembles the Queen of England.
“Shit,” I say. “As usual, you are probably right. Was it obvious I liked him?”
“To me. Not to him,” Kale says. “You forget how clueless guys are.”
“Shit,” I say again.
“Ca-ca,” says Kale. Now she is onto terms for fecal matter. We found a list of these once in a psychology textbook in my dad’s office.
“Boom-boom,” I say.
“Double boom-boom,” says Kale.
“Boom-boom is already double. That, Bower would so kindly inform you, is redundant.”
“Alas,” says Kale. “So put me in grammar prison.”
Everyone mocks our English teacher, but Kale and I secretly revere her. Bower is old, older than you would think for someone still teaching high school. She’s short and has a small build, white hair, and glasses. Kids call her “Old Lady Bower” and because she doesn’t wear a wedding ring, they make jokes about how she’s the seventy-year-old virgin. But they should shut up, because no one knows 1) how old she is; or 2) anything about her life outside of school. She could easily be divorced or widowed. Or maybe a lesbian. She could’ve had plenty of sex in her life whether she was married or not, gay or straight. The thing is, she doesn’t have to explain herself to any of us and that’s one thing that makes her formidable. She’s wicked smart about literature and doesn’t have to answer to any dumb teenager.
“When I go home, I need to recommit to my goals,” I say.
We’re quiet after that, lying on our backs, side by side on her mom’s old sheet. The sun is high and feels good beating down on me. I imagine the heat and the sweat as cleansing. By lying here, I’m purifying. And then, as always when I’m left with my own thoughts, I think of my mother and I wonder if, wherever she is, she can see me down here. Like Google Earth, just zoom right in on me from her celestial place. Does she know what I think? That I have a crush on this swimmer boy? That I’m sorry in a thousand different ways?
Kale is putting on her shirt, standing up to step into her shorts. “I’m hungry,” she says. “Come on, we can go to the restaurant and I’ll share my free meal with you.”
She gets one free meal per shift at the vegetarian Mexican place on Duval—Mother’s Café. She’s the counter person and the smoothie maker and the one who does fruit salads and carrot juice. She has been helping the owner/manager develop vegan items for the menu. That’s how Kale is. The youngest employee there and she’s making changes to the menu.
“Yum,” I say. “Can we do the vegan nachos? Or the spinach enchiladas?”
“Whatever you want, but we have to hurry because we have to bike across town, order, eat, and then I have to go home and shower and change.”
As we make the long trek back to where our bikes are locked in the parking lot, I scan the pool for Swimmer Boy-Who-Saws. The place is in full swing now—moms and kids and no school and long lazy days. It is nearly impossible to find someone—Barton Springs is huge. But I make a wish to see him one more time before I leave, and then there he is—shallow section, far away—green swim trunks and a half-dozen kids in a semi-circle around him.
“Look,” I say to Kale.
“What?”
“One-who-saws.” I point.
“There are a hundred people where you’re pointing, Tate.”
“Green shorts, bare chest, encircled by children.”
“Got it,” she says. “He’s cute.”
“And sweet,” I add, “with that gaggle of kids always following him.”
“Ducklings.”
“Exactly. Or goslings.”
“Goslings it is,” says Kale. “Goslings is a far superior word.” She grabs my arm and pulls. “We have to hurry.”
“So he has another name,” I say. “Mother Goose.”
“And one-who-saws,” she says. She’s unlocking our bikes, which are hooked together.
“And one-who-swims, AKA Swimmer Boy.”
She untangles her bike from the rack and gives me the look: we’re in a hurry. I get serious, grab my steed, and jump on.
The ride from south Austin to Hyde Park takes a good half hour, but we are fast. The exercise feels great, the steady pumping of the pedals, the hot humid wind in my hair, the satisfaction of propelling myself forward with my own power.
Kale sets the pace. Her dark curls trail out behind her like streamers from her helmet.
As we pass downtown, the capitol building, and head up through the university, I’m reminded that my poor sweet father
