That night before bed I pulled out an old notebook and began listing the people in school that I could potentially be friends with. By the time I came up with four names, I had already crossed each of them out for various reasons. Too weird. Bad breath. Squeaky voice. One too many body piercings. Maybe I was meant to go through my ninth grade year alone. I had just come to this conclusion when I heard the familiar sound of tiny rocks hitting my window.
I walked over to my window and lifted up the old wooden frame. I looked down, and fifteen feet below was Jess's moppy brown hair bouncing around while he looked for more small pebbles to throw at my window.
I spoke in a normal voice, "Hey!"
Jess's face suddenly appeared beneath his tousled hair as he stared up the side of the house toward my window. His pensive expression broke into a smile of relief.
"Hey," he spoke in a lower voice, even though I had told him a million times that no one could hear us. "You're awake."
I cocked my head to the side. "As if a little thing like me sleeping would really stop you."
Jess motioned for me to come down. I shook my head at him. "It's too early. My dad hasn't gone to bed yet. He's downstairs watching TV." I lowered my voice to the same volume as Jess's. "Things are going sour a bit early tonight, aren't they?"
The top of Jess's head appeared again as he lowered his face and looked at the ground.
I sat watching him, not understanding the depth of what he lived with day in and day out, but knowing that he was in pain. And for some reason, he always picked my window to come to as an escape. "Stay there," I said. "I'll be right down."
Jess's head shot up again, and I saw the pleading in his eyes that what I said was true. It always threw me off a little to see such vulnerability from him when he stood underneath my window-a side of him that he hid from everyone, even me-during the daylight hours.
"But what about your dad?"
"I'll just tell him that you need me."
"There's no way he'll let you out." Jess would never say it, but I knew we were both thinking that unlike his father, my dad cared that I came back alive.
I didn't tell Jess that Dad would understand. I think Jess liked to believe that no one knew what his dad was like. But my mom and Jess's mom were good friends. I was sure my parents knew as much-if not more-than I did about their situation.
I sat on the arm of our couch-still in my pajamas but with a hooded sweatshirt thrown on top-right next to Dad. I could feel the warmth of his shoulder as I leaned into him. He stared at the television and laughed along with the audience on the set as David Letterman announced his number seven of the top ten rejected James Bond gadgets. Still chuckling, my dad patted my knee. "What's up, Gemma?" Then looking at his watch, said, "Shouldn't you be in bed?"
"Dad?" I said before he could dwell on the time. "I know I need to go to bed, and I'm going to go soon. And I'm going to make sure that even though I need to stay up a little bit late tonight that I'm going to wake up on time tomorrow morning and be in a really good mood at breakfast, and I'm going to be extremely alert during class." I had asked Dad permission to stay up late enough times to know every excuse why he thought I shouldn't. He began to speak, but I continued before he had a chance, "And even though it may take some strong determination to do those things on less sleep, I know it will be worth it-and I think you'll agree-since it's for a good cause."
Dad opened his mouth and then clapped it together with a smile. "And what-if my attorney general daughter will allow me to ask-is this `good cause' that is keeping you up past your bed time?"
"It's Jess."
Dad sat forward and twisted to look around the room. "Is he here?"
"He's outside."
"Why is he outside?"
My face fell. While the rest of my speech up to this point was a bit scripted, exaggerated, and even manipulative, the expression on my face now was nothing but sincere. Dad sat back into the couch with an, "oh." He stared back at the television, but he wasn't laughing anymore. He didn't even appear to be paying attention to what was on the screen. He rubbed his hand down both sides of his face and scowled. "Well, your mom went to bed early with a headache, so you'll have to be quiet, but why don't you invite Jess into the house?"
I watched my dad carefully. He looked deep in thought. I was never allowed to have friends over past eight o'clock on the weekdays. This was a big exception. "Yeah, that's a good idea. Thanks, Dad." He nodded, and I got up carefully from the couch before he could change his mind.
I opened the back door and cupped one hand around my mouth. "Come on in, Jess. My dad said it was okay."
Jess turned around to face me. He was obviously surprised at the invitation. Jess didn't come inside my house very often. He came over more when we were little kids and would imitate scenes from Star Wars in my basement. But over the past few years we just talked outside. Jess looked up at my house as though it was a huge ship that he was terrified to board. He took a step backward. "I'm okay out here."
I scowled at Jess's hesitation. "What's the matter? It's cold out here." It was only September, but it smelled like it was going to rain. And the breeze brought a chill to my skin.
Jess blinked his eyes a few times. "Just come out here, please?"
I puffed out an exaggerated breath of air and stepped out into the cold. We sat down on our usual spot on the steps while Jess tossed an old basketball around in his hands.
We hadn't said a word to each other before Jess hugged the ball into his chest and announced, "My parents are getting divorced."
I was stunned by his words-especially the unemotional way in which he said them. Jess rarely told me anything about his parents anyway, and this was big. I wasn't quite sure how to react. The first words that came to my mind were I'm sorry, but I wasn't sure if that was the appropriate thing to say right now. Before I could do anything, Jess continued, "It's not that surprising; my mom has been threatening for a long time." Jess bent down and dribbled the ball between our feet. I was still at a complete loss for words. Jess shrugged. "Anyway, he's moving out this Saturday, and I'm going to go stay with him for the weekend."
"You're what?" I shouted louder than I meant to at ten o'clock at night.
"Shhh." Jess waved his hand in the air. "It's not a big deal. He's just renting an apartment in West Chester. I'll be back Sunday afternoon."
"Why would you go stay with him? He's a bad person."
"He's really only bad when he's been drinking, and I doubt he'll take off to any bars or liquor stores if it's just me and him in the apartment."
"Why are you going? Why are you taking his side?"
Jess jerked his head to look at me.Therewas a fire in his eyes I had never seen before. "I'm not taking his side, Gemma." Each word was separated and exaggerated. "I-would-never-take-his-side."
I recoiled at his fierceness but still couldn't understand why he was going to go spend the whole weekend with a man who had made his family's life so miserable. "Why are you going then?"
"Because he asked me to. And my mom thinks it's a good idea for us not to be difficult about spending time with him. Otherwise she's afraid that he'll take us to court. She figures that he'll grow apathetic about being with us over time. Pretty soon he'll be out of our lives for good."
I remembered seeing a movie about this. In the movie, even though the kids hated their dad, the court ordered him to have visiting rights twice a month, and they had to go with him. "But your dad is an alcoholic!" That was the first time I had said it out loud to Jess, even though I always assumed he knew that I knew. "How could he ever deserve visiting rights if he's an alcoholic?"
"We just don't want to make a big deal of it. We don't want any problems."
"But he's mean!"
"Yeah, he is." That was the first time Jess had admitted it. "But he's never really hit us or anything like that, so really it won't stand up for much in court."
A load was lifted off my shoulders. I had always worried so much that he was physic
ally hurting Jess and his mom and sisters. I dropped my shoulders in defeat. I never knew anyone who had parents that were divorced. It was always just something that was talked about in movies and magazines, but not in real life. It was a strange reality. My stomach cramped when I thought of that word, divorce.
I finally looked him in the eye and asked, "Are you okay?" It wasn't like Jess to think about himself at a time like this. But I went out on a limb, hoping that he might open up.
Jess cleared his throat. "I'm worried about my mom. I think it's hard on her knowing that us kids won't have a father around." It was so like him to direct the attention from himself and put it on his mom. He spun the basketball between his hands. "But as far as I'm concerned, we've never had much of a father anyway."
I looked at the ground and nodded. I tried imagining what it would be like to not have my dad. That was an awful thought. But just like Jess had said, even when his dad was at home, he wasn't much of a father. Jess and I were living in two different worlds. Jess sighed then tossed the basketball over to the cement pad at the corner of my backyard where the ten-year-old basketball stand was.
I watched the ball roll around and eventually rest next to the fence. Neither one of us spoke for a while, so I hesitantly changed the subject. "I decided today that I need a new group of school friends."
Jess leaned his head on his fist and looked at me from the corner of his eye. For the first time that night he looked amused.
"Really? What brought you to this conclusion?"
I folded my arms and leaned into Jess for some warmth. "I don't know. I never see Clarissa or Nina anymore. But I was getting sick of them anyway. We're just maturing at a different rate. We don't have a lot in common."
Jess laughed out loud.
"What's so funny?"
He shook his head. "I just love the way you are so acutely aware of your maturation level." He wiped his nose-his eyes still squinting with humor. "It's so cute."
I nudged him in the arm with my fist then wrapped my own arm in his and squeezed as close to him as I could.
"So," he continued, "have you found any prospects? Are there any kids that are maturing at the same rate as you?"
I let out a discouraged sigh. "Not really. I may be stuck with Clarissa and Nina until I graduate from high school."
Jess shook his head. "Not possible. Even when you have friends that you want to keep-it's hard to stay close throughout the years. There are so many new kids coming in from other schools. There are so many different class schedules and activities to be a part of. You naturally drift away from your best friends and start hanging out with the kids that you're around the most."
I looked up at Jess. His face was so close to mine. "What about you and me?" I whispered. "Are we going to drift apart?"
Jess met my questioning eyes, and I could feel his cool breath on my lips. "No. We'll never drift apart. You need me too much." Then his face squinted into the smile that I always loved the most. The smile that I felt I owned and never, ever wanted to give away.
Jess looked down at my shivering hands. "I better take off. You're freezing."
I loosened my tight grip on his arm, and we both stood up to our feet. Jess yawned as he stepped off my porch and looked back up at my house with a thoughtful expression. "You want to know why I didn't want to go inside your house tonight?"
I stood quietly next to him, waiting for him to continue.
He looked back down at me with his tired, sad eyes. "I was afraid that if I went in, I would never want to leave."
I returned his sad expression and wished that there was something more I could do to help him. I couldn't imagine what it must have felt like for him to not want to go home.
Jess began to cross the grass toward the side of my house, but before he left he turned around once more.
"Gem, maybe you could try to just be a normal ninth grader tomorrow, huh? No big catastrophes." He chuckled lightly into the night air.
I sauntered tiredly toward my back door. "When are you going to realize that I'm not normal, Jess?"
He started leaving again, and as he did he said, "I take it back." He was still laughing softly, but there was a seriousness to his tone. "Don't change a thing."
The next day at school was uneventful, as was the day after that, and the day after that. Nina waved at me from her new group of friends for the first week or so of school, but eventually the wave became a head nod, and even that eventually disappeared. The deterioration of our friendship was two-sided, though. I made as much of an effort to keep it going as she did. I usually crossed paths with Clarissa about twice a week. She was locker partners with a girl who wore black fingernail polish and baggy pants. Eventually Clarissa started to look just like her and the three other girls they hung out with. By mid-October we could pass each other in the hall without even realizing it. Going through a whole day of school barely talking to anyone wasn't a big deal anymore. In fact, it happened more often than not.
For the first few months of school I avoided going to my locker as much as possible. I decided that the only thing that could make it more impossible for me to make friends was to be seen hanging out in the eighth-grade hall. Unfortunately, I had a massive science project due in third period, and unless I wanted to lug it around with me through all my classes, I was going to have to make the voyage to my loser of a locker.
I kept my head down toward the ground the entire time I was in the eighth grade hall. I figured maybe this way no one would notice me and it would be as though I was never there. I had never been to my locker before, so I still had to look at the tiny piece of paper I was given with the locker number and combination. I peered from the corner of my eye at the lockers until I came to the one that was assigned to me. With my head still down, I hurried to the locker and hastily turned the lock according to my jotted down combination. I was still staring at the floor and about to open my locker when a familiar pair of shoes appeared no more than a foot away from me. The shoes were white running shoes-Nike brandwith gray accents and a green Nike logo on the side. I knew those shoes anywhere. They belonged to Trace Weston.
What in the world was Trace Weston doing in the eighth grade hall? He was one of the most popular guys in school! I slowly peeked up at him from just beneath my eyebrows, and sure enough it was Trace. He was standing at an open locker just two down from mine, unloading his backpack.
It wasn't like this was the first time I had seen him all year. We had second-period German together. But I of course had never said anything to him, not with the way he had rejected me at last year's Valentine's dance. And I was sure he thought I was a total loser and wanted to have nothing to do with me. I quietly stuffed my project into my locker, hoping-more out of habit than out of real desire-that he would say something to me. But he never did. He zipped up his backpack, threw it over his shoulder, closed the locker, and walked away.
I grew anxious for the holidays. They were something to look forward to, even when everything else in my life was uninteresting.
The four weeks before Christmas dragged on slowly. Yet as much as I wanted Christmas day to arrive, I dreaded its coming. As soon as Christmas was here, it was almost over, and so was the magic. Christmas morning came too quickly, leaving Bridget sneaking down the stairs at the crack of dawn-even before my parents were awake-to look at her presents. I would never sneak down early. I wanted to prolong that final moment of seeing all the presents magically laid out as long as I possibly could. Bridget never saw anything anyway. My parents were smart enough to not put out the most special, unwrapped gifts until they had woken up, shooed Bridget back up to her room, set up the tree and stockings, and made the final touches. Only then did they allow us to come downstairs to officially start Christmas.
When the time finally arrived, I held tightly to the banister and closed my eyes. I didn't want to see anything until I was standing in the midst of the magic and could breath it all in. Bridget ran down in front of me and squealed at her presents. W
hen I was seven and she had run down in front of me, she had yelled excitedly, "Gemma, you got a bike!" I cried for twenty minutes over the surprise being spoiled. She never made that mistake again. When I finally felt the landing underneath my slippered feet, I uncovered my eyes to see the most beautiful room in the whole world. It was hard to believe that it was the same old living room I saw every day when I walked down the stairs. Mom had lit candles on top of the fireplace, and the fireplace itself was burning perfectly bright. Dad had turned on Christmas music, and "The Little Drummer Boy" was playing on the stereo system that Mom had given him last Christmas. I could smell cinnamon sticks and clover simmering on the stove in the kitchen, and the carpet even felt softer than usual as it squished beneath my feet. The tree shimmered, and the new twinkle lights Mom had put on it just two weeks before made it come alive. To add to the perfection of the room, the window behind the Christmas tree was slightly frosted as big puffy snowflakes covered the ground outside, leaving a beautiful blanket of white.
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