Not If I Can Help It

by Carolyn Mackler

  “I don’t always have dinner with work people,” Dad says. “Sometimes I meet up with friends.”

  Or girlfriends, I think in my head. Ugh. Barf.

  “We were walking out of the restaurant when we ran into the Tanaka family. Avery and her sister and her parents. Her parents are actually very nice.”

  Of course the Tanakas were all together. Avery has a perfect family with her perfect sister and her perfect dog and her still-married parents.

  “But how did they know?” I ask. “You and Ruby’s mom could have been having dinner to talk about parent stuff. Or middle schools. Or … whatever!”

  Dad clears his throat. “We were holding hands.”

  “Did you say anything to them?”

  “We didn’t have to. They said congratulations and asked how long we’ve been together. We asked them to keep it private. We said that none of our kids knew yet.”

  I remember that smirk Avery gave us after school. I remember how her mom grimaced at us from across the street. This is suddenly much worse than I ever could have imagined possible.

  “Avery didn’t say anything to you today, did she?” Dad asks. “Sandhya and I were very clear that—”

  I break ahead and run up the sidewalk and into our building. Instead of taking the elevator to the sixth floor, where we live, I run up the stairs. It feels good to pound the steps, to get some anger out of my legs. I want to make it to the apartment before my dad, let myself in, and hide away in my room. But when I get to the front door, I dig around in my backpack for my keys and all I feel are gum wrappers and a half-eaten granola bar. I must have forgotten my keys this morning because I was so busy listening to Dad tell me about the I Scream plan. If only I’d said, Sorry … no thanks on meeting up today … gummy bears on ice cream aren’t so great after all.

  I press my back against the wall in our hallway and slide down until I’m slumped on the floor, my head between my knees, waiting for my dad to get off the elevator and let me into the apartment.

  This is why I don’t like surprises. There’s no place to put them, no way for them to feel normal in my body. But everybody expects you to deal with surprises. No, everyone expects you to be excited about them, like how Ruby squealed and smiled when they dumped the news on us.

  Well, I’m not excited. Sorry.

  My occupational therapist has a shirt that says, SORRY I’M DIFFERENT. SORRY NOT SORRY. That’s how I feel right now. Sorry not sorry.

  “Willa?” my mom says when I answer her call. She and I always talk on the iPad but we only do audio because Mom says I can’t focus on a call when I stare at my face in the corner of the screen. I keep the iPad in my room so I can call her whenever I want or she can call me without going through my dad’s cell. If she’s not teaching a class, we often call for a check-in when I get home from school.

  “Daddy texted me that you’re upset,” Mom says. “He said you might want to talk.”

  I snap a red LEGO brick onto a baseplate to start building a flower box on one side of the dog run, and then I dig through my bin for stray flower pieces.

  “I hear LEGOs,” Mom says. “Are you in your room?”

  “Yeah. I’m working on my dog kingdom.”

  To call it a room is a stretch. It’s more like a Girl Cave. Officially, our apartment is a three-bedroom, but two of the bedrooms are huge, and then we have a small side room where we used to dump winter clothes and old toys. Until last year, Benji and I shared one of the big rooms with twin beds and dressers and shelves with books and LEGOs and binders of Pokémon cards. But then we started bickering because Benji said I’m messy and I said he talks too much about history and geography. I swear, living with Benji is like living with Google. My dad proposed the idea of one of us taking over the little room and I was like, me, me, me! I love being in tight spaces, like back seats of cars and refrigerator boxes. My Girl Cave can only fit a bed, a small dresser, and a mat for LEGO building, but it’s snug and cozy and perfect for me. One of my favorite parts is my big poster of a golden retriever by the door.

  “Honey,” Mom says as I click the flower pieces onto the stems, “we were concerned you’d be upset about this news, but I think it could be exciting for you and Benji. Think about how it was an adjustment when I married Bill—but then it’s all gone so well.”

  “Bill is not Ruby’s mom!” I shout. Why is everyone assuming these are similar situations? Because they’re not. Not even a little bit.

  “That’s true,” Mom says, “but—”

  “Hang on,” I say, cutting her off. I tug at the sock on my left foot, the same one that was driving me crazy as Ruby and I were walking to I Scream. Now there’s a crinkle poking into my toes. My dad pre-wore my socks for me this morning, getting them good and stretched out, so I don’t know why this one is bothering me now. “How long have you known about this and not told me?”

  My mom sighs. “Daddy and I talk, Willa.”

  “You didn’t answer me,” I say. This sock is driving me crazy! My mom buys my socks from a special website for kids with sensory issues. None of their clothes are supposed to have seams or tags or crinkles. I pull off the sock and throw it under my bed. Hopefully I won’t see it again until next year or maybe never.

  “Honey,” Mom says, “I’ve known for a while but I respected their desire to keep it private. Daddy and I talk about all the things in our lives that are relevant to you and Benji. That’s what it means to co-parent, honey. We always want to make sure—”

  “Why are you saying honey so much?” I snap, cutting her off. “Are you trying to make it better? Because Dad and Ruby’s mom together is awful and weird and gross. I thought at least you’d take my side on this. Did you know that Avery Tanaka already found out?”

  “I’m not taking sides,” Mom says, “because there aren’t sides to take. Bill and I are happy together. Daddy deserves a good relationship too.”

  Now my other sock is poking into my toes. I peel it off and chuck it under the bed.

  “Where did you get these socks?” I say. “I thought they didn’t have seams! And did you hear what I said about Avery?”

  “What socks?” Mom asks.

  “The green ones with the white stripes. I thought they were from that special website. I can’t believe Avery knows about Dad and Ruby’s mom. She’s going to torture me.”

  Mom sighs again. I’m making everyone sigh today. Whatever. Let them sigh.

  “Bring up the socks this weekend and I’ll mail them back,” she says. “And Avery isn’t going to torture you. She’s a person too. She probably just wants to be friends with you and doesn’t know how. I’ve always thought that about Avery, like how you both love dogs. She’s probably jealous of how easily you make friends. And if she gives you a hard time, talk to Ms. Lacey.”

  For a college professor, Mom isn’t acting very smart. Seriously. Avery wants to be friends with me? More like she wants to make sure I’m miserable on a daily basis. Also, Avery is mean in a sneaky way that teachers never see. Whenever an adult is around, she smiles and they think she’s as sweet as cotton candy. Which I happen to hate. Too sticky on my fingers.

  “Is Daddy nearby?” Mom says. “Can you put him on?”

  “I think he’s in the middle of telling Benji the bad news,” I say.

  Mom pauses. I can tell she’s annoyed, but she’s hardly in a position to chew me out. She says she loves me and that she’ll call me again tonight. I mumble good-bye and shove my iPad under a heap of clothes.

  After a few minutes, I push my LEGOs aside and wriggle into my body sock, which Mom ordered for me from another sensory website. It’s like a sleeping bag except it’s made from a thin, stretchy material. When I’m in it, it squeezes my body and I feel snug and safe. Unlike most of the time when I feel like a kite being jerked around by gusts and occasional hurricane-speed winds.

  Maureen, my occupational therapist, says that’s part of having Sensory Processing Disorder. It’s hard to explain Sensory Processing Disorder�
��I guess it means that it’s harder for me to be a person in the world than it is for most people. Like how I hate slimy textures and the taste of eggs makes me gag and I can never wear shirts with tight collars or jeans that squeeze my knees. I hate bright overhead lights, and having my toenails trimmed makes me howl in pain. And don’t even talk to me about perfume. Total chemical overload. But, at the same time, I love being squeezed by a body sock and I can’t get enough of certain tastes, like passion fruit. I could taste passion fruit forever. Beyond touch and taste and smell issues, it’s also hard for me to control my energy level, and I’m kind of clumsy and I’m always losing things. Water bottles are the worst. I lose my water bottle every few weeks.

  My mom says she first noticed something was different about me when I was a toddler and she took me to a Music Together class. While the other kids danced in a circle and shook their plastic gourds, I hid in a corner of the gym and beat a drum until long after the song was over. And then there were other things. I kept falling onto the sidewalk and chipping my baby teeth. And I couldn’t climb out of the sandbox like all the other kids. And even though I hated my music class, I loved pounding pots and pans and making my own noise.

  That’s why Sensory Processing Disorder is hard to explain. It’s different in every person. For me, I hate some textures and love others. Like I love nachos and popcorn because they’re awesome to crunch. But I can’t stand the crunch of a baby carrot. I can chew a baby carrot for ten minutes and still have a mouthful of orange gunk. Sometimes I hate crowds and other times I love being surrounded by people. And my shins? Covered in bruises. I’m not chipping teeth anymore but I’m still clumsy.

  When I was four, I started going to occupational therapy. For a few years, I also saw a physical therapist who taught me how to jump and climb, and I had appointments with a speech therapist who gave me bumpy plastic toys to chew. I even had a special teacher following me around in preschool, telling me not to hug other children so hard they’d topple over. I doubt I ever hugged Avery Tanaka back in preschool, but my mom told me that once at pickup I tried to bite her sweatshirt.

  Yeah, I was a weird kid.

  I’m still weird now, but it’s more Invisible Weird. I no longer knock over my classmates or bite their sweatshirts, and I’ve gotten strong enough to climb ladders like anyone else. No one at school even knows I have Sensory Processing Disorder. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there. I still have my tagless clothes and my leggings that aren’t too tight and aren’t too loose, and my dad is always making me charts and giving me rewards for filling up the charts. I get stickers for controlling my body or keeping my thoughts in my thought bubble. For my current chart, I have to fill forty squares and then my dad is going to buy me a mini-trampoline just like the one Maureen has in her sensory gym. I already have twenty-seven stickers, which means he could be ordering it in the next few weeks!

  I still see Maureen every Monday and Wednesday afternoon. I never tell anyone at school because seeing an occupational therapist sounds weird. Whenever someone asks where I’m going, I just say I have a math tutor. I’d rather have people think I struggle with math than know I struggle with being Willa.

  Forty minutes later, the buzzer rings and my little brother, Benji, shouts, “Noche Mexicana is here!”

  Even though I said I’m never coming out of my room, I’m also really hungry. The last thing I ate was a few bites of my bagel sandwich at lunch because my friend Zoe was slurping a yogurt squeeze across from me when a creamy pink dribble slid down her chin and that was the end of my appetite.

  “Noche Mexicana!” Benji shouts again. I can hear him jumping from the side of the couch, kicking off a wall, and then lunging onto a chair. Benji says that if he wants to get on the show American Ninja Warrior someday then he needs to practice his parkour nonstop for the next decade.

  I curl up tighter in my body sock and consider how mad I am at my dad versus how much I love veggie nachos. Also I thought he was going to tell Benji the bad news as soon as we got home, but judging by my brother’s jumping and lunging he seems like his regular happy self. Which means—oh no—maybe Dad is waiting to tell Benji about him and Ruby’s mom during dinner tonight. Which means I’m never coming out of my room for sure. Then again, when I get the image of nachos in my brain I really can’t think about anything else until I’ve eaten a big platter of them.

  Dad must be reading my mind because he says, “I’m currently unpacking two burritos and one order of veggie nachos hold the sour cream, hold the mushrooms, extra cheese, extra guacamole on the side.”

  He knows that’s how I like my nachos. Sour cream is too yogurty and mushrooms are fungi that grow on tree stumps. I love that Noche Mexicana is good about holding those ingredients, and also they blend their guacamole so there aren’t any slimy avocado chunks that make me want to barf.

  “Noche Mexicana, Willa!” Benji shouts for a third time. “Come eat your nachos before I do!”

  My brother is three years and a month younger than me. Other than the fact that he thinks I’m messy and I think he talks too much, we generally get along. That said, I don’t trust him to leave my nachos alone. I wiggle out of my body sock, kick it to the floor, and make my way to the table. Dad and Benji are already sitting down, tinfoil mounds of steak burritos on their plates and napkins in their laps. I slide into my seat, eying Benji carefully to try to figure out what he knows. He’s busy unwrapping his burrito, though, and doesn’t look up at me.

  “Napkin in your lap,” Dad says to me out of habit. Every meal I forget and every meal he has to remind me. I don’t get the whole napkin-in-your-lap thing, because mainly you need your napkin for wiping your face and hands. Just like why do you have to make your bed in the morning if you’re going to crawl back in at night? Pointless.

  “I told Benji about Sandhya and me a few minutes ago,” Dad says, “and he knows that I told you after school today.”

  My hand freezes midway into my mouth. I was warming up with a simple bite, one chip with a smudge of beans. After that I go for the grandmama bites, which are multiple chips heaped with beans, melted cheese, guacamole, salsa, and caramelized onions.

  I stare hard at Benji and mouth No! across the table. My brother has roundish brown eyes and soft brown hair, and he’s really smart. Like he knows more about history and geography than most high school students. I’m hoping that if Benji says that our dad and Ruby’s mom together is a terrible idea, it will make Dad reconsider. At least Benji could have a decent meltdown and cry and make Dad see that both his kids are miserable with this new girlfriend business.

  But instead of backing me up in any way, Benji shrugs and says, “Whatever. It’s a free country.”

  “How can you say that?” I ask, shoving a grandmama bite into my mouth but not even tasting it.

  “It’s no big deal, Willa,” Benji says. “Dad has a girlfriend and it’s Ruby’s mom. As long as they don’t start kissing all the time, it’s fine with me.”

  “Did you hear about Avery?” I ask. “She knows. She saw them together.”

  Benji shrugs and leans into his burrito. Just then, Dad’s phone rings. He touches the screen and quickly says, “I’ll call you back.” I wonder if it’s Ruby’s mom. Dad and Ruby’s mom are probably going to whisper into their phones later about how badly I’m handling the news and how wonderfully Benji and Ruby are doing with it.

  “Sandhya is Indian, right?” Benji asks.

  “She was born in Mumbai,” Dad says. “Her family moved to Michigan when she was five. But her parents have retired and moved back.”

  Ruby has mentioned her grandparents in India. She told me that every other summer she and her mom visit them. It’s a sixteen-hour flight with stopovers in places like Amsterdam and Dubai.

  “Mumbai used to be Bombay,” Benji says. “They changed the name in 1995.”

  Benji has always been this way. Last year he memorized everything about all the US presidents. The year before that it was capital cities. This sprin
g he’s been reading the world atlas and cross-referencing it with the encyclopedia and books about foreign currencies. The thing about Benji is that even though he’s brainy, he’s also athletic and has lots of friends. He’s the perfect combination of my mom, who is a history professor, and my dad, who is outgoing and into sports and doesn’t sweat the small stuff. I prefer fiction to history and anything to sports. I have some friends but not a ton. And I totally sweat the small stuff.

  Dad’s phone rings again.

  As Dad glances at the screen, Benji says to me, “Do you think it’s Sandhya calling to blow kisses into the phone?” Then my brother cracks up so hard at his non-joke that he has to guzzle a bunch of water to stop coughing.

  I roll my eyes. First Ruby. Now Benji. Everyone is acting like Dad’s news is no big deal, like it’s exciting, like it’s even funny.

  But I can’t do that. No way.

  It takes me forever to get dressed for school the next morning. Not because I care about fashion like some fifth graders I know. Mostly I dress to be comfortable, and today nothing feels good. I yank off all my leggings and my loose cotton pants, and I beg my dad to let me wear shorts even though the high today is only fifty-four degrees. Finally he comes into my room and digs through my drawers looking for leggings that will work. I’m crying hard by the time he agrees to let me wear my longest shorts. I have to promise to keep on my sweatshirt all day so at least my top half is warm.

  As we’re walking out of our building, Dad says he’s ready to take a nap. Benji tells him that Winston Churchill spent a good portion of every workday in his bed. I point out a Cavalier King Charles spaniel on the sidewalk and then try not to think about Cavalier King Charles spaniels, because that’s the kind of dog that Avery owns, and I don’t want to think about how Avery is going to rub in my terrible news at school today.