Flying Lessons & Other Stories(13)

“Hurry up, Merci. I want to get out of here.” He dips his roller again and turns back to the wall. His muscles strain against his T-shirt as he rolls faster and faster. “It shouldn’t take forever to paint a stupid door.”

“It does if you’re doing a good job,” I say.

I stand up and look over at Roli. What a disaster. When Papi sees this, he’s dead. Papi says a good painter can work without splatters or drips. Roli has sloshed paint all over the place, and there are streaks and drips on the walls where there shouldn’t be any. No quality control, that’s the trouble. I’ll have to discuss this with Papi as we determine Roli’s future with us.

“You guys ready to take a break?” Papi calls. He’s across the gym, patching a hole in the drywall. “We can take a ride to Burgers and Shakes.”

We usually pack our lunch and dine “alfresco,” as Papi calls it, which just means we picnic under a tree. It’s too hot today, though, and a chocolate shake sounds like heaven.

I’m about to put down my brush when the door I’ve been painting swings wide open. Light floods inside and makes me squint. A group of upper-school girls is clustered outside. Their sweaty faces are almost as red as the paint. Grass clippings cling to their shin guards.

They’re jostling and shouting.

“It’s boiling!”

“Go in already.”

“Stop shoving!”

“I have to pee!”

A tall girl stands in the lead. She’s probably the team captain, if that C on her jersey means anything. Plus, she looks the part, with muscular legs and hair piled high on her head like a lopsided doughnut. Before I can stop her, she reaches her arms wide and grabs the wet doorframe as if she’s trying to keep her flock from moving forward.

She pulls her hands back when she realizes what she’s done.

“Damn!” She stares at her palms, then gives me an ugly look, like it’s my fault.

One of the girls next to her giggles. “Oops.”

I rub my eyes with my forearm, trying to see them better around the big green globs that still linger before my eyes. I’m positive I stuck a sign in the grass outside, just like Papi said. WET PAINT. USE OTHER DOOR. But even if they missed it, couldn’t they see that the surface is shiny? Can’t they smell the fumes or see me standing here with a paintbrush? Hello?

I’m furious, but my tongue goes thick in my mouth. Maybe it’s the girl’s bright eyes on me or maybe it’s that they’re all older. You have to be in high school to play on the varsity team, right? Or maybe it’s really because Roli doesn’t turn and come to help me. He keeps his back to them and keeps painting.

Thank goodness for Papi. He wipes his hands and starts walking toward them from across the gym. He has a quick temper, so I’m expecting him to make a fuss the way he does at Roli and me when we track in dirt or argue too much. Or else he might just freeze them with his look, which is almost as bad. Papi’s a big guy, and his eyes can go narrow and dark when he’s mad.

But before Papi can reach them, the girls start shoving again, trying to get out of the heat. They don’t seem to care that he’s holding up his hand to wave them off. It’s like they don’t see him at all.

“Move!”

“Let us in, Catie!”

And just like that, they burst through, their hands and bodies sliding over the wet door as I stand there, rooted to the spot. They barrel through, shrieking with laughter as they get smeared. One or two make handprints on each other’s backs. And then somebody wipes herself clean on one of the walls Roli finished a while ago. I stare, breathless, at the long streak of red fingers along the length of it.

They’re dead—and I can’t wait to see it happen. Papi is going to yell at them for ruining my work. Any second, his voice will boom across the gym. The walls will rattle. When Papi loses his temper, it feels as if you’re trapped inside a huge storm cloud.

But as the seconds tick by, absolutely nothing happens. I finally turn to see that Papi has stopped in his tracks, his hands in his pockets as he watches the girls race past. We are ghosts as they go by—unseen. Finally, the tall girl looks at us from the top of the steps leading to the locker room.

“Perdón,” she calls out in a heavy American accent before she takes the steps, two at a time. There’s laughter, hoots. Then another voice calls out from somewhere, “Excuse-oh moi!”

A metal door slams behind them.

I feel like I’ve been slapped. An ugly coldness creeps up from my stomach as we stand there in silence. Perdón? Excuse-oh moi? Do they think we don’t speak English? And even if we didn’t, would that make their silly apology any better?

But it’s Papi’s stillness that makes me feel worse. Why didn’t he say anything? He’s Papi. He’s the boss, an adult, the guy in charge. How could he let this happen?

It’s only when a man with sweat stains around his armpits comes jogging to the door that the silence is broken. It’s Mr. Falco, the guidance counselor. He spoke last year at one of the parent college nights I was dragged to. Seaward Pines School was a special place, he said that night. A school with a history of turning out fine young men and women.

He steps carefully through the door, looks at the mess, and shakes his head.

“I told them to use the side entrance,” he says, sighing.