Greg. That’s the first thing that throws me. Parents don’t usually refer to other parents by their first names. They always say your dad or Willa’s dad. And somewhere neutral? Bad news is coming for sure. When my parents told Benji and me that they were splitting up, they did it on a bench in Central Park because they wanted it to be “a neutral place.” Even though I was seven, I still remember those exact words.
“Want to pick out your ice cream and sorbet?” Ruby’s mom says, gesturing toward the soft-serve handles. “Get whatever you want and I’ll meet you at the cashier to pay.”
“Sure,” Ruby says, slurping in some saliva. Even though she’s had her palate expander for as long as I’ve known her, it still brings on extreme drool. “How many samples can we get?”
“Just one,” Ruby’s mom says. “Make sure it’s lactose-free for you, Rubes. And don’t forget your favorite topping.”
“As if,” Ruby says, starting toward the handles. “Come on, Willa. Gummy bears are calling us.”
Instead of following her, I hover nervously above a red stool, kicking my feet into the floor. I haven’t even taken off my backpack. I’m getting that feeling like I need to know exactly what’s going on right now or I’m going to shriek and wiggle my hands. The thing is, I would never show that side of me in front of Ruby or in I Scream with all the middle schoolers around. I reach into my backpack for a piece of Trident and slide it into my mouth. My occupational therapist, Maureen, has taught me to always have an emergency pack of gum for times like these.
“Hey, Waggy,” my dad says, walking in and tousling my hair.
I quickly move away from him and hiss, “Stop it.”
I glance at Ruby’s mom, who looks down at her pale-pink polished fingernails. I don’t want to be rude, but Waggy? In public? That’s been his nickname for me since I was a toddler and used to crawl around and woof like a dog. My full name is Willa Anderson Garrett, initials W.A.G. It’s fitting because I love dogs. But that doesn’t give him permission to go Waggy on me in the middle of I Scream.
“What should I call you?” he asks. “Just plain Willa?”
“Exactly,” I tell him. Really, it should be obvious.
“Okay,” Dad says. “Just Plain Willa it is.” He slides onto the bench next to Ruby’s mom and sets his phone facedown on the table.
Usually I don’t mind his Dad Jokes, but I’m not in the mood right now. “Please,” I say, mashing my gum. “Stop.”
I’m starting to feel like I can’t breathe. Last year, when I got that tight-throat feeling, Maureen said I needed to carve out time to relax. That’s when my mom and I began doing best part worst part every night on the phone.
“Why are we here, Dad?” I ask. I tug at the bracelets on my wrist, stretching out the rubber ones and letting them snap back. “What do you need to tell us?”
Dad glances at Ruby’s mom and raises his eyebrows. She nods back at him.
“Rubes, come here!” she calls. Even though Ruby’s mom said to sample one flavor, I can see Ruby has two sample spoons in her hand, and she’s about to ask for a third.
Ruby tosses the spoons in the trash, walks over, and flops onto the bench.
“Sit down,” my dad instructs me, pointing to the stool.
Even though I’m annoyed at him, I want to hear what’s coming next, so I reluctantly sit down.
“We’ve thought a lot about the best way to tell you girls,” Dad says. “We weren’t sure how you’d take it, but we’re hoping you’ll be happy because we think it’s exciting.”
“Exciting in your opinion,” I mutter. I don’t mean to. It just slips out. I won’t let myself look at Ruby. She’s never seen this side of me, the moody side, the calling-out side. That’s Private Willa, only for family. Just like the fact that I go to occupational therapy twice a week. Private.
“What’s that?” Dad asks.
“Nothing,” I say.
“The thing is—” Dad starts, but then he says to Ruby’s mom, “maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, Sandhya.”
First Greg. Now Sandhya.
“What wasn’t?” I ask.
“We’re here,” Ruby’s mom says. “We’ve started.”
“Started what?” I ask.
“Shhhh!” Ruby says. “Let them talk already.”
I wrinkle my nose at her. This isn’t her business. Oh yeah. I guess it is.
“Greg and I are dating.” Ruby’s mom reaches over and places her hand on top of my dad’s. “We’ve been seeing each other.”
My gum slides straight down my throat in a river of saliva. Great. Now it’s going to lurk undigested in my stomach for seven years, reminding me of this terrible moment.
Ruby squeals. “Why didn’t you tell me, Mom? Like, Willa’s dad is your boyfriend now?”
I shake my head slowly from side to side. I can’t believe this is happening.
“We didn’t want to involve you until we were sure,” Ruby’s mom says.
“Sure of what?” Ruby asks. She has a huge smile on her face like it’s great news when the truth is that this is terrible, terrible news. The worst news ever. I stare down at my lap.
My dad smiles right back at her. “Sure we’re in love.”
I look up quickly. Only I wish I hadn’t, because at that second my dad is turning his hand over and clasping Ruby’s mom’s fingers.
“And we are.” Ruby’s mom beams at my dad. “Very much so.”
I grab my backpack off the floor and storm out onto the sidewalk.
I’m pacing in front of the polka-dot awning of I Scream when Dad and Ruby’s mom and Ruby come out. Ruby is my best friend but I wish she’d disappear right now. Then I would be able to cry and stomp my feet and ask my dad how on earth he could FALL IN LOVE WITH RUBY’S MOM.
For one, I didn’t even know he wanted a girlfriend. I thought he was fine with Benji and me and the people at his architecture firm and the dads from Benji’s parkour class. I’ve heard people mention setting my dad up on dates over the past few years, but he always said his hands were full with work and parenting. For two, my dad is a boyfriend? Boyfriends are in high school or college. They are not dads who tell Dad Jokes and clean crumbs out of lunch boxes and check hair for lice. And for three, his girlfriend is Ruby’s mom? Sandhya Kapoor seems perfectly fine. She’s a lawyer for an environmental agency. She’s always dressed sort of fancy. She knows I don’t eat meat, so once when I slept over she made us a big vegetarian meal with spinach and chickpeas, and she doesn’t cut off our screen time after thirty minutes the way my dad does. But that’s all I know about her.
“I know this comes as a surprise,” Dad says to me now. He’s turning his phone over and over in his hands, which is what he does when he’s nervous.
“Willa,” Ruby’s mom says, touching my arm. “I can tell you’re upset. Let’s go someplace quieter, like the diner across the street? We can get an order of fries and talk it all out.”
“That sounds nice!” Dad says, forcing a smile.
I shrink away from Ruby’s mom. That’s the last thing I want, to be trapped in a booth, talking it all out. There’s no all to talk out. I just want to be alone in my room, building my LEGO dog kingdom. Mom gave me a litter of LEGO dogs last weekend. I’ve connected three baseplates and now I’m constructing a kingdom for them with a castle and pens and feeding areas.
Ruby is standing next to her mom, peering curiously at me. She’s never seen me like this. She’s only seen me as happy Willa, silly Willa, always chattering and joking around. But that’s just one side of me, the side I show in school. There’s the other side, the weird side, the side I keep private.
“Can we also find a bathroom?” Ruby asks. “I have to pee again.”
“Of course,” her mom says. “There’ll be one at the diner.”
“We should actually head home,” Dad says to Ruby’s mom. He says it quietly, their faces way too close for my comfort. “Take some time to process this.”
If Dad were a LEGO minifigur
e, I would snap handcuffs on him so he could never grasp Ruby’s mom’s fingers again.
Ruby’s mom nods and then smiles sympathetically at me. “It’s going to be okay, Willa. Promise.”
I stare down at the blackened gum dots on the sidewalk. This is how much she doesn’t know me.
“See you soon, Ruby,” Dad says. “Maybe we can kick around a soccer ball this weekend?”
“Sure,” Ruby tells him. “Sounds fun.”
“But Benji and I are up at Mom’s this weekend, so—” I start to say, but then I pause because it dawns on me that even though my brother and I aren’t in the city on Saturdays and Sundays, Ruby and her mom are here. And now that my dad is in love with Ruby’s mom, he will be seeing them even if it doesn’t involve me.
No one says anything for an awkward second. I don’t even smile when a dalmatian passes us and waggles his spotted tail in my direction.
“I guess we’ll go to the subway,” Ruby’s mom finally says to my dad. “Let’s talk later?”
Dad nods. He attempts to put his arm around me but I wriggle it off. I seriously do not want to be touched right now.
“Bye, Willa,” Ruby says as they start walking away.
Dad nudges me. “Say good-bye to Ruby.”
“Bye …” I call softly after her. It’s not that I’m trying to be rude. I just have no idea what to say.
Ruby leans over to me and whispers in my ear, “Now you definitely have your worst part.”
I smile weakly. Because even though this is awful, Ruby is a great best friend. I just don’t want that, or anything else, to change.
“The thing is,” Ruby adds, “this is going to be really fun. Think about how much time we’ll get to spend together. Maybe we’ll even become sisters!”
My face falls. I seriously might freak out right here on the sidewalk, like a full-on squeal and a wild, arm-flapping dance. My occupational therapist, Maureen, says I do this when I don’t feel at home in my body and I need to scream and shake until the feeling goes away.
Ruby looks expectantly at me, waiting for me to agree with her.
Wrong! I want to say. We have to let them know that falling in love is a terrible idea and they need to stop it immediately. But by the time I regain the ability to talk, she’s already returned to her mom, and she’s clutching her hand and tugging her toward a bathroom.
On the walk home, Dad asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” I say flatly.
“Willa, you know it’s going to be okay, right? Like remember when Mom met Bill and it was hard at first but then it all worked out?”
“Mom and Bill is totally different than you and Ruby’s mom,” I snap. “Also I said I don’t want to talk about it.” I twist my ankles inward and walk a few steps like that. Maybe on some people this would hurt but I’m double-jointed that way.
After a few minutes, my dad starts chattering about anything and everything else. He tells me about a woman on the subway with an adorable service dog. He tells me about a guy in his architecture firm who bought himself a seven-hundred-piece LEGO set. He suggests we order veggie nachos tonight, which he knows I love more than any other food group. Usually to get him to order veggie nachos I have to complete five days of a working-hard-to-control-my-body behavior chart.
Throughout all my dad’s attempts at conversation, I frown and shrug and don’t say anything back.
Finally he says, “Want to do dog names? I’ve thought of some brand-new ones that I think you’re going to love.”
He knows he has me. I never say no to doing dog names. For my entire life, in addition to having W.A.G. as my initials, I’ve wanted a dog so much that my dad finally declared I have a dog-shaped hole in my heart. That—and a convincing phone call from Maureen, who said that a dog would help me settle my body—is what made him agree to get me a dog this summer even though he’s a single parent and we live in an apartment without a yard.
“What new dog names do you have?” I ask cautiously.
Dad grins at me. “I’ve been thinking about breakfast foods. Sweet and yummy. Like Waffle? Or Maple? Or Biscuit?”
“Biscuit is that dog from the picture books,” I say grouchily. “That would be copying. Ms. Lacey says that plagiarism could get us kicked out of middle school next year.”
“Bacon?”
I groan. “I’m a vegetarian.”
“Cinnamon?”
“Okay, that’s cute,” I have to admit.
“Cinnnn-a-mon,” he calls, trying it on for size.
“It works across a park,” I say, imagining a puppy barreling toward me, its pink tongue flapping. “No, it’s too long. They say two syllables are better.”
We stop at the corner and let an ambulance scream past, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Dad cups his hands over his ears. Sometimes I do that but other times—like now—I love the noise. Loud noises quiet my brain, which then makes my body feel calm. No one gets it when I try to explain it, but that’s how it is for me. Same with hand dryers and subways pulling into the station. Mostly I love them. But other times they make me feel itchy and uncomfortable, like I need to wriggle straight out of my skin.
“How about Oatmeal?” Dad says, a teasing grin on his face. “Or Cream of Wheat?”
“Ewww!” I shriek. “You’re grossing me out!”
Dad knows that foods with slimy textures make me want to barf. Seriously, if a soft brownish banana comes near me, I will heave all over the place.
“Gruel?” Dad asks, laughing. “Grits?”
The problem is, once I’m laughing along with him, things start feeling normal. But then I remember that things are definitely not normal because my dad has a girlfriend and it’s Ruby’s mom. Dad must notice the change because he slides his arm around my shoulder. This time, I let him.
“Willa,” he says, giving me a tight squeeze, “I’m sorry Sandhya and I told you that way. We were excited and we thought it would be fun because we all met at I Scream and you girls love their gummy-bear toppings so much. But I know change is hard for you, and I should have told you alone, not with Ruby, so you’d have time to process it your own way.”
“Have you told Benji yet?” I ask.
My dad shakes his head. “I’m going to talk to him when we get home. I’m hoping you can give us a few minutes alone. Or actually, you can be there too. That might be nice for both of you.”
I quickly shake my head. No way do I want to hear the news announced again!
“If you want a girlfriend so badly,” I say, “can’t you pick someone who’s not Ruby’s mom? That’s just weird. I don’t even know what I’m going to say to her tomorrow at school.”
“I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. After your mom and I … after the divorce, my primary focus has been you and Benji. It was only once I met Sandhya that everything changed.” Dad clears his throat. “I’m not saying you and Benji aren’t my primary focus now, because you still are. I’m just saying I realized I had room in my life for more. For love.”
“But Ruby is my best friend. Didn’t you think of that?”
My dad shakes his head. “Sandhya and I started dating before you became best friends. Or I suppose it all happened at the same time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I pull away from my dad. “Ruby and I met last fall. Before school started.”
“And Sandhya and I have been dating since last fall. Since we all first met.”
“Hang on,” I say, my voice rising. “You’ve been together all this time and lying to us about it?”
Dad’s phone goes off. He stands there like he’s not sure what to do. He never ignores his phone, but then again I’ve never accused him of lying. He pulls it out, glances at the screen, and then puts it back in his pocket.
“I wasn’t lying, Willa. Lying is a strong word.”
Grown-ups always say that lying is a strong word. As if we don’t know that. As if because it’s a strong word it means they’d never do it.
�
�So what would you call being in love with my best friend’s mom for this entire year and not telling me?”
“What I’m trying to explain …” Dad starts, but then his phone goes off again and he ignores it again. “What I’m trying to explain is that when you and Ruby met at I Scream last August and hit it off, so did Sandhya and I. We got coffee soon after and, well … neither of us was looking for love, but that’s what it became. We didn’t want to tell you and Ruby and Benji until we knew it was serious. We knew it would be big news for all three of you, and a real adjustment. Also we were always aware of how it could affect your friendship, you and Ruby. We were actually going to wait until the end of the school year so you could have the summer to adjust to us being together.”
“This isn’t changing the fact that we’re getting a dog this summer, is it?” I ask quickly.
Dad shakes his head. “Of course not. A promise is a promise. There’s a little Cinnamon or Waffle or Gruel just waiting for you to adopt her.”
Definitely her. Definitely a girl dog. That’s my requirement. It’s time to balance out the girl-boy ratio in our house.
“Not Gruel,” I say.
Dad laughs, but I’m serious. I’m not in a laughing mood right now.
We’re almost at our building when I turn to Dad.
“So why did you tell us now? You said you were going to wait until the end of the school year.”
“That’s the thing,” Dad says. He’s frowning and his blondish eyebrows are thatched tight.
“What thing?”
“Some people from your school found out.”
My arms prickle with goose bumps. “What people? Who? Ms. Lacey?”
Dad clears his throat. “You know that girl, the one who’s always driving you crazy?”
“Please don’t tell me that Avery Tanaka knows about you and Ruby’s mom!” I say, my voice rising in horror. If Avery knows, my life is officially over.
“Sandhya and I went out to dinner last night,” Dad says. “We were at an Italian restaurant near Columbus Circle.”
“I thought you had dinner with work people,” I say. Our sitter, Joshua, stayed late yesterday, and we had penne pasta with butter and celery sticks and played thirty minutes of Minecraft. But that’s not unusual. Joshua usually stays late once or twice a week.
Not If I Can Help It Page 2
