We went to the nursing home as soon as we pulled into town, because It was serious, according to Mom and Dad’s whispered conversations in the front seat of the car. Everyone was there already, in Great-Grandmama’s room and spilling out into the hall. My dad carried me at first, in through the front door, and then Mom took me, and I could feel her chest swell, her spine straighten, as we approached the relatives standing outside my great-grandmama’s room. It was the most special I’d ever felt. As we approached, everyone stopped talking, they stopped moving, they just stopped and looked. Since I wasn’t exactly a little Gerber baby, I was totally unused to this reaction. Usually grown-ups shook my hand and made a joke about me looking like the tax collector. But these grown-ups looked into my face and smiled.
As Mom carried me into the room, the crowd around Great-Grandmama’s bed parted, and Mom held me tighter as she stood next to where my great-grandmother lay. I remember thinking, Wow, that is one old lady. A face that made you think of a raisin, or a finger kept in the bathtub too long. But even under the wrinkles, there was the cleft of her chin, there were her wide-set eyes.
The old lady looked at me, and laughed. She had no teeth. I ran my tongue over my own to make sure they were still there.
She kept laughing and laughing and reached up like she wanted to take me, but there was no way I was getting into bed with a raisin lady, so I held on to Mom’s neck as tight as I could, while simultaneously trying to crawl on top of her head. Mom compromised by sitting down on the bed with me. Great-Grandmama just kept giggling, and looking at me, and finally when I was sure Mom wasn’t going to stick me in bed with her and leave me there, I relaxed my grip a little and took a good look at my great-grandmother. She stopped laughing, but kept smiling, and I smiled right back at her. And then she started laughing again, and I did too.
We shared a good laugh, and then she died. I kept laughing, even when everyone else got quiet and one of the more hysterical relatives called for the nurse, and then it wasn’t so cute that I was still laughing, and I got in trouble, but I couldn’t stop. It was just so funny, what she told me with her eyes. I wish I could remember what it was.
Five
“Take your seats, please, ladies. We have two items of business this morning,” Mr. Mueller gobbles, standing at the front of the class. “Frank and Cray, please report to the principal’s office.”
Cray doesn’t look at any of us. He just gets up and walks toward the door, wordlessly taking the hall pass Mr. Mueller holds out to him.
Frank makes a big deal out of getting up slowly and stretching, and then leans over to Thea and whispers, “No worries, babe, right?”
She smiles back at him. “No worries.”
“Franklin!” Mr. Mueller says loudly, interrupting Frank’s suave move-in-for-a-kiss moment. “To the office. Now.”
Frank winks at Pilar and me. We both give him the finger.
He leans down to Ben and whispers, “Next time. I promise.” Which makes Mr. Mueller yell at him again. As soon as Frank’s out of the room, we all look over at Thea.
“You going to tell us what that’s about?”
Thea rearranges her books on her desk, unable to hide her smirk.
“Where were you last night?” MayBe asks in her soft voice. “My mom thought you were coming home. We set a place for you.”
“Sorry,” Thea says, glancing at MayBe. “We got caught up.”
“In what?” I ask.
“You’ll find out,” Thea says, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair.
“Thea …” MayBe looks like she might cry. “What are you up to?”
Ben listens to all of this without turning around. He keeps his arms crossed in front of him, his legs stretched out, staring straight ahead. I can tell he’s pissed.
“New girl!” Pilar whispers. “Oh my God, she looks like she’s in elementary school.”
The new girl has her red hair pulled into two braided pigtails that curl under her earlobes. It’s a hairstyle that no one in the eleventh grade has worn for at least seven years, but something about it suits her. With her flowered shirt tucked neatly into her corduroys, there’s something carefully sweet about the way she’s dressed, right down to the hand-drawn hearts on her sneakers.
The whole class watches as she hands a note to Mr. Mueller and stands watching him read it.
“She’s nervous,” I hear MayBe whisper next to me. “Look how pale she is.”
“I don’t think she’s gotten her boobies yet,” Thea whispers back.
Mr. Mueller’s glare silences our hushed laughter.
“Class,” Mr. Mueller says, standing. “Our second item of business has just arrived. This is Catherine Ritter, she—”
“You can call me Cate,” the girl says cheerfully, before turning bright red and saying to Mr. Mueller, “Oh, sorry, you go ahead.”
He gives her a flat smile and starts again. “This is Cate and she comes to our mountain from …” He smiles at Cate expectantly.
She looks blankly at him for a second before saying, “Oh! My turn?” She giggles nervously and says to the class, “I’m from back east.”
Mr. Mueller keeps looking at her, waiting for more.
“Can I sit down now, please?” Cate asks. “I’m just really nervous,” she whispers to Mr. Mueller.
“Oh. Yes, of course,” Mr. Mueller says. “Welcome to Paradise—”
Cate flinches at the indignant chorus of “Pine Mountain!” and slips into the empty seat next to me.
“That was mortifying,” she whispers.
“You did fine,” I say. “I’m Dylan.”
“Cate,” she says. “Nice to meet you.”
She looks closely at me for a second, but before she can say anything else, I say, “This is my best friend, Pilar,” leaning back so Pilar can give Cate a barely perceptible nod.
“Charmed,” Pilar says flatly.
“And that’s MayBe, and that’s Thea,” I say, pointing to my friends. “And that’s Ben.” Ben still doesn’t turn around, he just nods, still facing ahead.
“Hi!” Thea and MayBe say at the same time. “So, where are you living?” Thea asks.
“Well, we’re staying by the lake in an apartment for now. But we’re building a place up on the ridge.”
“Are you in those Lakeview apartments?” Pilar asks.
Cate nods. “Why?”
“None of us have ever been inside them,” I say quickly, before Pilar can answer.
“Frank’s dad’s been inside,” Thea says. “He’s the facilities manager there. Says they’re all right. Overpriced.”
“They put the best beach on the lake behind gates when they built those apartments,” Pilar says. “You have to live there to get in now.”
“Oh,” Cate says brightly. “Well, if we’re still there in the summer, you guys should come swimming!”
“Not really the point,” Pilar says.
“But thanks,” I say.
“Yeah, thanks,” MayBe and Thea say together.
Frank and Cray miss the first three periods of school, and by the time they walk down the hall, silent and grinning, having been dropped off back at school by Deputy Pesquera, the whole school knows they’re the ones who put Super Glue in the locks of the tractors and construction office trailers in the Willows development by the lake.
The boys, Ben included—looking less pissed off than he was this morning—stop by our lunch table long enough for Frank to play tonsil hockey with Thea, and for Cray to lean over and whisper in my ear, “Pesquera says hello.” I flinch away from him, pretending I didn’t hear. He follows Ben and Frank to their lunch table, turning once to look back at me.
“There she is!”
“Don’t point at her!” MayBe squeals, grabbing Thea’s arm to keep her from pointing at Cate, who’s working her way through the lunch line.
“What?” Thea asks, pointing with her other hand.
“You’re such a brat,” MayBe says, pinning Thea’s hands by s
itting in her lap, before bucking right back out of it. “No pinching!”
“Dylan, you’re nice to strangers. You call her over here,” Thea says.
I look at Pilar.
“You don’t need my permission,” she says. “Call that little tweety bird right over.”
“Call her over here!” Thea says.
“Do it,” MayBe says.
“Okay,” I say, standing. “I’ll do it.”
I start to walk toward the lunch line and see Cate coming straight at us. I turn to the table and whisper, “She’s coming over!”
“Sit!” MayBe says, pulling down on my arm. “Act natural.”
I sit, and when Cate comes walking over, we’re all smiling at her like idiots. Even Pilar’s smirk is only half wicked. She cocks her head to the side. “You guys don’t have new kids very often, do you?”
The long silence that follows is broken by MayBe crowing, “Like, never! You’re the first new girl in three years! Will you sit with us? I promise we’re not evil or anything.” She pats the empty seat next to her and says solemnly, “We’re good people.”
“Do you remember our names?” Thea asks as Cate sits down.
“Um, I think so,” Cate says, pointing at each of us in turn. “You’re Thea, then Dylan, Pilar, and MayBe, right? MayBe—is that short for something?”
“No,” MayBe says quickly, half-burying her head in the cotton tote bag she brought her lunch in. She starts pulling things out, and I see that there’s enough for Thea, too.
“Yes, it is,” Thea says. “MayBe, tell her what your name is short for.”
“Yeah, MayBe,” I say, “tell her what it stands for.”
“Wait,” Cate says, her voice getting louder. “Wait a minute. I know you!” She points to MayBe and shouts, “MoonBaby Goddess Gift Water Fairy!”
“Holy crap!” Pilar says, laughing. “How did she know that?”
“I love your shampoo!” Cate squeals, sticking her head right under MayBe’s nose. “Here! Smell!”
MayBe sniffs. “Morning Honeydew?”
“Yes!” Cate says. “It’s my favorite. I can’t believe I’m sitting here talking to MoonBaby. You look just like you do on the labels! Except, um, you’re not a baby.”
MayBe’s mom and dad used to own this organic beauty products company called Open Earth. They started it the summer they were living with just-born MayBe in a teepee on the land they were building their solar-powered dome house on. They started out making Mountain Berry Bath Soap and selling it out in front of Sheboa’s grocery and by the snack bar at the town beach, walking the long distance to either place from their teepee, with MayBe curled in a handmade cotton sling strapped to her dad’s back. It was her little pie face on the label, above the carefully written words “Made with Love,” and you couldn’t tell if that referred to MayBe, or the soap, or both. When fall came and the weather turned, Mrs. Sheboa started selling the soaps inside the grocery store, letting all the money from what sold—and whatever else the Sheboas could spare—go into a standing house account so MayBe’s parents could buy food. That winter they finished the dome house and started making all different kinds of soap, and the business totally took off. More and more soaps and shampoos, all with MayBe’s face on the label, all with cute little stories about her little hippie family and their life on the mountain.
“They sold the company, you know,” Pilar says, the laughter gone from her voice, her studied calmness returned.
“What?” Cate’s brow wrinkles for a second.
“My parents sold the company,” MayBe says, with a look at Pilar. “Five years ago.”
“Your Morning Honeydew is fresh from an industrial park in the flatlands. In Taluga. You probably passed it on your way up the mountain,” Pilar says, patting Cate’s hand. “Sorry.”
“That’s so sad!” Cate says. “I used to make my dad read me the stories on the labels while he gave me a bath. I loved the one about how when you were two, you discovered the recipe for the Blueberry Body Wash by putting blueberries and soy milk in the bathtub and splashing around because you were trying to make a smoothie. I used to pretend I was a part of your family.” Cate blushes and presses her fingers to her lips. “Oh, sorry, is that weird?”
“I still pretend that!” Thea laughs.
“I can’t believe it’s not true anymore,” Cate says.
“It’s not like I told you there’s no such thing as Santa,” Pilar says. “I think you’ll get over it.”
Cate just looks at her, biting her lower lip.
“Wait, you do know about Santa, don’t you?” Pilar says.
I turn to her. “Professor, stop trying to make the new kid cry.”
“She’s fine!” Pilar says, motioning to Cate. “She can take—Oh, crap, she’s crying.”
Cate practically slaps away the fat tear that’s rolling down her face. “I’m not crying,” she says.
“Why would you do that?” MayBe says to Pilar, using the hem of her flannel skirt to dab at the tear on Cate’s cheek. “She probably thought we were normal people for a whole five minutes.”
“I’m fine, really,” Cate says, pulling out of MayBe’s reach.
“She’s bound to find out sooner or later,” Pilar says dryly.
“Would you knock it off?” I say loudly. “Seriously, Professor, take it down a notch. She knows you’re the one with the biting sense of humor. She gets it, all right?”
It takes me a second to realize that all motion at the lunch table has stopped.
“Wow, Dylan,” Thea says, “you really showed some emotion there.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
Thea shrugs. “It’s like the red-hot rage melted your icy exterior.”
“I’m not icy,” I say, actually hurt. “I’m … reserved.” I look to Pilar for help.
“I can’t believe you Professored me in anger,” she says.
“Well, you’re the one who broke the new kid!” I say loudly.
“Oh, gosh, please stop fighting,” Cate pleads.
“Who’s fighting?” Pilar asks, looking at Cate as though she’s just noticed her sitting there.
“We’re not fighting,” I agree. “We’re trying to impress you with our witty banter.”
“Oh,” Cate says, “but isn’t witty banter supposed to be, you know, witty?”
Pilar clutches at her chest and collapses against me. “You don’t think we’re funny?”
“But our genius sense of comic timing is all we have!” I yelp.
Thea rolls her eyes and says to Cate, “I bet you thought, being the new kid, you’d get to be the center of attention for more than half a second.”
“Yeah, Pilar,” I say, pushing her off me, “stop hogging the spotlight and pay some attention to the new kid.”
Pilar sighs and stage-whispers, “Like how?”
“I don’t know, ask her a question or something. Show some interest.”
“Fine,” Pilar says, turning quickly toward Cate. “Would you rather be eaten alive by rats or pushed out of a plane without a parachute?”
Cate chooses no parachute, since then she would at least experience what it’s like to fly before she dies. Thanks to Pilar, we also find out that Cate would rather eat live worms than live termites, would eat her own big toe if it was the only way to avoid starvation, and would rather have the runs than be throwing up. She’s a good sport about the whole thing, making us laugh with her questions like, “Could I add some slug guts to the worms before I eat them?”
Eventually Pilar pauses long enough for Thea and MayBe to ask some questions too, except theirs are more along the lines of where are you from (Massachusetts), do you have brothers and sisters (no, just lots of cousins), did you have a boyfriend back home (they broke up before she moved), and can Thea please, please do your hair because you’ve got such a cute face and those double braids do nothing for you (“I know it looks dumb. It’s just the way my dad’s done my hair on the first day of school for y
ears and years. It’s a tradition”).
“Um, Dylan?” Cate’s standing next to my locker, holding her books close to her chest. “I think I’m on your bus today.”
“Actually, you can take any bus. They all pass through the village. That’s where your place is, right? That gated community right outside the village? By the Willows?”
She nods a long time before she can find her voice. “Um, yes, but I’m actually not going home. My dad’s with the surveyors up on the back of the land we’re building on. That lady, Fran, in the front office said it was up at the dead end by your house. She said I could take the bus to the dead end at the top of your road. That’s where my dad is. I’m supposed to meet him there.”
She looks like she might throw up. God, I was such an ass to her yesterday.
“Oh, okay,” I say, smiling. “It’s bus number three. Meet me here after last class; we’ll go together.”
“Cool. See you then,” she says, walking off to class.
“See you.”
“It’s like an after-school special on how to make new friends,” Pilar says behind me. I turn around. “You guys are like, what, BFFs now?” she asks.
“Yes, Pilar, she and I are Best Friends Forever because my twelve years of friendship with you means nothing to me.”
Pilar studies the end of her braid.
“Pilar, you goober, I’m joking.”
It takes me a second to realize that she’s not walking with me. I take three steps backward till I’m standing next to her.
“It’s just been a while, you know?” she says. “Since we’ve had anyone new. Tell her that I’m not, like, an ogre or something. Tell her it’s not on purpose. I just get mean when I get nervous.” Pilar groans. “She’s just so darn cherubic, I feel like I’m going to sully her with my … What’d you call it? Biting sense of humor.”
“I think as long as you don’t bite her for real, you’ll be okay.”
“So you’ve lived up here your whole life?” Cate asks, as the bus pulls out of the driveway and onto Lakeshore Drive. We’re sitting near the back.
Sight Page 8
