Pon-Pon Page 7

  “This isn’t my first date, David,” she said, laughing. “I’m almost seventeen.”

  “You make me feel so old.”

  “You are old.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  She put her arm around my waist and gave me a quick squeeze.

  “What else?” she asked.

  “Am I really that predictable?”

  She gave me a sideways glance and raised her eyebrow at me.

  “I was just watching you and Jordan today,” I said, “and I was thinking about what you told me down in Mexico, that’s all.”

  “I can’t believe you even remember that,” she said, shaking her head and laughing lightly. “Just forget about it.”

  “But Charlotte,” I protested. “You said that-”

  “I was in the seventh grade, David.”

  “So?”

  “So it was a mistake. It’s no big deal.”

  “What do you mean, a mistake? God doesn’t make mistakes . . .”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t mean God made a mistake . . . I mean I did. I don’t think God really told me that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I just think I made a mistake, that’s all. Sometimes people make mistakes.”

  We walked along silently for a minute and then she bumped her shoulder against mine.

  “What’s wrong now?” she asked.

  “Your brother would do a much better job at this than me.”

  “First of all, you’re making too big of a deal out of everything, as usual, and second of all,” she put her arm around my waist again, “you do a great job.”

  I put my arm around her shoulder and squeezed.

  “Not as good as Greg,” I said.

  “I’m gonna be so sore tomorrow,” I groaned, rubbing my shoulder. I picked up another piece of pizza and looked at Laci. “This is why we need to get a hot tub off of the deck. Think how good it would feel to go sit out there after dinner.”

  “What you need,” Tanner said, “is to get some exercise.”

  “What makes you think I don’t exercise?”

  “Do you exercise?”

  “Well–” I began.

  “No,” Laci interjected.

  “For your information, Laci, I’ve been thinking about joining the Y.”

  “You’ve been thinking about it?” Tanner laughed and I nodded. “Thinking about it’s not going to get you in shape.”

  “I’m in great shape.”

  “Oh really?” He laughed again. “You wanna go play racquetball next Saturday?”

  “I think I’ll pass.”

  “Oh, come on. Why not?”

  I glanced at Jordan. He was signing to me with a slight smile on his face.

  I can teach you . . .

  I looked at Tanner again who was sitting there with a smug look on his face, then I glanced back at Jordan one more time.

  I can help you beat him . . .

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, nodding at Tanner. “Why not?”

  On Monday we bought a family membership to the Y and after dinner Laci took the kids to free swim while Jordan taught me how to play.

  Jordan, who was normally so quiet, was suddenly in his element. I think he really enjoyed being the one with all the answers for a change.

  “Try to get it over here as much as possible,” he said, tapping the back left corner with his racket. “Tanner can hardly ever get it off this wall.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “And if you even think his serve’s gonna hit the back wall,” Jordan said, “just let it go. He whacks it as hard as he can when he’s playing and a lot of time he forgets to tone it down when he’s serving.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Speaking of which . . . if he hits you with the ball it’s gonna hurt.”

  “Great.”

  He spent a lot of time helping me practice my serve.

  “Pretend like you’ve got a rolled up newspaper under this arm,” he said. “You’re bringing your elbow out too far from your body.”

  I tried it again.

  “How was that?”

  “It can’t go in front of this line on the serve, remember?”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s the rule.”

  “Well that’s a stupid rule,” I muttered.

  “What’s the matter? I thought you liked rules.”

  “Math is different,” I said. “The rules in math make sense.”

  He just laughed at me.

  “Now look,” he said a little later. “He’s got power and he’s a lot more agile than he looks. The only way you’re going to beat him is if you’re more accurate than he is.”

  “Gee, Jordan. Thanks.”

  “Well,” he said, “you know what I mean.”

  “Sadly, yes, I’m afraid I do. I’m gonna get creamed.”

  “Not necessarily,” he said. “It’s all about physics. This is where all those angles of reflection and everything you’ve got cluttering up your head are going to come in handy.”

  “I can’t believe you just used the term ‘angles of reflection’ in the right context . . .” I said in mock astonishment.

  “How’s that?” he asked, grinning. “That they’re cluttering up your head?”

  “Very funny.”

  After we’d played for over an hour we decided to quit for the night.

  “If you think you were sore after a snowball fight,” Jordan warned, “just wait until tomorrow.”

  “Great.”

  I wanted to swim some laps in the pool before my muscles seized up on me. I really had been thinking about joining the Y long before my conversation with Tanner. I’d been hoping that if I could swim three or four times a week maybe I could get my times down to where they’d been in college. Maybe . . .

  “You haven’t been here since they renovated?” Jordan asked when he had to show me where the new locker rooms were.

  “Nope.”

  We got to the men’s locker room.

  “Go out those doors,” he said, pointing past the showers. “They’ll take you right up to the pool.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked him.

  “Indoor batting cage,” he grinned and took off.

  I changed into my suit, showered, and went through the doors Jordan had pointed to earlier. The pool was all new too and at the far end of it there was . . . a giant hot tub.

  “How’d that go?” Laci asked when I walked up to her and the kids at the shallow end.

  “I’m pretty much not going to be able to move in the morning.”

  She laughed. “Are you gonna do laps?”

  “Well,” I said, glancing over at the hot tub, “I was planning to, but . . .”

  “Dorito’s been dying to go over there,” she smiled, “but I can’t take him because Lily’s too little.”

  That was all I needed to hear.

  “This is so cool!” Dorito said a few minutes later as he paddled around. “We should get one of these for our back yard!”

  “You know what?” I said. “That’s exactly what I’ve been telling Mommy.”

  We went to the Y every evening that week. Jordan assured me that he’d be okay missing a week of tutoring and by Friday night I was . . . well, I wasn’t horrible. Neither Jordan nor I deluded ourselves into thinking I might actually beat Tanner, but we were hoping I could at least give him a run for his money. My goal was to score at least eight or nine points on him.

  The next afternoon my phone rang as I was pulling in the driveway.

  “How’d it go?” Jordan asked. He must have been watching for my car.

  “My best game I scored eleven.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yup.”

  “That’s great! Was he surprised?”

  “I think so,” I said. “He wouldn’t admit it, but I don’t think he was expecting me to ever get that many on him.”

  “I’ll bet you could beat him i
n a few more weeks if we keep practicing!”

  “You’re gonna fall behind in math,” I warned.

  “We’ll do math one day and racquetball the next . . .”

  I couldn’t pass up the chance to finally beat Tanner at something.

  “Okay,” I said. “Deal.”

  About ten days later we were working on my serve again. Jordan had been right about Tanner not being able to get them off the back left wall and I had scored most of my points on him when I was able to get the ball there on my serve.

  “Good,” Jordan said when I sent one past him. I turned around to smile and I saw Tanner’s face peering at us through the little square window.

  “Uh-oh,” I said, nodding toward the door. “I think we’re busted.”

  Tanner stepped in shaking his head.

  “Well, well, well,” he said. “What have we here?”

  “I’m helping Jordan with his geometry.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Uh-huh. I was just explaining to him how this room’s a good example of a rectangular prism . . .”

  We both glanced at Jordan who was innocently staring up at the ceiling, trying very hard not to smile.

  “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” he asked, turning back to me.

  “Compared to who? You?”

  He narrowed his eyes and then smiled.

  “Feel like playing cutthroat?”

  “Cutthroat?”

  “I’m sure my little brother here can explain all the rules to you while I go get my racket,” he said, turning to leave. “And I’m not going to go easy on you this time.”

  He’d been going easy on me last time?

  He closed the door and I looked at Jordan.

  “Cutthroat?” I asked again.

  “Yeah,” Jordan said. “It’s for three people . . .”

  “He’s gonna whip our butts isn’t he?”

  “Probably,” Jordan grinned.

  Our first game wasn’t too bad . . . Tanner won with fifteen, Jordan had thirteen, and I got nine. But Tanner accused Jordan of going easy on me whenever it was my serve, so Jordan played harder for our second game. I’m not even going to tell you the score of that one.

  “Don’t feel too bad, Davey,” Tanner said, clapping me on the shoulder afterwards. “I’ll bet you can still beat me in chess.”

  “I’ll bet Dorito can beat you in chess,” I said. My hands were on my knees and I was still trying to catch my breath.

  Jordan went off to the batting cage, but Tanner followed me to the pool. When he saw Dorito paddling around a few feet from Laci and Lily he started charging across the cement floor.

  “Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh!” he called at the top of his lungs and Dorito whirled around just in time to see Tanner’s feet leaving the edge of the pool. Dorito’s eyes got wide and then he screamed in delight as Tanner made a cannonball and landed about a foot from him. The lifeguard blew her whistle at Tanner.

  Tanner waved apologetically to the lifeguard and then he picked Dorito up and tossed him about three yards through the air. Dorito came up squealing and giggling, having the time of his life. The lifeguard blew her whistle at Tanner again.

  ~ ~ ~

  DESPITE THE FACT that we had a plethora of babysitters at our disposal, Laci hardly ever managed to make it to youth group. She did manage, however, to come up with all sorts of suggestions about things she thought “we” should do with the youth group. One of the things Laci suggested was that the youth group go to a True Love Waits conference. Actually she didn’t just suggest it, she made reservations.

  Even though she was doing a great job of being supportive and being a good friend to Tanner, she never missed an opportunity to remind me of the many benefits of abstinence before marriage. I think what she really wanted was to hear me say that I agreed with her . . . that people should wait until they get married.

  She never got to hear me say it though. It wasn’t so much that I actually disagreed with her as it was that I didn’t want to feel as if I were judging Tanner. Judging was not being supportive . . . it wasn’t being a good friend.

  “You know,” she said one day, “this message is going to be really good for the kids to hear.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s not just about waiting until you get married. They need to learn that you have to keep your spirit pure and your thoughts pure . . . and that’s something they’re going to have to do for their entire lives.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That doesn’t all end just because you get married – it’s a different kind of battle, but it’s still a battle.”

  That made me perk up my ears.

  “Are you trying to tell me something, Laci? Is there some hot bag-boy at the grocery store that you’re having a hard time keeping your mind off of?”

  She laughed.

  “I’m just saying that I think this conference is going to be really good for the kids.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Jordan signed up for the conference.

  Just Jordan.

  I wound up spending the entire day taking him all by myself.

  “You planned this, didn’t you?” I asked Laci before I left.

  “Yeah, right,” she said, kissing me goodbye. “Have a good time.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I will. I’ll probably come back a changed man.”

  She smiled at me.

  “I’m serious, Laci. You’re going to be sorry. I’m going to come back thinking you and I’d better start abstaining or something.”

  She laughed. “I’m willing to take my chances.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Jordan was waiting for me on his front porch. When he saw me come out the front door he stood up and hollered into his house and then he met me in the driveway. His mom came over and started going on and on about how great his math grades were now and thanking me for everything I was doing for him.

  “Just trying to pay you back for that lamp,” I said.

  “It was priceless . . . irreplaceable. You’ll never be able to pay me back.”

  “I’m going to keep trying though,” I said, climbing into the car. She smiled at me and we pulled out of the driveway.

  “What lamp?” Jordan asked.

  “Oh, some piece of junk I accidentally broke when I was about eleven.”

  “Was it really irreplaceable?”

  “No,” I said. “She just likes to tease me . . . I think.”

  “Probably,” he assured me. “She wouldn’t dare have had anything priceless around the house with the three of us.”

  “I can imagine,” I said. “It’s bad enough with just Dorito and Lily.”

  “Did you bring the music?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I said, holding the flash drive that he had given me for Christmas out to him. He took it from me and plugged it in.

  We rode along and listened for a few minutes.

  “I’m sorry you’re having to drive all this way just for me,” he said after a while. “If I’d known ahead of time that I was going to be the only one to sign up I wouldn’t have wasted your time.”

  “You’re not wasting my time,” I said. “I don’t mind one bit.”

  “Well, anyway . . . thanks.”

  “No problem. Besides, I think Laci would have been pretty upset if we weren’t going.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Oh, nothing . . . it’s a long story.”

  One I’m not going to get into with Tanner’s little brother.

  “Oh.”

  “Did you bring your math?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good,” I said. “It’s going to be about a two hour drive.”

  “I’m five sections ahead of the class though . . . I don’t know how much further ahead I should get. I’m afraid I’m going to forget everything before she gets to it.”

  “Why are we five sections ahead?”

  “Because she missed three days this week and we had a sub who didn
’t make us do anything.”

  “Oh, brother.”

  The conference was better than I thought it would be – not that I was ever going to admit that to Laci. Just like Laci had said, they talked to the kids about not only how important it was to remain abstinent until marriage, but also how important it was to keep their spirits pure and their thoughts pure.

  They were reminded that Jesus had said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery’. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

  By Jesus’ definition, being sexually pure meant not even dwelling on sexual thoughts about someone other than your spouse. They were also told that during the afternoon session, they would have an opportunity to sign commitment cards and make a pledge to remain sexually pure.

  We broke for lunch and Jordan and I went to a sub shop on the edge of campus.

  “Can I ask you something?” Jordan wanted to know after we’d sat down.

  “Sure.”

  “I mean it’s kind of personal so you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to . . .”

  “What?”

  “Did you and Laci, ummm . . . you know?”

  “Huh?” (Sometimes it took me a while.)

  “Did you wait?”

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he said again quickly.

  “No, it’s okay,” I said. “We waited, but it was kind of different with me and Laci.”

  “Different?”

  “Well, yeah. You probably don’t remember that much about me and Laci when we were dating, do you?”

  “I remember when Laci babysat me one time and you came over and helped her.”

  “That was probably not too long before Greg died,” I said. “Laci and I dated for like five or six months just before he got killed.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, we started dating in the summer and we were just getting to really know each other . . . I mean we’d known each other forever, but you know what I mean. Plus it was our senior year and Greg and I were up to our necks in AP Physics and calculus and we had soccer and youth group on top of everything else and it seemed like I barely had time to breathe.