The Memory Book(63)

Me: strange and good





Stuart: strange and good?





Me: I’ll explain when you get home.





Davy asked me why I wanted to get my teeth so clean. She watched me brush my teeth three times in the span of one hour before bed. I guess I forgot that I had brushed them. So I created a system—I leave my toothbrush on the sink if I brushed them, then Mom and Dad can put the toothbrush away at night after the kids get ready for bed, and then I put a note up that says: “If the toothbrush is on the sink, you brushed your teeth. If it is put away in the cabinet, you need to brush them.”





WHEW!


New day. Another cloudy one but the sun poked through by ten a.m. or so and Coop came over with tennis rackets because what else, we were going to try f*cking tennis. I don’t know why I chose tennis on my NPC Task Force but unfortunately Coop saw it and remembered it, so dear Serena Williams, I ruined your sport.

But you know the studies say people with memory stuff have to learn new things, it’s good for them, but I don’t know why I chose tennis. Sorry I’m not writing too good my pain medication kicked in but honestly it’s kinda like roses writing on the pain medication because I’m not so worried about making it pretty you know?

But I will tell you everything that I remember as always.

But I am a little loopy.

So Coop came up the mountain and I swear I almost lost it because he was wearing these red short-shorts and socks up to his knees and of course the THAT GOOD GOOD tank top and he had his hair in a pony with a sweatband and these aviator sunglasses. When I let him in he saw Harrison was playing Minecraft with headphones on so he snuck up behind him and stood right next to him at the computer until Harrison noticed he was there and jumped a little and took off his headphones and said, “What the hell?”

And then Coop said, “I’m Pete Sampras,” in this really low voice.

We found a flat enough spot in the yard and Coop tied a rope he found in the shed between two trees and draped a bunch of mine and Dad’s old shirts on it.

“Tennis!” he said.

“I’m not going to last five minutes,” I said.

“It’s not about how long you last, it’s how you do it,” he said, or some other joke alluding to sex. “Ready?” He threw up the ball and hit it over to me.

I missed it by a few inches. “I am too distracted by your pale thighs,” I said.

“Focus on the tennis ball,” Coop said, and I laughed. I was already winded. I kicked it back with a clumsy jerk.

He tried again. I missed again. Coop ran up to the T-shirt net. “C’mere,” he said. He smiled at me between one of Dad’s gray CITY OF LEBANON Tshirts and my DAN & WHIT’S sweatshirt. He handed me the ball so I could hit first. I smacked it over his head and for the first time that day, I liked tennis.

“Okay!” Coop said. “There she goes,” he said, jogging after it.

By the time he got back I was sitting on the ground. My heart was beating pretty fast. “I have a different idea,” I told Coop.

“What’s that?” Coop said, sitting across from me on the grass.

“It’s called femi-tennis. It’s where you roll a tennis ball back and forth and quiz each other about accomplished women in history.”

I didn’t expect Coop to go for it but pretty soon we had made a diamond with our legs and would shoot the tennis ball across the diamond, and the rule was, shins were post-1970, thighs were pre-1950, and knees were wild card. I beat him pretty badly but he held his own, especially about the life of Harriet Tubman, and, surprisingly, he totally stumped me with this radical Japanese artist named Yayoi Kusama. I made him write her name down, turns out she also had problems with her mind and began to hallucinate dots later in life. I told Coop I had not seen dots but I had seen giants, and he also remembered that game we used to play where we built houses out of rocks and sticks and pretended we were giants and stomped on them.

So when the little kids got home from camp we taught Bette and Davy that game, and they built elaborate little houses out of Popsicle sticks, and before they were about to stomp, Davy said, “Wait!” She asked us what the game was called, and Coop and I looked at each other, trying to remember the name, but we both agreed that we were pretty sure we just called it “the giant game.” Bette and Davy love it. I mean Bette really, really loves it. Davy I think just likes putting jewel stickers all over the houses.

Then it was Cooper’s turn to pick a game but we were both pretty tired so we just lay down out in the yard away from the trees and looked at the clouds.

“That was a good day of tennis,” I said.

“Yes, tennis is a great game,” he said.

And then god I don’t know our shoulders were like inches from each other’s and I just needed to tell Coop thank you in some way for coming over and obviously we’re just friends but it was a deeper thank-you than just like “thank you for the ride” or “thank you for the food” so I moved my hand until it was on top of his hand, and I held it for a second, and Coop shifted his hand to be underneath my hand and held mine for a second, too, and then we let go.

“You should show them Captain Stickman,” I said after a while, watching a cloud shaped like a fish.