Running through Sprinklers Read online

  42

  THE LIGHT IS blinding. And just when it’s about to get to be too much, Dr. Chiang’s head hovers above me to block it. With huge pliers, he begins pulling each square of metal off my teeth. There is a CRACK every time he does this, and I worry that he’s taking my teeth off too.

  I think about trying to get up and out, but like an alien who has ESP, his assistant holds me down and says, “Just hang on, we’re not done yet.” Then Dr. Chiang pulls out a little drill that makes the most annoying high-pitched sound I’ve ever heard. I swear, if you listened to it long enough, your brain would explode. He drills away at my teeth, little bits of old glue spewing out of my mouth, like cement. And the smell. Oh, the smell. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that strange burnt smell, like how I’ll never forget the smell when they re-tarred the school’s roof.

  “All done,” he says at last. I walk over to the washroom and rinse my mouth and splash water on my face. As I’m doing this, I look in the mirror, and it’s almost as though I don’t recognize myself anymore. Like the braces coming off actually changed the shape of my face or something to make it look a bit sharper or older, maybe a bit skinnier. And then I run my tongue over my teeth and around my mouth, and I feel kinda naked. This feels really different.

  43

  I THINK MY boobs have grown again. Because in the girls’ changing room, getting ready for gym class, Jen randomly blurts out: “Sara, you should wear a bra.”

  “What?”

  “YOU SHOULD WEAR A BRA. YOUR BOOBS ARE HUGE.”

  “I wear a training bra,” I say. Some of the girls are watching us, looking at me. How embarrassing.

  “NEWS FLASH: It’s not working. You need the industrial-strength kind. Those are bouncing around and stuff. Especially in gym class. It gets Ricky Grant all excited.”

  During gym class:

  We are playing dodgeball. I run and jump and dive to avoid being hit by the balls.

  I look at Ricky.

  And then I look down.

  Eww.

  Mom is driving me and Jen to Guildford Mall to buy me a bra. I always thought I’d be with Nadine when I bought my first real, adult bra, but here I am with Jen. I’m okay with it, actually, because I don’t get really embarrassed around her and don’t worry about things like how I look or how my body is changing. I do a bit more when I’m with Nadine.

  Suddenly Mom says to us, “You must make sure you have lots of experience with guys before you get married.”

  “Uh, okay,” I say. “What do you mean?”

  “You know, sex.”

  “Mom! I’m twelve!”

  Jen laughs so hard so quietly, her laugh goes back into her lungs and she chokes.

  “I know. I mean, I’d kill you if you even kiss a guy now. But just so you know. For later on.”

  We are at a stoplight. Mom turns and looks at us in the back.

  “All these guys now, you can’t see them as permanent people,” she says. “The first guy you meet won’t be the last guy. Remember that.”

  “Did you have lots of experience with guys?” I ask.

  “Are you kidding?” she says, looking back at the road. “I married your dad when I was thirty-three; what do you think? And I was really pretty. Still am.” She drives ahead. Sometimes it surprises me that Mom doesn’t seem to care what people think of her. She’s confident like that. Sometimes I wish I were more like her.

  It’s so funny watching Mom park in a parking lot. I always wondered what criteria she has for choosing a parking spot. I used to think she would only park in spots where there were no oil stains on the cement, and then I thought she parked only next to nice cars, and then I thought she parked where there were no cars around, but now I’ve come to the conclusion that she just randomly parks wherever.

  I’m over at the Andos’. But I’m here because Jen invited me, not Nadine. Being in the house feels different because of this. The house also looks different, and I see details I’ve never noticed before. Like the shelf in the laundry room where they put the different kinds of soap in a line. The corner in the living room where Mrs. Ando has her desk. The silver goose paperweight on top of a stack of bills.

  Nadine is upstairs, in her room, with the door closed. Doing homework, I think. She hasn’t really come down to say hi. Jen and I are in the family room, watching a taped episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Jen says we have to watch it considering what we saw on New Year’s Eve.

  This episode is about four guys who go camping, and while canoeing late one evening, they see a light in the sky following them. After canoeing for about twenty minutes, they return to their camp, but the fire they built to last all night is already out, confirming they were away a lot longer than they thought. Once they’re back home, they all start separately experiencing nightmares about being abducted by aliens.

  Nadine is suddenly downstairs, in the kitchen, making a cup of tea. Since when does she drink tea? She told me once that it tastes like dishwater. I pretend not to see her as she comes over quietly to see what we are watching. I already know that she won’t be interested in the show. Nadine is a girl of science and reason. Jen is too, but I feel like Jen is more open to the unknown, like me. Nadine leans against the wall and watches the show for about one minute, just long enough for it to register that it is not her thing, then she leaves and goes back upstairs, without knowing that all the while, I was watching her from the corner of my eye.

  It feels a little wrong to be here at the Andos’ house like this.

  44

  JEN IS SLEEPING OVER. We’re in my bed. It’s late. Almost midnight. The stars are out, both outside the window and above our heads, stickers glowing on the ceiling. There is one little moon sticker that looks like a ripped-off fingernail.

  We’re waiting for it to be exactly midnight to go downstairs and have a snack. Because you can’t call it a midnight snack otherwise, you know. We are talking about ghosts.

  Jen says, “I totally believe in ghosts.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  A sparkle in Jen’s eye. She says, “Hey, let’s make a pact. That when we die we are going to come back and haunt your house.”

  “Cool,” I say.

  We get out of bed and grab a piece of paper from my desk and write, TO WHOEVER SHOULD FIND THIS: SARA AND JEN WILL COME BACK AND HAUNT YOU!!

  We roll the paper up in a tube, tiptoe downstairs, and put it in the crawl space in the closet.

  We go back upstairs.

  I unfold the Ouija board and place it on my bedroom floor. Jen and I put our fingers lightly on the kind-of-heart-shaped piece of plastic.

  Somehow I convinced Mom to buy me a Ouija board, promising her I’d get an A in math and practice piano lots, which she fell for, and which I actually kind of believed too. I think she thought it was just like any other board game, like Monopoly. They didn’t have Ouija boards in Korea, I’m guessing.

  “Is somebody here?” I ask.

  The kind-of-heart plastic thing moves quickly across the board to YES.

  Jen: “Are you alive or dead?”

  Ouija board: “D . . . E . . . A . . . D.”

  Us: “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!”

  Jen: “This is freaky, let’s stop.”

  Me: “No, no, no.”

  “My mom said these things are evil,” she says.

  “I thought you are an atheist,” I say.

  “I am, but my mom is Catholic.”

  Me, heart pounding: “I have a question. Is Daniel Monroe dead or alive?”

  “A . . . L . . . I . . . V . . . E.”

  Jen: “Oh my God.”

  Me: “Where is he?”

  “S . . . A . . .”

  “Where is that?”

  “S.A.T.”

  “Saturday?”

  “NO.”

  “What, then?”

  “S.A.T.A.N.”

  Jen and I scream and I fold up the board and we bury it in my closet and never open it again.

  “We were talking to the de
vil,” I say. “This thing is evil!”

  “Satan’s not real,” Jen says. “I think.”

  A few days later:

  On the welcome mat at the front door I find a small box of chocolates. I open it and the chocolates are in the shape of hedgehogs, my favorites. Okay . . . only one person knows I love that kind of chocolate. One person. There is also a note put together with cut-out letters from a magazine to spell “You’re sweet.” I look around and see nothing and sprint across the street and knock on the door and no one answers so I yell: “Nadine! Nadine, please come out! I know it was you who gave me the chocolates! Thank you!”

  A guy is walking his Chihuahua by the cul-de-sac and I feel him noticing me and thinking I’m crazy so I start running like I’m just casually exercising and start singing really loud so he thinks I was just practicing for choir or something and I turn around and run home, thinking, how did she get them to me and why is she keeping it a secret?

  45

  A DREAM: A boy, who looks like Daniel Monroe but isn’t him because he looks older and has darker hair and isn’t quite like how the computer-generated photos made him out to be, opens the door. A waft of air from his house hits me in the face. I smell laundry detergent and strawberries.

  “Hi,” I say.

  He says nothing and takes my hand. Leads me up the stairs, into his blue bedroom. He keeps the light off. He lets go of my hand and sits on his unmade bed as I stay standing in the doorway. We stare at each other in silence. He pats the bed next to him and says, “Come here.” I do.

  Sitting side by side on his bed, we are facing his shelf full of hockey trophies and medals. “Wow,” I say. “You win a lot.”

  He puts his left hand on my right knee and then glides it upward until it’s at the middle of my thigh. I look down to make sure he doesn’t go any higher and he turns toward me and with his right hand he lightly cups my cheek and pulls my face toward him until he’s slurping in my mouth, his tongue fat and wide, almost choking me. But we settle into a rhythm and I’m okay and we make out for a while.

  I wake up and go downstairs. Mom is out. Dad is watching a documentary on WWII. “Hello,” he says. He looks at me awkwardly, then jumps up and goes upstairs. And watches TV from there. He knows.

  The next day:

  Ricky Grant corners me in the hall to tickle me; I don’t know why. He tickles me on the hips and then he grazes my right boob with his knuckles and it surprises me and I try to push him away. And he comes up again and pushes me against the wall and presses himself up against me and then Ms. Lee walks around the corner and Ricky walks away and I feel so disgusted with myself. I’m so gross.

  46

  AT BEAR CREEK PARK. Running around the track, which is burnt orange and circles around a green football field. I run on the inside track.

  In my line of vision: The green of the field up against the orange of the track. It’s so beautiful.

  And the colors match the saris of the Indian women walking around and around slowly in their white running shoes while their husbands sit at the picnic tables. They sit there with these tall turbans on, with these long gray beards trickling down. And they look as though they are debating the inner mysteries of the world.

  They watch me as I run around, like they know everything about me and everything I’ve thought and done that was wrong or dishonest or selfish. They can see me for who I really am.

  47

  IT’S VALENTINE’S DAY. Before class, by the coatrack, as we are all putting our backpacks and jackets on our hooks, Josh gives me and Jen one yellow rose each. It’s wrapped in clear cellophane with gold stars on it and it crinkles under my fingertips when I hold it.

  “Yellow represents friendship,” he says.

  For the rest of the day, I notice the color of gold everywhere. The gold in some dead grass, the gold of Dad’s wedding ring, the gold in Jen’s skin.

  I’m at the Andos’ waiting for Jen to come downstairs. We’re going to a movie.

  Nadine is sitting at the kitchen table with her friend Rachel; they’re sipping on bowls of miso soup. It’s the first time I’ve seen Rachel this close. She is really beautiful. Nadine was right.

  “Hey,” Rachel says.

  “Oh,” Nadine says. “This is Sara. She lives across the street.”

  “Hi.”

  Rachel: “Oh, are you going to hang with us?”

  Nadine: “Actually, she’s here for my sister.”

  “Oh, right,” Rachel says. “Cool.”

  Nadine, jokingly: “Yeah, actually she used to be my best friend but then dumped me for my sister.” She laughs, though there is a crack in her voice.

  Hold on. She thinks I’m the one who . . . wait . . . What is going on? I’m suddenly really confused and I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. I want to say that I’m here and that I’ve always been here. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Nadine. Or for it to seem like I left you for someone else.

  Jen comes in and says, “Let’s go. I’m starving. I am going to eat so much popcorn.”

  As we walk along their driveway to meet my dad, who is driving us to the theater, I see Nadine’s silhouette through the window. She is near the sink with both her arms on the counter kind of propping her up. Her head is down.

  After the movie, when I get home, there’s one red rose on the doorstep and I pick it up and look back at the Ando house and I know she gave it to me.

  48

  IT’S SUNDAY MORNING and I’m over at the Andos’. Jen and I are in the living room, asleep in our sleeping bags in front of the television. We forgot to turn it off last night so some cartoons are now on because it’s the morning.

  I feel someone in the room. I open my eyes: Nadine.

  She tiptoes over us, light on her ballet feet, and grabs the remote to turn the TV off. She then hops over both of us, landing perfectly on her tippy-toes again. She quietly goes into the kitchen.

  I get up and follow her.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Oh. Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

  “No. I was already awake.”

  She is standing at the counter with a box of cinnamon buns from the mall and a knife.

  “Want one?” she asks.

  “Sure.”

  She pulls one out of the box and gooey strings are attached to it, it’s that sticky, and puts it on a pink plate. The next one goes on a purple plate. Our old favorite colors. I guess maybe they still are our favorite colors. I don’t know anymore. “Thanks,” I say.

  Silence.

  And then she says, “So how are you?”

  “Pretty good,” I say. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” she says. She pulls out the soft center of her cinnamon bun and puts it in her mouth. That’s her favorite part. I like the outside part better.

  I ask, “What are you doing up so early?”

  “I don’t know. I like mornings.”

  “Me too.”

  Silence, again.

  Nadine: “I’m really sorry that I was such a cow about the search for that boy way back. They still haven’t found him. Even though I didn’t know him, I miss him.”

  I start to cry a little.

  And then I say: “Nadine, what happened to us?”

  And right at that moment Jen comes in and says, “Woo-hoo! Cinnamon buns!”

  And Nadine looks at me, as though saying, “I’m not sure.”

  The other day at the grocery store:

  We are all at the checkout counter, waiting for Mrs. Ando to pay. Nadine is there. She’s standing by her mom, with a brand-new white leather purse over her shoulder.

  She sees a little donation box on the counter for the Children’s Hospital. She opens her purse and takes out her wallet and pours all her change into it.

  That’s the thing about Nadine. She’s got a good heart. And I realize that lately I’ve only been seeing the moments when she seems mean or cold, but she’s not. She is generous and selfless. She never talks about herself much, like I
do, and she always asks people questions about themselves and generates conversation, which I’m not really good at. She always listened to me, you know. And she never really gets jealous or says anything nasty about anyone and never seeks attention. I can’t say the same about myself.

  49

  SPRINGTIME FLOATS ABOVE me and opens up and pulls me out of winter. Things are looking brighter again. Literally. Like everything in my vision is a few shades lighter than it was before.

  I’m at Josh’s bar mitzvah party. Everyone in class got invited. It’s at the fanciest hotel in Surrey, the one next to the highway.

  Anyway, I’ve been waiting for this party since forever. Well, since Josh told me about it in grade five. He sat in front of me all year and then one day he turned around and said, “When I turn thirteen, I’m going to have the BEST party ever and you’re invited.”

  In the hotel:

  We swim around in the biggest pool. I look up, way up, through the glass window up to the sky. Waiters in white tuxedos come out and serve us orange juice in champagne glasses and we sit around in the hot tub sippin’ it like movie stars.

  Josh’s parents rented two rooms for us to get ready in after the swim. One for the girls, one for the boys. All the girls go into our room, giggling; we can’t believe how cool this is. We all change, making sure to cover ourselves with our towels and putting our bras and underwear on under them.

  I’m staring at myself in the mirror. I pull my hair up, twist it, and tuck it into itself with a million pins to keep it from swooping down. Then I slip on a black dress. My mom made it. Pull on long black gloves up my right arm, up my left arm, little white pearls embroidered around their edges. They’re my mom’s. Then pearls around my neck and some pinned in my ears. I’m trying to look like a silent film movie star. At least, that is my goal. I probably look on the edge of just weird. But that’s okay.