Calli Be Gold

by Michele Weber Hurwitz

  “What do you mean, partners?” I ask Claire, following her in line.

  She looks a little annoyed. “Mrs. Lamont said each of us will have our own second-grade peer, you know, one-on-one. That’s how the PHP works.”

  “Oh,” I reply. “Of course.”

  When we pile inside Mrs. Bezner’s second-grade room, she tells us how happy she is that we will be working with her students. “We think you will find this program to be a wonderfully rewarding experience,” she adds, and Mrs. Lamont nods enthusiastically.

  “Now, before we choose our peers,” Mrs. Bezner says, “does anyone already know someone in my class?”

  Tanya Timley shoots her hand into the air.

  “Yes?” Mrs. Bezner asks.

  Tanya waves to a girl with long, straight blond hair and enormous round blue eyes. “That’s my cousin Ashley,” Tanya says. “Ash and me. PHP. It can’t be any other way.”

  “I guess that’s all right,” Mrs. Bezner says. “Okay with you, Lucy?”

  “I don’t see any harm,” Mrs. Lamont says.

  Tanya raises her hand again. “I do have a mini problem, though. I’m out of school a lot, modeling and going on auditions.” Tanya bats her eyelashes and shows off her evenly spaced, very white teeth, perfect for a toothpaste commercial. “So, who will be with Ashley when I’m not here?”

  “I’m sure we can work it out, Tanya,” Mrs. Lamont says briskly. “Let’s move on.”

  For the rest of the peer partners, Mrs. Bezner explains, we will be pulling numbers from a cup, and so will the second graders. The students with matching numbers will be each other’s peer helpers. “I think that’s the fairest way,” she adds.

  Mrs. Bezner is shaking one cup, and Mrs. Lamont is shaking the other, when I cannot believe what I see at the very back of the room: someone with messy light brown spiky hair, slumped over on a desk, wearing a dark blue winter jacket.

  Noah Zullo?

  I lean over, trying to see if it’s him. I examine the jacket intently, and I’m positive it’s the same one from the rink yesterday.

  My hand flies up in the air, as if I am not in control of it. “Mrs. Lamont,” I hear myself saying, “I know someone too.”

  “You do, dear?” she says. “Who?”

  “That kid over there.” I point.

  Several of the second graders turn to stare at the back of the room as Noah Zullo slowly raises his head and squints at me through his glasses. His skin is very pale, like a white seashell.

  “I’d like to be Noah’s peer,” I say with a gulp. From the corner of my eye, I glimpse a confused look on Wanda’s face.

  “Oh, wonderful!” Mrs. Bezner replies. “Noah is new to our classroom. His family just moved here. How do you know each other?” she asks me.

  I suddenly feel panicky, like Noah will blurt out that we really don’t know each other and I am lying. But somehow, as I watch him blinking at me, I know he won’t do that.

  “We met yesterday,” I say. “At the skating rink.”

  “Okay, then.” Mrs. Bezner resumes shaking the cup with the numbers.

  I smile at Noah, but he just looks at me blankly.

  “Now,” Mrs. Lamont says after all the numbers have been chosen. “Go ahead and find your peers. We’ll have a few minutes for you to get acquainted, and then we will get together again next week for our first real PHP time.”

  Tanya brushes past me. “Leave it to Calli Gold to pick the weirdest kid in the entire second grade,” she says. Her cousin Ashley giggles and covers her mouth. The two of them put their heads together and arms around each other in a private huddle.

  Ever since Tanya called me puny last year, she and I haven’t exactly liked each other very much. It’s true I have been in the front row every year for class pictures, so maybe I am a little on the short side. But still, I wouldn’t go around calling Tanya Timley freakishly tall, even if she is.

  I stop right in front of Noah, look at him, and wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. My heart thumps as loudly as a basketball on a gym floor.

  “Hi,” I say brightly. “Remember me?”

  He stares at me, with that messy hair and pale face and blank expression; then he starts wringing his hands together as if he’s washing them with soap and water. Finally, with what seems like a tremendous effort, he places his hands on top of his desk and makes two tight little fists. After a moment, he looks up at me through his glasses with an almost suspicious expression.

  “Why’d you pick me?” he asks.

  I look around the room at the groups of fifth graders and second graders, some talking, some smiling, some seeming awkward. Ashley and Tanya are hugging each other, practically exploding with excitement. Then I look back at Noah. I don’t have an answer.

  ’m a walker. My house is right over the small hill behind the school, at the end of the block. When I get home this afternoon, it’s Grandma Gold who greets me, not Mom.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, dropping my backpack on the kitchen floor. I glance at the Calendar and the flurry of Post-it notes, wondering if I’ve forgotten something.

  She closes the newspaper and folds her arms across her plump chest. “Now, is that any way to say hello to your favorite grandparent?” she asks, motioning me toward her for a hug.

  Grandma Gold is my only grandma, since the other one died before I was born, and my grandpas are both long gone too. So technically, she has to be my favorite. There’s no contest.

  “I only meant, where’s Mom?” I say as she wraps her fleshy arms around me. When Grandma Gold hugs me, she squeezes me right down to my lungs, so I can’t get a good breath. Plus she always wears big metal necklaces and they press sharply into my chest.

  “I’m here to watch you while she took your sister for an X-ray on her ankle,” Grandma Gold informs me. “That sister of yours kept insisting she needed crutches, so now your mother’s all worked up. Lucky I’m so close by, I ran right over.”

  Grandma Gold lives in a senior citizen building about a half hour away from Southbrook.

  She grins at me. “It’s just you and me for now, cookie. You know how long it takes at those godforsaken emergency rooms.”

  “Oh,” I reply, even though I really want to remind her that I do not need to be watched. Do they think I’m going to run to the stove, turn on the dial, and burn the house down? Or open the window in my bedroom and jump out, just for fun?

  “So, whaddya say, how about a game of Scrabble?” she proposes, winking an eye heavily coated with violet shadow. “You been practicing?”

  Grandma’s talent is Scrabble. She brags that she once used all her letters in two separate words in the same game. Dad says it was only one word, but she insists it was two. They got into a big argument about it, and now Dad won’t play Scrabble with her anymore.

  “Well,” I say hesitantly, “I do have some homework.”

  “Oh, homework, schmomework.” She waves her hand in the air. “I always say you learn more about life outside of school. I’m sure you have time for one little game. C’mon, get the board.”

  There’s no saying no to Grandma. She doesn’t give up. When I walk back into the kitchen with the Scrabble box, she’s pulled out her lipstick and mirror. I’m not sure why she needs to put on lipstick to play Scrabble, but even so, while I’m setting up, she slathers on a few layers of glossy red.

  “There,” she says, smacking her lips. “Cookie, let me share something with you. I’m going to tell you my motto of life.”

  “Your motto?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” she says. “You know, my guiding principle.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  “Speak loudly and carry a red lipstick.” Her mouth spreads into a wide grin; then she bursts into laughter and slaps her leg several times.

  “I don’t get it,” I say when she quiets down.

  “What do you mean you don’t get it?” she snaps. “You haven’t heard of Teddy Roosevelt?”

  “I’ve heard of him.”<
br />
  “Don’t you know he was famous for saying ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick’?”

  “No.”

  “See, that’s what I mean,” she says. “What do they teach you these days in school?”

  “I think we learn that in junior high,” I tell her.

  “Carry a big stick … carry a red lipstick.” She raises her eyebrows. “Oh, forget it. Pick your letters.”

  I reach for the bag of letters and pull out all vowels. Grandma’s first word is “flower.” “Six letters,” she mutters. “Couldn’t have gotten an ‘s,’ now, could I? Would’ve been an extra fifty points right off the bat.”

  I make the word “are,” building on her “r.”

  “That’s all you’ve got?” she says, shaking her head. Her long beaded earrings swing back and forth.

  She places some letters on the board and makes another long word, then tallies up the score so far. “Now, my Joel, he plays a mean game of Scrabble,” she says. “Beat the pants off me once, and I think he was only fourteen at the time.”

  “Do you ever talk to Uncle Joel?” I ask.

  “Oh, sure, all the time. He calls me from that convertible of his. Of course I can’t hear a thing he’s saying with all that wind in the background. Your turn.”

  “Can I get a snack first?”

  “Fine, but not something messy,” she says. Grandma Gold doesn’t like it when crumbs get on the board and the letters.

  After a few more words (big ones from her, little ones from me), she grabs her purse. “I have to go out to my car for a minute,” she says. “I’ll be right back.”

  I can pretty much guess what she’s doing, so she doesn’t have to pretend. I know she’s going out for a cigarette. Grandma Gold swears she quit smoking years ago, but we all know she sneaks one whenever she gets the craving.

  Sure enough, when I peek out the front window, there she is in her car, puffing away. I’m sure there is a mark from her red lipstick on the white end of the cigarette.

  This makes me think about what she said her life motto is—speak loudly and carry a red lipstick—and I realize that Dad has the same motto. The part about speaking loudly, not about carrying the red lipstick. And as I’m standing there, this timid little voice somewhere inside me asks … Why? Why do you need to speak loudly? If you speak quietly but have something important to say, won’t people still listen?

  The little voice melts away, though, when I trudge back to the kitchen table and realize how badly I’m playing. Now I have all consonants. Peering over at Grandma’s letters, I see that she already has the word “night” spelled out on her rack. A lot of points.

  I wait and wait. She’s taking an awful long time. She must be having a second cigarette.

  Suddenly, a terrible thought jumps into my head. I could switch my letters, couldn’t I? She wouldn’t know. If I just had one or two vowels, then I could make a word, at least. Maybe a high-scoring word that Grandma Gold could brag about to Dad. I could quickly dump my seven letters back into the bag and pull out seven new ones and no one would know. Well, no one except me.

  I start to feel the way I do when Dad goes around the dinner table and asks us for our daily accomplishments—hot and sweaty, with a mouth so dry it seems like I can’t speak or breathe.

  I reach for the bag of letters and hold it in my hand and swallow several times.

  Just when I’m about to plunge my hand inside, I hear the front door open. I toss the bag back into the middle of the table and quickly start shuffling the letters on my rack.

  “Okeydokey,” Grandma says, coming into the kitchen with a burst of cool air. “I’m ready.” Her breath stinks. “I think it was your turn.”

  “Yeah,” I say, my voice coming out a little shaky.

  “You got anything?” she asks.

  I look down at my letters and it hits me: I really was going to cheat. I really was going to do it. If Grandma hadn’t come barreling through the door at that very moment, I would have. I bite my lip. On how many occasions has Dad hammered in his belief about turning tough times into triumph? How you never give up, or give in, and all that stuff. Alex does it in basketball games, and Becca in skating. Me? I was ready to crumble within minutes, over a dumb Scrabble game. Maybe I should change my last name.

  “Need any help?” Grandma Gold asks.

  “No,” I say sullenly.

  Now not only do I have the guilt of knowing how easily I would have cheated, but I’m also stuck with the letters I picked.

  Like today, when Noah asked me why I picked him.

  At first, I didn’t say anything. Why did I pick him?

  I thought about it for a minute; then I simply told him, “Because I did.”

  He stared at me, his mouth a bright small circle. Then, in a tiny squeaky voice, he said, “So now you’re stuck with me.”

  What things to be stuck with. All consonants and Noah Zullo.

  ecca’s ankle turns out to be fine, and Mom is completely aggravated about wasting three hours getting it X-rayed. She’s slapping things around the kitchen, grumbling about being off schedule, and muttering how she didn’t get anything done this afternoon. We all know that when she gets like this, it’s best to stay out of her way.

  Grandma left in a rush, refusing the offer to stay for dinner. “I have just enough time to get to my Zumba class,” she said as she hurried out.

  At dinnertime, like usual, Dad asks Alex for his accomplishment of the day, and Becca for hers. I’m barely listening. I’m pushing my corn around on my plate, creating a pathway for the broccoli to wade through, when Dad calls out, “Calli! I had a brainstorm today, and it concerns you!”

  “A brainstorm?” I repeat, dropping my fork. “What do you mean, a brainstorm?”

  “Now, don’t say anything right away,” he tells me, smiling broadly. “Just hear me out first, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say hesitantly.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, Dad, I’m ready.”

  He sits back in his chair and clasps his hands together. “Okay.” He pauses dramatically. “Improv.”

  “Improv?” I echo.

  “Bingo.”

  Becca snorts before I have a chance to react. “You’re not saying you think Calli should try acting now, are you?”

  He nods. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “Acting?” I scrunch up my nose and shake my head. “Dad …”

  “Consider it, Calli,” he says. “You’ve always had a terrific imagination. You think so much about all the characters in the books you read. Some of the world’s greatest actors are really shy people inside, you know.”

  My heart flutters. “You think I’m shy?”

  “Well,” he says, chuckling, “I suppose it’s no secret you’re a little quieter than the rest of us.”

  “I guess,” I answer softly.

  My hands fall to my lap as I try to imagine what an improv class would be like. People pretending to be animals, slithering around the floor like snakes or flapping their arms like birds? Or making up skits and telling really funny jokes? Or imitating famous people while everyone else has to guess who they are?

  “I don’t know, Dad,” I say, swallowing the lump in my throat.

  “You know what your father always promotes,” Mom pipes up.

  I recite it in a bored-sounding voice. “ ‘Try anything once,’ I know.”

  “Hey, you could move to Hollywood, Cal,” Alex offers, grinning at me. “Ride around in a limo and go to lots of cool parties.”

  Becca snorts again.

  “Look,” Dad says. “All I’m asking is that you give it a shot. You know, your aunt Marjorie had a little stint in the theater … before she went crazy and ran off to New Zealand, that is.”

  “She did?” Aunt Marjorie is my dad’s younger sister. I’ve never met her. She lives farther away than Uncle Joel. Grandma Gold says something went wrong with her
but it certainly isn’t her fault that Marjorie turned out to be a lunatic.

  “She acted in college,” Dad says, nodding. “Even had the lead in one of the big plays. Had such a bright future ahead of her. Agents were calling. I never could understand why she did what she did.” He raises his eyebrows. “Maybe you take after her.”

  “Okay, Dad, I’ll think about it,” I say. Then it dawns on me that he is comparing me to the relative in our family who is known as offbeat and bizarre, the one who everyone says marches to a different drummer. The one who wants nothing to do with anyone else.

  “Good girl. You give it some thought.” Dad reaches into his shirt pocket. “Here’s a little brochure you can read over.” He claps a hand to his forehead. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.”

  I glance at the title of the brochure, which asks: Have you always wanted to be on the stage? and my immediate reaction is no. Never. Not even once.

  Dad bolts up from his chair, sticks one arm out and puts the other hand across his chest. “ ‘To be, or not to be,’ ” he croons with a British accent. “ ‘That is the question.’ ”

  “What are you doing?” Becca says, rolling her eyes.

  “I’m demonstrating a little Shakespeare for my soon-to-be-actress daughter.” He beams at me. Then he closes one eye, stretches his arms forward, and positions his hands into a frame. “I can picture the Academy Award now.”

  I look back at the brochure, which shows a group of people wearing black turtlenecks. Let us bring out your inner muse, it states.

  All I can think is what is a muse? And do I want to bring mine out?

  I slide the brochure into the back pocket of my jeans as Dad sits down in his chair and winks at me. “This could be it,” he says, nodding. “This could be your passion.”

  My passion, I think.

  Improv?

  Maybe …

  Mom is starting to clear the dinner dishes when I see that Alex and Becca have conveniently left the kitchen again. With one more wink at me, Dad grabs his phone from the counter and says he needs to pick up his messages.

  I look at Mom. “I have homework,” I inform her. “I didn’t get it done after school because Grandma Gold was here. She made me play Scrabble with her.”