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'"Father Knows Best'? 'The Donna Reed Show'?" Caroline suggested.

"All of the above," J.P. announced as he picked up his small suitcase from the floor of the car.

Caroline was staring at something she couldn't quite believe on the front lawn of the TV sitcom Leave It to Beaver house. How interesting, she thought: a mirage. The heat has created a mirage right here in Des Moines, the way it creates mirages on the desert. I wonder if J.P. is also seeing it, or if it is a single-person mirage. Suddenly she became aware that Lillian, still looking over the back seat, was talking to her.

"And we've put you in with the girls, Caroline," Lillian was saying.

Caroline blinked. "The girls?" she asked politely. "Who are the girls?"

Lillian Tate looked startled. "The babies," she said as if that were an explanation. "Didn't your mother tell you about the babies?"

"I don't think I ever mentioned to Joanna that we'd had the twins," Herbie said to his wife. "She and I don't really stay in touch, you know."

Caroline looked again at the mirage. It was a huge double baby carriage parked on the lawn. "No," Caroline said with a sinking feeling, a realization that Des Moines didn't have mirages after all. "I didn't know about the twins. And you, ah, said I'd be sharing their room?"

Lillian Tate smiled pleasantly. "We put a nice bed in there for you," she said. "It fits right between the cribs."

"Dear Mom," wrote Caroline that night, and then hesitated. How honest should she be? She didn't like to lie to her mother. And she knew that her mother was hoping that she and J.P. would have a good summer in Des Moines. And there was nothing that her mother could do about things, since the court said that they should spend the summers with their father.

She sighed, looked at the piece of paper and sipped at the glass of lemonade Lillian had given her. It was still horribly hot, even though it was eight
P.M.

"We arrived safely," she wrote.

"Did the plane arrive on time?" she asked, looking up from the table where she was writing. Lillian, Herbie, and J.P. were all watching television. Poochie and the babies were in bed.

"Right on time," Herbie told her. "Even a couple of minutes early."

"The plane was right on time," Caroline wrote, "and Dad and Lillian were there to meet us, with their little boy named Poochie.

"J.P. and I did not fight at all on the plane, not even about who got the window. In fact, we have not fought since we got here, either. We have decided to have an agreement to be friends, all summer.

"Mom, maybe you didn't know it, but Dad and Lillian had twin babies last December. Both girls. They look exactly alike, which means partially bald, with brown eyes. These babies were something of a surprise to me and J.P. since we didn't know about them in advance, and it was even a worse surprise to me than it was to J.P. because I have to sleep in the same room with them.

"Worse than that, Mom, I also am going to have to take care of them a lot, because it turns out that Lillian is going to spend the summer taking a real estate course so that she can become a person who sells houses. She's going to be gone almost all of every day. And I think that's just fine if Lillian wants to become a real estate person because I have nothing against real estate people, but Mom, I have to tell you that I think it's pretty crummy that I have to become a person who takes care of babies.

"Remember when you and I had a long conversation once about marriage after I decided to become a paleontologist? Because paleontologists have to travel a lot, to places like Asia Minor, and so it would be hard to have a husband and harder still to have children? And remember I told you that I had decided that I probably would not ever want to get married and
definitely
did not want to have children,
ever?

"Well, it doesn't seem fair that someone who has already definitely decided that she doesn't want to have children should get stuck taking care of someone else's for the summer. I don't mean to be a bad sport, but I really wanted to go to the primate seminar at the Museum of Natural History in July. And instead I have to take care of these babies.

"I didn't even tell you their names. This, honestly, is
gross.
When Lillian brought them out, after we arrived from the airport (a baby sitter had been with them), and J.P. and I said very politely how cute they were (we really were polite, Mom, I promise. And they AREN'T cute, not at all), I asked very politely what their names are. And Lillian said: 'GUESS.' Talk about stupid: I mean how are you supposed to guess not one, but two names? J.P. and I just stood there looking stupid and Lillian laughed and said: 'I'll give you a hint. They were born Christmas Day.'

"Right away J.P. guessed Mary and Joseph, which was really dumb because they are both girls. So then he guessed Frankincense and Myrrh, and everybody laughed, ha ha, and then he said he didn't want to guess anymore.

"Well, I didn't want to guess either, but I wanted to get the conversation over with, because she had plunked one of the babies into my lap, and it was gnawing on my finger, and it hurt. (They each have two teeth, absolutely identical.) So I guessed Beth for Bethlehem, and Noel, and everybody agreed that that was clever, but it was wrong, too.

"And then Lillian explained that they are named Holly and Ivy, because there is a Christmas carol called 'The Holly and the Ivy,' which I never heard of, and she started to sing it, but fortunately one of the babies started to cry, and so she took them away to change their diapers.

"Anyway, that is all that has happened so far. J.P. has to sleep in Poochie's upper bunk, and I have to sleep between two cribs, surrounded by Holly and Ivy. So far Des Moines is not very much fun. But they have a huge color TV, and a big yard, and we don't have either of those in New York. And we had steak for dinner, which we don't have at home. So there are some okay parts.

"Love,

"Caroline"

She folded the pages, addressed the envelope, and sealed the letter. Across the room, the TV flickered, a few gunshots came from the set, followed by music, and then a commercial began. Herbie Tate yawned and turned it off.

"Getting late," he announced. "Bedtime at the O.K. Corral. Lots of work to do on the old ranch tomorrow, right, Diamond Lil?" He poked Lillian in the side with his elbow. She nodded.

Caroline winced. Her father had a habit of making very stupid remarks, and if there was anything she couldn't stand, it was someone who poked other people in the side with an elbow.

"It's only nine o'clock," J.P. pointed out after he had looked at his watch. "I don't have to go to bed this early at home if it's not a school night. And what do you mean, lots to do? What do I have to do?"

His father grinned proudly. "I've lined up a big job for you this summer," he said.

Caroline could see J.P.'s shoulders stiffen. And even though they had agreed on the Tate Détente, that they wouldn't be enemies in Des Moines, she felt a little bit of satisfaction. When that repulsive baby had been set down on her lap, earlier, and Lillian had told her that she would be taking care of the "twinnies" this summer, she could see that J.P. was smirking.

At least they had planned something horrible for him, too.

"What is it?" J.P. asked, in the polite but suspicious voice that people usually reserve for unidentifiable vegetables on their plates.

Herbie Tate went to the closet and took out a package. "I had this made," he explained, "and now that I can see you in person, I can tell that I estimated your size wrong. Frankly, J.P., I thought that at thirteen you'd be bigger than you are. When I was thirteen, I had really well-developed biceps and pectorals. Of course, I was a true athlete."

Caroline watched J.P. and felt truly sorry for him. Poor scrawny J.P., who spent his entire life with computers and motors and chess sets and who never ever, if he could help it, engaged in any sport. Even at school, in gym, the coach let him be scorekeeper, stopwatch holder, towel distributor.

Now J.P. was simply staring at his father, who was demonstrating his biceps by squeezing one arm against his waist so that the muscle thickened and rippled, like a guy in a beer commercial.

"Take your shirt off, son," Herbie Tate commanded; and J.P., speechless for a change, obeyed. He pulled his T-shirt over his head, leaving his hair standing upright and his skinny chest, with its visible ribs, exposed.

"Here," said his father, "put this on." He tossed him the contents of the package, a bright blue shirt. J.P. pulled it down over his messed-up hair and pushed his arms through the sleeves.

It was huge. At least three sizes too big for skinny J.P. But it had his name in mammoth white letters across the back. J. P. TATE, it said. And below that: COACH.

"Meet your fate with Herbie Tate," Caroline murmured, but no one heard her.

"I told you," J.P. said at last, miserably, "I won't play baseball. I told you that on the phone. And you promised."

"Right," said Herbie Tate agreeably. "And you don't have to. But you're going to coach the Tater Chips."

"The WHAT?" J.P. asked.

"That's Poochie's baseball team. I've got them all outfitted—from the store, of course—in blue and white, just like you. And their first practice is at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. Twelve six-year-olds, down at the park."

Lillian, who had been collecting the lemonade glasses and the empty popcorn bowl, looked up suddenly as if she had a new idea. "Caroline," she said, "the park is only a couple of blocks away. After their morning nap, you can push the twins down there in their carriage. Then you can walk home with J.P. and Poochie in time to fix lunch."

"In time to fix lunch," Caroline repeated, because she couldn't think of anything else to say.

"I'll be at my morning classes," Lillian explained cheerfully. "I have to leave here real early in the morning. But I have all the baby-sitting instructions typed out for you."

J.P. was still standing in the center of the living room, with his thin, pale arms dangling from the enormous sleeves of the too-big blue shirt. "Twelve six-year-olds," he said in an I-don't-believe-this voice.

"Now," said Herbie Tate, "Taps."' Caroline and J.P. watched in disbelief as he held up an imaginary bugle and blew the first few bars of "Taps":
da da dum; da da duuummmm.

As they trudged down the carpeted hallway to their rooms, Lillian called after them in a very loud whisper, "Don't wake Poochie or the twins!"

J.P. turned to Caroline as he opened the door of his room. "This is all a bad dream, right?" he muttered. "We're in a nightmare."

"Wrong," Caroline said. "We're in Des Moines."

It was early morning. There were strange sounds in the room, and for a moment Caroline couldn't remember where she was. She lay very still, with her eyes closed, and tried to think.

In New York, early on a summer morning, the sounds would be:
Clank, Crash, Whack
(the trash men). And
Honk, Beep, Slam
(taxis). The shower, as her mother got ready to go to work. Maybe the
burble, burble, burble
of the coffee pot in the kitchen. The muted footsteps of the people in the upstairs apartment.

Here—wherever she was—the sounds were quieter and absolutely unidentifiable. A rhythmic
thump, thump, thump;
a slurpy, sucking sound; and a giggle. A giggle very close to her face.

Caroline opened her eyes. It all came back to her; she groaned, closed her eyes, and pulled the pillow over her head.

Des Moines. And babies.

A wet hand grabbed her hair and pulled. She couldn't escape. Reluctantly Caroline tossed the pillow aside and removed her hair carefully from the baby's chubby fingers. The baby giggled again, put the fist back into her own mouth, and made more slurping noises.

The other baby kicked the sides of her crib with little bare feet:
thump, thump, thump.

Caroline looked gloomily from one to the other. On her left, in a pink crib, wearing a pink nightgown: that was Holly. On her right, in a yellow crib, wearing a yellow nightgown: that was Ivy. The colors were the way they told the identical babies apart. Not that Caroline cared.

She yawned and tried to remember the instructions that Lillian had given her.

Diapers. The giant box of disposable diapers was in the corner of the room. All the diapers were white. So it didn't matter who got which diaper, as long as they both got dry diapers in the morning.

Caroline looked from one baby to the other. "Are you guys wet?" she asked.

Are you guys wet. Is the Pope Catholic? Caroline thought. What a dumb question. They were so wet she could hear them
squish
when they moved.

Sleepily she went to the diaper box, took out two diapers, and started in on the pink baby, Holly. Lillian had shown her, last night, how the diapers worked. But Holly kicked and giggled and grabbed at Caroline's hair.

"Cut it out," Caroline said grouchily. Finally she got the diaper firmly attached and pulled Holly's little pink nightgown back down. She dropped the wet diaper into the plastic container Lillian had shown her and then changed the yellow baby, Ivy. It went a little more smoothly the second time.

Caroline looked at her watch. Seven
A.M.
"I don't suppose you guys would like to go back to sleep for about an hour," she suggested. "This is my summer vacation."

But the babies just giggled again, thumping their cribs. One of them, the yellow one, got up on her hands and knees and bounced. Then she fell forward, bumped her chin, and began to cry. The pink baby cried sympathetically.

Caroline pulled on her bathrobe in disgust. "I just want you to know that I plan to remain childless, myself," she told the twins. They weren't paying any attention. They were wailing.

One at a time she carried them to the kitchen and deposited them unceremoniously into the big playpen. "Orange juice," she said aloud. That was the second thing on the babies' morning schedule, right after the dry diapers. In the refrigerator were two small bottles of orange juice that Lillian had prepared the night before. One had a pink plastic cap and one had a yellow plastic cap.