Pulled Under

“Ignore that,” Dad says, trying to encourage Ben. “I trust you with my recipe and I trust you with my clues.”

Ben thinks for a moment and finally decides on his plan. “Okay,” he says. “I’m ready.”

I signal him to go. He does the sign for writer and then squats like a baseball catcher and holds up his glove.

“J. D. Salinger!” screams my dad.

I hit the stopwatch and look down at the number.

“How fast?” asks Dad.

I shake my head. “Seven seconds . . . but it doesn’t count.”

“What do you mean, ‘it doesn’t count’?” asks Dad.

“You cheated,” I say.

“How did we cheat?” asks Ben.

“I don’t know how, but I know you did.”

“What do you mean?”

“All you did was squat. How is that J. D. Salinger?”

They both look right at me, and at the exact same moment say, “The Catcher in the Rye.”

That’s when I realize that they didn’t cheat. Even scarier, they’re totally in sync with each other.

“Oh my God,” I say, turning to my mom.

She says exactly what I’m thinking. “We’ve created a monster.”

What follows is the most intense game of charades I’ve ever played—and, in my family, that’s saying something. Ben and Dad make a great team, but Mom and I keep it close. We finally lose it with Politicians of the Nineteenth Century. That category always kills me. I draw a blank trying to act out “Ulysses S. Grant,” and Ben somehow gets “Zachary Taylor” from my dad pretending to sew.

“It’s a Taylor, like a tailor,” he says, trying to explain.

Even though we play competitively, we don’t really take it seriously, and I feel a deeper co

“As the champions, we get to pick the ice cream flavor,” Dad a

Ben thinks about this for a moment and says, “Mint chocolate chip.”

“No,” Dad says, as though he’s just suffered the ultimate betrayal. “You’re picking that because it’s Izzy’s favorite flavor.”

“It is?” he says, playing dumb as he shoots me a wink. “I’m picking it because it’s my favorite flavor.”

“The whole point of wi

“It really is hard to believe they let you coach children,” says my mom. “Come on, let’s go get the ice cream. I’ll let you be as obnoxious as you want the whole car ride over.”

“You will?” says Dad. “That’s really sweet. That Zachary Taylor hint was amazing, wasn’t it?”

Mom and Dad leave and, for twenty minutes at least, I get to be alone with Ben.

“So now you know what game night is like,” I say.

“It was a lot of fun,” he says.

I walk over to him and wrap my arms around his waist. “I guess you deserve a victory kiss.”

“I would think so,” he says.

We kiss for a moment and everything seems good. Unfortunately, that moment does not last.

“I need to tell you something,” he says, pulling back. “I didn’t want to do it in front of your parents, but I got a call from my mother right before I came over here.”

“Is everything okay?”

He shakes his head. “The divorce is getting uglier, and now they’re arguing about custody rights. My mom wants me to be with her all the time, but my dad wants to split custody so that I’d go back and forth between them.”

“Well, that’s good that your dad still wants to be part of your life, isn’t it?”

He thinks about it for a moment and seems sadder than I’ve ever seen him. “Maybe if that were the reason. But he doesn’t really want me around. I think he just wants to make sure she doesn’t win and to make it so that he won’t have to pay as much in child support.”

Once again I am so grateful that my parents are happily married.

“Anyway,” he says, “the judge wants to talk to me.”

Now it dawns on me.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“I have to fly up to Wisconsin,” he says. “I leave on Sunday.”

Now I really panic. “You’re coming back, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

I breathe a sigh of relief and ask, “How long will you be gone?”

“A week.”

Even though we never talk about it directly, I always know exactly how many days there are until Ben’s supposed to leave at the end of the summer. At the moment I have exactly thirty-one days. My plan is to use each one of them carefully, and now I am going to lose seven just like that.

“Seven days . . . ,” I say softly.

“I know,” he says.

“That’s not fair.”

I look at him and realize that I am being totally selfish. He’s losing seven days too, but during that time he has to meet with a judge and pick one parent over the other.

“But even worse, it’s not fair to you,” I say as I give him a hug. “I’m sorry you have to go through this.”

He rests his head against my shoulder, and I think I hear the faint whispers of him crying.

I swap my Saturday shift with Nicole so I can go watch Dad and Ben at the Rocket Run, and then on Sunday I get Sophie to drive Ben and me to the airport. His uncle was going to do it, but I’m trying to get all the time with him I can. To say the least, my mood is a little down, and there are extended quiet periods on the ride.

“The surf contest is just a few weeks away,” says Sophie, trying to generate any sort of conversation. “We’re going to get a lot of practice in while you’re gone.”

I expect Ben to respond, but he doesn’t. He just bites his lower lip, lost in thought. He’s concentrating, but I have no idea about what.

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

He turns to face me in the backseat. “Parks and Rec is sponsoring the surf contest,” he says.

“Right?”

“And I work for Parks and Rec.”

“Okay.”

“It wouldn’t be right if I used that position to give you an advantage. Ethically, I mean.”

“Of course not,” I say.

Sophie raises her hand partway. “Are we sure about that?”

“Yes,” I say, slapping her hand down. “Of course we are.”

“I was just checking.”

“We don’t want you to cheat for us, Ben,” I tell him.

“Right,” he says with a smile. “But it wouldn’t be cheating if I told you that it is a good idea to read the rules. I tell that to everyone when they pick up an entrance form.”

Sophie shoots me a look in the mirror, and both of us are wondering where this is going.

“And since you know that I am a lawyer’s son and was taught to read everything carefully—and, by everything, I mean . . . every . . . single . . . word—then unlike other people who just ignore it, you might take that advice to heart.”

He stops there and we share a look. I have no idea what he’s getting at, but I do know that he’s trying to give us a little help. I also know that, for the moment at least, that’s as far as he’s willing to go.

“Well, my boyfriend is going out of town,” I say. “So I have plenty of free time this week, and I was pla

He smiles and nods. “And you’re going to do that before you turn in your entrance form?”

I nod. “Absolutely.”

The car is quiet for a moment.

“Okay,” Sophie says. “That was . . . weird . . . but we’re here. So why don’t I drop the two of you off? Izzy, I’ll come back around and pick you up in twenty minutes.”

“Thanks,” I say as I reach forward and clasp her on the shoulder.

“I know, I know, I’m amazing,” she says, and although she’s joking, it’s completely true.

Ben and I get out and things are pretty quiet. He doesn’t have to check his bag, so once he picks up a boarding pass, we walk over to the security line. It’s killing me and he’s only going away for seven days. I can’t imagine how it will be in four weeks when we come back here and he’ll be going away permanently.

We stand there for a little while and just silently hold hands. Then, when it’s time for him to go, he gives me a kiss and a hug that linger longer than I expect.