Abby, Tried and True

by Donna Gephart

  Fudge didn’t have an answer for that one.

  Something caught Abby’s eye.

  Not something, but someone.

  Abby pushed up the slats of her window blinds and gasped.

  A car with a U-Haul trailer attached had pulled into the driveway next door—Cat’s driveway!—and two people got out of the car.

  Abby pulled the blinds out of the way entirely and pressed her cheek to the warm window.

  One of the people was a woman with a blond ponytail, shorts, a T-shirt, and running shoes. She looked about her moms’ age, maybe a little younger.

  The other person walking toward Cat’s house was a boy about Abby’s age, with light brown hair falling over one eye. He was wearing a tank top, jean shorts, and flip-flops.

  A fierce, blinding anger caught Abby off guard. How dare anyone move into Cat’s house! She stood back, giving her heartbeat a chance to slow. Abby knew she shouldn’t feel betrayed because Ms. Wasserman had told her moms she’d planned to rent out their home in case they decided to come back early.

  Abby crossed her fingers, hoping they would.

  “Don’t even bother moving all your junk in,” Abby said. “The Wassermans will probably be coming home soon.” But Ms. Wasserman was so excited about her new job at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Abby knew they wouldn’t be coming home early.

  She peeked through the blinds again.

  The boy carried a laundry basket overflowing with clothes into the house. His biceps were flexed, which reminded Abby of Paul’s friend Jake, always making muscles.

  Abby wanted to run out and tell her mom and brother, but they were in the middle of making a video, and she didn’t dare interrupt. Instead, Abby grabbed her phone. She thought she’d take a photo of the new boy and send it to Cat, then realized doing that would be creepy and an invasion of his privacy. She wouldn’t want someone taking her photo when she didn’t know about it. But Abby could still tell Cat about him, so it would be almost like she was there.

  Abby started to call Cat, but then she remembered it was seven hours later in Israel. Cat would already be asleep. So she pulled out the journal and wrote a description of the new boy so she could share it later with Cat.

  Hair over one eye makes him look mysterious.

  Carrying things makes him look strong.

  No books or pets makes him look like someone I won’t like.

  Come back, Cat!

  “And that,” Abby heard Mom Rachel say from the kitchen, “is that. Recipe in the description below and in our e-cookbook, which is available for purchase. Please subscribe to our channel, like this video, and share it with your friends.”

  “Or your enemies!” Paul shouted. “Everybody’s got to eat. Am I right?”

  “Right. We’ll see you next week at Lettuce Eat when we make another awesome vegetarian recipe together,” Mom Rachel said. “Peace and good eats.”

  Abby sank onto her bed and hugged her pillow to her chest. The new people next door are my enemies, she thought. I don’t care if they eat.

  Mom Rachel and Paul laughed in the kitchen.

  Their laughter felt like sandpaper on Abby’s brain.

  Fudge sunned himself on a rock under the heat lamp as though he were on vacation.

  “How am I supposed to get through the rest of summer by myself with other people living next door in Cat’s house?”

  As usual, Fudge had zero words of wisdom to offer.

  Good-Byes Are the Pits

  The drive to drop Paul off at the camp bus went too quickly. Abby wasn’t ready to let him go yet, even though she didn’t say a word to him during the ride and mostly stared out the window as they whooshed past palm trees, office buildings, and strip malls.

  “Camp in Florida is weird,” Mom Rachel said. “It ends a few days before school starts.”

  “Tell me about it,” Paul said. “I’ll hardly have any time to get ready for school. And I’m always exhausted after camp ends. Seems like school starts earlier and earlier every year.”

  “It really does.” Mom tapped a beat on the steering wheel in rhythm with the Lizzo song coming from the radio. “If you lived in Pennsylvania, where our friends June and Caren and their daughter, Monica, live, you’d still have three weeks of summer after camp ended.”

  “Or in Israel,” Abby muttered. “They start in September too.”

  No one responded.

  In the parking lot, Paul had already hoisted his huge duffel bag from the trunk and hugged Mom by the time Abby dragged herself from the back seat of the car.

  She was tired of good-byes. Abby leaned against the hot car, crossed her arms, and nodded toward Paul.

  “What’s that about, Six-Pack?” Paul dropped his duffel with a thud, ran over, grabbed Abby around the waist, and swung her around. “Houston, we have liftoff!”

  “Paul!”

  He put her down, held a hand to his lower back, and winced.

  “You okay, sweetheart?” Mom Rachel walked toward him.

  He waved her concern away. “Look, Abs,” Paul said. “I’ll be back before you know it, and you’d better have Monopoly set up because I’m going to get revenge on you for crushing me the other day.”

  Abby smiled but refused to uncross her arms.

  Then she did uncross them because she needed her arms open to give her brother a bone-crunching hug that would have to last her the three weeks he was gone. “Love you, Paul.”

  Paul squeezed back. “Love you too. Be good.”

  Abby wondered what else she could be.

  Then she watched her brother walk across the parking lot toward the camp bus, where families milled around like ants circling a spot of jam left on a countertop.

  Paul pivoted and yelled, “And don’t touch my banjo, Abigail Braverman! I’ll know!”

  She cupped her hands around her mouth. “I won’t!”

  They both knew she probably would. Abby loved putting on the three steel finger picks and pretending she was a famous banjo player onstage, even though her audience at home consisted of Fudge and sometimes Miss Lucy.

  Mom Rachel held one hand over her eyes, either to shield them from the sun or to hide the fact that she might cry, and held the other hand up to wave to Paul, even though he wasn’t looking at either of them.

  Abby chewed a thumbnail as she watched Paul throw his duffel bag underneath the bus in the storage area, say hi to some friends, and climb onto the bus.

  The bus roared away with her brother on it.

  Abby had to squint extra hard to keep tears from leaking out. She didn’t want to cry in front of Mom Rachel and hear again about how sensitive she was being. Abby reminded herself that Paul would be only 126 miles away, and he’d be home in three weeks. Still, those tears fought to escape. She sniffed hard to keep them bottled up.

  “Come on, baby girl.” Mom Rachel slung an arm over Abby’s shoulders. “We’re going to Daniel’s Diner to cheer ourselves up. Good-byes are the pits.”

  Abby loved Daniel’s Diner. Their potatoes au gratin was her favorite side dish to go with the bean-and-beet burger, along with pickle spears and spicy coleslaw. Mom Rachel usually chose a big salad with a glass of fresh-pressed juice. Cat used to order loaded tater tots, minus the bacon, with hot sauce on the side; she always came with Abby and Mom Rachel to drop Paul off and go to the diner afterward.

  This would be Mom Rachel and Abby’s first year going to Daniel’s Diner without Cat.

  * * *

  On the drive home, Abby somehow managed to feel stuffed and empty at the same time. She’d ordered loaded tater tots this time—no hot sauce or bacon—and could understand why Cat loved them.

  Before Mom Rachel pulled into their driveway, Abby saw him.

  The new boy.

  He was mowing the Wassermans’ lawn, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  “I guess we’ll have to go over and say hello to the new people.” Mom Rachel sighed.

  Abby nodded, but her hands were fists because she wasn’t
ready to meet the new people. She was still angry they’d moved into Cat’s house. “I’m not up to it right now.”

  “Neither am I.” Mom Rachel squeezed the steering wheel. “I still think Miriam’s going to walk out that door and come over to chat. It’s hard to imagine her so far away.”

  “It’s 6,584.2 miles,” Abby muttered.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing.” Abby hadn’t considered how much her mom might be missing her friend Miriam—Ms. Wasserman. This had to be hard on both of her moms. Abby should have been more thoughtful. She wasn’t the only person who lost a friend when the Wassermans moved to Israel.

  Inside, Mom Rachel stood in the foyer and sighed. “When Paul’s not here, it’s so… quiet.” She looked at Abby. “I don’t like it.”

  As if to prove her wrong, Miss Lucy came running, dog tags jangling.

  Mom Rachel scooped Miss Lucy into her arms and nuzzled her. “Who’s my best wittle girl?”

  Abby shuffled through the house to her room. She glanced behind her at Paul’s door and considered going in and playing his banjo just because he said not to, but instead she pushed open the door to her own room and walked over to Fudge’s tank.

  Abby was sure her mom’s comment about the quiet house was intended for her. She was too quiet. She wasn’t as social as Paul. She wasn’t as much fun to have around the house.

  Abby pressed her fingertips against the tank. “It’s not easy being a turtle. Is it, Fudge?”

  He swam toward her fingertips.

  It made Abby smile. “You’re the best little—”

  The sound of a lawn mower cut through Abby’s words. She opened her blinds. New Boy was sweating and struggling to push the mower through thick Saint Augustine grass. The Wassermans used to hire someone to cut the grass, but he hadn’t been there in a while.

  Abby wondered what kind of person New Boy was. Did he like playing sports? Reading? Cooking? Dancing? Singing? Was he loud and funny? Quiet and serious? Was he the kind of boy who might like to play Monopoly with his next-door neighbor?

  Because, for an interloper, he was cute and looked like he might be nice.

  Too bad Abby would probably never speak to him, especially without Cat nearby to lend her courage. Cat always knew the right words to say and how to make people laugh and feel comfortable. Abby was especially good at creating awkward silences.

  She closed the blinds, sank down onto her bed, and watched Fudge quietly paddle through the water in his tank, getting nowhere.

  Abby realized she could go out and check the mail. If she happened to say hello to New Boy, that wouldn’t be the worst thing.

  She brushed her hair and put clear gloss on her lips, then leashed up Miss Lucy and walked outside. Abby was too nervous to look over at New Boy and went directly to the mailbox across the street. On her way back, he looked at her and stopped pushing the mower. He turned it off and waved.

  Abby waved back. “Hi!”

  “Hey!” he said in a deep, friendly voice.

  Before Abby could figure out what to say next, she stepped forward and promptly tripped over Miss Lucy, landing hard on her palms on the spiky grass. “Oomph!”

  “Are you—”

  Abby didn’t hear another word New Boy said because she ran into the house and to her room, not even taking the leash off Miss Lucy.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have tried to talk to him,” she told Fudge. “What was I thinking?”

  Fudge looked at her through the glass of the tank with his mouth open.

  “Stop looking at me in that tone of voice! I’m hopeless!”

  Fudge didn’t argue.

  Abby went into the living room to take off Miss Lucy’s leash, then pulled out her phone to text Cat. It took about one second for her to decide that Cat didn’t need to know what a fool she’d made of herself in front of New Boy. Instead, she got right to the important stuff.

  Miss you. We dropped Paul off for camp, and you weren’t there to eat tater tots at the diner afterward, so I was forced to do it for you.

  A few minutes later, Cat responded.

  Forced, huh? Did you put hot sauce on them?

  Abby laughed.

  No! They were good, though. Just not as good without you there.

  Cat replied right away.

  Sorry Paul’s at camp and I’m not there. We’d have had so much fun going on adventures if I didn’t have to move away. It’s boring here without you. Love you, Abs.

  Abby wiped tears with the back of her hand.

  Love you too, Cat.

  Then she put her phone away because texting Cat made her sad.

  She pulled out her journal, stared at the wall, listened to the quiet in the house, and wrote a poem.

  Stopping Time Can Be Dangerous

  Sometimes, I wish

  I had magic powers

  And could stop time

  At the best moment (me and Cat together)

  And it would stay like that

  Forever….

  But it would be awful

  If time got stuck

  At the worst moment (tripping in front of New Boy)

  And stayed like that

  Forever….

  Maybe it’s a good thing

  Time keeps ticking on.

  Happy-sad. Sad-happy.

  Ticktock. Ticktock.

  Abby 2.0 Has a Big Day

  A week and a half later, Abby woke on her twelfth birthday to her phone ringing.

  She tried to turn it off because she thought it was an alarm and it was time to get up for school. Then Abby remembered Paul was still at camp and school didn’t start for another twelve days.

  Squinting at the phone, Abby saw Cat’s photo from when their families went on vacation together and Cat had nearly fallen out of her kayak. Abby pressed the button to video chat.

  Cat’s real-life image came into view, and Abby felt joy spread through her. “Hey!” Abby shouted. “Love your French braid.”

  Cat shook her head side to side, the brown braid whipping each way. “Mom did it for me. Got tired of wearing it straight or up in a ponytail.”

  “Looks very chic.”

  “Merci!” Cat struck a pose, and both girls laughed. “Hey, Abs, I wanted to be the first to wish you a happy birthday.”

  Abby looked at the time—10:07 a.m. “You succeeded.”

  “Yes! Are you just waking up?”

  Running fingers through her thick hair, Abby blinked a few times. “Uh, yeah. I look like donkey butt. Don’t I?”

  Cat threw her head back and laughed. It sounded like fireworks bursting in a night sky. “You definitely don’t look like donkey butt. I’ll prove it.”

  Suddenly, Abby was watching Ms. Wasserman cook at a stove.

  “Mom, tell Abby she doesn’t look like donkey butt.”

  “Language, Catriella!” Ms. Wasserman’s nose took up the whole screen, then her right eyeball. “Happy birthday, Abigail. You look lovely, sweetheart.”

  The image quickly changed back to Cat. “Sheesh, Mom. Abby doesn’t need to see your nose hairs up close and personal.”

  “Catriella!”

  Cat laughed softly.

  Abby leaned over to look at Fudge in his tank.

  “Is that Fudge? Oh, let me see him.”

  Abby turned the screen so Cat could watch Fudge swim.

  Cat squealed. “I miss that little guy.”

  “Yeah, he’s a cutie.”

  “How’s Miss Lucy doing?”

  “Spoiled as ever.”

  Cat whispered, “I begged Mom for a dog. They have cool kinds of dogs here, and I figured she felt guilty enough for moving me away from you that she’d give in. But guess what she said?”

  “ ‘No’?”

  Cat yelled, “She said no because she’s cruel and unusual!”

  “Knock it off, Catriella, or you can hang up. Dinner in five minutes.”

  “Sorry, Mom.” But Cat winked to show Abby she wasn’t really sorry.

  �
��It’s so weird you’re about to have dinner and I just woke up,” Abby said.

  “No,” Cat replied. “It’s weird that you’re waking up when it’s dinnertime.”

  “Time is weird,” Abby said, thinking of her poem.

  “Lots of things are weird.” Cat examined chipped polish on one of her fingernails. “So tell me about your birthday extravaganza plans. Same as usual?”

  Abby rummaged through her drawers, looking for something to wear. “Same as usual, except you won’t be here, which stinks.”

  “It does stink. We’ve never missed each other’s birthdays.”

  “Never. Remember on your ninth birthday, your mom wanted to do something special, and she took us to that amusement park, and you went on the roller coaster something like six times in a row?”

  “Nine times in a row,” Cat corrected. “Because it was my ninth birthday.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you were too chicken to go on with me.”

  “I was too smart to go on with you. You barfed up the rainbow cotton candy you’d just eaten. It was so gross.”

  “Rainbow barf!” Cat screamed.

  “Sha, Catriella. You’re giving me a headache,” Ms. Wasserman said. “Dinner in two minutes.”

  “I’ll be right there!” Abby called, wishing she could run next door and join them for dinner like she’d done so many times before.

  “We’d love to have you, Abigail!” Ms. Wasserman shouted.

  “You don’t have to yell, Mom. Abby can hear you.”

  “Okay. I didn’t know.”

  Cat twirled the end of her braid. “Know what you could do that’s different for your birthday this year?”

  “What?” Abby sat on the floor, leaning against her bed.

  “You could talk to that cute boy next door.”

  “What? I can’t.” Abby thought of the last time she spoke to him and managed to get out one word before tripping and embarrassing herself. She’d avoided him since.

  Cat got closer to the screen. “You can, Abigail Braverman. And you should. It could be like… a birthday present to yourself.”