On Monday, I wanted to find Bart.

So much.

I wanted to talk to him about the pool because I hadn’t dared after I got off the slide and then I had to follow Berkeley around the pirate ship and by the time I went to look in there again, he was gone.

At school I didn’t have a chance to go to the cafeteria because I had to eat with Berkeley and I didn’t want to take the risk to go to the gym when I knew he’d be there and also Monday was a bad day because in between two class breaks there were people by the closet door so I couldn’t slip in, which meant I left Berk alone for hours. And even though she said she was okay when I finally went, she was shaking and I could tell she’d been crying.

Crying.

We couldn’t do this much longer.

Now I was home from school and Mom was home early for the first time in weeks and inside taking a nap.

And Berk was inside, too, watching cartoons with Sadie and Jane.

And I was outside on the tramp, hoping for Bart. Hoping and hoping and saying, Please come, please come, please come, please come, please come, please come, please come, please come.

And then,

Like magic.

I opened my eyes and there he was.

He was in a different tank top this time but the same pants and he seemed happy and he was cute. I’m sorry but he was.

I tried to stop it but my whole body tingled.

He climbed onto the tramp and bounced a little.

“What’s been going on?”

I smiled.

“Nothing.”

He started jumping.

He said, “Can you do this?”

He did a front flip, which hello, of course I could.

I stood up and he got to the side and I did one. Then two. Then three in a row.

“Whoa. Show-off.”

“You started it,” I said.

So then he did a front handspring, which was easy.

Then I did a backflip and he said, “I can’t do those.”

“You can’t?”

He shrugged. “I mean I could but I don’t feel like it because I think they’re dumb.”

I said, “You’re dumb,” and he said, “You’re dumb,” and then he laughed and then laughed and then there was definitely something different between us.

I sat down and he sat down.

I smiled, “I saw you on Saturday.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere.”

“Where?”

“At the rec center.”

His face flushed. “No, you didn’t.”

“Yes I did.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did.”

We were sitting facing each other, our knees almost touching, and at first I thought it would be funny to tell him but then I saw it was not funny. He was starting to sweat. It felt like the lunchroom situation all over again.

“It’s okay,” I said.

He shook his head. “I wasn’t there. You didn’t see me.”

“I did,” I said. My voice was quiet. “It’s okay. You can tell me stuff.”

He looked at his hands.

He stood up. “I have to go.”

“You have to go?”

He was about to get off the tramp and I was trying to say don’t go. Please don’t go. Please. I’ve been waiting for you. Please.

But before I could get that all out, Grant’s truck came barreling down the street.

We both turned to see it, and Bart jumped down flat on the tramp. “Get down get down get down,” he whispered loud.

I got down. At least this time it was on the tramp not the hard old ground.

Grant pulled up in front of his trailer, his heavy metal music blasting so loud the trees were shaking. He turned it off and said a bunch of words so bad some of them I didn’t even understand.

He got out of the truck and slammed the door. Then opened it and slammed it again. And again and again.

I had never seen him this mad. In fact, I don’t think I’d seen anyone so mad, even Dad, and it was scary.

“Wow,” I whispered.

“Shhh,” Bart said, and he grabbed my hand. It would have been nice and I would have maybe felt embarrassed but things were too tense. Plus, he was trembling.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

He shook his head, still watching Grant who was now kicking things. He was kicking an old gas can, he kicked a pile of boxes. He walked over to Melody’s house and kicked the side of her trailer.

She came out and he said, “Stay away from me.”

And she said, “What’s going on Grant? Where’s Bob?”

She spoke calm and collected. Like she was trying to soothe him. I realized maybe Melody cared about Grant even though he was such a dumb-bum.

“I don’t care where Bob is and you stay away from me.”

He climbed up on his trailer then.

“What is he doing,” Bart whispered.

I had no idea. I had really no idea and I told Bart that.

Grant started swearing again and kicking more things off the top of the roof, which were leaves and dirty water and then an old bucket which was ours, and how did that get up there?

Melody stood below watching with her hands on her hips.

Then Mrs. Sydney Gunnerson came out. I looked at Bart to see if he was thinking, “Oh, I know that lady. I do Water Zumba with her.” But his face didn’t flinch or say anything.

“What’s going on?” Mrs. Sydney Gunnerson asked Melody.

“No idea. I think we should call Bob.”

“We should call the cops,” Mrs. Sydney Gunnerson said.

Melody looked at her. “No. He’s just upset.”

He was ignoring all of this. Instead he was climbing back down and then getting his dumb radio and then climbing back up.

“Grant,” Melody said. “What are you doing?”

He ignored her. He got up there and then he turned on a song and started singing with it like he was in a concert in an amphitheater or something. “Welcome to the jungle,” he screamed.

Now Tandi came out.

And Carlene.

“Grant!” Melody said.

He kept screaming.

Randy was standing by his trailer watering his pots and watching.

Baby George and his mom.

When Grant got to the end of the song, he chucked his radio onto the ground.

And we all sort of gasped as it shattered to pieces on the concrete.

“I DON’T CARE!” he yelled.

My body got cold then. This wasn’t a joke at all.

Bart squeezed my hand and Grant really did look so bad.

He was crying and he’d climbed back down and was kicking things.

He was kicking the grass. He kicked his own truck. And then he acted like he was going to kick Mrs. Sydney Gunnerson’s Cadillac and she said, “Oh no you don’t, you old coward.”

“What did you call me?” he yelled. “What did you just call me?”

I thought Mrs. Sydney Gunnerson would be scared because he was scary; he was out of control. But Mrs. Sydney Gunnerson didn’t look shaken at all. She just stood there and said, “You leave my Caddy alone, you brute. Just because you don’t know how to live your life don’t mean you can ruin ours.”

This got him hopping. Hopping up and down.

“Oh you think I’m ruining your life, Sydney? Who ruined whose life? Huh? Who ruined whose life?”

Mrs. Sydney Gunnerson said, “Grant, I am not getting involved in whatever you’re talking about but if you don’t get off my property I will call the police and they will not waste a second hauling your sorry butt into jail.”

Grant was going crazy now. He was squatting and pointing to himself. Stabbing himself really hard with his pointer finger. “You’re going to call the cops on me? ME?” He looked around wildly. “What have I ever done to anyone? What? Has every woman gone crazy?”

He was making no sense. I was going to tell this to Bart but he was still gripping my hand hard and he hadn’t moved an inch.

So I decided to hold still. Wait.

“Calm down, Grant,” Paul the MMA fighter said. He was walking up and Grant said, “You want to beat me up, Paul? You wanna?”

And Mrs. Sydney Gunnerson said, “Do it.”

And Melody said, “Someone stop this. Will someone please stop this? Please?”

No one made a move except Paul, who I was pretty sure could kill Grant if he wanted.

Melody came down her stairs. “Please. Someone. Stop this.”

Grant pointed at her. “Go inside.”

~

That’s when Mom came out.

~

I was shocked because for a while now she hardly ever came out unless it was to get in her car and drive away. And especially not to get involved in neighborhood fights. But now she was out of the house and the entire air changed.

Everyone looked at her.

She stood big even though she wasn’t big. She stood big and said, “Grant. Is this about that woman?”

His eyes were wild. What woman? What was she talking about? Trinity? That was like two years ago.

“What do you know, LeAnn?” he said.

Mom didn’t move. She had him in a death stare.

“Did she hurt you?” Mom asked.

Grant’s face started to tremble.

He shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come over here,” Mom said.

“I’m kind of busy,” Grant said.

“I can see that and I don’t care. I need to tell you something and then you can let Paul over there beat the crap out of you.”

Grant looked at Paul. Then back at Mom. He was sweating and huffing and you could tell things were turning in his head.

“Come on, Grant,” she said. “I need to go back to my nap.”

“He’s out of control, LeAnn. Let me take care of this,” Paul said.

Mom scoffed. “I’m not scared of old Grant. He would never hurt me, right, Grant?”

Grant swore, then he said, “Nah.”

And Mom said, “Back off, Paul.”

Paul took a step back.

Then Grant, he walked over to our porch and my mom, in her ratty old muumuu and her hair up in her sleeping bun, she leaned down and whispered something in his ear.

We all watched.

This time the whole place froze.

For my mom.

What could she possibly be saying?

Grant listened.

He nodded.

She kept talking.

And I swear this really happened, a tear rolled down his cheek.

And then, like she did stuff like this every day, she did this: She came down the steps and she hugged him.

Sweaty old dumb-bum Grant.

Hard.

My mom hugged Grant hard.

I bit my lip. Didn’t look at Bart, who didn’t look at me, either, I was sure. The whole thing was too much.

And Grant started really crying then. Heaving and sobbing, and Mom, holding him.

Holding him and saying, “I know. I know. I know. It’s okay. I know.”

And him nodding and wiping his nose and nodding.

The whole world on pause for the two of them.

Then, as fast as it had started, it was over.

He pulled away, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, took a deep dark breath and said, “I’m going inside.”

And then he did.