"There you are!" Pip said, coming upon me suddenly and almost giving me another heart attack.
"What are you doing there?" he asked.
"Having a heart attack," I said. I sat up and pulled the pine needles out of my tangled hair. I put the baseball cap that had fallen off back on my head and stood up. I guessed the heart attack, if that's what it was, was over, but I still felt light-headed.
"Stop fooling around, Esther. Randy's waiting for us."
Pip said Randy's name and I felt my heart rate pick up again.
I looked at Pip, standing in front of me in his best red T-shirt and his real cross-country running shoes, with his cheeks flushed and his glasses slipped down on his nose, and I asked him, "So are you and Randy boyfriend and girlfriend now?"
Pip shrugged, looking away. "Maybe. She really likes me." He looked at me. "She likes me just the way I am."
I turned away and said, "Well, that's special, then, and you're lucky, even if you only just met." I started walking. "I've got to go now. I'll see you later."
Pip said, "Say hi to King-Roy when you see him."
"Yeah," I said, still walking away, "when I see him."
Pip called back, "Esther, are you mad at me?"
I stopped and turned around and took a few steps toward him. "No, Pip, I'm not mad."
When I turned to leave again, he said, "Are you jealous?"
I looked back and tried to smile. "No, I'm not jealous. It's great that you have a girlfriend now. Randy's really pretty."
Pip smiled and looked down at his shoes. "She is, isn't she? She's—well, she's perfect. I don't know why she would like someone like me."
"Pip, you're the most fun person I've ever known, and the nicest and everything else, that's why. And anyway," I added, "you're going to be tall, too. It's really great how you've grown all of a sudden," I said, choking on the word sudden. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes again, so I turned away, and looking down, I said, "I won't be running anymore with you, Pip."
Pip jogged over to me and touched my shoulder. "Esther, what's wrong? Are you crying? Why aren't you running with me anymore?"
"I can't keep up," I said, holding my back to him and leaning against a pine tree. "I don't know when it happened, but you're too fast for me now."
"So?" Pip tried to come around to face me, but I kept turning away from him.
"So everything's changed. Everything's different and I can't keep up."
"So I'll wait for you, then."
"Then you won't get faster and be on the cross-country team anymore."
"Well, you can still run with me, can't you? Even if I am faster than you?"
I leaned my head against the tree. "When did you get so fast, Pip?"
"Don't you want me to be fast? Aren't I supposed to be faster than you?"
I stood up straight and turned around. "Why? Why should you be? Who says?"
Pip shrugged. "That's just the way it is. We grow up, and boys get faster and girls get slower, that's all."
"Well, I don't like it," I said. "It stinks."
"So you are jealous. You're jealous because I'm faster than you are. I would think you'd be happy for me." Pip scowled at me, his eyes looking dark beneath his glasses. "Thanks a lot, Esther."
"Pip, I'm not jealous. Not like you think. I'm glad you can run fast and you're getting taller and that Randy likes you. That's really great," I said, tears spilling out of my eyes and rolling down my face.
Pip put his arm around me and held me close. "Hey, what's going on?"
I let the tears roll down my face and watched them drop onto the ground. "Why do things have to change? I don't like it. I don't like all the changes. Pip, I can't keep up." I put my head on his shoulder and let the tears flood out of me. "I can't keep up, Pip. I'm falling too far behind."
"In running? Who cares?" Pip said.
"No, Pip, in everything. In everything! I'm retarded! I'm retarded," I said, breaking free of him and running. I ran away through the woods and Pip called after me. I knew he could catch me if he wanted to, but he didn't ... want to.
TWENTY-FOUR
I stayed up in my room all morning, staring down at the only line in my play that I had written so far: As the curtain rises on a dimly lit stage, there is the distant sound of the ocean.
I still couldn't think of what else to write, and I wondered if maybe that could be the whole play. People could sit in the dark theater for two hours and listen to the distant sound of the ocean. I thought about that for a while, trying hard to keep my mind off of my fears so that my heart wouldn't start racing again, and then the buzzer on my intercom phone buzzed. I picked up the receiver. It was Mother.
"We're all waiting for you for lunch in the dining room, Esther."
"I'm not hungry," I said.
"Come down, anyway."
"Why?" I asked.
"Esther, why does everything have to be difficult with you? Just come down. It's lunchtime and I expect you to be at the table."
"Yes, Mother."
I took my dear sweet time getting up and walking down the stairs and into the dining room. When I got there everyone else was already seated: Mother, Dad, Stewart, Sophia, Auntie Pie, Monsieur Vichy, Beatrice, and sitting by her feet, the Beast, chewing on one of my socks. She must have grabbed it out of the laundry bag that I had carried down to the laundry room on my way out to meet Pip.
Everybody, including the Beast, looked at me when I entered the room, and the strange looks on their faces made me think they had been talking about me. But then Mother said, "Esther, what on earth have you got on?"
I looked down at myself, then at Mother. "My gym uniform; the new one. I went running with Pip this morning."
"That's the most outrageous looking outfit I've ever seen."
"Well, you bought it," I said. I pulled some of the material up past my belt, trying to make it look more presentable so Mother wouldn't send me back upstairs to change.
"Now she looks like a marshmallow," Auntie Pie said, chuckling, and Monsieur Vichy said at the same time, "Charming, as usual, Esther dear."
"Is this some kind of a joke, wearing that costume for lunch?" Dad asked, his voice booming as though he were in the theater talking to an actor onstage. "Where did you get that clown costume?"
"She's a droopy drawers," Sophia said, then snickered, and Stewart shook his head and looked disappointed in me. Beatrice just looked bored.
I looked at Mother and then Dad. "I told you, it's my gym uniform. Mother said I would grow into this." I held out the bloomers, pulling on the uniform from both sides, and said, "I've been five feet four inches since the fifth grade, but I guess I'm going to have a wild growth spurt all of a sudden and turn into some kind of mammoth Amazon giant." I turned back to Mother. "Did you call me down to pick on me some more or to eat?" Then, before she could say anything, I pulled out my chair and flopped down in my seat. I could feel everybody's eyes on me, but I didn't look up. I stared down at the white tablecloth and tried not to have a single thought—not a single one, or I knew I would start crying.
"Well, then," Mother said in her prim southern voice, "shall we eat?" She lifted her spoon, signaling the start of the meal, and everyone followed, lifting their spoons and slurping up the navy bean soup Mother had prepared.
While everyone ate and talked around me, I sat still and stared into my bowl of soup. It looked like vomit, with the beans and bits of ham floating around in a yellow-white broth, but I didn't look away. After a while I shifted my gaze to the ham and cheese sandwiches and stared at them. Then I heard Mother speaking to me, and I lifted my head.
"Did you hear me, Esther?"
I blinked at her. "No, Mother, I didn't, unless you meant just now. I heard you say, 'Did you hear me, Esther?'"
Dad rubbed at his balding head and said, "She said we've decided to give you another chance. We want you to take Sophia into the city next week for her rehearsals."
I stared back down at my sandwich. "No, thanks.
I don't want another chance," I said.
Dad stood up and pressed his knuckles into the table and leaned forward. "Young lady, we're not asking you; we're telling you, do you understand? We're giving you another chance!"
I stood up and threw my cloth napkin on the table. "Yes, Dad, I understand. Believe it or not, I do understand, and I'm telling you, I'm not taking her into the city. You all can find yourself another stooge to pick on." I strode out of the dining room, and my father called after me, "Young lady, you come right back here. Don't think you're too big for a spanking."
I kept on marching through the foyer, even when I heard Dad coming up behind me. He caught up to me and grabbed my arm, and that was the trigger; that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I whipped around, yanking my arm out of his grasp, and I yelled at him at the top of my lungs, "Don't you touch me! Don't you ever touch me and don't talk to me, either." I looked past him, through the tears that were pouring out of my eyes, to the startled faces staring at me from the dining room. "Don't any of you ever talk to me again, because I don't want to hear one more mean thing. Not one more mean, awful, hateful, spiteful thing said to me ever, ever again. Don't you think I have feelings? You think I'm so stupid I don't even have feelings? You all come to me asking for favors and you talk to me because I'm the only one who'll listen to you whine and complain, or I'm the only one who'll rub your feet or take Soph and Stewart into the city, or put up the groceries or help make the beds, but then when I do, when I do all these things, you make fun of me and yell at me and tell me what a stupid idiot I am. Well, I know that already so, so..." I sucked in my breath. I had been yelling and crying at the same time and I had run out of air. I sucked in my breath and said, "So from now on, you don't have to ever tell me again, because I know it. I know I'm stupid. Okay? I know I'm a retard. I know I'll never ever catch up. I know it! I know it! So you don't have to tell me ever again! You don't have to speak to me ever again!"
I turned and started up the stairs, when the doorbell rang and I heard Mother say, "Oh dear, that must be King-Roy."
I stopped and turned around while my father went to the door and opened it.
"Ah, King-Roy," he said, after clearing his throat. He rubbed at the bald spot on his head. "Welcome back."
"Yes sir," King-Roy said, peering up at my father with his head bowed. "I'm sorry if I caused y'all any trouble. I'm back till the end of the summer."
My father opened the door wider and King-Roy entered the foyer. He saw me standing on the steps and we looked at each other for a second, and then I shouted as I ran down the stairs toward him, "And that goes for you, too!" I kept going, past King-Roy, straight through the open door and out into the glaring sun.
TWENTY-FIVE
I ran out across our driveway, onto the lawn, past the polar bear, to the stone wall that ran the length of our property. I stared at it a second, then grabbed onto the top of the wall, which is about shoulder height, and climbed up onto it. Then I turned around to face my favorite climbing tree and jumped out toward the lowest branch, catching hold of it and swinging until I could get my legs up around the branch and hoist myself to a sitting position. Then I stood and climbed to my perching spot, a nice thick branch that had a flat section where I could sit and look out over Pip's property on one side and our front yard on the other. That day, I didn't look in either direction. I sat straddling the branch and stared at the bark on the tree and thought about what had just happened at lunch and about King-Roy and Pip and everything else. I felt mean and angry and ugly because of the way I had acted at lunch, but I just couldn't take everybody's hateful treatment of me anymore. Until that afternoon, I hadn't realized how much it hurt. I guess until that day, I hadn't realized how true their comments had been. But that day I saw it all clearly. I knew I was backwards and stupid and that no matter how hard I tried, the world was just going to keep on passing me by. Staring down at the bark on the tree, digging my fingernail in between the narrow ridges, I felt so miserable, I didn't know what I was going to do. I thought about running away, but I knew that wouldn't make me feel any better. I didn't know where I would go.
I thought about taking up smoking, and I wondered if catching up with my friends could be as simple as that. I pictured myself in the school bathroom that fall, with a cigarette in my mouth, drawing on it, then taking it out and waving it about dramatically, as if I were playing a Bette Davis role. But that was just it, I would be playing a role, I would be acting, and that was fine for the stage, but I had been around actors enough to know that offstage that kind of performance looked desperate and pathetic. But I was desperate and pathetic. I thought about that for a while and decided that even if I was so pathetic, I couldn't do it. I couldn't even bring myself to carry a stupid purse, so how was I going to take up smoking? It just wasn't me. But wasn't that my problem? Wasn't I too much of me, and not enough of somebody—anybody—else?
I realized that what I really wanted was for everybody to be more like me. I wanted my friends to stay the same way they'd always been. Like Peter Pan, I didn't want to change or grow up, and I didn't want my friends to change, either. So where did that leave me? I knew the answer to that. It was the same answer over and over; it left me behind, and it left me all alone. I leaned my head forward and rested it on the trunk of the tree.
"I guess I'm going to just stay up in this tree the rest of my life," I said to no one.
I pictured myself in a tree house, with four walls and a window looking out over some mountains, and inside, a sleeping bag, a tin cup and plate, and a picture of my family, in a frame. I had always dreamed of living in a tree house, and I asked my parents, once, a couple of years ago, if I could build myself one, but they had said no. They had said tree houses were for boys, and at twelve I was too old for one, anyway.
I was still picturing my life in a tree when I heard someone coming, and I looked up to see my father, his round balding head bent forward as he strode across the gravel drive and onto the lawn toward me. He didn't look happy. I could tell that by the long strides his short legs were taking and the way he had both his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his chinos, making them hike up, exposing his skinny freckled ankles and his penny loafers.
He walked up to the tree, stopped abruptly, and looked up through the branches and leaves to where I sat. I turned my head and stared out across the road to Pip's house.
"Esther, come down from there."
"I won't," I said.
"You're being childish. Now, I need to speak to you, and this is serious."
"I'm always being childish, Dad, aren't I? You always say that. Everybody always says that, or something like it, don't they?"
"Because it's true. Now, I won't ask you again. Come down from that tree, or do you need me to come up there after you?"
"Go ahead and try."
"Esther, listen to the tone of my voice! I mean it."
I turned and looked down at my father, who stood below me with his hands on his hips. "What's so important that you need to tell me, anyway?" I asked, not moving an inch off the tree branch.
My father let out his breath. I knew he was exasperated with me, but I was exasperated with him, too.
"We need you to take Sophia into the city next week. Your mother will be with Madeline again, and I have to go to California."
"Maybe you should have thought of that before you all attacked me last night. Maybe you should have thought of that before you made fun of me at lunch."
"Esther, don't get smart with me," my father said, eyeing the lowest branch as though he was trying to figure out how he was going to reach it and climb up.
"Why should I do anything for anyone when all I get is some ugly comment or some mean kind of punishment and never, never any thanks?" I crossed my arms in front of me and added, "I'm on strike until I get my civil rights."
"On strike! Your civil rights!" my father shouted. He looked apoplectic. His face had turned the color of a tomato. "Didn't you hear what I said? Now,
no more childish games, Esther. Your mother needs your help. You get down from there, and you get down now!"
I reached for the branch above me and stood up. I stared down at my father, who looked like he might try to pull up the trunk of the tree with his bare hands and shake me out if I didn't climb down there right that second, but I couldn't do it. As mean and as wretched as I felt, I couldn't do it.
I called down to him with tears rolling down my face, "And didn't you hear what I said? I'm on strike." Then I climbed higher into the tree and waited to see if my father really would climb up after me.
TWENTY-SIX
My father didn't move. He used his I'm-too-angry-to-even-shout voice and said, "Esther, I don't know when in my life I've been more furious and disappointed in you," and I thought, How about five minutes ago? He was always disappointed in me, but I didn't say anything out loud.
My father stood beneath the tree, staring up into the branches, and I stayed standing, peeking out from the leaves now and again to see if he was still there.
Finally, he gave up and left, and I suppose I should have felt victorious, but all I felt was sad. I felt so sad, I could hardly stand it. I climbed back down to my good branch and I lay face down on it and hugged the branch with my arms and legs. I hugged the branch and cried. I cried because I knew I had acted awful and childish and stupid, and I cried because I couldn't help how I had acted and because I knew my family hated me. Everybody hated me, and so I cried and let the tears drop onto the grass below. I cried until I had no more tears left and was too exhausted to hurt anymore. Then I let go of the branch with my arms and legs and let them dangle there as though I were a leopard in a tree, and I felt heavy and limp and wet.
I don't know how long I stayed like that in the tree—maybe hours, maybe minutes—but then I heard footsteps crunching on the gravel again and I lifted my head to see who was coming.