Heaven Is Paved With Oreos

by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

  “She’s pretty loopy,” Mom said finally. It was like she was figuring out her words as she said them. “She’s charming, but she’s loopy. When she turns on the charm, though . . . It’s not something I can do. I think that’s what bothers me. Here I am working so hard, and maybe I’m doing it all wrong. You know?”

  Wow. Mom was jealous of Z? Jeepers. Jeepers2. “You’re not doing anything wrong.”

  “Thanks, Sarah. Thank you.” She gave me a hug. It was an extremely nice mother-daughter moment . . .

  And then she had to ruin it. Good old Mom.

  “You know, Sarah, there’s a real lesson in what happened to Z.”

  “Really?” I asked. Of course there’s a lesson in what happened to Z! A floor lamp could see the lesson in what happened to Z. “What, Mom?”

  She glared at me. “You know what I’m talking about. Z . . . and boys . . . and fooling around and . . . babies . . .”

  I could feel my ears going pink. I tried to pretend they didn’t, though. I tried to act like a worldly world traveler. “Mom, Curtis and I broke up. Remember?”

  “Yeah.” She didn’t sound that convinced, though. “Good. I mean—I’m sorry. But . . . oh, you know . . .”

  “I understand,” I said. But what I thought was, I don’t want to make a baby with Curtis—I want to make a calf. Is there a lesson in that, too?

  Friday, August 2

  Curtis is coming home in two days.

  Is it boy-liking for me to write that? Or is it simply a statement of fact?

  I am so untalented at this boy business that it is almost funny.

  I did not mention Curtis on the ride today to Prophetstown, and neither did D.J. I think that if she asked me about the truth and Curtis, I would probably start to cry. Or I would talk enough to fill a ride all the way across the country to the Pacific Ocean. And after all that talking, I still would not know what the truth is.

  D.J. did ask about Miss Hesselgrave, and I told her as much as I could. I gave her the copy of Two Lady Pilgrims that was still in my backpack. I said Miss Hesselgrave would probably disapprove of her.

  “What part?” she asked.

  “Everything. When you play basketball, you show your ankles.”

  D.J. laughed. “I knew I should be wearing knee socks.”

  “Hey!” Paul called out from the back seat. “Are you coming to my show? You know, at the Dog Days of Prophetstown? My band is playing. I’m in a band. It’s really awesome. Didn’t I give you a poster?”

  “Yeah, I think you did.”

  “I’ll get you another one. You should tell your friends. I’ll get posters for them, too. They can come too. It’s going to be really awesome.”

  D.J. said that she might actually come, and Paul repeated that it was going to be awesome. Planet Paul definitely likes the word awesome.

  I walked Jack Russell George to the park, but I was not an extremely good dog trainer. A dog trainer should focus all of his or her attention on the dog, but my dog-focus attention was <5%.

  On the way back from the park we stopped by Harmony Coffee. This made Jack Russell George extraordinarily happy because he knows that the customers will give him food. He was quivering with anticipation.

  Z saw us and smiled a too-big smile. “Sarah! What a treat! No, not you, George.” Jack Russell George was having a myocardial infarction at the word “treat.” “Oh, okay . . .” She slipped him a broken cookie, which he inhaled, and then he sat perfectly still in good behaviorness. “Why, Sarah, I haven’t seen you since Rome—”

  “I told them.”

  Z’s face went from smiling to sad to disappointed to thoughtful to sad again. “Oh. I’m glad . . . Oh, Sarah, could I have screwed this up any worse?”

  Right then a lady came in for cappuccino, so Z had to go do that. The lady gave Jack Russell George ¼ of her ham sandwich. If Jack Russell George came to Harmony Coffee every day, he would be the diameter of a Shetland pony.

  I was glad for the cappuccino-lady interruption, though, because I didn’t know what to say. Did Z screw up? Well, yeah, but . . .

  Z came back. “Your dad called this morning, you know.”

  “Really? What did he say?”

  “He just left a message. How’s he doing?”

  “He’s doing okay . . . You didn’t screw up, Z. I’m glad about the trip. I’m glad to know about my grandfather. I’m glad I got to buy pizza by myself. I’m glad we didn’t get to that last church, because now I have an excuse to go back. I’m glad I grew up a lot.”

  Z dropped her head. It took a minute for me to figure out she was crying. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Why?”

  “Because I know how much growing up hurts.”

  “Yeah. But if you don’t grow up, you can’t be a boy-liker.”

  Z’s head came up. “What? Oh . . . I get it.” She smiled at me—a real smile this time. A real, big grandmother smile.

  Now Jack Russell George and I are back at Z’s. He’s in his basket dreaming of ham sandwiches. I am sitting at the kitchen table with a package of Oreos that I bought Z as a peace offering. If I do not stop eating them, they will be an extremely small peace offering. I am trying not to drip milk on my giornale.

  Saturday, August 3

  I have read many, many books in which the main character has an enemy who is the popular girl and the two of them don’t get along at all, but then by the end of the book they find out they have a lot in common and that the popular girl is secretly insecure and they end up best friends.

  I find this kind of story unrealistic. There is a 0.00% chance that it will happen with me and Emily Enemy. For one thing, if Emily is insecure, she keeps that insecurity CIA-level top-secret. Emily hides her insecurity better than Miss Hesselgrave hides her intolerance for Romans—far better than Miss Hesselgrave does. And if Emily did decide to share her CIA-level top-secret insecurity, she would do it with one of her also-popular friends. Or with a boy like Brett Ortlieb, but only to make him like her. She would never share it with me.

  But it doesn’t matter. Emily may be insecure or not, or popular or not. She can think whatever she wants and say whatever she wants to. She can watch me in the high school halls and the baseball bleachers, and she can criticize how I act, and she can even make fun of Boris and whisper to her friends. None of that is my concern. I am not scared of Emily anymore. I can face those hallways and those bleachers no matter what. Do you know why? Because I figured out three (3) key facts.

  Yes, Emily is an extremely good boy-liker, but she does not control all the boy-liking in the world. No matter what she says, she cannot tell other people how to do it.

  I am extremely sure that Emily would never go to Rome. She would say it’s because her friends couldn’t go with her or she doesn’t want to miss soccer practice or Rome is stupid, but I know the real reason. In Red Bend, she is a big fish in a small pond, and that is all she will ever be. But I am not. I am a fish of the world.

  Emily is not friends with D.J. Schwenk.

  Here is what I need to still figure out, though: Why do I feel so weird about going to Curtis’s games but I love going to D.J.’s? Why is that? Why am I so worried about looking like Curtis’s cheering girlfriend when I don’t mind anyone seeing me cheering for his sister, who I am definitely not going out with?

  Yes, I don’t like girls who behave like they don’t have anything better to do than worship boys (= Emily). But I didn’t worship Curtis; I was his friend. Hopefully in the future I can be his friend again. Maybe more than his friend . . . maybe. But definitely at least a friend. I want to be ≥ friends with Curtis. It is not nice to ignore a friend. It is especially not nice when I am constantly comparing myself with Emily Enemy and trying so hard to be different from her that I can’t even figure out what it is that I should be doing. That is not being honest with Curtis, and it is also not being honest with me.

  I need to focus on being a better friend, and doing what friends should do.

  S
unday, August 4

  Curtis came home today. He had a baseball game this afternoon. I went to it.

  Emily was there, of course. With some other girls, all of them with matching GO RED BEND! T-shirts and holding posters, sitting near third base and cheering for Curtis. Which is fine for them. They are free to do whatever they want. Their posters are not my problem.

  Curtis ignored them, which I extremely appreciated. He kept looking at the bleachers, checking out who was there, like his mom and adults he knew, and little kids who are his fans. When his eyes got to me, he stopped for a second, and I did not know what to do, so I just looked at him. Perhaps I gave him a little shrug or a millimeter-size smile. Some sort of sign to show that I knew we saw each other and that I did not mind the seeing.

  Curtis turned away quickly and fixed his cap, and then he punched his glove and shouted something to his team. I could not make out the words, but they sounded encouraging. He bounced on his toes too. I was not sure these were absolutely definitely positive signs that Curtis might not mind my being there, but I did not consider them negative ones. I especially liked that he did not bounce on his toes after looking at Emily.

  The game ended. Curtis hit two home runs. I stayed in the bleachers even after the teams shook hands and most people had left and it was just parents waiting for their kids and Emily’s group pressed up against the fence, calling to boys.

  Curtis took a long time—perhaps it was not long, but it felt long—to pack up his stuff. He did not look at me, but he did not look away from me either. I did not know what to do, so I decided that I should do what I would if he simply was my friend, and that was to wait for him. Just in case.

  Curtis went and talked to his mom—still not looking at me. I tried not to think that perhaps I should be leaving.

  Then at last he walked over and sat down next to me. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” I said. “Nice game.” That is what one normally says in these situations even if one is somewhat uninformed about sports (= me).

  “Thanks. Thanks for coming. How was Rome?”

  “It was okay. Hot.” I thought about all the things I could say at this moment. I crossed many of them off my list, and then I crossed more, and then I ended with this: “Do you have time for ice cream?”

  “What flavor?” he asked. He was so serious that I thought, What if he’s switched from chocolate? Then I realized he was just being Curtis.

  Being Curtis meant that I could just be Sarah. “When I was in Rome, I tried a lot of different flavors. And I tried new flavors here, too. But I think I’m going to stick with vanilla. How about you?”

  “Chocolate. I’m still okay with chocolate.”

  “Chocolate can be exceedingly satisfying.”

  “You know,” Curtis said, “everyone says ‘very,’ all the time. But you never do. You’re”—he grinned—“you’re very good at it.”

  “My grandmother says ‘very’ is very unvaried.”

  “Yeah, but everyone else is too lazy.”

  “They’re very lazy,” I said. We laughed.

  “Emily says ‘very’ all the time.”

  Suddenly I was smiling so much that I thought my face would break in half like an old Roman statue. “So . . . ice cream? It’s very good.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s exceedingly good. By the way, Boris says hello.”

  “Boris! I’ve missed Boris. How’s he doing?”

  “Another couple of weeks, I’d say. Hey, I found some really good brass wire—you know, for mounting him—”

  “That’s great. What’s it look like?”

  “I’ve got it in my bag, in case you—in case you wanted to see it and stuff. In case anyone wanted to see it . . .”

  “I definitely want to see it,” I said, because he looked so embarrassed. “I’m extremely glad you brought it with you.”

  Curtis smiled his relieved smile. “There’s some thicker wire, too, that we could use for the spinal column . . .”

  “We’ll definitely need thicker wire for that. Good point . . .”

  That’s what we talked about, Curtis and me, walking over to Jorgensens’ Ice Cream: calf skeleton spinal column wire. Emily might have been watching us, but I wasn’t paying attention.

  Monday, August 5

  Today D.J. actually asked about Curtis. “How are things with my brother?” was how she phrased it. “Looking up?”

  I smiled. “Yes. Things are looking up, I think. I do not know where we’re going, but I like where we are.”

  D.J. laughed. “That’s a great way to put it! Can I quote you?”

  I said she could. I tried not to sound too pleased.

  “Hey!” Paul said from the back seat, like he’d just figured out we were there (which he probably had). He peeled off his headphones. “So, you’re coming? On Sunday?”

  “This is that dog concert you’re doing, right?”

  Paul looked hesitant. “Well, it’s not just for dogs . . .” “I know. I was teasing.” D.J. grinned at him in the rearview mirror. “What time should I be there?”

  “We’re beginning at, like, five o’clock.” (Just so you know, the Dog Days Festival starts at noon. But for Paul the first five hours don’t count.) “There’s going to be dancing, too. We’re playing some dance tunes.”

  “Dancing, eh? Should I bring a date?”

  Paul turned purple. “If you want . . . It’s not going to be just dancing, you know. There’ll be other songs. We’re playing Z’s favorite tunes. It’ll be awesome.”

  “Don’t—” I said. I started to say.

  “Don’t what?” Paul asked.

  I wanted to say, Don’t play “When I’m Sixty-Four.” But then Paul would ask why not, and I would say because of what happened in Rome, which he knows about . . . but I don’t think he gets it. He doesn’t get how Z cried and how that song, well, made Dad, if you know what I mean. The song + the painting. And + Paolo, duh. If Paul plays “When I’m Sixty-Four,” Z will start crying all over again, right in the middle of the Dog Days of Prophetstown. In front of D.J., if D.J. comes. Crying in front of everyone.

  But I could not figure out how to say this. Paul looked so happy and so hopeful . . . perhaps it would be okay. Perhaps I was just seeing flying monkeys. Or perhaps I’m too chicken to prevent a catastrophe. I’ll never know. Instead I said, “Don’t let her down.”

  “I won’t,” Paul said. He spent the rest of the ride talking to us—well, really he was talking at us—about guitars and amplifiers and chord changes . . . I did not understand ½ of what he was saying, and I don’t think D.J. understood even ¼ of it, but he was extremely pleased to say it.

  It is maybe not a bad thing that Paul spends most of his time in headphones. He doesn’t pay attention to other people when he’s wearing headphones, but he doesn’t pay attention when he takes them off, either.

  Z has left me an enormous plate of Oreos. I am sitting at her kitchen table right now putting together a book for Curtis. It is not much of a book, actually: just the giornale with the skull + wings picture on the front that I bought him in Rome, and eighteen (18!) photographs of other skull + wings or bones or skeleton carvings from the different churches we visited. I am arranging the photographs in the back of the book so that he has the rest of the giornale to do with what he wants. Perhaps we will use it for our notes on Boris.

  I also printed out a picture that I took of Z standing on the Oreo floor in San Lorenzo. She is pointing to the floor and looking happy—so happy that she could almost be in heaven already. I have put the picture in a frame for her so she’ll always remember that moment.

  Sunday, August 11

  THE DOG DAYS OF PROPHETSTOWN!

  This week has been so crazy! Paul and I have been staying at Z’s apartment so we could help set up—we have been worker bees even though bees have nothing (I hope!) to do with dogs.

  And then today the day finally came. It was insanely busy. I was insanely busy. I helped with the pooches parade and the puppy-
ista fashion show . . . Jack Russell George was supposed to be a pirate, but he chewed on his costume so much that he looked like a shipwrecked Jack Russell pirate. Jack Russell George does not have a future in fashion. Or in yoga. I don’t think anyone, dog or human, learned much from Z today about yoga, but the Downward Dog yoga class was still supremely fun. And Z laughed harder than anyone.

  I was also a helper in the Littlest Bestest dog show. Littlest Bestest was kids under seven and dogs under fifteen pounds; it was absolute barking chaos, and I spent all my time untangling leashes from little legs. Little legs were everywhere.

  I had just finished giving out the last Littlest Bestest team a MOST OBEDIENT ribbon, because those were the only ribbons I had left. Actually, we still had a box of them. The little girl asked if she could have a pink ribbon instead of a blue one. I did not say, Do you know what obedient means? Instead I found her a pink ribbon and helped lift up her Pekinese, who was definitely > fifteen pounds, and off the two of them went.

  “Well played, Sarah Z.,” someone said. I turned around, and there was D.J. Schwenk. With Curtis! Although I tried not to show the ! part and instead simply waved a little.

  Curtis waved back and then—it would be interesting to analyze slow-motion video to see exactly how it happened—I lifted my right hand at the same time he lifted his left hand, and then I lifted my hand more, and before I knew it we were Palm Saluting.

  “Hey,” Curtis said.

  “Hey.” I smiled. Whenever we Palm Salute, I smile.

  “Okay, then,” D.J. said. “I will catch up with you two later.” She grinned at us and walked off.

  I watched her go. Then I noticed Brian Nelson standing not too far away. He used to be her boyfriend. He is so incredibly cute that even I can see it, and normally I do not notice people’s faces much at all.

  D.J. walked up to him as if she was still his girlfriend, and he did not look like he minded. In fact—they kissed! In front of everyone! Then he put his arm around her and they ambled into the crowd.