Episode Four: Look at Me!

"Wow, I am really tired, Maggie."

Sarah squeezed her Raggedy Ann doll and whispered a good morning to her favorite stuffy. Maggie had been with her since she was four years old — red yarn hair, that permanent painted smile, striped legs sticking out from under her apron dress. She looked exactly the same as she always had. That was the thing about Maggie. Nothing changed her.

Sarah pulled her closer.

"No bad dreams about Dad last night." She said it quietly, like she was checking something off a list she kept in her head. "That's a good start."

She was quiet about Maggie around Wayne and her mom. Not because she thought they'd make fun of her — Wayne wasn't like that, and her mom definitely wasn't — but because she wasn't sure she could explain it without sounding younger than she wanted to.

She lay there for another minute listening to the house wake up around her.

Somewhere down the hall a cabinet opened and closed. The particular sound of Wayne getting the pan out — she knew that sound now, which surprised her a little. The hiss of the burner. The smell of bacon already creeping under her door.

Sarah turned her head toward the nightstand.

The penny was there.

She picked it up and held it the way she always did, feeling the familiar weight of it settle into her palm. The Indian Head looked up at her with that same patient expression. She closed her fingers around it.

Saturday.

She set Maggie carefully against the pillow — sitting up, facing the room, the way Maggie preferred — and got out of bed.

Wayne's pancakes had blueberry faces again.

This time, one eye was larger than the other, giving the pancake a slightly suspicious expression, as if it wasn't entirely sure about being eaten. Sarah studied it for a moment.

"Something is wrong with his eye," she said.

Wayne looked at the pancake. "He's winking."

"That's not a wink."

"It's a very slow wink."

Sarah poured maple syrup over the whole thing and ate it anyway. Her mom sat at the table with her coffee, reading something on her phone, and for a few minutes the kitchen was just the three of them in the ordinary morning quiet that Sarah had stopped noticing was actually pretty good.

She thought about Maggie upstairs, sitting against the pillow, smiling at the empty room.

She thought about the Library.

She thought about what Mungie might have waiting for her this week.

Let's go, she thought. Let's just go already.

Wayne pulled up to the curb at eight fifty-nine.

"Hour and a half, kiddo. Call if you need more time."

He said it at normal human volume this time, which Sarah appreciated. Small victories. She was already out of the car. Railroad Bob was behind his desk. He looked up when she came through the doors, took in the particular way she was moving — quick, forward-leaning, already halfway up the stairs in her head — and something in his expression shifted toward quiet amusement.

Doing his best Wayne imitation, he blurted out, “See you in an hour and a half, kiddo.” Then, in his own voice—

"Morning, Sarah."

"Morning, Bob." Sarah flashed him a snarky look and was already reaching into her backpack.

She crossed to the desk and dropped the penny into his waiting hand in one smooth motion — no pause or ceremony, just the handoff.

“Oops, almost forgot.” Sarah turned back and gave Bob a sweet little hug to make up for last week.

Bob dropped the penny into the locomotive bank, while she started up the stairs.

Clink.

"Sarah."

She looked back.

Bob held up one finger. "Whatever it is up there today — "

He paused.

"Let it surprise you."

Sarah looked at him for a second.

"Don't I always?"

Bob's mouth did the thing that wasn't quite a smile.

"Not always," he said. And went back to his book.

She found her aisle. Found her shelf. The book was waiting the way it always was — already exactly where it should be, already slightly angled outward as if it had been expecting her.

Sarah pulled it free, tucked herself into her corner, and opened it.

The first words were already there.

"Hey, guys! Look at me!"

That was pretty much the official Mungie summer chant in 1960.

Look at me jump. Look at me throw this. Look at me climb that. Look at me do something I probably shouldn't be doing (not so much. Hahaha).

Most adults get pretty good at not hearing a kid say "look at me" after about the fourteenth time.

Sarah smiled.

The letters continued.

Two houses down from my grandparents lived the Reeds. They had a swimming pool. You have to understand something, Sarah. In 1960, having a swimming pool meant you were rich. At least to me it did. The Reeds weren't really rich. I know that now. But they had a diving board and eight and a half feet of water, so as far as I was concerned they were probably related to the Kennedys.

Sarah laughed.

The Reed family: Bob (Dad), Bobbie (Mom), Randy (20-year-old), Donna (17-year-old), and Baba (Grandma). They were the most stable and ideal family I could imagine. Also, they were kind and generous, the way I thought all families probably were with a real mom and dad there together. Bobbie was big into projects and crafts, and they had a back porch turned into a craft/fun room. Heck, it even had a square tile floor that had a checkerboard built into it. Bobbie made her own checkers and chess pieces (except I don’t know how to play chess). She taught me how to make candles out of melted wax, and she let me use her power egg beater to whip up the hot wax until it was a white froth, which I spooned onto the outside of the blocks of paraffin and gave it to my Grandma for a Christmas present. I always had a lot of love for her.

During the summer, Bobbie Reed would invite four or five of us over to swim. Somebody was always outside. Donna or Bobbie would sit in a lawn chair with a book while we tried to drown each other. That's where I learned how not to sink. Swimming came later.

Sarah leaned closer.

Also, I was able to get access to another pool, and another great family place. My grandparents had best friends named Tom and Muriel Papowitz. They lived in Reseda and had an amazing pool as well. They also had a pergola and a tiki hut.

A pause.

I had no idea what a pergola was, but I knew people with tiki huts must be rich. Tom and Muriel had a son named Tommy. He was seventeen or eighteen and had a Woody station wagon with surfboards.

In 1960, that made Tommy Papowitz approximately the coolest human being alive. Tommy taught me how to actually swim.

Sort of.

Those last two words were not lost on Sarah.

One Saturday, my grandparents took me to Tom and Muriel's house. Usually my brother came with me, but that day it was just me.

The four grownups were playing cards under the pergola.

I was in the pool.

"Look at me, Grandpa!"

Nothing.

"Grandpa! Look at me!"

I'm sure he looked eventually.

A pause.

Probably.

I had developed a swimming technique that consisted mostly of holding onto the pool's edge.

I could go all the way around.

Deep end. Shallow end. Back to the deep end. As long as my hands stayed attached to the concrete, I was an excellent swimmer.

Sarah smiled.

I'd been in the water a long time. I never wanted to get out. It was late afternoon. The deep end was shaded by the garage and a big tree near the tiki hut. I was tired. I remember that. My hands were tired.

Sarah stopped smiling.

I was moving around the edge of the deep end. And I slipped.

The page went still.

Then—

I went under. I reached for the edge. Missed it, and started sinking.

Sarah's fingers moved to the edge of the book.

The strange thing is, I remember the light of the late-afternoon sun through the branches of the tree. I was underwater looking up. The surface was above me and I could still see daylight through it, but I kept going down. Four feet. Maybe five. I don't know. I was eight.

Nothing appeared. Sarah waited.

Then I saw a hand.

She leaned closer.

It came through the water above me. I saw it. The hand grabbed mine and pulled me up.

Sarah didn't move.

I came out of the water at the edge of the pool and grabbed onto the concrete. I remember shaking my head and wiping the water out of my eyes.

The next sentence appeared slowly.

There was nobody there.

Sarah stared at the words.

I looked toward the pergola. My grandmother was still there. My grandfather was still there. Tom and Muriel were still there. Playing cards. Still talking and laughing. They hadn't moved.

A long pause.

I was eight years old, Sarah. I didn’t want them to know what had happened because I knew it would make it harder for me to go swimming there again, so I just crawled back to the shallow end and out of the pool. I was grateful that nobody saw me, but I was pretty scared and confused.

The page stopped.

Then one more line appeared.

But I never forgot the hand.

She closed the book slowly. Sat with it. The world moved outside in its regular direction. In here, a hand had come through the water from nowhere and pulled an eight-year-old boy to the surface while four adults played cards under a pergola and never looked up.

Sarah thought about that hand for a long time.

She had a hundred questions. But only one that mattered right now.

"Why didn't you tell anybody? You almost drowned."

The page remained empty.

Sarah waited.

Finally, the letters appeared.

Because they might not have let me swim there anymore.

Sarah stared at the words.

The answer was ridiculous. He almost died.

I know what you're thinking.

Sarah leaned closer.

I was eight, Sarah. Of course it scared me.

The letters stopped.

But being scared didn't mean I was done swimming.

Sarah shook her head.

Of all the things Mungie had told her, this might have been the dumbest.

The writing started again.

Besides, I had just been pulled out of the deep end by a hand that didn't seem to belong to anybody. I had other things to think about.

Sarah stared at the page.

The hand.

That was the question. Not the pool. Not swimming. Not even why he hadn't told his grandparents.

The hand.

Who did he think it belonged to?

Sarah waited.

Nothing.

She leaned closer to the book, almost willing the words to appear.

Come on, Mungie.

The page remained empty.

Sarah sat back.

Then—

Nice try.

Sarah's mouth dropped open.

"You are such a jerk."

Nothing.

She waited another few seconds.

A final line appeared.

See you next Saturday.

Sarah closed the book.

Sarah left the room shaking her head at Mungie's comments, fighting off a chuckle. She didn’t even look down the other aisles to see if the boy she had seen for the last couple of weeks was there in his regular spot. As she pushed the door to the room open, she glanced back and mumbled to herself.

“Well, I didn’t see that one coming”

Bob was standing at the top of the stairs when Sarah stepped into the hallway.

“Good visit?”

A very startled Sarah jumped and gave him - the look.

“I don't know, really,” she said, still recovering. “It was a very strange visit.”

“Wayne is waiting for you in the computer room. You went a bit longer today than usual.”

Sarah did a little eye-roll. “Thanks for the heads-up. He still watches out for me.”

“After all, everyone needs a hand sometime. Right?”
Sarah stopped.

Bob continued down the stairs.