Stacey's Ex-Best Friend

by Ann M. Martin

  Not much later, Mom was parking the car in the lot at the train station. She and Laine got out of the car. I didn’t. (I’m not sure why I had even come along for the ride. Maybe to keep Mom company.)

  From the front seat of the car I watched the ten-forty train squeal to a stop, and Laine step through an automatic door. Mom handed her duffel bag to her. I couldn’t tell whether they said anything to each other. Then the doors closed and Laine disappeared from view.

  Mom walked back to the car.

  While I waited for her, I thought about Laine. Our friendship wasn’t just changing, I told myself. It was over.

  I was fairly certain I wouldn’t see Laine again.

  Saturday began with phone calls and apologies. Austin was first.

  “How’s Pete?” I asked, after I had said “I’m sorry” about sixty times.

  “All right,” Austin replied. “Hurt. Angry. Embarrassed. You know.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But he’ll live.”

  “Should I call him?”

  “If you want to. Don’t worry. He’s not mad at you, though,” said Austin. “He knows what was going on.”

  “Okay. Maybe I’ll let him chill out until Monday.”

  Next I phoned Claud. “Laine’s gone,” I said. “She went home last night. I’m sorry about the dance. I’m sorry about —”

  “She went home last night?” repeated Claud.

  “Yup. She took a late train.”

  “I guess you had a major fight.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Stace? I didn’t want to say anything — I mean, I wasn’t going to, but now that you’ve had this fight … Well, the thing is, I think Laine has changed. I used to like her. Not anymore, though. She’s just not nice. She’s not funny or friendly.”

  “I know,” I said. “She’s a completely different person. I wonder if she seems changed because she and I don’t spend much time together anymore, or if she would have changed even if I’d stayed in New York.”

  “I don’t know,” said Claud.

  I didn’t know, either. But I was still sure I would never see Laine again, at least not under friendly circumstances. We might have to see each other at some point in the future, if our families got together…. My thoughts trailed off. Uh-oh.

  I ran downstairs to make another apology.

  “Mom!” I cried. “I just remembered the talk you had with Mrs. Cummings last night. I guess you and Laine’s mother are mad now, too, aren’t you? You sounded mad.”

  “Mrs. Cummings wasn’t thrilled to get that call,” Mom admitted, “and then she was awfully quick to take Laine’s side.”

  “Are you speaking to each other?” I wanted to know.

  “Oh, we didn’t discuss that. I expect we’ll patch things up.”

  “Good,” I said.

  I trudged upstairs to my room, where I closed the door and lay down on my bed. I felt heavy and like I wanted to cry, but no tears came.

  You better cheer up, I said to myself. The Valentine Masquerade is this afternoon, and you are going. No matter how you feel. You will help the kids have a good time.

  With that in mind, I got up, finished making my apology calls, and then dressed for the party.

  I dressed in red, defying Laine.

  What did she know?

  * * *

  My friends and I met at the barn an hour before the party guests were to arrive. “You guys, the place looks distant!” I exclaimed.

  “Thanks,” said Kristy, Mary Anne, and Dawn.

  “You look pretty distant yourself,” added Claud.

  “Not too much like a red elf?” I asked. (I was wearing red leggings, red ankle boots, a bulky red sweater, and red barrettes.)

  “Not at all like a red elf,” said Claud. “I wouldn’t tell you something like that. Who do you think I am — Laine?”

  My friends laughed, and I joined them, but I could feel a heaviness settle in again. After all, Laine and I had been friends for a long time. We’d shared the good stuff and the bad stuff. We’d shared vacations and birthdays, my trips to the hospital and my parents’ divorce. We’d shared eight years. I was having trouble letting go of that, even if Laine had become a person I no longer wanted to be friends with.

  I shook myself out of the fog, though, and pitched in with party preparations. We arranged cookies on plates, poured cups of punch, and filled candy dishes. Claud set up a mailbox she had made. The kids were going to drop their valentines into it. Later, Kristy would “deliver” them to the guests.

  “Well,” said Jessi, as she finished tacking a pink heart back in place and checked her watch, “the party officially starts right now.”

  With that, someone called, “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

  Standing in the doorway were Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold, looking nothing alike, but both ready for a Valentine’s Day party. Marilyn was wearing a casual red outfit and Carolyn was wearing a trendy red outfit. They were carrying their batches of homemade cards.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day!” I replied.

  “Where do we put these?” asked Carolyn, waving her envelopes.

  I pointed to the mailbox. “Right there,” I said. Then I grinned at Claud, knowing why Carolyn was so excited. I grinned even more broadly when Nicky appeared, our third party guest. But I wasn’t too surprised when he steered clear of the twins. I think he wanted to see what effect his card would have on Carolyn before he went out on a limb and spoke to her. Feelings can be hurt so easily.

  The barn door opened again, and kept opening and closing until every guest had arrived. No one was missing.

  Kristy took charge of things. “Have all of you mailed your cards?” she asked. (She was standing in front of the kids like a drill sergeant.)

  “Yes!” they answered.

  “Great. Then the party can start. I hope your legs are in shape, because you’re going to need muscles to be in the Valentine relay race.”

  The members of the Baby-sitters Club organized the kids into teams for the race. Following Kristy’s instructions, the kids ran around the barn and in and out of horse stalls. They yelled and cheered and squealed. When the race was over, we gave each of the members of the winning team a pen with a heart on the end. The other kids received heart stickers.

  “Anybody hungry?” yelled Kristy.

  What a question to ask a bunch of kids who had just run a relay race. Of course they were hungry. They stampeded for the food.

  Karen Brewer and Claire Pike pretended they were at a tea party.

  “Yummy cupcakes,” said Claire.

  “Simply divine,” agreed Karen.

  The other kids ate and talked and fooled around, boys in one bunch, girls in another. Nobody was nearly finished, though, when Nicky said, “What’s next, Kristy? What do we do next?”

  “Hmm, let me see,” she answered. “You could clean the barn.”

  “No!” cried the guests.

  “You could do your homework.”

  “No!!!”

  “There is one other thing, but I don’t think you’ll be interested.”

  “What is it?” called Vanessa Pike.

  “You could open your valentines. But if that seems like too much work, you could help my friends —”

  “Valentines!” shrieked Nicky.

  “Okay, okay!” Kristy made her way to the mailbox, emptied it, and handed out the cards to the kids, who quickly finished eating.

  I might add that when they did finish, both they and the barn were a sea of frosting, candy bits, and spilled punch. I saw Mathew Hobart take note of this, then turn to James and whisper, “Now I understand why we weren’t supposed to get dressed up for this Valentine Masquerade.”

  As soon as Kristy had passed out the envelopes, the kids tore into them. Some went off by themselves, others stood with small groups of friends.

  I watched their faces as they opened their cards. Most kids frowned at first. They had to crack those name codes. Soon I heard shouts of, “This o
ne’s from Haley!” or, “I get it. This picture plus an E makes Buddy!”

  After awhile, I concentrated on watching Nicky and Carolyn, waiting for their faces to break into smiles. But each opened card after card quite solemnly. Occasionally they would move their lips as they puzzled over a code, but I didn’t see any grins.

  When Nicky had opened his stack of cards, I wandered over to him. “Any good valentines?” I asked him.

  “I guess.”

  He held them out to me and I shuffled through the stack. Carolyn’s was just a regular card, not the gigantic one she had labored over. A riddle was on one side, and the back was signed, “From ARNCAROLOLD.”

  “Neat code,” I said. “Carol in Arnold … Carolyn Arnold. What did Marilyn do for her code?” Nicky shrugged, so I searched the cards again and found a flowery, gushy 3-D card to Nicky from Marilyn. It was signed “Lots and lots and lots of LOVE, ARNMARILOLD.”

  “Yikes. That’s some valentine,” I said.

  “Hey!” Nicky exclaimed suddenly. He sprang to his feet, raced to Carolyn, and snatched something out of her hand. “That’s Carolyn’s card!” he cried. “I made it! Why are you carrying it around?”

  Carolyn snatched the card back. “Because it’s mine. You put my name on it. See?”

  Nicky looked panic-stricken. He turned to Marilyn. “Aren’t you Carolyn?” he asked.

  “No,” replied Marilyn. “I’m Marilyn.”

  Uh-oh, I thought. Right twin, wrong name! Nicky had liked Marilyn all this time. He’d mixed up the girls’ names.

  “Nicky!” I whispered loudly. I pulled him toward me and spoke into his ear. “Look at the card you got from Marilyn. She likes you, too!”

  Nicky beamed.

  Next to me, Mary Anne, who’d been watching everything, leaned over and whispered into my ear, “Hey, if Nicky and Marilyn like each other, then who’s the older guy Carolyn has a crush on?”

  We turned to look for Carolyn.

  “There she is!” I said. Carolyn was engrossed in a conversation with James Hobart. She was smiling dreamily at him.

  “Maybe James was thinking of Carolyn when he said he was going to invite a date to the party,” said Mary Anne, remembering Jessi’s entry in the BSC notebook. “He and Carolyn certainly seem happy together.”

  “All’s well that ends well,” I replied, looking at the contented faces surrounding us.

  Our Valentine Masquerade had been a success!

  Late in the afternoon on Valentine’s Day, I returned home and wearily climbed the stairs to my room. The party was over, the dance was over, Laine’s visit was over, and Valentine’s Day was nearly over. Not one thing had gone the way I’d expected.

  The party had turned into a pleasant surprise. All of the guests had gone home happy, but none happier than James and Carolyn, or Nicky and Marilyn — who had dared to hold hands briefly.

  The dance had been a disaster, but I felt I had straightened things out with the members of the BSC, with Austin, and even with Pete, although I had decided not to speak to Pete until Monday, when we could talk in person. He would be understanding.

  I’m not sure what I’d been expecting from Valentine’s Day, but certainly not the red roses that arrived from Dad or the dangly silver heart earrings from Mom.

  Then there was Laine’s visit. What a disaster — and I definitely had not been expecting a disaster. The visit was the only event that seemed over, but not finished. Do you know what I mean? Laine had gone home, so the visit had come to an end, but what about our friendship? That was over, too, but it was unresolved. What had happened? Why had Laine done the things she had done? Was she mad at me? Had I hurt her in some way I was unaware of? What did she think about our relationship? That we’d had a big fight but we’d be friends again?

  I needed to talk to Laine, but I did not want to pick up the phone and call her. I just couldn’t do that.

  I stood at my window and gazed outside, looking somewhere beyond the rooftop and the bare branches of the sycamore tree. I remembered when my parents used to fight. Before the divorce. I remembered that when they first began fighting, they made up after each fight. Later, they made up after only some of their fights. Much later, they divorced.

  People don’t always make up when they fight, I told myself. Sometimes they really cannot move beyond their differences. Sometimes — not often, but sometimes — a fight means The End.

  I tried to say good-bye to eight years of friendship with Laine Cummings without actually talking to her.

  * * *

  I was glad I had another best friend and lots of other friend-friends. Since Claud was around, I didn’t feel quite as awful as I might have if I’d lost my only best friend.

  “Can you come over?” I asked her one afternoon, as we walked home from school.

  “Sure,” she replied.

  Claud and I walked to my house. In the kitchen we ate some fruit. Well, I ate fruit and Claudia ate a fruit pie that she pulled from the depths of her book bag. We sat across from each other at the table. “Thinking about Laine?” Claud asked me.

  “Yeah. How did you know?”

  “I guessed. It was easy. Your face gives away everything.”

  “Oh.”

  “Have you talked to Laine, Stacey?”

  I shook my head. “Nah.”

  “Not since Friday?” Claud exclaimed.

  “Nope.”

  “Well, I think you should.”

  “Because if I don’t, our relationship will be up in the air?” I asked.

  “Yes. Remember when Mimi died?”

  “Of course.” Mimi was Claud’s grandmother. She had lived with the Kishis for years. She seemed like everyone’s grandmother.

  “Well, I couldn’t really let her go until I had said good-bye to her,” said Claud. “I needed to do that. To talk things out, even if I was just talking to her portrait. It was helpful. I think you should let Laine know how you feel about her and about the fight. She probably needs to know. And you’ll feel better if you tell her.”

  Two days later I took Claud’s suggestion. I still couldn’t bring myself to phone Laine, though. Maybe I was chicken, but I was nervous about speaking with her. I was afraid she would yell at me … and that then I would yell back at her and we would both say things we’d regret.

  So I wrote her this letter:

  The letter went on for awhile. I mentioned some of the times when Laine had said things I thought were snotty. (Sorry.) Then I wrote:

  I reread the letter. Then I folded it in half and slipped it into an envelope. I was already licking the flap when I thought of something. I put the envelope down and began looking through my jewelry box. Hidden under a pin made by Claudia was my half of a Best Friends necklace. Laine had given it to me when I moved back to Stoneybrook after Mom and Dad got divorced.

  I lifted it out of the box. Then I slipped it into the envelope and sealed the flap. I addressed my letter, stamped it, and even dropped it into the mailbox on the corner. If I hadn’t done that, I might have lost my nerve and not mailed it at all.

  I walked home slowly. I had thought I would cry, but I found I didn’t need to. I didn’t feel wonderful, but I didn’t feel bad, either. I had done the right thing.

  I phoned Claud.

  “Hi! What’s going on?” she said.

  “I just wrote to Laine.”

  “Ooh. How do you feel?”

  “Okay. Like I need some company from my best friend, though. Want to come over?”

  “Of course. Can we watch It’s All Yours? I decided I want a clown like the one you bought.”

  “We can definitely watch it.”

  “And can we paint our nails and make popcorn or something?”

  “Yup.”

  “Great! I’ll be there.”

  “Thanks. ’Bye.”

  “ ’Bye, Stace.”

  I hung up the phone and waited for my best friend to come over.

  * * *

  Dear Reader,

 
; In Stacey’s Ex-Best Friend, Stacey and the members of the Baby-sitters Club plan a Valentine’s Day party for their sitting charges. I love writing about Valentine’s Day. In fact, every time I’m plotting a BSC or a Baby-sitters Little Sister book that will be published in February, I ask my editor if Valentine’s Day can be one of the themes.

  When I was young, I always looked forward to Valentine’s Day. In elementary school, a week or so before Valentine’s Day, we would make folders out of red construction paper and tape them to the fronts of our desks. During the next few days whenever kids brought their valentines into class they would walk around the room and distribute them in the folders. We were not supposed to open them until our class party on Valentine’s Day. The year I was in fifth grade, I decided to make all of my valentines instead of buying them in the store. I had a lot of fun, but I was a little embarrassed by them and wondered if they were as good as store-bought ones. So I decided not to sign them. I thought I could give them to my classmates anonymously. What I hadn’t counted on was that I would be the only student not to sign her cards. So by process of elimination, everyone had figured out exactly who made the cards. But I still love sending Valentine’s Day cards. In fact, I send cards for every possible occasion. But now I’ve learned to sign them.

  Happy reading,

  * * *

  About the Author

  ANN MATTHEWS MARTIN was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane.

  There are currently over 176 million copies of The Baby-sitters Club in print. (If you stacked all of these books up, the pile would be 21,245 miles high.) In addition to The Baby-sitters Club, Ann is the author of two other series, Main Street and Family Tree. Her novels include Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), Here Today, A Dog’s Life, On Christmas Eve, Everything for a Dog, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister, and Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far). She is also the coauthor, with Laura Godwin, of the Doll People series.

  Ann lives in upstate New York with her dog and her cats.