All of us seemed to have a good night's sleep, and conversation at breakfast was plentiful – lively, even. It was certainly a change from our school-day morning conversations. Summer had just put us all in better moods, it seemed.
Soda promised to dig out the lawn mower while I was babysitting, and Pony was off to work, too, Darry dropping him off at the bowling alley before he brought me over to the Karis' house. Coach came out to talk to Darry in the driveway, handing off Laura to me and telling me he'd be right in. I wondered what the two of them were talking about, but was glad to see Darry smiling and laughing as they talked.
Coach came back in, briefly, to say goodbye and then, again, it was just Laura and me. It was so nice outside that after a while I decided to take her outside to play around in the grass. I brought out a few toys and she was so funny, just running wildly from one spot to another.
As I followed her around the house, I was laughing along with her as we came to the side of the house where I had seen the neighbor tending to her garden the previous day. She was there, again, pulling weeds. Laura clearly knew her, as she ran right over and hugged her.
"Well, hello, Laura! Did you come to help me with my flowers?" The woman turned as I called Laura and she ran back toward me.
"Sorry," I apologized to the woman. "She's quick."
"Oh, no apologies necessary," the woman said, turning around and standing, taking off her gardening gloves. "She's a doll. Are you the summer babysitter?"
"That's me," I said, offering my hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Scout. I know Mr. Karis from school, I'm on his basketball team."
"Well, nice to meet you, too, Scout. I'm Linda. I'm sure Mike and Barbara must think a whole lot of you if they trust you with Laura." I blushed, a little, I could feel it.
"Your flowers are so pretty," I said, picking up Laura as she begged, tugging at my skirt. "I'm thinking of trying to plant some flowers at my house – what's your secret?"
"Well… this is the first summer we've lived here – my husband just accepted a job here in Tulsa. I'm not used to gardening here in the south – I'm from Boston, so I'm afraid I'm no expert about gardening down here. I could give you some cuttings, though, with no guarantee that they'll live," she laughed.
"Cuttings… its that like, baby flowers?"
"Sort of, yeah. Are you interested?" She seemed so sincerely nice.
"Yeah, definitely." I was pretty excited. I really did want to make our yard look better. Laura was falling asleep against me, though.
"I, uh… let me go put her down for her nap, and I'll be right back," I said.
"No problem. I'll be here." She went back to her weeding.
I brought Laura in and got her bottle from the fridge. She was pretty much asleep the minute I set her down in the crib.
I opened her window so I could hear if she cried and went back outside. Linda had already made some cuttings for me, and she explained how to plant each one, to make sure it took root.
I was still talking to her when a car pulled into her driveway and a man got out wearing hospital clothes. He looked vaguely familiar as he came over and he recognized me before I did him.
"Scout?" Immediately I remembered him. It was Dr. Bryant, the doctor who took care of me in the hospital after I got found in the woods.
"Dr. Bryant! You live here?"
"I take it you two have met…" his wife said, looking amused.
"Scout was my patient a few months back. How are you? How's your brother doing?"
"Great… we're all doing good. Except, well, my brother Soda has a broken arm. He crashed his car. I had to get some stitches too, but I think I get them out on Friday." The hospital in Muskogee had just told Darry to take me to the emergency room after a week or so to have them taken out. Dr. Bryant took a quick look at them.
"Looks like it's healing nicely. So… what are you doing here?" I realized that finding me in his yard talking gardening with his wife had to be unexpected, to say the least.
"Oh," I laughed. "I'm babysitting, for the Karises. Mr. Karis is my basketball coach. So, I'm watching Laura while he teaches summer school. She's taking a nap."
"Well, it certainly is a small world. Funny, Mike and I never made that connection, that we both knew you. Though we had just moved in right around when you were in the hospital, so I guess maybe we hadn't talked much back then."
"It is kind of funny," I agreed. "He came to see me in the hospital, and everything."
"And I knew you played basketball, and that he was a coach…I just never made the connection."
"Well… surprise, I guess," I laughed.
"A good one, too, he said. It's nice to see my patients looking well instead of sick."
Right then, Laura started to cry and I had to excuse myself.
"It was real nice to see you again, Dr. Bryant, and nice to meet you, Mrs. Bryant. Thanks for the plants."
"Call me Linda," she said, "and you're welcome. I'm doing a lot of pruning this week so I'll set aside some more for you." That would make Darry happy, me getting the plants and flowers for free.
"Thanks. I guess I'll see you around later, then."
"Bye, Scout," they both called as I sprinted inside and found Laura standing up in her crib, yelling my name.
"Cowt! Cowt!" She hadn't quite mastered the "sc" sound yet.
"Up!" she demanded, right away. I picked her up and changed her and the two of us played on the living room floor for half an hour or so until her Dad came home. It tugged at my heart, a little, those father-daughter reunion moments, knowing mine were over.
"How'd it go today?" he asked, picking up Laura as she giggled with joy to see him.
"Fine. I met your neighbors over there." I pointed to the Bryant's house.
"Oh, the Bryants? Nice couple. They haven't lived there very long, but we really like them. And they're great with Laura."
"Yeah, the funny thing is, I already knew Dr. Bryant. He was my doctor when I was in the hospital."
"That is funny, especially since I visited you and everything. We probably passed right by each other there, but didn't know we were neighbors yet! Hey, what's with all the plants in the driveway?"
"Oh, I told Mrs. Bryant that I wanted to plant some stuff in my yard and she gave me some cuttings. I can have Darry pick them up tomorrow morning, I mean, if you don't want them messing up your car or anything."
"Scout, you've seen my car. It's not exactly clean." His car was pretty messy. "We can just stick them in the trunk. They won't die, it's only ten minutes to your house."
"Okay." We went out to the car and he opened the trunk so I could put the plants in while he put Laura in her car seat.
Soda was sitting on the porch waiting for me when I got home. I was sure he had been bored out of his mind home alone all morning. I was surprised that Two-Bit wasn't there to keep him entertained. He watched with interest as I took the plants out of Coach's trunk, but didn't move to help.
"Coach… that's my brother Sodapop up there. Soda – this is Coach Karis."
"Scout, I know who he is." I forgot that Soda used to go to the school where he was a teacher. "Nice to see you, Mr. Karis."
"You too, Soda," he said. "See you tomorrow, Scout," he said, and I heard Laura from the back seat.
"Bye, bye, Cowt."
"I'm so bored," Soda said, the second I came through the gate.
"Well, at least you're not smoking or sleeping."
" Actually, I just woke up. And I'm all outta smokes."
"Oh. Did you clean?"
"I started," he said, though when I peeked through the door the living room looked pretty much the same as when I had left it that morning.
"Hey, Soda, remember my doctor from when I was in the hospital? Dr. Bryant?"
"Kind of, why?"
"Turns out he's my coach's neighbor. His wife gave me all these plants for free."
You really think you can clean this up?" Soda looked skeptically at the yard.
"Anything would be an improvement," I said, and he agreed.
"Did you get out the mower for me?" I could tell by his face that he forgot.
"I'll get it now," he said, and headed around the house to the side yard. I stayed a good ten feet away from the shed. It was just creepy. Soda thought he was pretty hilarious to come of there out with a daddy-longlegs on his arm and chase me around the yard with it while I screamed. Ben must have heard us, and he came out of his house to see what all the screaming was about.
"What's going on?" he asked, as I hid behind him.
"Soda's being a jerk!" I yelled.
"No I'm not," Soda said, dropping the spider to the ground. Ben stomped on it.
"Why do you guys torture her?" Ben asked.
"My thoughts exactly," I said. "Thank you, Ben. Never mind, Soda. I'll just have Ben get it for me, since he doesn't feel the need to prey on my worst fears."
"I was just kidding, Scout, I wasn't going to put it on you or anything."
"It doesn't matter. They still creep me out. I just don't even like to see them."
"What do you need me to get?" Ben asked.
"The lawnmower, from the shed," I said. "And get the spiders off it."
"No problem," he said, going off to get it for me. Soda disappeared into the house, me warning him that he'd better pick up a bit before Darry got home. Ben pulled out the mower and sprayed it with the hose to clean it off.
I stood and stared, trying to figure out how the heck you started the thing. Once it was started, I was pretty sure I could handle it, it was just a matter of pushing it around, and our yard was pretty flat.
"Now you just have to show me how to start it," I said, and Ben looked surprised.
"Wait, you're gonna cut the grass?"
"Well, yeah, what'd you think?"
"I dunno, I thought Soda was gonna do it, and you were just gonna… supervise, or something."
"Uh, no. This is my 'cleaning up' job. The State's coming to check up on us on Thursday, so I'm trying to fix up the yard a little."
"Darry's okay with you mowing the lawn?"
"No, actually, he's worried I'm gonna cut my toes off, but he doesn't want to have to do it after work, and the other two are way too lazy, so…that leaves me. Just start it for me and I'll be fine."
"I'll do it."
"What? Why?"
"I'm not gonna sit back and watch while my girlfriend cuts the grass. I'd feel like a jerk." He hadn't ever actually called me his girlfriend before, and I felt something warm rising in the pit of my stomach.
"Why? You think I'm too weak to push it or something?" I pretended not to notice what he'd just said.
"No, not at all. I just don't think a girl should have to do it."
"Oh, right, I should be inside, cooking and cleaning, I suppose?"
"That's not what I meant. And isn't that what Soda's in there doing, anyway?" he joked. "Look, I'm trying to be a gentleman here, would you let me?" He pulled me up against him and kissed my neck, gently.
"If you insist," I said, smiling. I was still thinking – he called me his girlfriend! "I have to plant the plants I got before they die, anyway."
Ben started the mower and I ran around the yard ahead of him, picking up stuff and moving it out of the way. Darry was right about the cinderblocks – they were way too heavy for me, so I ended up shoving them, rolling them end over end until they were over to the side of the yard. Soda saw me struggling and must have felt guilty when he looked out and saw Ben mowing our yard because he came out and helped me as best he could with his good hand.
"Darry's gonna kill us for moving these," he said.
"We can say Pony and Ben did it, if he asks."
"Okay."
Soda helped me plant the flowers along the front of the house and Ben finished up just around the same time we did. He came up and sat on our porch with us, and I gave him a hug, even though he was all sweaty.
"Thanks, Ben, you're my hero," I joked as I kissed him on the cheek.
"Aw, shucks," he feigned embarrassment.
"Can I get you a soda?"
"That would be great."
"You, too?" I asked Soda.
"Oh, even people who aren't your hero get waitress service too? Way to make a brother look bad, Ben. You being all manly and everything, now we'll all look like bad brothers, if we ever make Scout mow."
I nodded at him, smiling.
"Promise you'll keep all spiders away from me in the future?"
He hesitated, then laughed.
"Promise."
"Okay, then." I went in and grabbed Pepsis for all three of us and we sat out on the porch, talking, waiting for Darry and Pony to come home and tell us what they thought of our handiwork.
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A/N: I promise I will make up for this slow pace with some excitement soon! Thanks for your awesome reviews!