Cecily calls to the smoking man in the parking lot. “Sir! Can you give me a suggestion for a place that doesn’t exist in reality?”
“Huh?” He coughs. “Oz!”
Oz makes me think of red shoes, which makes me think of Luke’s cleats. I step into the small concrete square between the tables and pretend I’m throwing stuff out of a closet. Cecily comes out. “Mom, you put my cleats in the wrong place!” I tell her.
“I’m not your maid.” Cecily pretends to bang down a basket of laundry. “Put these clothes away, mister.”
Uh-oh. I don’t know where to take this. I don’t want to have a scene about silly soccer cleats and laundry. Who cares about that? What’s the scene really about? My character’s upset about something. But what?
Just then, a familiar old Toyota Camry pulls up. I almost jump out of my skin. I know that car—it’s Hudson. With Luke.
Both of them give me the kind of death glare Mom gives Luke when he farts in public. They practically leap out of the car.
“Ava!” Hudson reaches us first. “You need to tell someone if you’re going somewhere.”
“Yeah,” Luke says. “This parking lot is sketchy. There’s a bar right there!”
“Shush.” Chad motions Hudson to the bench. “We’re improvising.”
“Improv,” Luke kind of sneers, “is not an excuse.”
I put my hands on my hips. “You’re not the boss of me.”
Chad snaps his fingers as if he’s applauding. “She told you.”
“I’m older, so that automatically makes me the boss.” Luke scowls.
“You don’t act older,” I mutter.
“All right, you two.” Hudson grabs Luke’s hand and hauls him down to the bench. “We can watch.”
Cecily turns back to me. “It’s very upsetting that you won’t do your chores,” Cecily says to me, but we’ve lost our rhythm with the interruption.
Then I get an idea. Time to use what Miss Gwen calls The Reveal.
“The truth is,” I say to her, “there’s this bully at school.”
Cecily twists her face into an O of surprise. “Oh my. What’s he doing to you?”
I think of Luke and Ty. But what if it were the opposite of bad? What if it were something I actually wanted? Reverse expectations is another thing Miss Gwen tells us. “He’s always like, ‘Hey, can I carry those books for you? Hey, you’re so smart. You’re so kind.’ I’m sick of it.”
Everyone laughs. Even Luke cracks a smile.
There’s a good energy in the air now, and Cecily goes with it. This is the game, the fun part. “I don’t blame you. I’d be sick of it, too. All those terrible comments. Why, I have a mind to call the principal right now!” Cecily makes the call.
Ryan steps in, answering. “This is the principal.”
“This is Conrad’s mother.”
“Oh, just the person I wanted to speak with. I have bad news for you. Conrad’s getting an award.”
“Noooo,” Cecily groans.
There’s a big laugh now. Chad runs across stage in front of us to show the scene’s over. Miss Gwen says it’s best to end on the biggest laugh.
I high-five Cecily. “Awesome job,” I whisper to her.
Hudson and Luke are looking at me as if I’ve traveled back in time and stopped the Civil War. Hudson’s mouth is open. “What. Was. That.”
I look sideways at Luke. Will he know the scene was about him? I didn’t mean for it to be—it just came out. “Improv.”
My brothers are silent. I don’t know if it’s a good silent or a bad silent.
Luke clears his throat. “I’ve never seen you talk that much in public. Why can’t you be like that all the time?”
I squish my shoulders up to my ears, heat surging through me. Luke always has to call me out. I don’t know why I can’t be like this wherever I go. If I could, life would be a lot simpler.
Ryan speaks up. “It’s different.”
“It shouldn’t be.” Luke crosses his arms and squints at me as if I’ve been pulling a fast one on my family with my anxiety for the past eleven years.
If he tells me to get it together, I am going to scream. I open my mouth to say—I don’t know what—but Hudson steps in, pulling cash out of his pocket. “Might as well get a cone while we’re here,” he says to Luke, and Luke turns to the window. Hudson winks at me.
I sag into relief. At least one of my brothers has my back. I’ll have to be okay with that for now. “Might as well.”
Chapter 25
That evening, I should be working on my napkin project, but I’ve pretty much given up on that for now. And by given up, I mean it’s like the time I had to do a science project and kept putting it off until the night before. I didn’t even give my parents the sheet about it. They let me get a minus mark on that—that’s the elementary school version of failing.
I’ll probably fail this napkin project, too. But does it matter? What’s the worst thing that could happen? My parents aren’t going to disown me or kick me out. If Ty isn’t going to try, I decide, then I’m not, either.
Instead, I’m designing a flyer for Navegando Point on my laptop and watching Jeopardy! with my parents. Nobody ever beats Mom—I don’t know why she hasn’t been a contestant.
I show a draft to my parents. “What do you think?” I put a photo of the carousel and ice cream on the flyer, plus the website where people can go. Dad says to get it done a week in advance, and he’ll get them printed so we can hand them out.
“Looks good,” Dad says. “But I’d do a different, unifying color for the background instead of plain white.”
I shrug.
Mom wiggles her fingers. “Want me to give it a shot?”
“Go for it.” I hand her the computer. Then my phone rings in my bedroom. It might be Cecily! I race so fast down the hallway my socks almost skid out from under me on the hardwood. “Wait!” I call, as if that’s going to help. I reach the phone just in time by flinging myself across my bed and answer without looking at the caller ID. I land a little too far to the left and feel the pinch of my ICD pacemaker, as if I’ve fallen into the edge of a table. “Oooof,” I say into Zelia’s face. “Hi.” I swallow hard. I haven’t talked to her since last week, when we had our weird kind-of argument that her mom interrupted.
She takes a breath. “Hey, Ava.” Then neither of us says anything. I might tell her about the flyers, but she doesn’t want to hear about that. Or my improv. Or anything.
The silence goes on so long it gets downright weird. I sort of wish I hadn’t answered.
I play with my hair. “So, what’s up?”
Zelia speaks flatly, the way she does when she gives someone bad news. “I wanted to talk to you about coming out here.”
I sit on my bed and put my pillow on my lap. “It’s not even Halloween. Do I have to decide right now?”
Zelia twirls her hair around a finger. “Everyone here is already setting up their summer camps and stuff.”
“Okay.” I wait.
“So I don’t think you should come. Because I’m probably going to do that.” She doesn’t look at the camera.
My heart seems to literally sink. “I’m only coming for two weeks—can’t you go to camp the rest of the time?”
She lets go of her hair, and it bounces like a spring. “I’m just trying to make it easier for you. You won’t have to do Cotillion.”
Wait, what? Sure, I’ve complained about Cotillion before to Zelia because I was worried about doing it. But I haven’t complained since I made the deal with my parents. “Cotillion’s not that bad.” I can’t get my mind wrapped around this. She doesn’t want me, at all? My eyes burn. I blink them quickly.
“It’s not?”
I purse my lips, thinking about quitting Cotillion. That feels like I’d be getting out of the thing that both my brothers had to do. Like the time I got out of cleaning the bathroom. “It’s really . . . sort of okay.”
“Hmmm,” she says.
My heart speeds up. Just like I promised Zelia I would with those Jelly Bellies, I’m going to tell her what I want. It’s been building up and up. I have to do it now and find out if she actually likes me when I’m not doing what she wants. “I . . .” I swallow, then force it out. “I want to come visit you.”
She blinks. “You do?”
Relief whooshes out of me, water draining from a sink. “Yeah. I really, really do.” That’s what I’ve been working on.
“Oh.” Zelia’s eyebrows pull together.
I chew on a hangnail. Now’s the part where she’s supposed to tell me she’s glad I said something about what I really want. She’s supposed to say, Oh, I get it, you come out to Maine! But she doesn’t.
Instead we sort of don’t look at each other.
She takes in a breath. “Well, I guess maybe I don’t need you to.”
Now it’s like she’s twisting a knife in my side. Tears start falling for real and I bite my tongue. I don’t want her to see them. “You don’t need me to?” I repeat quietly so she can’t hear the shake in my voice.
She still won’t meet my eyes. “I have my stuff in Maine. You have your stuff in California. It’s going to be busy.”
I swallow. I can think of two reasons for Zelia acting this way. One: she doesn’t want me to visit because she doesn’t like me anymore.
Two: Zelia really wasn’t a good friend for me. Because good friends don’t just ignore what their friends say.
I’m afraid of either reason. Zelia hates me. Now that she’s gone to Maine, she’s realized it. I was too needy and she hates improv.
I don’t think I can handle it if I find out that Zelia is deep-down mean inside. If that’s true, then all of elementary school was a lie.
“Say something.”
“What do you want me to say?” My voice is sharp and loud, hiding the hurt I’m feeling.
My chest burns, and it’s not because I just ate something spicy. “I’m still not going to quit improv if that’s what you want.”
“Why would I want you to do that?”
“I don’t know—you said it was stupid.” My heart seems to skip. “I guess you’re right—I’ll be too busy with all my new friends, just like you are with yours.” I want her to be as hurt as I am. Then I feel bad for wanting that. I touch my ICD pacemaker.
My phone buzzes with a text. Ty’s number.
“Oh,” I say, surprised. “It’s my napkin project partner.”
Zelia’s eyebrows go up.
Can you meet after school on Monday so we can get this done with.
K, I reply.
“Well, I’m going to let you get back to that,” Zelia says.
“Yeah,” I say.
We pause for a second.
“Bye,” Zelia says.
“Bye.”
She closes her app first. I sigh. We didn’t settle anything. In fact, things feel even worse now than they did before. Like an argument that turns in a circle, spinning around and around without an end. I turn off the light in my room and sit in the dark for a long time.
Chapter 26
Dad always uses a printing press for his Cotillion stuff, so he ordered me a bunch of flyers for our cause. On Saturday, after our improv class, our parents carpool us over to Navegando Point. Then we’re going in groups of two along the path to hand them out. The parents will be there, too, but mostly supervising.
It’s a sunny day, so there’s a ton of people around. It’s not as busy as it is during the summertime, when people are here on vacation, but the parking lot’s almost full and there are a lot of families. Most locals go to places like this after the tourists have gone home—I know my family does.
Cecily pairs with her dad and Babel, Chad pairs with Jonathan and Jonathan’s mom, and Ryan pairs with me and my dad. Then we go over by the carousel.
Ryan, of course, is way better at this than I am. “Do you really want to see this fine attraction close forever?” he bellows. He even stands on a bench at one point. People can’t help but look at him.
I hold out a flyer to a family waiting in line at the carousel. “Excuse me . . .”
They ignore me, walking past as the line moves up.
“Hey!” the ride operator calls to me. “Don’t bother my customers.”
My eyes go so wide that I can feel wind on the tops of my eyeballs. “Sorry, sorry.” I back away into the crowd.
“Just go over here.” Dad turns me around. “I don’t think that’s an actual rule, but we’ll do as he asks.”
I nod mutely, the operator’s words ringing in my ears. I want to leave right now. Why did I ever think this was a good idea?
“Shake it off, Ava. It doesn’t matter. Okay?”
I swallow. “Okay.”
I thrust another flyer at a random person, not looking in their eyes like I’m supposed to. “Um, they’re closing . . .”
“No thanks,” the person responds.
We do this for another half hour. Then Ryan runs over to me. “I’m all out of flyers! How about you?”
I hold up my fat stack, wanting to hide. “I’m terrible at this.”
“You’re doing fine.” Ryan claps a hand on my shoulder. “Want me to stand with you?”
Ryan and I manage to hand out the rest together. He does the talking and I do the handing. Then we reconvene with the rest of the group by the closed ice-cream shop.
“Success!” Cecily pumps her fist in the air.
“Now let’s see if we got any new likes.” Babel whips out her phone.
We crane our necks over her shoulder to see. Nope.
“They haven’t had time yet,” Cecily’s dad says.
The group sighs as one. The parents exchange glances, like they’re wondering what to do with us. “Anyone want a cupcake?” Dad asks.
“I thought you’d never ask.” I lead the way.
We walk past the duck pond and, as my feet hit the path near it, my stomach drops for the thousandth time that day.
Our flyers are all over the place. Scattered under benches. Crumpled and tossed to the side. A gull caws and swoops down and poops on one.
“Crud.” Cecily runs to pick one up. “They couldn’t even put them in the trash?”
Not only did we fail, we created actual litter. Great. That’s not going to help anything. We spread out and collect them. When I go to throw mine away in the big trash can, I see even more stuffed in there.
“Did everyone just throw them out?” I shake my head. “What a waste.”
“It’s not . . . at least everyone saw them first.” Dad catches up to me. “You know, in marketing, it takes seven contacts before people take any action. That means they’ve got to see something seven different times. That was their first contact.” But even he looks a little sad.
“Still, it’s terrible that people just throw this stuff around,” Jonathan’s mom says.
We’re all quiet for a minute, staring at the trash. But the cupcake shop will raise our spirits.
When we round the corner to the shop, though, the whole corridor is completely dark. Chad runs ahead. “Closed,” he reports.
I peer into the window at the empty cases. Where did the workers go? What will the owner do? Where will I ever get cupcakes that good again? I turn, and my friends look just as disappointed as I do. There’s nothing else left to say. Without agreeing to it, we all walk out to the parking lot and go on home.
Chapter 27
After school on Monday, I’m supposed to meet Ty at the public library. It’s packed. Toddlers run at full speed through the aisles, tired moms and dads chasing after. Adults use the computers and take up the tables. It’s kind of noisy, a lot noisier than it was in the old days, according to Dad. “Back then a library meant you were working quietly.” But it’s warm today, and the library’s air-conditioned and free, so I can see why everyone would want to come here. A lot of places in San Diego don’t have air-conditioning because, also in the Old Days According to Dad, it didn’t used to get so
hot and humid. Climate change.
I wipe the sweat off my forehead and look around. Half of me hopes Ty won’t show up. He’ll argue with me and nothing’s going to get done. Maybe I should just leave and be the one who doesn’t show. But that’s not me.
Plus, at that moment I see him wave from the end of a long, crowded table. I wonder if he has to wait a long time to use a computer. “Hey,” he says to the floor. There are no open seats nearby, so I can’t sit down.
I nod. It’s hard to talk if I think someone really doesn’t like me. It’s as if my body actually physically decides not to respond.
Finally he glances up, his expression like someone just farted in his face. He stands. “It’s crowded in here. Let’s go to the park.” He starts moving.
I just walked through the park, I want to point out, but instead I nod again.
“What are you, a bobblehead?” Ty pushes the door open. He doesn’t even make sure it stays that way when I walk out, and I have to make sure it doesn’t shut on me.
I trudge across the wide lawn behind the community pool, following Ty across the street and back to the park. The shadiest tables are taken.
Now I’m breathing a little hard. The humidity makes my heart feel like it’s having trouble pumping. I need to sit. I need shade.
Ty heads toward a sunny concrete picnic bench, but I finally speak up. “Let’s go under the tree.”
“On the grass?” He wrinkles his nose. “Dogs pee on grass.”
Dogs probably peed everywhere in this park at some point. I want to tell him that’s why we wear clothes, but instead I stay silent and go under one of the huge trees and sit down, cross-legged. Ty sits across from me. I open my Chromebook, hoping we don’t have to look up anything on the internet. Because there’s zero Wi-Fi out here. My back prickles with sweat. I realize I drank my whole water bottle during class and didn’t refill it.
“Can I ask you a question?”
A twinge of annoyance goes through me, the same as when Luke’s being a pain, and I spit out the kind of answer I’d give my brother. “You just did.”
Five Things About Ava Andrews Page 14
