Pretty Is

I was sitting on the front porch swing one evening after dinner, reading The Fellowship of the Ring for the second time, when Gary and Russell Lovinger came out of their house. They didn’t say a word to each other. Gary, the older one—he was going to be a senior—just got in his car and roared out of the driveway.

“Wish I had a car,” said Monica. She was sitting in a chair on the far side of the porch, doing her stupid knitting, except now she was watching Gary’s bright blue Dodge Neon disappearing around the corner.

I didn’t answer, just watched Russell fooling around with a basketball in the now-empty driveway. He dribbled toward the hoop and did a layup that missed.

Monica put her knitting in a bag and went down the front steps and over to the edge of the Lovingers’ driveway. Oh, great, I thought, she’s gonna pester Russell. Russell and Gary never had much time for us. They usually didn’t even say hi.

But Monica didn’t say anything, just stood there watching as he dribbled and took shots and chased the ball. As he dashed past her I noticed that she was as tall as he was, even though he was two years older.

She must want to play, I thought, but she stood there with her hands behind her back like a five-year-old who’s too shy to join the party. What a dork.

Russell didn’t seem to know she was there. But then he missed a rebound, and the ball took a weird bounce and rolled toward Monica, who picked it up.

She bounced the ball a few times and looked at the basket. She was way too far back, but she didn’t move up. She just raised the ball and took a shot. Swish.

I think my mouth dropped open. I know Russell’s did. “Hey, nice shot!” he said, and then he went for the ball and passed it back to her.

Over and over she sent the ball flying, from up close and far back, and she hardly ever missed. Mama came out on the porch and stood watching, arms folded. My book lay closed on my lap, and nobody said a word.

After a while Russell looked at his watch and said, “I gotta go. I’m supposed to mow the lawn over at my grand-mama’s house.” He took a shot that bounced off the rim, and as Monica recovered the ball he said, “Girl, you are good. Play me a little one-on-one sometime?”

All of a sudden she looked awkward again, and stared down at the ball in her hands. “Okay.” Her face was flushed and she seemed to be fighting back a smile.

The next morning I was reading on the couch, still in pajamas, hadn’t even had breakfast yet, when I heard Mama and Monica going out the front door. Hey, I thought, they didn’t tell me they were going anywhere. I went to the window.

They were out in the Lovingers’ driveway with a basketball, and Mama was pointing and explaining something, and then they were doing some kind of drill, passing the ball back and forth, zigzagging down the driveway toward the basket.

Mama played basketball back when she was in high school, I remembered. She never played after that, but she was a big Carolina fan. One of her coworkers gave her a bumper sticker that said IF GOD ISN’T A TARHEEL, WHY IS THE SKY CAROLINA BLUE? She put it on the bulletin board next to our refrigerator. And when Duke played Carolina on TV, forget it—the house could be on fire and she wouldn’t notice.

I watched them for a few more minutes before going back to my book. They looked like they were having a great time. Mama was calling out advice and praising every good pass Monica made, and the look on Monica’s face was one I’d hardly ever seen, really absorbed and focused and happy.

Every time I thought of Hannah it was like bumping an already-sore toe. Why did I have to be so stupid? And when would Hannah ever forgive me? Probably I could have called her—I don’t think her parents would have kept her from talking on the phone. But I didn’t call.

A few times I played with another friend, but there weren’t that many kids around. I’d started depending on Hannah a lot, and now she wasn’t talking to me.

I’d hang around the house in the morning, playing a computer game or something, maybe helping Mama in the yard if she asked. Then she’d go off for her three-hour shift at the bank, and it would just be me and Monica.

Monica would hang out with the guinea pigs or else she’d turn on the TV and do her knitting in front of the soaps. Sometimes I’d play the piano, and Monica would complain that she couldn’t hear the TV, and then I’d play louder for a minute before going softer.

She practiced basketball almost every day, usually in the morning or evening when it wasn’t so hot. Mostly she played by herself, but sometimes with Russell or Mama or me. But I didn’t like to play too often. It wasn’t really fair; she was so much taller than me. And better.

One day I called Samantha, figuring that she must be back from camp by now, and she was—she’d just gotten home the day before. She told me about Mountain Glen and riding horses and canoeing, and I kept saying “cool” and wishing I didn’t feel so jealous. She never asked anything about me.

I asked her to come over, but she said she’d promised to spend the whole day with her mom, since she’d been away so long.

I flopped on my bed and started reading a book, but I felt restless, and I was glad when Mama finally got home.

“Give me a minute, okay?” she said. She’d brought in the mail and was glancing through a pile of envelopes and magazines. “What do you want at the mall?”

“Well, I do need a couple of things myself. Okay, just a minute.” She went to the living room and called over the TV noise, “Monica, would you like to go to the mall?”

Mama whipped around. “Erin, if you can’t be polite, you’re not going anywhere.”

An hour later, just as the three of us were coming out of the drugstore at the mall, I almost collided with Samantha and Kayla.

“Hey,” I said to Samantha. “I thought you had to stay home with your mom.”

“Oh—uh—yeah, most of the day I do. I just wanted to make a really quick trip to the mall.” She looked totally embarrassed. “I had to get some things,” she added.

Kayla tossed her hair and tugged on Samantha’s arm. “Come on, Sam, we’ve got things to do.”

Great. Obviously Samantha just made up an excuse because she didn’t want to play with me. First I lost Kayla as a friend, then I lost Hannah, and now Samantha. I was running out of friends to lose.