E T H A N
A week after we started helping out with the kids at the daycare, Miss Johnson told us she needed us to come in on Saturday. I tried to tell her I couldn't. My mom had a double shift, and I had to study, and run errands, and take care of Ronny. Miss Johnson insisted. The kids had a trip to the Aquarium. It had been booked for months. The parents had paid for it already and the school had rented a bus for the day. The kids had gotten excited about it too. Canceling it wasn't an option. Not really. I said I would be there, somehow. Caitlyn shrugged, which I found out on Saturday, meant she would be there too.
I had to bring Ronny with me. When Miss Johnson saw him, she bent down to smile at him, and said, in her suburban voice, "Now, who is this pretty boy?"
Ronny hid behind my leg. I said, "He's my little brother Ron. I couldn't get anyone to look after him for me. He can come with us to the Aquarium, right? He won't be any trouble. I promise."
Miss Johnson was still crouching, trying to get Ronny's attention, and failing, but she looked up at me to smile.
"Well, I don't see why not. You'll have to pay for his ticket though. It's $35,95. It's not much. Except, of course, if he's two or under, then it's free," she explained, turning to Ronny again, "How old are you, sweetie?"
Ronny pressed his face against my jeans, so I answered for him, "He's three."
"$35,95 it is then."
I obviously didn't have $35,95 with me, and I didn't have time to go home either. The bus was already parked outside. I reached for my wallet and took out what I had. Miss Johnson stood up straight.
"I only have $15," I said.
She still had her suburban smile on when she said, "There's an ATM across the road."
"I don't have a credit card, I'm sorry." At this point, my face was on fire.
"It also takes debit," she said, still smiling.
"I don't have that either."
"What is happening right now?" someone else said. I turned around. Caitlyn was standing by the door, a frown on her face, sunglasses still on, a man-sized plaid shirt, hand looking for something inside her wallet. She walked closer as she did it, and when she found it, she handed it over to me, "Here you go, loser."
Suddenly I had $40 in my hand. I looked up at her. She was looking at Ronny, who was still hiding his face against my jeans, arms wrapped around my leg.
"Thank you so much," I managed. "I'll pay you back. I promise."
She looked at me, and said, "You better, cause I was gonna get an eighth with that."
I didn't know what she meant. Miss Johnson didn't do either because she just smiled, took the money from my hand, and added it to a thick envelope she had on top of her desk. She took a few coins out of it and handed it to Caitlyn.
"Your change."
"Right," Caitlyn said. "Is everyone going on this thing?"
Miss Johnson shook her head, "No, Freddy and Sade aren't coming."
Freddy was sick with a cold. I knew that because he had spent recess on Friday sniffling. Sade had seemed fine though. I had no idea why she wasn't coming.
"Is Sade the one with the cornrows?" Caitlyn asked.
"Yes, that's her," Miss Johnson said, frowning right after, "Her dad didn't pay for the ticket."
"But she's here," Caitlyn said. "I just saw her on the hallway."
"Yeah, she comes in on weekends because she doesn't have anyone home to look after her. Usually we're only open during the week, but because there are a few other kids without anyone home with them –"
"Yeah, I get it," Caitlyn stopped her. "I'll pay for her ticket too."
Miss Johnson was surprised. So was I.
"Really?"
Caitlyn reached for her wallet again and took out $40, "I guess I'll have to get that eighth some other time."
Miss Johnson was smiling, "This is very generous, but I don't think I can take it. Her dad might not like it –"
"Just say the school offered to pay the ticket for her, since, you know, that's what the school should have done in the first place."
Miss Johnson was still smiling, but she didn't mean it anymore, "Well, that would set up a precedent the school's not prepared to –"
"Yeah, I don't care," Caitlyn stopped her yet again, holding the $40 in her face. "Just take the money."
Miss Johnson did, "I'll just say there was a discount."
"There you go!" Caitlyn said.
"I'll go tell Sade. I'm sure she'll be very happy."
And just like that, she was gone out the door. As it turned out, however, Sade was not very happy. In fact, she looked very confused in her overalls, waiting in line to get on the bus. When her turn came to step inside, she didn't. Instead, she turned to Caitlyn, who had been standing next to me, pretending to do a headcount, and thanked her under her breath.
Caitlyn shrugged, "No problem. Now get in there."
Ronny was still hiding behind me, his arms still around my leg, but not so hard that I couldn't move to help Sade get on the bus. She disappeared inside. Next to me, Caitlyn was looking at my brother instead of the name sheet on her hands.
"What's wrong with him?" she asked.
I looked down at Ronny, then up at her, "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean," she said as I helped another kid get on the bus.
"I don't," I said, even though I did. It just wasn't something I wanted to talk to her about, or anyone, really.
She frowned, "Fuck you then."
The kid I had just helped stopped instead of running inside and turned to her to yell, very loud, "You can't say that!!"
"She didn't say anything, Mike," I lied. Mike was missing his front teeth. He had pulled them out himself so he could put them under his pillow and get a few pennies to buy candy with. If he could believe the tooth fairy, he could probably believe me, right?
"She did!" he insisted. "She said fuck!"
I looked at Miss Johnson at the back of the line and wondered if she had heard him. She was tying up a kid's shoelace, but she hadn't stopped to look up at us, so I guessed not.
"She didn't," I lied again. "And even if she did, it's not an excuse for you to say it too."
"Well, if she can, I can!" he said. I wanted to roll my eyes at him but didn't.
"Well, I'm going to hell for it," Caitlyn jumped in. "Do you wanna come with me?"
"It's true," the next kid in line said. It was Jim. Jim had the fear of God in him because his parents had been nice enough to put it in there for him. "My mom says people who cuss are going to hell."
"She sounds fun," was Caitlyn's take on it.
"No one's going to hell," I said, even though I wasn't really sure I was allowed to. Would I get in trouble with his parents for denying his beliefs? Was I going against his right to religious freedom? I didn't really care.
"She's definitely going," Jim insisted. "She has tattoos. Mom says people with tattoos are definitely going to hell."
"Can't wait," Caitlyn went on.
I helped Jim get on the bus and pushed Mike inside, "Go sit down. Both of you."
"You're really good at gaslighting," Caitlyn said to me. "You must be fun to date."
My face got on fire. I didn't know what gaslighting was and I had never dated anyone in my life. I had a lot of girlfriends in middle school, but I didn't think that counted. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing, and went on helping the kids instead. She went on failing to do the headcount.
Miss Johnson was obviously very confused when she saw the name sheet. She pointed at a bunch of names Caitlyn hadn't ticked, "They're here, aren't they? I could swear I saw them."
"Yeah, they're here." Caitlyn shrugged. "I just don't mind if they go missing."
Miss Johnson decided she was joking and forced herself to laugh. This was her way of taking control of the situation. She said, "They're a handful, I'll give you that."
We got on the road after that. I sat next to Ronny, which made a lot of the kids mad, because they all wanted me to sit next to them instead. Miss Johnson sat behind the bus driver after checking everyone's seatbelts, and soon they got to talking. Caitlyn sat by herself. After a while, Sade showed up to tell Miss Johnson she didn't have a seat, followed by Lucy, in pigtails and a dress.
"Miss Johnson, there are seats next to us in the back," Lucy said. "It's just that we don't want Sade to sit there."
Miss Johnson asked, "Why not, Lucy?"
To which Lucy said, with her nose in the air, "Because."
"Right," Miss Johnson said, rolling her eyes. "Just sit next to Caitlyn, Sade, and you, Lucy, get back in your seat and think about whether or not you would like it if someone did the same thing to you."
"I wouldn't mind." Lucy shrugged. Lucy's parents were rich for sure. She went on, "I wouldn't want to sit next to someone who didn't like me."
Then she turned around and ran back to her seat. Miss Johnson rolled her eyes again and went back to talking to the bus driver.
On the seat behind mine, Caitlyn said to Sade, "Lucy's a bitch."
After a while, Sade said, "I didn't tell anyone."
I didn't know what she meant by this, but then again, I shouldn't even know she had said it. I was, after all, listening in on their conversation. It was hard not to. Miss Johnson was talking about politics with the bus driver and next to me, as usual, Ronny wasn't talking at all. Instead, he was looking out the window, his head against my shoulder.
"You can if you want to." I heard Caitlyn said. "I was doing something I shouldn't. You caught me. It was my fault."
Sade didn't say anything to that. She didn't say anything else for the rest of the ride.
At some point, inside the Aquarium, Caitlyn took off her plaid shirt. She was wearing a white top underneath and no bra. This last part wasn't what the kids noticed more. Instead, they gathered all around her to look at all the tattoos on her arms, ignoring the tour guide and what he had to say about this and that fish, which, surprisingly, didn't seem to matter because the tour guide was too busy talking to Miss Johnson, who somehow was under the impression she knew more about fish than the person whose actual job was to know about fish.
Even Jim, who was convinced Caitlyn was going to hell on the account of having long-lasting drawings on a body that she owned, seemed interested in knowing everything about the tattoos. Why did she have one of an ugly hat? She told them it wasn't a hat, but an elephant in a snake's belly. They laughed, and pointed at another one, the one with the characters from some kids show. They wanted to know what they were saying to each other, which wasn't good, seeing as the answer was fuck you.
"Maybe don't answer that," I told her.
She looked over at me, "Maybe turn around before your brother breaks his neck."
I looked up at Ronny sitting on my shoulders, his head turned back so he could see the jelly fish in the tank behind us. I had to pick him up to get him away from the other kids, who insisted on squeezing his cheeks, and getting him to answer this and that question, all of which, Ronny hated. I turned around so he didn't have to twist his neck so hard, and he laughed when a pink jelly fish swam close to the glass.
Then I twisted my own neck to look back at Caitlyn, and said, "I just don't think you want them to go home and repeat some of those things in front of their parents, since, you know, that might get you in trouble."
She looked down at the kids, "He doesn't want me to tell you."
At this, the kids all looked at me, and shouted together, "Please!!"
"Right, everyone, let's move on!" Miss Johnson called then, turning her back at the tour guide to get everyone's attention. "We're gonna see a big white shark next."
"Actually," the guide said. "It's a bull shark."
"No," Miss Johnson insisted. "I come here a lot. I'm pretty sure it's a –"
"It's not," he stopped her, turning around to lead the way. I had to hold in a laugh. Caitlyn didn't. She just laughed. Miss Johnson ignored her, of course, following the guide, her head held high.
We kept on moving. The kids turned their attention back to the fish, seeing as this time the fish was a shark that according to the guide had a bite even stronger than that of a great white and might have been the inspiration for the movie Jaws, which, of course, none of the kids had ever seen.
After, there was a coral reef exhibit to which I paid no attention to. Caitlyn put her hair up, and left her hand on her neck, just below her pierced ear. Her black nail polish was chipping away. The incandescent lights in the water tanks made her look blue. She moved her hand around her neck, all the way to her shoulder, where she kept it for a while. When Mike hit his head on a wall running away from a staff member holding a giant lizard, she threw her head back to laugh.
In the end, we all got a lollipop. I saved mine for Ronny to have some other day. Caitlyn had hers. She kept it in her mouth while she did the headcount, this time without ignoring the kids she didn't care much for, sunglasses back on. Her lips turned red. So did her tongue.
When all the kids were inside the bus except for Lucy, who had insisted she wanted to get a toy from the gift shop, and Ronny, who was still up on my shoulders, I turned to her and asked the first thing that came to my mind.
"So what were you getting an eighth of?"
She looked at me like I was stupid, and said, "An ounce."
I decided I would make things worse, and asked, "Of what though?"
"Are you serious right now?" she asked, looking at me from under her sunglasses. "Weed. What else could it be?"
"Oh, right, of course, yeah, that makes sense," I said. I really was stupid. "If you want, I can stop by yours later today to give you –"
"It's fine, don't worry," she said, right before, "Doesn't your back hurt?"
I was confused and my face must have shown it because she pointed at Ronny sitting on my shoulders. I couldn't look up at him this time because he had laid his head on top of mine and wrapped his arms around my neck.
I shrugged, "A little bit, but it's fine, I don't mind."
She didn't say anything. In fact, she didn't say anything else to me at all for the entire ride back to the daycare. When all the kids left, and Miss Johnson said we could leave too, she did it without saying goodbye. She just left.
I thought she was a force of nature.