wasn’t plastified,
and most of the time we played there. On nice days, we could ask to go outside, and if it was okay, Mrs. Clapp opened the
door herself and locked it after us. When we wanted to come back inside, we had to knock and ask please. You were flat out
of luck if you needed to pee, because if she had the dishwasher running or one of her soap operas on, she wouldn’t hear the
door and you could die trying to cross your legs and hold it.
Other than the pee problem, outside was nice. Brick planters surrounded the back patio and formed a kind of kennel for Mrs.
Clapp’s toy poodles. The black one was Gee Gee and wore a white collar; the white one was Gia and wore a black collar. They
were indoor dogs, but Mrs. Clapp let them take in the air when we played outside.
Click click click
went their little toenails on the brick. They paced, patrolling us. It occurred to me that they might be watchdogs, disapproving
sentries sending telepathic messages to Mrs. Clapp.
Dirty girl,
thought Gia.
Too loud,
Gee Gee added with a dry sneeze. The dogs were Mrs. Clapp’s, no question, and the turtles in the pen at the back of the yard
belonged to Mr. Clapp, which was why they hadn’t been named. There he drew the line: “They’re turtles, Helen,” he said. “They
don’t come, and they don’t sit.”
“The names help you tell them apart,” she countered, as if they were talking about identical twins.
“Rocks all look alike, and we don’t name
them,”
he said, sniffing, and flipped up his newspaper like a heat shield.
Mr. Clapp was old. I suppose they both were, but Mrs. Clapp dyed her hair a hostile inky black, whereas Mr. Clapp didn’t have
much hair at all, just a half-circle ear to ear in the back, as white and fine as pulled cotton. His forehead was high and
lined, and there were also lines running parallel to his big ears and along the sides of his nose so that it seemed his face
was sliding steadily toward its center. Except for occasionally barking back to his wife, Mr. Clapp didn’t have much to say.
He left for work before we got up in the morning, and when he came home at six, he washed his hands, took out his
Fresno Bee
and vanished behind it in his recliner until Mrs. Clapp called us all to the table. His chair was camel-colored and velvety
and didn’t need to be covered in plastic since no one would dare sit there but him. Below the newspaper were his gray gabardine
slacks, thin black socks, shined shoes. Above, just the curve of his forehead looking oddly undressed.
Mr. Clapp could have been my grandfather, but he wasn’t. I didn’t think of him as my father either, not that I was supposed
to. It was a puzzle just what we were to one another, all of us. Take Becky Bodette. She did everything we did — ate the same
food, played with the same toys, knocked at the same door to come in. She took baths with us and shared a bedroom with Teresa,
and yet I never thought of her as my sister. She was “the other girl,” and I didn’t much like her. Although Becky was between
Teresa and me in age, she seemed older, harder, meaner. When Penny stuttered during a game of Candy Land, her lips stuck on
a percussive
b
or
p.
Becky would either mimic her or call her Porky Pig or both. Like Bobby Spinoza, Becky liked to get other people in trouble,
if only to remind herself she could. One day when we were in the playroom, she challenged me to a reading contest. “I’11 bet
you can’t even read that,” she said, pointing to a box in the calendar pinned to the dark paneling.
Yom Kippur.
Was it English? I didn’t know, and so I spelled it out first, y-o-m. When I got to the
p-p
part, she screamed out for Mrs. Clapp. “Paula just said
pee pee.
She did. I heard her.”
Mrs. Clapp sent me to my room, where I was to sit on my bed for two hours with no one to talk to and nothing to look at but
my own toes. At dinner, I stared across the table at Becky, at her pixie
and most of the time we played there. On nice days, we could ask to go outside, and if it was okay, Mrs. Clapp opened the
door herself and locked it after us. When we wanted to come back inside, we had to knock and ask please. You were flat out
of luck if you needed to pee, because if she had the dishwasher running or one of her soap operas on, she wouldn’t hear the
door and you could die trying to cross your legs and hold it.
Other than the pee problem, outside was nice. Brick planters surrounded the back patio and formed a kind of kennel for Mrs.
Clapp’s toy poodles. The black one was Gee Gee and wore a white collar; the white one was Gia and wore a black collar. They
were indoor dogs, but Mrs. Clapp let them take in the air when we played outside.
Click click click
went their little toenails on the brick. They paced, patrolling us. It occurred to me that they might be watchdogs, disapproving
sentries sending telepathic messages to Mrs. Clapp.
Dirty girl,
thought Gia.
Too loud,
Gee Gee added with a dry sneeze. The dogs were Mrs. Clapp’s, no question, and the turtles in the pen at the back of the yard
belonged to Mr. Clapp, which was why they hadn’t been named. There he drew the line: “They’re turtles, Helen,” he said. “They
don’t come, and they don’t sit.”
“The names help you tell them apart,” she countered, as if they were talking about identical twins.
“Rocks all look alike, and we don’t name
them,”
he said, sniffing, and flipped up his newspaper like a heat shield.
Mr. Clapp was old. I suppose they both were, but Mrs. Clapp dyed her hair a hostile inky black, whereas Mr. Clapp didn’t have
much hair at all, just a half-circle ear to ear in the back, as white and fine as pulled cotton. His forehead was high and
lined, and there were also lines running parallel to his big ears and along the sides of his nose so that it seemed his face
was sliding steadily toward its center. Except for occasionally barking back to his wife, Mr. Clapp didn’t have much to say.
He left for work before we got up in the morning, and when he came home at six, he washed his hands, took out his
Fresno Bee
and vanished behind it in his recliner until Mrs. Clapp called us all to the table. His chair was camel-colored and velvety
and didn’t need to be covered in plastic since no one would dare sit there but him. Below the newspaper were his gray gabardine
slacks, thin black socks, shined shoes. Above, just the curve of his forehead looking oddly undressed.
Mr. Clapp could have been my grandfather, but he wasn’t. I didn’t think of him as my father either, not that I was supposed
to. It was a puzzle just what we were to one another, all of us. Take Becky Bodette. She did everything we did — ate the same
food, played with the same toys, knocked at the same door to come in. She took baths with us and shared a bedroom with Teresa,
and yet I never thought of her as my sister. She was “the other girl,” and I didn’t much like her. Although Becky was between
Teresa and me in age, she seemed older, harder, meaner. When Penny stuttered during a game of Candy Land, her lips stuck on
a percussive
b
or
p.
Becky would either mimic her or call her Porky Pig or both. Like Bobby Spinoza, Becky liked to get other people in trouble,
if only to remind herself she could. One day when we were in the playroom, she challenged me to a reading contest. “I’11 bet
you can’t even read that,” she said, pointing to a box in the calendar pinned to the dark paneling.
Yom Kippur.
Was it English? I didn’t know, and so I spelled it out first, y-o-m. When I got to the
p-p
part, she screamed out for Mrs. Clapp. “Paula just said
pee pee.
She did. I heard her.”
Mrs. Clapp sent me to my room, where I was to sit on my bed for two hours with no one to talk to and nothing to look at but
my own toes. At dinner, I stared across the table at Becky, at her pixie
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