Fiction

 

JUGGLE by Ed Kline

This story first appeared as the winning entry in a fiction contest sponsored by the Sacramento, Calif., "News & Review"  newspaper. Reprinted with permission of the author.

 

It's important for you to understand that I like Rosie; I've done good things for her. I've given her thick, dark hair, which she has chosen to cut short. She knows this is a man's world, so it's best to camouflage yourself. She wears dark vests and heavy boots and men's cologne. I have given her gray eyes, deep as a cumulus cloud. I have given her a long, willowy body, though I haven't given her the confidence to stand up straight.

 

So what if I haven't given her a car? Rosie knows that, even in the modern world, a car is a convenience and not a necessity. I admit I haven't given her a job either, but Rosie is philosophical about that, too. Life is not a buffet, she says, where you get to pick and choose. Life is a  well-stocked kitchen, where you can make anything you want, but you've got to make it yourself. Rosie is a pastry chef by nature, an artist in icings with a puffed pastry canvas, and thinks about food often. When she finished high school, I sent her to one of the finest culinary schools on the East Coast. Once she graduated, she found it difficult to turn her education into a meaningful career. She has had a number of interviews, but has been plagued by bad luck and sudden, crippling pangs of doubt. I am somewhat proud of myself for giving her all this adversity; adversity builds character, you know.

 

Of all the gifts I have given her, of all the gifts I have not given her, I am most pleased with her ability to juggle. This is a gift I have yearned for my­self. I have bought books on juggling and pestered friends who could juggle, but I have yet to master the graceful rise-fall­rise, slap-slap-slap of the juggler. I am clumsy and artless, and it gives me great pleasure to watch Rosie flick her silk scarves or polka-dotted beanbags lightly through the air.

 

Rosie learned to juggle in the spring of her sophomore year of high school. It was a busy time of year for her. It was her first spring on the varsity softball team; the season she got three at-bats and three strike­outs. She got her driver's license, and it became her responsibility to take herself to her job at the bakery. That was the spring after Terry Winter raped her. She got her driver's license, and the freedom to take long trips in the dark, driving nowhere.

 

She sat on the bench next to Jeanie, a senior who had been starting bench warmer for three years. Jeanie's strength was not her pitching, hitting or catching, it was her cheering ability. She had a big alto voice that spread dust storms across the infield and bent the outfield grass. During slow games, when jumping, shouting and yelling were not called for, Jeanie was as gentle and soothing as the spring breeze.

 

"It's very simple, really," Jeanie professed, weighing two softballs in her right hand and one in her left. "One ball in the air and one in each hand.  You can throw, right?  And you can catch, right?  Then you should be able to juggle."  Jeanie tossed the heavy balls lightly in the air. Each seemed to suspend itself in the afternoon sun, until it was replaced by another dusty, bruised softball. "Timing is the big problem," Jeanie taught. "When do you let one go and catch the other? Think about it like dating: When do you dump one guy and move on to another?"

 

Rosie was hypnotized. The balls moved easily, in perfect harmony, like moons orbiting a planet wearing a red baseball cap. "The juggler," Jeanie continued, "is hyperperceptive. Not only can I follow my three softballs, I can see you staring, slack-jawed and drooling. I can also see that their shortstop is out of position, and Debbie is about to smash a single into left field." Rise-fall-rise, slap-slap-slap. "The only time I mess up is when I forget I'm in control. When I get that glassy-eyed look you've got right now. When I start watching, balls start falling. If you're going to be a successful juggler, Rosie, you've got to remember, you're in control."

 

I am as amazed by Jeanie as Rosie is. Not just by her big voice and delicate hands, but also by her role as tutor. I can give Rosie presents, I can give Rosie adversity, but I can't teach her a damn thing.

 

Today, I have put Rosie on the bus, headed for a job interview. She is in fine spirits: She is on the right bus, which is a good start, and her confidence floats in the air like a silk scarf, though doubt weighs heavy in her palm like a beanbag. This is a job she would like, and a job she would be good at. She's tried her hand at bakeries, scrawling "Happy Birthday Scott!" in pink icing across the top of a marble fudge cake, but she was trained as an artist, not a writer. She's spent the midnight hours baking croissants by the thousands for an espresso shop, but anything you can do a thousand at a time can't be done well. Today she is interviewing as an assistant to the dessert chef at a restaurant in the heart of Little Italy.