Paper Things

by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

  “They want someone with experience,” says Gage.

  “How do you get experience?” I ask.

  “By working at a service station,” says Gage.

  “How do you work at a service station?”

  “By having experience,” says Gage.

  The circle game has become one of Gage and my favorite games. All of our longings are trapped in circles where there is no beginning and no end.

  “Hey,” Briggs says. “It just occurred to me — my boss’s brother owns a Jiffy Lube.”

  Both Gage and I look at Briggs like he just found a trapdoor.

  “Do you think it’s this one — the one that’s advertising?” Gage asks.

  “I don’t know,” says Briggs. “I could ask. No matter what, I could still tell him about you.”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” says Gage, letting his eyes speak a world of thanks.

  We leave it at that and don’t say anything more about a job tonight. Hopes are as delicate as butterfly wings: say too much, want something too much, and they’ll crumble. Instead, I tell Gage about staying at Sasha’s tomorrow night, which makes him très happy. Then we both make phone calls — me to Sasha, Gage to Chloe.

  Suddenly the evening feels a whole lot lighter. Briggs suggests we cook up some spaghetti and meatballs. Gage insists on a veggie, too. I open Briggs’s freezer and choose green beans.

  “Did you know,” I say, after we’ve cleared our plates and Gage has started on the washing, “that Louisa’s first book, Flower Fables, was published by George Briggs? Maybe one of your relatives knew Louisa May Alcott!”

  “Oh, yeah?” Briggs comes over and sits at the table with me. He takes my wrinkly Paper Things folder out from the stack of books.

  “Aren’t you gonna play with your paper dolls?” Briggs asks.

  “I can’t,” I say. “I need to write an introduction.” Anyway, I know from experience that there isn’t really enough room at Briggs’s for me to spread out my whole paper world and not have it stepped on.

  He opens my Paper Things folder and pulls out one of my kids.

  “Who’s this?” he asks.

  I tell him her name, but I keep my eyes on the book in front of me. It’s my way of telling him I can’t be distracted right now.

  “And who’s this?”

  “That’s Miles.”

  “Wow, Miles has seen some miles.”

  I laugh. It’s true. I’ve had Miles since the year Mama was dying. He’s a thin scrap of paper, wrinkled and faded.

  “What’s this?” Briggs points to the sprinkler at Miles’ feet.

  “It’s a sprinkler,” I say with my we’re done now voice.

  “Wow, that’s water spraying around. I couldn’t tell. I thought it was just more creases in the paper.”

  He rummages through the folder, and I’m afraid he’s going to ask me about each item and every person in it.

  I yank the folder out of his hands and place it at the bottom of the pile of books. He’s still clutching Miles, though.

  “Give,” I say, making a grab for him.

  But Briggs pulls his arm back playfully. And as quick as that, Miles tears in two.

  I can’t believe I’m only holding half of him in my fingers. Miles was the first person I ever cut out of a catalog. I have played with him in our apartment on Crest Street, at Sasha’s, and Janna’s, and every place we’ve stayed since.

  My eyes don’t tear up. I don’t say anything. I’m more invisible than invisible.

  “I’m so sorry, Ari,” Briggs says. “I didn’t mean to —” He jumps up and opens the kitchen drawer and comes back with tape.

  “Let’s fix him,” he says.

  I nod, but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to make me feel better. Try as you might, there are some things you just can’t mend.

  I arrive at Sasha’s around three the next day — right after her dance lesson. A visit to Sasha’s house always begins with a snack at the kitchen table. Today: kiffles, which are these très yummy Hungarian cookies that Sasha’s mom makes with apricot jam filling.

  “Are you still working at Head Start?” Sasha’s mom — who I call Marianna — asks me.

  I nod, my mouth too full of kiffle for me to speak. Flaky crumbs float down to the diamond-patterned tablecloth below. I brush them away as discreetly as possible.

  Marianna blows on her tea. “Did Janna get you that position to plump up your application to Carter?”

  I take my time swallowing. How can I explain how I got it without telling them about West and letting on that Gage and I no longer live with Janna — that we no longer live anywhere, really?

  But Marianna doesn’t even wait for an explanation. “Have you submitted your application?”

  “No, not yet.” But then I wonder: How will I apply to Carter if Gage and I don’t have a permanent address? He’d promised me that it would only take us “a week, maybe two, tops” to find a place. But it’s been nearly two months, with no end in sight. “When is it due again?”

  “At the end of April,” says Marianna, jumping up to look at the calendar on the wall. “There’s still plenty of time to add new activities to your application,” she reassures me.

  “Like patrol leader,” says Sasha, “or lunchroom monitor.”

  I try my best to smile. Between missing so many homework deadlines and getting caught by Ms. Finch, I wonder if I’m even still in the running for a leadership role. I wonder, too, how you even get an application to Carter. Are they automatically sent to the homes of the top-ranking students — of which I’m still one, though just barely — or do you have to contact Carter to get one?

  I take a sip of my water and try to appear nonchalant. “I think I might have misplaced my application, but I’d rather not tell Janna if I don’t have to. Do you know how I can get a new one?”

  Marianna smiles and pushes the cookie plate toward me. “Sure, you just have to request one.”

  “From Carter?” I ask, taking another cookie from the plate. Marianna likes feeding me. Sasha can be a picky eater, but I’m not.

  “No, Eastland Elementary has plenty. I had Sasha pick one up from the office.”

  Sasha rolls her eyes. “OK. That’s enough about Carter, Mom.”

  “I was just answering Ari’s questions, dear heart,” Marianna replies. “Speaking of questions, have you started in on the student ones yet, Ari? Sasha here has been dragging her feet for weeks.”

  “Student questions?” I ask.

  Sasha groans while Marianna goes to a drawer in the other room and returns with a manila envelope. Inside are notes she’s kept from Eastland Elementary, copies of Sasha’s report cards, a letter from Sasha’s dance teacher. She shows me the application to Carter that she has begun to fill out. I glance down at the spaces to be filled in, and my head fills with its own questions: What will I do if I don’t have an address? Whose name should I write for name of parent or guardian? Should Gage fill out the parent questionnaire?

  Marianna turns to the third or fourth page of the application and points to the heading: Student Questions.

  “Mom’s made me practice answering them over and over,” says Sasha. She gets up and moves to the kitchen counter, pretending that the edge of the counter is a ballet barre. “But I just don’t feel like writing essays in my free time.”

  I read:

  How would other people describe you?

  What is the greatest talent or gift you would bring to the Carter School community?

  Is there anything you would like us to know about you that hasn’t been shown elsewhere in the application?

  “You haven’t started on these yet, Ari?” I can tell that Marianna is just trying to be helpful, but her anxiety is making me anxious, too. What if I’ve already waited too long to start filling out my application? Heck, I can’t even manage to finish my introduction for Mr. O., and that’s only a few paragraphs!

  “Enough questions, Mom,” Sasha says.

  But Marianna doesn’t s
eem to hear her. Instead, she reaches for the hairbrush that’s kept handy in a kitchen drawer and begins braiding my hair — an event as common as our afternoon snack. Sasha won’t let her mother fuss over her, but I love it. “Janna does realize how important it was to your mother that you attend Carter, doesn’t she?” Marianna says.

  I nod. Janna knew all too well just how badly Mama had wanted me to attend Carter. How many times had Janna tried to tell me to go easier on myself, that I should only push myself to get into Carter if it was something that I wanted for myself? And how many times had Gage blown up and said that my getting into Carter had been one of our mom’s dying wishes, and how dare Janna try to interfere with that?

  Everyone in my family went to Carter: Mama, my dad, Gage. Even Janna had gone. That’s how she knew Mama. Back when they’d all gone, though, it hadn’t been a school for the gifted. Gage didn’t even have to apply; you were automatically accepted if your parents had attended Carter. Mama always said that the happiest times in her life were at Carter — except for having us, of course. And once it became a school for the gifted, she was even more adamant that I attend. “The perfect place for my smart daughter,” she’d called it. It was like as long as she could imagine me somewhere that she knew well, somewhere that had belonged to her, I’d be OK.

  “Enough, Mom!” Sasha cries. “Come on,” she says, pulling me out of the kitchen and down the hall to her room.

  When we get to Sasha’s room, I start to take out my math folder, with a surprise for Sasha.

  “Your backpack is always as fat as a Thanksgiving turkey. What do you keep in there?” Sasha says.

  “Homework, for one thing!” I say, finding the folded sheet of paper I was looking for. “Let’s do your math work sheet.”

  Sasha flops onto her bed. “Not now. Let’s do it tomorrow!”

  But I can’t wait to show her what I’ve written. “No, really. You’ll like this,” I say. I unfold a letter, climb onto the spare twin bed, and read it aloud in my sappiest, lovey-dovey-est voice:

  Dearest Decimal,

  For too long, ma chérie, my heart’s been shattered to pieces. (Sometimes in fourths, sometimes in thirds, sometimes in fifths — but always in pieces.) In this I thought I was truly alone. But then you came along, dear decimal. You, fragmented one, are my true math mate.

  Sasha looks at me like she can’t figure out which planet I came from.

  I keep on reading:

  Together with my solid little line and your petite point, we can express our sameness perfectly. I say 1/10, and you say 0.1. I say 1/100, and you say 0.01. I say 1/1000, and you say 0.001.

  “Look,” I say, pointing to the numbers in my letter. “Even though they can be read the same way, the fractions and the decimals look different. But you can see the pattern, right?

  Sasha just squints her eyes at me, so I go on reading.

  You and I have a complex relationship, but let me start with our most basic compatibility. We both express ourselves easily within a system of ten. As we move to the left of your decimal point, each place gets ten times bigger (like my love for you): ones, tens, hundreds, thousands.

  When we move to the right of your decimal point, each number gets ten times smaller (like our decreasing misunderstandings): tenths, hundredths, thousandths.

  And I? I can be a decimal fraction! A decimal fraction has a denominator (bottom number) that is 10, 100, 1000 (in other words, a power to 10). So if you want to waltz as 0.4 (four-tenths), I will glide as 4/10. And if you rock as 0.372, I will roll as 372/1000. What could be more divine?

  Forever yours,

  Fraction

  P.S. I know that life is full of complications: there are improper fractions and the need to reduce from time to time, but we’ll get through these new phases, I promise.

  I look up, expecting to see a sky-wide smile on my best friend’s face, but instead, she looks like Janna did whenever I accidentally walked into the kitchen with my shoes still on.

  “When did you write that?” she asks.

  “This morning after breakfast.”

  “Instead of working on your own homework?”

  “Well, yeah. I wanted to. . . . I thought it would be a fun way to help you understand.”

  “A fun way to show off, maybe,” she says. She shakes her head like I’m the one who’s having trouble getting things. “Why do you have to do things so weirdly?” she asks. “Why can’t you just sit down and show me how to convert a decimal into a fraction?”

  “I can,” I say, slipping off my bed and moving next to her. I tuck the words show off and weird, which have the weight and sharpness of scissors, inside an invisible pocket, where I can take them out and examine them when I’m alone.

  “You know,” she says. “I’m doing everything I can to get into Carter. What would help me the most is if you would keep trying, too. I don’t want to go off to middle school all by myself, Ari.”

  That’s when I realize that she is as nervous about next year as I am. “I’ll get in, Sash,” I say. “Trust me. One way or another, I’ll do it.”

  Later, as we dance together in front of the TV, I think about Sasha’s concerns. What would it be like for her to get into Carter and for me to have to go to Wilson? It would probably be the end of us; no one from Carter really hangs out with anyone from Wilson. Besides, Sasha would probably make a bunch of new friends — even though I know she’s scared she wouldn’t. Me, on the other hand . . . I don’t like to think about what next year will be like for me if I don’t get into Carter and Sasha does. Not only would it mean the end of the longest relationship in my life except for with Gage, it would also be the last little part of Mama — her dream for me — gone forever.

  But how am I going to keep my promise?

  “Keep up!” Sasha yells, swinging her arms like the dancer on the screen.

  I vow to work harder.

  But for now I have to focus on making things better with my best girl. “Hey, Sash,” I say when the music stops and we have collapsed on the floor. “I have something else to show you.”

  “Not another letter,” she says, following me back into her room and getting up on her bed.

  “Nope.” I go over to my backpack, take out my folder, and bring it to her. “Remember these? Remember when we used to spend hours cutting things out?” Part of me knows I should have outgrown this game, and that’s why I haven’t suggested playing with them together since the beginning of fourth grade. But right now I just want to remind Sasha. I just want to make things right between us.

  Sasha carefully pulls one of my teenagers from the left-hand pocket. “I remember her,” she says. “I remember how she used to go to dances and was on the field-hockey team.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Look here.” I open the pocket on the other side. “I still have all the furniture, too. And then some!”

  Sasha reaches in and pulls out my yellow-flowered couch and a refrigerator. “I remember when you got this couch. I was so jealous. My couch was green-and-red plaid.”

  “It’s hard to find whole couches.”

  “And here’s Natalie’s canopy bed,” says Sasha. “I always wanted a bed like that. Still do.”

  “Remember how you had all those twins?”

  “Yes!” She falls back on her bed, laughing. For some reason Marianna got two of every Lands’ End catalog. Sasha loved cutting out duplicate kids for twins.

  “Yeah, and then you gave me another catalog and I had triplets, too!” she said.

  “It was so much fun,” I say.

  “Yeah,” she says.

  She stands, and I think maybe she’s going to dig around in her closet where she used to keep her shoe box of Paper Things. That she’ll want to build our world again.

  Instead she just sort of stretches, then shakes her head. “God, we were such dorks,” she says.

  I place my Paper Things back inside the folder, the folder back inside my backpack.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Dorks.”

>   Sasha has church on Sunday morning at ten, so Gage and Chloe come for me right after breakfast. Briggs is away until tomorrow, so they’ve had the studio all to themselves.

  I feel a splash of warmth as we burst out the door of Sasha’s apartment building onto the sidewalk. The sun is shining, the snow is melting. It’s one of those end-of-March days in Maine that feel like a present — a little reminder that spring is here, even if the warm days won’t really arrive (and stay) for about two more months. My Language Arts teacher would call this day “foreshadowing,” I think — foreshadowing spring. Too bad I don’t get extra credit for knowing that.

  I reach down to pick up a penny, determined to make up for the fourteen cents I gave away on Friday.

  “What are you going to buy with all that money?” asks Chloe, who knows about my daisy piggy bank at Briggs’s.

  “An apartment.”

  Chloe laughs.

  “She’s not kidding,” says Gage, bending to pick up what we think is a nickel but turns out to be a souvenir coin of some sort. Neat but worthless. He chucks it aside.

  “Not the rent,” I clarify. “But once Gage gets a steady job and we find an apartment, I can help out with stuff like shampoo and toilet paper and toothpaste.”

  “Yeah, then you can stop using mine,” Chloe says as she bumps shoulders with Gage. We both know she’s kidding, but I still steal a glance at Gage’s face to see if his pride’s hurt. It looks like it would take a lot more than a little teasing today to bring my brother down.

  When we get to the playground near Briggs’s, I ask Gage if I can stay awhile. The place can be a treasure trove of dropped coins from adults chasing their kids on the old jungle gym or the rickety teeter-totter.

  Gage looks around to see if there’s any cause for concern. “All right,” he tells me, “but be back at Briggs’s in one hour.”

  Sasha and Linnie are always complaining about how easily I find money. They don’t get how they miss it and I spot it every time. But it’s not just the looking; it’s how you look. When you first look down, you see everything — and nothing. It’s as if your eyes can see only grayness. But if you tell yourself that there’s treasure at your feet, your eyes will begin to see differences in the shades of gray: silvery cracks, charcoal pebbles, ashy litter. Then, when you find your first glimmering coin, your brain will understand exactly what you want, and it will start to find coins everywhere. It just takes patience.