Bounce

by Natasha Friend

  First on their list: the insult-disguised-as-extended-cough.

  “Achchchbulldogchch.”

  Then, the slow-motion passing of a notebook across the aisle, with the billboard-sized message written in pink gel pen.

  Who’s your barber? Boys-’R’-Us?

  You can tell they’ve put a lot of thought into this. They’ve planned it out to the tiniest detail, which is downright pathetic if you ask me. They had nothing better to do this weekend than to come up with ways to make fun of me?

  They think they’re being clever, when really their efforts are so feeble it’s sad. She has short hair and no boobs and a boy’s name, therefore she must be a guy.

  Yes, that makes total sense! That’s so logical!

  OhmyGod, these girls are clearly, like, total airheads with, like, ten brain cells between them.

  It’s not as if I expected to be best friends with them. It’s not as if I didn’t know all along they were just using me to get to Ajax.

  But that doesn’t stop it from hurting.

  When I get to the Latin closet there’s someone sitting at my desk: a boy. Thin face. Brownish-orange hair. Glasses with chunky black frames—the kind that are so dorky they’re almost cool.

  Mr. Murray isn’t here yet, so it’s just the two of us. Me and this Boy at the March School for Girls.

  “Ha-ha,” I say. “Very funny. You can go back to Thorne now.”

  He looks up at me. “Um. What?”

  “Let me guess. Andrea sent you. You’re supposed to say something brilliant, like, ‘Pardon me, is this the guys’ locker room? Do you have a jockstrap I could borrow?’ Well, you can save your breath. I get it.”

  “Um. I’m confused.”

  “Right. You have no idea what I’m talking about.”

  He clears his throat. “You’re, um, Ajax Gartos’s sister, aren’t you? Um, Evyn?”

  This shuts me up for a minute. He knows my name. How does he know my name?

  “I’m, um, Travis. Travis Piesch.”

  “And I’m Evyn Plum.”

  “Actually, it’s, um, I-E-S-C-H.” He stands and holds out his hand to me, just as Mr. Murray bursts through the door. “Salve, scholastici!”

  Scholastici. Students.

  Plural.

  Oh.

  Mr. Murray looks around, frowning. “I asked for another desk to be brought in here, but I guess no one got around to it.”

  Oh, no.

  “You don’t mind sharing, do you? Just for today?”

  Mr. Murray sees the look on my face and explains. Apparently, the Latin teacher at the Thorne School just quit, and because Travis Piesch was the only student, the Powers-That-Be decided to make an exception and allow a coed class for the first time in March-Thorne history.

  Clearly, Mr. Murray is thrilled. Enrollment has doubled! We can do projects! Plays! Let’s start with Julius Caesar!

  I feel like an idiot. And feeling like an idiot means I can’t look at Travis Piesch for the rest of the period.

  Do you have a jockstrap I could borrow?

  Sometimes I am so embarrassed for myself it’s staggering.

  I stand in the doorway of the cafeteria, holding the eggplant sandwich Birdie made for me because Eleni was still barfing this morning. I watch Andrea and the other It Girls laughing together and eating their sugar-free, fat-free, and carbfree lunches. I wonder how they would react if I walked over.

  I think of the different approaches I could take.

  Sincere: I’m really sorry I lied to you, Andrea. I know it was wrong, and I apologize. I just wanted to be friends with you guys.

  Breezy: Welp, I guess Ajax moved on from tennis babe lust to soccer babe lust without informing me. You know how guys are.

  Humorous: Hi, I’m Devyn—Evyn’s twin sister? Can you believe what a loser she is?!

  But as I start to walk over, one of Andrea’s clones glares at me, and her mouth forms a word I’ve never been called before. Ever.

  My eyes tear up. My whole body stiffens. I couldn’t bounce if my life depended on it.

  I stand in the middle of the cafeteria, frozen. I literally can’t make myself move from this spot.

  I don’t know how much time has passed. Ten seconds? Ten minutes? Ten years? All I know is I look like the biggest loser in the lunchroom.

  No, you don’t, Stella says.

  I picture her smiling at me from a table near the door. She holds up her watch. See? It hasn’t been that long.

  See? I say. The It Girls. They’re all staring at me. Staring, whispering, giggling—

  Don’t think about them, Stella tells me. Just walk.

  I imagine her hand on my back, propelling me forward. Put a bounce in your step, honey.

  When I get home, Eleni is M.I.A. Birdie is in the kitchen, and he’s banging around the pots and pans, which is a bad sign. From the past thirteen years, I can tell you there are only three things my father can cook that are remotely edible: spaghetti, hamburgers, and soup from a can. Mackey and I are used to it, but this is Casa Gartos, where everything is gourmet, and I just don’t see Bean ‘n’ Bacon à la Birdie going over well.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  Birdie looks up. “Making dinner.”

  “Why?”

  “Eleni’s still under the weather, so Chef Bird is on duty.” He lifts the lid off a pot and stirs.

  I know when I ask him what he’s making he’ll say something like Rice-A-Roni, alphabet soup, and home fries, and when he does I will say, Are you crazy? And he’ll say, What? And I’ll say, Rice, pasta, and potatoes in one meal? That’s disgusting. Nobody’s going to eat that.

  But this is not what happens.

  When I say, “What are you making?” Birdie smiles. He gestures to one pot after another. “Chicken cordon bleu. Green beans Florentine. Potatoes au gratin…You like?” He opens the oven door. “Tollhouse pie. From scratch.”

  He looks so proud of himself, standing there in one of Eleni’s aprons—white with pink roses.

  I know he expects me to be impressed. He expects me to get all wide-eyed and say, “Wow! Smells fantastic! Can’t wait to chow down!”

  But I can’t bring myself to do it.

  “Suddenly you can cook?”

  Birdie looks at me. “What?”

  “Mackey and I get crap from a can our whole lives, and now—now that you have a new family—suddenly you can cook a four-course meal? For them?”

  The smile slides right off his face. “I made this for everyone.”

  “Sure, Al. Sure you did.”

  I run through the kitchen and outside to the non-yard. I run straight for Clam. I hug his neck and breathe in his Maine smell and stay that way for a long time.

  Later, I go to talk to Mackey, but when I get to his door it’s not computer games I hear, it’s singing. Real singing. It can’t possibly be my geek brother in there, but it is. I try to picture Mackey up on stage, sweeping around in his dreamcoat, bowing dramatically for the crowd, but I can’t. It just doesn’t make sense.

  Nothing makes sense.

  I’m out in the yard again when Birdie comes looking for me. He puts a tray down on the grass—everything he made for dinner. It actually looks good, and I’m starving, but I won’t touch it. I can’t. Eating his food would be like saying I forgive him.

  Birdie pulls up a lawn chair next to me. “Are you okay?”

  I stare at Clam’s water bowl.

  “Ev…”

  Big cloud of quiet.

  He doesn’t know what to say to me. Birdie—my own dad. Never in my life has Birdie not known what to say to me. We have always been able to talk. Even about embarrassing stuff. Bras. Periods. When I got my period for the first time, Birdie was the one who bought me pads. Birdie was the one who took me out for ice cream to celebrate. My friends couldn’t believe it. “Your dad took you? You went with your dad? You talk to your dad about periods?” And I remember feeling proud about it. “I can talk to my dad about anything.”
/>   Now there’s only silence between us. Silence and chicken cordon bleu.

  After a while, Birdie looks at me. “This isn’t about the food,” he says quietly, “is it?”

  I don’t know what to say to that. He’s right. This isn’t about the food.

  I want to say it. I want to say it all out loud, but how can I? Ever since he told us we were moving, he’s been happier than I’ve ever seen him. How do I tell him that I can’t stand the woman he married? That I never asked to be anyone’s stepsister? That what I want more than anything is to go back to Maine, to my old house and my old friends and my old school, where I didn’t have to work so hard to fit in?

  I want to say it, but I don’t want to hurt him. And anyway, what would be the point? It wouldn’t change a thing.

  So I take a bite of pie instead.

  And it’s good. It’s so good I have to spit it back on the plate.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Okay, it’s official. I have been traumatized for life.

  Why, on a Tuesday afternoon, was Eleni home at all? Why—today of all days—did I decide to use the peachy bathroom instead of the one downstairs? Huh? Isn’t my life messed up enough already, without me having to experience what I have just experienced?

  Let us recap.

  I come home from school, needing to pee.

  I toss my backpack on the kitchen table, grab a fistful of grapes from a bowl (starving, after yet another lunch period spent in the bathroom), and sprint up the stairs.

  I throw open the door to the bathroom and…

  Ahhhhggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!

  Flesh.

  “Oh! Evyn, honey. We didn’t know you were—”

  Wet, steaming pink flesh.

  “—home…”

  And hair. Oh, the hair.

  Achhhhhhh. A grape lodges itself in my throat, from the horror of it all.

  “Ev?” His voice.

  “Honey? Are you okay? Are you choking?” Her voice.

  Achhhhhhh!

  And then.

  Are you ready for this?

  It’s not Birdie who leaves the shower and comes to my rescue, it’s her. She leaps out of the shower. Leaps, like a superhero. “I know the Heimlich!”

  And does she have the decency to throw on a towel? No.

  Warm, moist arms grabbing me from behind.

  “Don’t worry, honey!”

  Boobs, mushing into my shoulder blades. Fists, jamming into my rib cage.

  “I’ve done this before!”

  Jam! Jam! Jam!

  Out flies the grape. It hits the edge of the sink and ricochets onto the floor, right next to my foot.

  “Oh, thank God.”

  She hugs me. Full frontal, my stepmother hugs me.

  “Thank God you’re all right.”

  I. Am not. All right.

  Jules can’t stop laughing.

  “Thank you,” I tell her. “Thank you so much for finding my life hilarious.”

  “I’m (hahahaha) sorry. It’s just (hahahahaha). Oh my God! HAHAHAHAHA! Your stepmother…gave you the nude…”

  “Yes. We’ve established that.”

  I don’t know why I called Jules. Well, yes I do. Jules is my best friend. When a person is having a tough time, and her only legitimate parent has taken on an entirely new personality, who does she turn to? Her best friend. Only lately, it’s been harder and harder to find Jules when I need her. Today, when I called her house, her mom said she wasn’t home. She was at Jessie Kapler’s house.

  “Jessie Kapler?” I said. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Anthony. “You remember Jessie Kapler. From the cheerleading squad?”

  Yes, I remember Jessie Kapler from the cheerleading squad. Jessie Kapler is the Maine version of Andrea—picture Andrea with hairspray and press-on nails—and she has always been wayyyy out of our league, friendship-wise. Jessie Kapler, who used to make fun of Raquel’s accent and Ann’s nose, who called them “The Two ‘Tards,” in front of everyone.

  “Sure,” I told Mrs. Anthony. “I remember.”

  That is when she gave me Jules’s cell phone number. Because now, apparently, Jules has her own cell phone. Not that she bothered to tell me.

  “Oh my God, you guys,” Jules is saying. “Listen to this. Evyn’s (hahahaha) stepmother (hahahaha) gave her the naked (hahahaha)…Oh my God…I can’t breathe…HAHAHAHA! Heimlich!”

  In the background, peals of girl laughter. I have to pull the phone away from my ear, they’re so loud.

  “Thanks a lot, Jules,” I say, when things have finally calmed down. “Thanks for being such a fantastic friend. Really. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Evyn, come on. You have to admit it’s funny.”

  “Is it now?”

  “Yes!”

  “No. It’s not. It’s not funny.” My voice catches in my throat. “This is my life we’re talking about, and you’re supposed to be my best friend. Efftees, remember? Friends ‘til the end?”

  Jules is quiet for a minute. I can hear whispering and then giggling in the background.

  “Yeah, um, Evyn? We’re getting a little old for that, don’t you think? The whole best friend thing…it’s, like, juvenile, you know?”

  “Juvenile,” I repeat.

  “Um, yeah,” she says.

  “I see.”

  It’s total silence after that. There’s nothing else to say. Any words that might have considered leaving my mouth a few minutes ago are now clinging to the back of my teeth.

  Jules doesn’t say anything more.

  So I hang up, without even telling her good-bye.

  As if that’s not bad enough, Birdie tries to apologize. He finds me outside and walks right over to where Clam and I are sitting.

  “Hey, Ev,” he says.

  I bury my nose in Clam’s neck and say nothing.

  “Sorry about earlier,” he says. “About the, uh, shower scene…We should have, uh…remembered to lock the door. But we weren’t expecting anyone to, uh…walk in. And, uh, I think you’re old enough and mature enough to understand that when two married people, uh…”

  I lift my head and stare at him.

  “That when two married people love each other—”

  Ugh.

  “It’s only natural that—”

  “Birdie.”

  “Making love is a way of expressing—”

  “Birdie!”

  “What?”

  “Stop trying to explain it to me! God!”

  He takes a breath and lets it out in one long, slow stream. “You don’t want to talk about what happened?”

  “No. Way.”

  “Okay,” he says, and it’s obvious how relieved he is. “I can respect that. I can respect your feelings about that.”

  I stare at him. Since when? I think. Since when do you respect my feelings about anything?

  But I can’t get myself to say it out loud.

  Stella? It’s me, Evyn.

  Don’t even bother because I know what you’re about to say. “Bounce.” Don’t let what Jules says bother me. Don’t let what Birdie says bother me. Don’t let what Andrea says or Eleni says or anyone else says bother me. Don’t let anything bother me. Just “bounce.” Well, guess what? Bouncing is a crock. It doesn’t work. And neither does talking to you about anything. So, I’m done. These little chats of ours are over. Finito. Kaput.

  Stella looks at me, a little smile playing on her lips.

  You think I’m kidding? I reach behind my head—fiddle with the clasp of her necklace until it comes loose. See? I’m taking this off. I don’t need it anymore. I don’t need you anymore.

  She opens her mouth as if she’s going to say something, but no words come out.

  Later, when I’m lying in bed, there she is again. Green eyes watching me. Soft pink mouth opening and closing, opening and closing, like a fish.

  But no words come out. Not a single one.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  After ano
ther day of dirty looks and not one person to hang out with after school, I open the mailbox. Usually there’s nothing for me—my Maine friends just call and e-mail—but today there is.

  I stare at the envelope.

  Miss Evyn Linney and Mrs. Eleni Linney.

  A sick feeling comes over me as I open it, and not just because the yellow-and-green-plaid card stock is nauseating to behold.

  You are cordially invited to the 47th Annual March School Mother-Daughter Tea. Sunday, November Twenty-third at Two in the Afternoon

  Are they serious? Do they actually think she’s my mother? And if they know she’s not—if they know she’s just the woman my father married—do they really think I’d want to drink tea with her, anywhere? The thought of walking into the March School on a weekend, for an afternoon of small talk and crumpets, is bad enough. But with Betty Boop by my side? Forget it.

  Luckily, I’m the one who brought in the mail. She hasn’t seen the invitation yet, and now she never will.

  Birdie walks into the kitchen just as I’m stuffing the last shreds of yellow and green into the trash can.

  “Hey, Ev,” he says, not noticing a thing. “How was the day?”

  “Fine,” I say.

  “School was good?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Anything to share?”

  I look at him.

  He’s got that eager-beaver look on his face, like he’s been doing some inspirational reading. How to Connect with Your Daughter in the Kitchen After School.

  “Anything?” he repeats.

  I shake my head.

  I’ve never seen him act this way around me. We used to just talk, like regular people.

  “You’ll be here for dinner, right?” he asks.

  “Why wouldn’t I be here for dinner?”

  He laughs—a jolly har, har, har. “No reason. It’s just Family Meeting Night, that’s all.”

  Family Meeting Night.

  Linus.

  Linus will be here.

  “If you could be at the table by six o’clock that would be great.”

  I shrug. Whatever, my shoulders say.

  But that shrug is a lie.