At 6:45 a.m. I wander into the kitchen and my little sister Torvill is clamoring, “You’re up, you’re up, you’re up!” She says things in threes now—it’s her phase du jour, or rather, du summer.
It’s the first day this week that I don’t have to be at Gas ’n Git by 6:00. Dad just woke me on his way out, and Torvill, Dean, and Dorothy want their breakfasts. Mom is at the radio station to do her morning forecasts. I’ve got to watch the kids for the next four hours, until Dad gets home. Three mornings a week—and whenever else he can find time—he drives to an arena that is open year-round for serious figure skaters. He has a Russian coach named Ludmila, and he’s trying to get up to speed so he can go on some Masters of Skating tour.
“Come on, you guys,” I say, “don’t you want to go back to bed? I think it’s raining. Isn’t it raining?”
I glance at Dorothy, who is sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, making a perfect, tall stack of plastic containers, in descending size. She’ll be an engineer. She’s brilliant and scientific that way.
Torvill runs over to the window. “It’s sunny, it’s sunny, it’s sunny!”
“Then why do I hear water?” I ask.
“We were running water in the sink,” Dean says. “Dad said to wash our hands.”
I look at the kitchen sink, which is about to overflow. I rush over and turn it off, then pull the drain stopper free.
“Yogurt, yogurt, yogurt!” Torvill sings.
I rub my eyes as I look at her. Is it my imagination, or is her pink Barbie sleepwear suddenly a size too small for her?
Dean starts kicking the refrigerator. He wants to be a kickboxer, and thinks he should practice on every household item and anyone who’s standing nearby.
I move Dean aside and get out the milk, yogurt, cereal, and fruit snacks. There’s a note from Mom on the counter: “Peggy—Pears in Fridge, Please Use Up.”
Like I want some aging, moldy pears for breakfast. They’re not good enough for anyone else to use up, but they’re okay for me? Or does she mean I should foist them on to the kids? It’s unclear, like most of her early-morning notes. I want French toast, not pears. I want Eggs Benedict brought to me in bed, on a tray. In a fancy hotel. In a large city.
But no. I’ve got moldy pears and kids throwing cereal at me. And it’s another fragrant Lindville morning.
We never should have traveled so much when I was young, because it makes me want more things than Lindville has. When I was born, my father was still competing as an amateur. But after he came in 4th at Nationals and then 8th and then 16th, he realized he was in a very bad trend, which could only eventually lead to 32nd, 64th and 128th. Not that they let that many skaters compete at Nationals, but you get the gist.
He had this move he created, called the Farrell Flip, where he held his hands a certain way on his hips when he did a flip jump. But it never really caught on the way the Salchow and the Axel did. He was never successful enough to end up on a cereal box, is what it boils down to.
So he decided to give up his Olympic dream and join an ice show. Starting from when I was two, we were on the road all the time, going from city to city, which might sound hard, but it was great. I met lots of people with really extreme makeup back then. I was only a toddler, so it couldn’t have influenced me that much, but who knows? Maybe that’s why I have such an aversion to eye shadow, and why I love staying in hotels and visiting new places. And why I hate being stuck in one place year after year.
When Dad got tired of skating in sweltering costumes, sometimes playing to big crowds, sometimes playing to empty rinks, occasionally crashing into the boards when he couldn’t see out of his eyeholes, it was time for me to start school. We moved here because they both found jobs and we’re close to my grandparents. But Dad still dreams of hearing Dick Button, former Olympic champion and a skating commentator for many years, talk about his marvelous power and spark and grace on the ice. I’m not sure Dick Button ever said anything about Dad. I think it’s something he may have fantasized about, the way he decided certain skating judges conspired to keep him out of international competition.
Torvill insists on three pieces of toast, while Dean only eats things that are grape. All they want to talk about is their fifth birthday party, which is still an entire month away. It’s right at the end of Rodeo Days, and Dean wants to have the party at the rodeo, with both a magician and a bucking bronco ride; Torvill wants to have a clown, pony rides, and a pizza party at Smiley’s Pizza. They won’t stop arguing, but at least Dean isn’t kicking anything.
Dorothy sits quietly, ignoring them, and makes a giant stack of Cheerios that could win a record for tallest cereal tower ever. She eats the Cheerios that don’t make it onto the tower.
The pears will have to wait.
I’d rather take the kids to IHOP, but I tried that once, a few months ago; it not only didn’t work, it was the most stressful forty-five minutes of my entire life, especially when the roving balloon artist was making a rabbit and Dean reached up and popped the balloon with his fork.
Fortunately, Steve wasn’t there to observe my hair with blueberry syrup and bacon toppings.
Steve. IHOP. Suddenly I remember what I’ve been trying to forget: Steve and that hostess. I push the thought away again. I can’t think about that now. I’m pretending it didn’t happen.
I toast myself a bagel, sit down at the table with the kids, and take the rubber band off the Lindville Gazette. Every article on the front page somehow relates to the upcoming Rodeo Roundup Days. The only front-page story not about the rodeo is about a gas-station robbery.
I don’t want my parents reading that. They’ll make me quit my job, and then I’ll have no way of leaving the house, no way of repaying them, and I’ll end up trapped here forever. I fold that section over and toss it into the recycle bin.
I open the next section. It’s sports and obituaries. Softball games people have won, and cancer battles they have lost. In between are scattered giant ads for cars and trucks and, of course, Rodeo Roundup Days tickets.
“Come on, guys—it’s almost time,” I say, at 7:25.
Torvill hits the mute button on the TV and I flip on the radio perched on top of the refrigerator. It’s preset to 1230 AM, KLDV, which has “traffic and weather on the nines.” This is sort of absurd, because there isn’t that much traffic here, and the weather does not change often. But KLDV has to do it, because the station is part of some big conglomerate radio network and that’s one of their trademarks.
There’s a little jingle, a very boppy and upbeat song that Dad helped to write, introducing KLDV’s “Link to Mother Nature.” It has this line that seems really dumb to me: “She has her ear to the ground, and her eye on the sky!” I always picture Mom lying on dew-covered grass with her head pressed against it, her clothes getting soaked as she gazes up at the sky, squinting because the sun is in her eyes.
She’s live in the studio on weekday mornings, and then they tape her forecast and play it throughout the day until the night guy comes in. She occasionally does remotes, too. Sometimes I’ll catch my mom describing what it’s like outside by using her hands and making big, sweeping motions—the way she used to when she was a TV meteorologist.
“Good morning, KLDV listeners, and a special good morning to Dorothy, Torvill, and Dean,” my mother says quickly, in her ultra-smooth radio voice, which is slightly perkier and also slightly huskier than her normal one—a weird combination that works.
“Mom, Mom, Mom!” Torvill screams.
“Shush,” Dean tells her.
Dorothy dismantles her Cheerio tower and starts forming a cereal circle. “Sunny,” she declares, announcing her own forecast. “Mostly sunny.”
Mom only went back to work after the station told her she could say hi to her kids on at least one of the nines. They finally settled on 7:29, so every weekday morning I’m home with them I have to make sure we tune in. I told my mother not to say my name anymore, because it was embarrassing, but it feels kind of strange not to be on the list, like I’m not part of the family anymore.
“This is Christie Farrell, your link to Mother Nature, and here’s today’s weather outlook! Your morning temperature is sixty-eight degrees, up from an overnight low of sixty-two. But this coolness won’t last long. We have an area of high pressure that’s creating this gorgeous, hot sunny weather. Get ready for another scorcher. Today’s high should be right around ninety. If you can find your way to a body of water—a pool, a lake, a river—jump in! If you’re working outdoors, make sure you drink plenty of water to avoid dehydration. As always, there’s a slight possibility of thunderstorms this afternoon, so keep an eye on the sky to be safe.”
Everyone is so busy keeping an eye on the sky. Who’s watching where they’re going?
The telephone rings a minute later, so I go into my father’s office to answer it. It’s sort of like a skating museum, with bookshelves covered with pictures of Dad and trophies and medals he’s won. There are a couple small trophies of mine on a top shelf, which I tried to convince Dad to put in the closet.
“Hello?” I say, grabbing the phone.
“Oh, hi, Peggy, it’s Mom. I was just calling to make sure you were up.”
“Mom, of course I’m up,” I say. What’s even worse than being expected to do so much is not being trusted to do it.
“Oh, good. Did you get a chance to tune in?”
“Of course we did,” I say. “I never forget to do that.”
“Well, did you eat the pears?”
“No, Mom,” I say.
“Because they’re ripe,” she adds.
As she goes on and on about the fruit varieties in our crisper, I spin the globe next to my father’s desk. I close my eyes and stick out my finger to stop the globe and see where I should head on my first worldwide trip.
“Peggy, are you listening?” Mom asks just as I open my eyes and see I’ve landed on Greenland.
“I’ll check out the pears,” I tell her as I spin the globe again.