Страница 23 из 77
IV
Arriving back at the field where they had started, Sari spotted Kathleen and Lucy settled under a shady tree. She headed their way, accompanied by Jason and his stroller. Jeff had split off at the finish line.
“Where are David and Kevin?” Sari asked when she reached the others.
“Getting food,” Kathleen said with a nod toward the distant In-N-Out Burger truck.
Jason looked at Sari. “Should I go get something for us?”
“Don't feel you have to,” she said. “If you need to take off or anything-”
“I’ve got time.”
You could tell he was waiting for Sari to give him some kind of clue, let him know if she wanted him to stick around or not. But even her friends, who thought they knew Sari pretty well, couldn't figure out what the blank look on her face meant.
Sari said, “If you want a burger, you should certainly get one.”
That seemed to be encouragement enough for Jason. “Actually, I’m starving. I’ll go see what I can find.” He left, still pushing the stroller.
Sari sat down on the grass and hugged her knees to her chest.
“God, he's cute,” Kathleen said, watching him walk away. “Totally built. But he's got a kid. Does that mean he's married?”
“Divorced,” Sari said. “About to be, anyway. But it doesn't matter. I’m not interested.”
“Why not?”
“Lucy knows. He was a jerk to Charlie. Back in high school.”
“Really?” Kathleen said. “He doesn't seem the type.”
“Well, he was. I was thinking about it all just now, during the walk-about all the awful things they used to do. Like shove the food off of Charlie's tray at lunch. Or bump into him when he was carrying something and make him spill it on himself. Or stick his stuff in someone's locker and lock it in there. They'd throw water at his crotch and act like he'd pissed himself. Stuff like that.”
“Assholes,” Kathleen said.
“And they all called him ‘retard.’ Every one of them. Like it was his name.” She imitated a guy's voice. ‘“Hey, retard, you pissed yourself again.’”
“Fucking assholes.”
“Once there was this assembly,” Sari said. Now that she had started talking about it, she couldn't stop. “They brought out the kids with special needs-they were different ages but all went to class in the same room because that's just how they did it back then-anyway, they brought them out to sing a song. It must have been Christmas or something. So they bring them out and they're singing away and Charlie really loved to sing. Even before he could talk, he could sing. So I’m there with all the other kids, and I hear someone do this fake cough. You know-” She pretended to cough into her hand but the cough was the word “retards.” “And then someone else does it and then pretty soon, all the kids in the whole auditorium are coughing ‘retards’ into their hands. And laughing. Even the kindergartners are doing it and they don't even know what they're saying.”
“What happened to the kids onstage?”
“They just kept singing,” Sari said. “Charlie was up there smiling and singing away. He didn't even notice what was going on.”
“So maybe it wasn't that bad for him,” Lucy said. “If he didn't notice-”
“Yeah,” Sari said. “Maybe it wasn't that bad for him.” She clasped her hands together below her knees. “But I was down there in the audience. I was down there in the middle of it. And I kept trying to get them to shut up and stop and everyone just laughed at me and kept doing it.”
Kathleen shifted forward so she could put her arms around Sari. She hugged her close. “Fucking morons,” she said. “I wish I’d gone to your school. I would have punched out every one of their fucking faces.”
“You can't fight everyone,” Lucy said.
“Where were you during all this?” Kathleen said, turning on her. “Why weren't you helping her make them shut up?”
“I wasn't even there,” Lucy said. “I always tried to go late on assembly days. My mother was very understanding about that stuff.”
“You were the smart one,” Sari said. “Anyway, this guy-Jason Smith-he was one of them. I swear I can see him sitting there, coughing into his hand. That's why it doesn't matter how good-looking he is. He was one of them. And that's all he'll ever be, as far as I’m concerned.”
The other girls were silent, but when Jason came back, long after the other two men had returned, all three of them watched him struggle toward them with the stroller and the bags of food and the cups of soda and not one of them moved to help him.
Kevin eventually noticed and jumped up to give him a hand.
V
Thanks for coming today,” Kathleen said to Kevin, after he had walked her to her car. “You've officially achieved good-guy status with my friends.”
“It was a pleasure,” he said. “Really.”
There was a pause. “Saturday afternoon,” Kathleen said, glancing vaguely around the parking lot. “It feels like it should be later than one.”
“All that walking,” he said. “I was going to ask you to go ru
“I don't just run,” she said. “I do other things, too.”
“Ah,” he said. “I’m glad to hear it. Do you go to movies ever?”
“All the time.”
“And to di
“A girl's got to eat.”
“Di
“Even better.”
“I don't suppose you're free for something along those lines tonight?”
“I am,” Kathleen said. “Are you?”
“Definitely.”
“A week ago, you had a girlfriend. You mentioned it in passing.”
“Yeah, well, a week ago, I did.”
She waited.
He smiled. “Not anymore. Not as of last night.”
“That worked out well,” Kathleen said.
“It's not a coincidence.” Then he said, “Those times we've gone ru
Again she waited.
“I haven't wanted to stop.”
“Well,” she said. “It's good exercise.”
“That's not what I meant.”
“I know. So di
“At least,” he said.
That evening, after they had finished their entrées and were relaxing at the table, trying to decide if they were hungry enough to order dessert, Kevin asked Kathleen about her family and was genuinely surprised to hear she was related to the famous Winters twins. “I can't believe you never mentioned it before,” he said. “You'd be an instant celebrity at work.”
“And for all the right reasons,” Kathleen said.
“Life is boring. People need thrills.” He gestured to a waiter, who immediately came ru
“Weird for me, because they were identical twins and I was the different one.”
“Did you hate that?”
“Sometimes. My mom dressed us all alike when we were babies, and then one year I had different clothes but Christa and Kelly still matched. So I asked what happened and my mother said, ‘Oh, honey, it's so cute on them but on you it just looks wrong.’”
“Ouch,” he said.
“No, it was probably good, in the long run. If I had twins, I wouldn't dress them the same, anyway. People couldn't ever tell my sisters apart, and sometimes that really bothered them.”
“How did they get into acting?”
“This agent stopped my mother at Target one day and asked her if she had any idea how valuable identical twins were in Hollywood. Especially ones that were small for their age.”
“What makes twins so valuable?”
“It has to do with the child labor laws. Any individual kid can only work a certain number of hours, but if you have identical twins, they can both play a single role and double the number of working hours.”
“Cool. But what was that about being small?”
“It just means they can play younger roles as well as their age.”