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I was wet. For Zach.
“Why not?” she asks, after a while.
I sigh. “Because I said so, okay? Leave it alone.”
She props her hands on her hips and looks at me suspiciously. “Why do I think you’re hiding something from me?”
With a jumping heart, I lie, “I’m not. You’re paranoid. Now let’s get these cupcakes done, okay?”
She keeps giving me the look but I don’t pay her much attention from where I’m measuring the wet ingredients.
“Jeez, stop staring at me. You’re going to make me screw up,” I snap a few moments later.
“Whatever. Making cupcakes is the stupidest idea, by the way. Brownies. Make brownies. They are square and therefore, easier.”
She’s right but I’m not going to tell her that.
By the time we finish with the cupcakes, it’s dinnertime and I tell Tina to order pizza and decide to go get Art.
He’s been playing outside for a couple of hours now. Along with making cupcakes for the bake sale, I told Doris I’d keep an eye on him while she got some rest. So Art spent the entire afternoon with me, and we watched a Batman movie.
“Art,” I call as soon as I step outside into the muggy heat but get no response.
He’s not where I left him in the yard, with his bicycle and all those toys he likes to play with; the car type thingy that he can drive and his fire truck and whatnot. I swear, half of his things are at our place.
I call out his name a second time. Nothing again.
My heart thuds in a sickening beat.
I know he must be nearby. I know that. Sometimes he likes to go around the back and play in the woods. I’ve played with him there myself.
But why isn’t he answering? He answers. He always answers.
Despite my still-throbbing feet, I take off running, thinking that he must be out back.
He has to be. Where would he go? This is a safe place; he’s been playing out here for ages, even before I came along.
He’s fine.
I’ll turn the corner and I’ll find him playing in the woods. He’ll grin at me shyly and tell me that he wants me to play with him. He’ll show me the fort he built with his toys and rocks like he did one time. I’ll ruffle his hair because I can’t resist when he’s being my snuggle-bug, and then we’ll go eat pizza.
But he’s not there.
“Art!” I call out again. “Where are you?”
I keep going further, even though I’ve never known him to go this far out. Doris once told me that he’s shy. He never goes to places he doesn’t recognize. When I first started babysitting him, she said, He’s a fairly easy kid. You won’t have any problems with him.
And I never have.
But now I’ve lost him somehow.
I keep calling out his name but I still don’t get an answer.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I mutter, bending, placing my hands on my knees.
Where did he go?
“Art!” I shriek like a madwoman. “Come back here!”
