Abby, Tried and True

by Donna Gephart

  * * *

  She’d forgotten how loud the courtyard full of kids was before school. She could hear it all the way across the street, where they were waiting for the crossing guard to give them the signal to go. The shrieking and yelling felt like a metal grater rubbing against Abby’s brain—the exact opposite of the feeling she got when she explored the trails at Winding River Park, her favorite place in all of Port Paradise. Abby was pretty sure she’d get through this day as plain old Abby, who wished she were back home in her quiet room with Fudge, her journal, and her endless afghan to work on.

  When she and Conrad entered the noisy, crowded courtyard, they staked out a spot off to the side, near the fence, as far away from everyone as they could get.

  Conrad put his hands over his ears. “This place is way bigger than my other school.”

  Abby nodded, hoping he’d take his hands away from his ears because someone would make fun of him if he didn’t.

  Conrad jammed his hands into his pockets and hunched forward.

  Abby scanned the crowd.

  Girls were hugging one another and asking about one another’s summer. No one hugged Abby. No one asked about her summer.

  Abby crossed her arms tightly over her chest, even though Mom Rachel once told her it made her look unapproachable and unfriendly. It was all the protective shell she had today, and she was using it.

  She moved closer to Conrad because he was quiet and his face looked pale. “It’ll be okay,” she said softly, realizing she was talking to herself as much as to him, and her words were more hope than fact.

  He nodded but looked like he didn’t quite believe her.

  A loud buzz cut through the chatter, and everyone funneled into the cafeteria through double doors. There, students sat on the benches of long rectangular tables while the principal gave a talk that involved words like “pride” and “respect” and “responsibility.”

  Then students lined up to get their class schedules and go to their first-period classes. Today classes were shortened and it was an early release, so students would have an opportunity to meet their teachers, learn some of the expectations, and not do much else.

  Tomorrow would be the first full day of classes.

  After Abby got her schedule, she found Conrad in the crush of kids and helped him navigate the crowded halls to get to his first class.

  At the doorway of the classroom, Conrad turned and looked at Abby. His Adam’s apple moved up and down as he swallowed. “I’ll wait for you after school by the fence.” Then he slipped inside the classroom.

  As Abby moved among a whole ocean of jostling, chattering kids, she lamented that not a single one of them was Catriella Robyn Wasserman.

  * * *

  In her first period class, Abby sat in the back row and turned to the second page in her spiral notebook. She thought she might write another poem but ended up making a list instead, which was kind of like a poem.

  First Day of School:

  1. 7th grade without Cat

  2. Cat was the social glue that connected me to other people.

  3. She was the binding agent, like we learned about in science class last year.

  4. No binding agent, no connection

  5. Something is wrong with Paul.

  6. This stinks.

  When Miranda Gross, a girl who was in all Abby’s classes last year, sat next to her, Abby slammed her spiral notebook closed. No one needed to read her list, especially Miranda.

  Miranda nodded in her direction, and Abby felt a flicker of hope. Maybe Miranda grew nicer over the summer. Perhaps they might become friends this year. Abby could use a friend. Cat used to talk to Miranda about nail polish colors, hairstyles, and clothes. Sometimes Abby joined their conversations, but she found those subjects boring; plus, she hated when Miranda made fun of other kids for how they dressed or acted. Abby thought Miranda might be making fun of her behind her back too.

  “I heard Cat moved to Israel,” Miranda said. “You must miss her. You two were, like, always together.”

  Abby hadn’t expected anyone to talk to her about Cat. Honestly, she hadn’t expected anyone to talk to her at all. She didn’t know how to respond, or even if she should. If she talked about Cat right now, she might cry, and that absolutely could not happen on the first day of school. Or any day of school. Tears in middle school were like blood in water filled with sharks.

  “Okay then.” Miranda turned the other way and started a conversation with Laura Fournier, another girl who was in all of Abby’s classes last year.

  Laura and Miranda suddenly laughed.

  Abby was pretty sure they were laughing at her.

  She turned forward, realizing she probably wasn’t going to make any new friends this year.

  * * *

  At the end of the school day, Abby burst through the exit doors into the warm, steamy air and bright sunshine. She found Conrad leaning against the fence where they stood before school started.

  She almost walked past him, thinking he couldn’t really be waiting there for her—the girl who sat by herself in the cafeteria, at the end of a table near a smelly trash can. The girl who tripped in the hallway on the way to French class. Très klutzy! The girl who spoke to no one other than responding to each of her teachers with a quiet “here” when they took roll.

  “Hey!” Conrad smiled and waved.

  Every molecule inside Abby jumped for joy. He did wait for her. “Hi!”

  As they walked toward home together, the protective shell Abby had cast in ice around her heart melted away.

  “Everything go okay today?” Conrad asked.

  Abby nodded, even though it wasn’t true. “How was your first day of eighth grade?”

  “I only got lost three times.”

  He said it in such a sweet, hopeful way that Abby couldn’t help but laugh. “Only three?”

  “Mm-hmm. Would have been four, but you helped me find my first class.”

  Abby loved how their steps matched each other’s almost the whole way home, and she imagined their heartbeats were in perfect rhythm too.

  Abby hoped Conrad would invite her in again for mint tea, but he said, “See you tomorrow,” when they got to their houses. “I’ll come to your house again in the morning.”

  Abby nodded.

  Inside, she went straight to the kitchen, dropped her notebook and pen on the counter, and sat on a stool facing her mom.

  Mom Rachel was chopping sweet potatoes with a small cleaver. Her wild black hair was up in a ponytail. She wore light blue overalls and a purple T-shirt with a unicorn on the front. Abby liked that she and her mom were both wearing purple T-shirts.

  “Hey, Abs.” Mom Rachel put the cleaver down. “So?”

  Abby realized her throat was desert-dry. “Can I have a seltzer?”

  Mom Rachel grabbed the bottle of homemade raspberry seltzer and poured Abby a glass. She plucked a couple mint leaves off a plant on the counter to throw on top. “How was your first day… without Cat?”

  Abby took a sip of fizzy seltzer, glad her mom recognized that it would be hard for her today. “It was okay, I guess. I liked walking with Conrad, but I’m worried about Paul. I don’t like being left out of things.”

  “Oh, sweetie. I know. He’s got a doctor’s appointment in two days. I’m sure we’ll learn more then. Until that time, let’s try not to worry.”

  Mom Rachel went back to whacking sweet potatoes into small cubes. She was usually very calm when working in the kitchen, but she chopped those potatoes ferociously, like she was hacking at something else.

  “You seem worried,” Abby said.

  Her mom looked up. “To be honest, I’m a little worried, but I’m hoping it’s nothing and he’ll be fine.” She looked at Paul’s closed bedroom door. “He’s in his room now, resting. School must have worn him out.”

  Or maybe it was something more than school that wore him out. Abby wished she knew what that was, what her mom wasn’t telling her. She had a nagging feelin
g she should have put that mezuzah up the moment she got it.

  * * *

  Abby knocked on Paul’s bedroom door.

  “Enter!”

  Her brother was in bed, his back against the wall as he quietly plucked his banjo.

  This made Abby’s heart happy.

  “Listen to this, Abs.”

  She sat on his desk chair and scooped Miss Lucy onto her lap, since she’d followed her into his room.

  Paul played a fun riff. “Just came up with that. What’d you think?”

  Abby made Miss Lucy’s front paws clap.

  Moving his banjo out of the way, Paul bowed his head, took off his three steel finger picks, and dropped them onto the corner of his desk. “How was your first day, Six-Pack?”

  Abby petted Miss Lucy’s long, silky ears. “No one really talked to me.”

  Paul sat forward. “Did you talk to anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Six-Pack?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’ve got to give a little.”

  “It’s hard.”

  “I know.”

  But Abby doubted Paul understood. He was an extrovert. Being social was easy for Paul, and he already had two best friends, Jake and Ethan, to do everything with. Paul was not a turtle. He was an otter. Otters were fun and outgoing. Everyone loved otters.

  “How was your day?” Abby asked, hoping he’d tell her about more than school.

  “Hard.”

  “The first day?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got chem, pre-calc, advanced history. Crazy difficult stuff. Plus I have to start looking at colleges. And preparing for the SATs. And…” He scratched his elbow, but didn’t say anything else.

  “Paul?”

  “Yeah?”

  Abby put Miss Lucy back on the floor because her nails were digging into Abby’s legs. “What’s going on… with you?”

  “It’s probably nothing, Six-Pack.”

  Abby stared at him.

  “I have to go to a doctor to check something out. I’ll tell you if it’s anything to worry about.”

  “You sound like Mom.” Abby chewed on a thumbnail. “Are you worried?”

  “Of course I’m worried. I’m Jewish and neurotic.”

  Abby burst out laughing. Her brother could always make her laugh. “Paul?”

  “What’s up?”

  “Love you.”

  “Aw man.” Paul got up, spun his sister on the chair, then gave her an awkward hug, his bony body pressing into hers. “Love you too, weirdo.”

  Happy New Year, My Foot!

  Three weeks later, the first day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, was Monday, the same day as Paul’s appointment with the urologist.

  “Tell me again what this doctor does,” Abby said to Mom Rachel in the kitchen early that morning. The whole house smelled of dill, onion, and garlic from the big pot of soup bubbling on the stove.

  Mom Rachel rushed around the kitchen, putting dishes into the fridge and taking others out.

  “Abby, I already told you. Paul’s regular doctor said he had to go to a specialist called a urologist.”

  “What will the urologist do?”

  Mom Rachel put a large ceramic bowl in front of Abby along with a plate. “Here, at least help while we talk.”

  Forming matzo balls for the soup was Abby’s favorite holiday job. She washed her hands, then pressed the mixture of matzo meal, water, oil, and eggs into meatball-size spheres by rolling them between her palms.

  Her mom, meanwhile, chopped carrots for the tzimmes, a stew made with root vegetables and sweet dried fruit. “Paul’s doctor sent him to get a blood test and something called an ultrasound.”

  Abby nodded while she kept rolling the mixture into matzo balls.

  Mom Rachel blew a few stray strands of hair that had come loose from her ponytail out of her eye. “We did all that already, then later today we’ll go to the urologist, and he’ll tell us the test results.”

  Abby looked at her mom. “You seem nervous.”

  “I’m—ouch!” Mom Rachel stuck her knuckle into her mouth. “See what you made me do?”

  Abby leaned back. “What I made you do?”

  “Sorry, sweetheart. I’m a little stressed with the big dinner and… everything. Let me go put a Band-Aid on this thing.” She went into her bedroom and closed the door.

  Abby kept shaping matzo balls, but she knew her mom wasn’t telling the truth. Cooking never made Mom Rachel stressed. It relaxed her. The kitchen was her mom’s Zen zone. She was obviously nervous about going to this new doctor with Paul, which made Abby’s stomach tighten with worry too.

  Paul seemed fine. What could be wrong with him?

  * * *

  After Abby shaped all the matzo balls for the soup and helped her mom finish the carrot tzimmes, she went to her room and spent time with Fudge. She hadn’t been paying much attention to him lately.

  “Hey, little buddy.” Abby put her face close to the tank and watched the water distort Fudge’s world. “Happy New Year.”

  Fudge seemed unimpressed about the holiday.

  Abby checked her phone, hoping there would be something exciting, like a text from Conrad.

  There wasn’t.

  But there was one from Cat.

  Shanah Tovah to you and your family.

  Abby replied.

  Happy New Year. Hope you have a nice celebration there with your mom.

  Cat responded right away.

  We’re celebrating with people from my mom’s work… like, right now. I should NOT be on the phone. Hahaha. Love you, Abs.

  Abby held the phone to her heart.

  Love you too, Cat.

  “All is well,” Abby told Fudge. “Cat is still my best friend. Zeyde Jordan and Bubbe Marcia will be here later today, and I can finally show Bubbe how big my endless afghan has grown since she last saw it.”

  Fudge came close to the glass of the tank and looked at Abby.

  “And I have a feeling Paul will get good news from this special doctor today so Mom Rachel can stop worrying, and everything can go back to normal.”

  Fudge swam away from Abby as though he didn’t believe a word she said.

  * * *

  Later, in the kitchen, Mama Dee tucked her white button-down shirt into black slacks and slipped an apron over her head. “Abby, you’d better leave room for dessert tonight. I’m making an apple cake.”

  Mom Rachel bumped into Mama Dee’s hip. “She’s adding the fancy Penzeys Ceylon Cinnamon. Yum!”

  Abby loved watching the two of them in the kitchen together. They seemed so happy. Mom Rachel’s groovy vibe loosened up Mama Dee’s more serious self.

  “That’s not all.” Mama Dee held up a finger. “There will also be ruglock.”

  “That’s not how you say it.” Mom Rachel shook her head. “It’s rugelach.”

  “That’s what I said—ruglock.” Mama Dee winked at Abby. “Don’t worry. It’ll taste good. That’s all that matters.”

  Mom Rachel put a soup ladle in front of Mama Dee’s mouth, as though it were a microphone. “And now, for the best dessert of all.” Mama Dee nodded toward Abby. “Drumroll, please, Abs.”

  Abby was glad Mom Rachel seemed so much more relaxed than earlier. Abby used her fingers as drumsticks on the counter to create a drumroll for Mama Dee’s big announcement.

  “Challah bread pudding.” Mama Dee made an exaggerated bow. “My Rosh Hashanah dessert game is on point this year. Not bad for a shiksa, eh?”

  “Dee!” Mom Rachel whapped her with a kitchen towel. “You’d better get busy, or we’ll be eating plain bread for dessert.” Mom Rachel paused, then looked panicked. “Oh no.”

  “What’s wrong?” Abby feared her mom just remembered some awful thing that had to do with her brother.

  “We almost forgot the tashlik ceremony.”

  “Oh.” Abby let out a relieved breath and scrambled off the stool. “I’ll get Paul.”

  “I’ll grab the br
ead for the ceremony,” Mama Dee said.

  Abby knocked on Paul’s bedroom door, but he didn’t answer, so she whispered, “Paul?”

  Mom Rachel put a hand on Abby’s shoulder. “Why don’t we let him be?”

  Abby whirled to face her mom. “Paul always goes with us.”

  “I know, but…”

  Mom Rachel guided Abby away from Paul’s room, and they met Mama Dee, who was waiting at the front door with a small bag of bread.

  Abby looked back toward Paul’s room, then the three of them walked to the pond at the park.

  “It doesn’t feel right without Paul here,” Abby said quietly.

  Both her moms put an arm around her shoulders.

  Each of them took a few pieces of bread from the bag Mama Dee held. The bread was supposed to represent their sins from the past year.

  “This is one of my favorite traditions,” Mama Dee whispered in a solemn tone.

  Mom Rachel said the prayer, and they cast their sins—the bread—into the water.

  Then they walked home, all holding sweaty hands with one another.

  Abby felt lighter, but Paul’s absence from the tashlik ceremony increased her worry about what might be going on with him. If she weren’t holding her moms’ hands, she would have crossed her fingers, hoping the specialist Paul was going to see later today would tell them everything’s okay—and that they will have a sweet new year.

  * * *

  A couple hours later, Mom Rachel gave Mama Dee instructions on when to warm up each of the dishes she’d made. “I hope we’re back before Mom and Dad come, but you know how these specialists can keep you waiting forever.”

  Mama Dee, both taller and wider than Mom Rachel, enveloped her in a hug that looked like she’d swallowed her up. “You take care of our boy. Abby and I will take care of everything here.”