My Life in Dioramas

by Tara Altebrando

  Stella looked like I’d thrown a cup of coffee at her. “I’m really sorry things are so sucky for you right now.”

  “They should be sucky for you, too!” I said, maybe a little too loudly, but it felt good. “I’m your best friend and I’m leaving!”

  “I know,” she said. “I mean, I know. So let’s make today totally awesome, okay? We’ll cry another day.”

  It might have sounded like a ridiculous thing to say coming from someone else.

  But coming from Stella—my Stella—right then, it was just want I wanted to hear. It didn’t matter that Megan was going to be there or who sang what. What mattered was that it was Stella’s birthday and we were together.

  “Good plan,” I said. “Now let’s see what I look like, so we can make bets on how quickly my mother is going to kill me.”

  Stella laughed and the timer went off and the stylist came and, WOW, that streak in my hair was really pink. Since my hair was dark to begin with it sort of looked like the color of raspberries at night. I loved it. My parents would want to chop it off, I was sure of it, but they weren’t there and they weren’t going to be at the karaoke place, so I decided to enjoy it while it lasted.

  We went back to Stella’s house and had lunch. I decided to surrender to Stella’s will and let her do my makeup as if I were that old Barbie head we’d tortured for so many years.

  Stella put on her sparkly blue shift dress and she looked awesome. She looked through her closet and told me to roll my jeans up. She gave me a few tank tops to layer and some bangly jewelry and a pair of ankle boots. I looked like a rocker chick. We both laughed because it was kind of ridiculously not me.

  Then I said, “Oh! I almost forgot!” I went and got my bag. I took out her gift and set it atop her dresser. “I made this for you.”

  It was a diorama of a Xanadu-themed roller rink with a tiny Zelda on skates at the center. She studied it for a second and I wasn’t sure if she was going to tell me that it was the worst present she’d ever gotten, but then she said, “You made this?”

  I nodded.

  “That is really cool.” She moved closer. “She looks just like me.”

  “I worked really hard on it.”

  She hugged me. “I love it. You’re the best.”

  The doorbell rang and Stella said, “That’ll be Megan.”

  I groaned. “What is she doing here?”

  “We’re going to do a duet, so we’ve got to practice a few times.”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  Stella went down the hall and came back with Megan. “Oh,” Megan said. “Hi.”

  They put on some song I hadn’t heard and started to talk about who was going to sing which parts. Then they started trying to coordinate some dance moves—Megan was hopeless but Stella didn’t seem to mind—while I sat on the bed watching with a dumb smile plastered onto my face.

  During a spin and clap move, Megan knocked the diorama off Stella’s dresser. It was me who picked it up off the floor and put it back on the dresser when we left.

  22.

  Stella’s dad drove us all to the karaoke place since her mom had gone ahead to get the room ready. When we walked in, there were balloons everywhere and a bunch of small tables set up in front of a small stage. I don’t know what I’d been expecting—a small room with a monitor, a couple of seats—but I hadn’t been picturing this. It was a bar. The back room of a grown-up bar. With a stage and spotlights. Naveen was actually sitting on a high stool at the actual bar, spinning back and forth lazily. He smiled when he saw me. I walked over.

  “This place is pretty crazy,” he said, over the loud music that had started playing. “You’d never know it from the outside but it’s huge.”

  His hair was slicked back and he was wearing a white T-shirt and dark jeans.

  “What’s this look you’re working?” I asked.

  “I have no idea. But I feel like I can sing everything from Bon Jovi to the Four Tops to Grease in this get-up.”

  I laughed. “Yes, it does leave you a lot of wiggle room.”

  “What’s up with the pink hair?”

  “It’s temporary.” I reached up to touch it. It felt the same as the rest of my hair, but I felt somehow bolder. I couldn’t control much of anything lately but I’d at least taken control of my hair.

  People kept arriving and the room filled up. The singing started with Stella, and then it was a blur of laughing and shouting and dancing and singing. I mostly hung back behind the crowd.

  My last birthday, in August, Stella and I had gone to a movie and Red Lobster with my mother and two other friends. It had been enough. I wasn’t sure it would be this year and I wasn’t sure why.

  Then Stella came and found me and pulled me up to sing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” as part of a group that included Megan and two other friends.

  Sam Fitch found me getting a drink of water during a break right before cake.

  “You were great,” he said.

  “Oh, thanks,” I said. “You, too.”

  He’d sung a Beatles song and sounded good doing it.

  “I like the pink hair,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  But he was too cute. Or too something.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to talk about even though I wanted to.

  “I really liked the dioramas you made for Mrs. Nagano’s class. I had to redo my essay about which one I liked because it wasn’t very good, so when I did it the second time I wrote about one of your dioramas,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Yup.”

  “What did you say?” Okay, so this was maybe starting to feel like a crush.

  “It’s stupid.”

  “No, tell me. Please.” Definitely a crush. Because talking about my diorama with Naveen had never felt like this.

  “It was the scooter one. And I wrote about how it made me feel like we’re all the star in our own lives. Because it looked like a stage or something. I don’t know how to explain.”

  Then it was time to sing again and I wasn’t even sure what had even happened except that all I wanted to do was tell Stella every word of my conversation with Sam so that we could analyze it. Did he like me? What did that even mean?

  For a while in there, I forgot all about Big Red and moving.

  I forgot about my parents, on their way back home in a quiet car.

  I forgot about Dance Nation, and how I’d messed up the troupe routine even though Stella and Miss Emma had both been nice enough not to rub that in my face.

  For a while in there, with the disco ball spinning, I was just a girl having fun.

  My dad texted me, asking what time the party was over, and then said he’d be there. I waited outside in the parking lot with the other kids.

  “I know it’s awkward,” Megan said to me. “But I want to get it out in the open.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Maybe I was a little bit jealous of her duet with Stella.

  “No one told you?”

  I felt all the fun of the day fading.

  “My father’s company is buying your house.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a thing. He’s going to flip it. You fix up a house and turn around and sell it for more money.”

  “That’s his career?”

  “Yeah.” She spotted her ride. “It’s kind of awful, right?”

  “Kinda,” I said, and she walked off.

  My dad pulled up and I got in and said, “Where’s Mom?”

  “Big Red.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yes and no.” He pulled out onto the street and headed for home. “We have a buyer.”

  My throat felt suddenly too dry.

  “There is some back and forth that typically happens but it looks like a solid offer. It’s cash. So it’ll be fast.”

  I swallowed to try to fix my throat and said, “That’s great, Dad.”

  “Let’s not get
carried away, Kate. It is what it is.”

  My mom was sitting on the front porch drinking a cup of tea. She put it down and uncurled her legs from under her and got up and gave me a big hug. It somehow didn’t feel as good as Miss Emma’s had.

  “I missed you,” she said.

  “I missed you, too,” I said.

  She pulled out of the hug, then reached out for my hair and slid her fingers down my streak. “Is it temporary?”

  I nodded.

  “How temporary?”

  “Temporary enough.”

  “For who? You? Or me?”

  “Mom,” I groaned. “It was fun, okay. It was fun to do it. And I needed a little fun.”

  “You paid with your own money?”

  “No, Stella’s mom said it was a treat and not to worry about it.”

  Mom turned to go inside, and I followed. In the dining room, she found her wallet and handed me two twenties. “Take that over there now.”

  “But—?”

  “We’re not a charity case, Kate.”

  I got my bike out of the barn and took off down the road. I wanted to ride and ride and never go back.

  23.

  Sunday was a quiet day around the house. No one had said anything specific about it, but it seemed like we were all doing the things we most loved to do around the house. I spent an hour on my scooter down on the tennis court, making big circles and doing tricks. My mother sat under the pear tree by the stream with her feet up on an upturned bucket, reading. My father blasted classic rock radio out into the yard and cooked a big dinner out on the grill. We sat out there and talked about hikes we’d gone on where I’d whined the whole time and my parents’ honeymoon, where they rode mopeds in Bermuda and my dad whined the whole time, and we didn’t talk about anything having to do with Big Red at all.

  It was warm enough to have a bonfire, so we decided we’d do that, too. My mom had to make a special trip to the supermarket to get everything we needed for s’mores but she seemed happy to go. My dad and I cleaned up dinner while she was gone and it was almost like things were normal again.

  When my mom got back, we sat outside in the Adirondack chairs around the fire pit. At first, we didn’t even light a fire because the fireflies were coming out, putting on a show. It was like there were a thousand tiny strobe lights in the woods; the crickets seemed to be chirping approval and the frogs croaked, too. The stream was so full and so fast that it was like a roar.

  “Kate?” my father said.

  I looked at him and he nodded his head at my mom.

  So it was time.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes.”

  My dad got up and went inside.

  “I forged your signature,” I said. “So I could sign up for troupe. I didn’t want to be the only one who couldn’t do it, and I guess I was hoping we’d still be here.”

  “Oh, Kate,” my mother said, and she shook her head, pulled her hoodie closer around her. “There will be other dance classes and other competitions. There’s always next year. Seriously, all of this, really, is going to amount to such a blip in your life.”

  I felt my whole body tense. “Dancing isn’t a blip. Big Red wasn’t a blip. I’ve lived here my whole life.”

  “And when you’re my age, you’ll have maybe a handful of vague memories of what it was like to be twelve.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s not real to me right now!” I was almost screaming. “That it doesn’t matter!”

  “Of course not.”

  She was quiet then but everything in my head was loud. We couldn’t live like this. She could be like this.

  “I’m going through some . . . stuff,” Mom said, and her voice sounded weird. “I’m sorry.”

  “You need to get help.” My voice was shaking. “I need you to get better.”

  “I know,” she said, nodding and sniffling. “I will.”

  When the light went from the sky, my father lit the fire. I went to find the long pokers we used to toast marshmallows, and they were sticky with dust so I washed them.

  We continued talking about everything but what was actually going on. I figured my parents knew what the plan was for the house—flipping it—and that they were okay with it, and were doing what they had to do. If they didn’t know, I honestly didn’t want to be the one to tell them.

  I didn’t want to think about the week ahead. About having to face Megan at school. And telling Stella that it was really happening. And telling Naveen Big Red was no more. It was all going to be just . . . sad.

  Even the excitement I’d first felt when Sam told me he’d written about my scooter diorama had turned sour. I liked a boy. It was possible he liked me. But I was moving so it didn’t even matter.

  I heard my parents talking quietly down by the fire as I got ready for bed. I knew how the night would go. They’d sit out there and talk until the bulk of the fire went out. Then my mom, sleepy, would drift up to bed and my dad would sit out there, staring at the stars and probably smoking a cigarette until the fire’s last embers were nearly dead.

  I couldn’t sleep.

  I got up and went down to the craft room and made a simple diorama, my simplest yet. Just a bonfire. Two chairs. My mom and dad. Gazing up at the stars.

  I left it on my mom’s night table and went to bed.

  24.

  A sign that said IN CONTRACT got added to the FOR SALE sign. I didn’t understand why they didn’t just take the whole thing down already, but it wasn’t up to me.

  My parents didn’t start packing, exactly, but they did seem to do a more ambitious spring cleaning than they’d ever done before. Each item moved or dusted revealed a hibernating stinkbug, or one that was just waking up, and I vacuumed or flushed more of them than I could count. Without dance class twice a week—the studio had refunded my troupe fees and class fees—I had a lot of extra time on my hands.

  That weekend we had a yard sale. Small pieces of furniture, artwork, a bunch of random rooster things like trivets and creamers. All of it got put out on the driveway for passersby to study and pass judgment on. I felt mortified that my parents were taking nickels and dimes for our junk, and spent the whole time hoping none of my classmates would drive by.

  But then Naveen biked over and we snuck off and had ice pops. I filled him in about the rapid end of my dance-troupe career. He told me all about a new bottle-launcher he was building. For smaller bottles. Just for fun. Then we went back and looked at my parents’ impressive collection of soup ladles together.

  When we were calling it a day, having unloaded most of the furniture and not a lot of the other stuff, a young couple with two little girls stopped by to have a look. They were on the hunt for dollhouse furniture and asked me if we had any. I said, no, that we had nothing like that, and I felt sort of bad about it since the girls looked so disappointed.

  Their mom talked to my dad for a while, while I introduced the girls to Angus. The mom said she was sorry they hadn’t driven by sooner, maybe seen the FOR SALE sign. They were living in an apartment in Poughkeepsie and had been saving up for a house but hadn’t quite started looking.

  “I would have bought this place in a second,” the mom said, sighing.

  “Yeah,” Dad said. “It’s a great house.”

  “Where are you moving to?” she asked, probably just thinking she was being friendly.

  My dad winked and said, “Oh, you know. On to the next adventure.”

  I tried to make that my mantra for the next few days:

  On to the next adventure!

  I started to have elaborate daydreams about what my new school would be like. Maybe it’d have, like, four floors and be all modern and cool. Maybe I’d see some boy across a room and we’d lock eyes and I’d have a new crush just like that. Maybe I’d have some amazing teacher who would introduce me to some subject or book that would change my life and make me want to join the Peace Corps or become an FBI agent.

  Anything could happen!

  Real estat
e paperwork came in and my parents signed it. Phone calls to lawyers and agents were made. We started packing and purging and then packing some more. A closing was set for the following week, the first week of May.

  My parents talked about possibly homeschooling me through the end of the year and I told them not to be ridiculous.

  A moving truck was hired for the closing date, to put our stuff in storage until we knew what our next move would be.

  Big Red seemed to know something was happening. I swear it was like it was pulling out all the stops to convince us to stay. The tulips and daffodils seemed to bloom in brighter shades of pink and purple than ever before. The cardinal reclaimed its daily perch out back and sang louder than ever. Forsythia blooms the color of tennis balls appeared down by the court. Pants and her kittens were frolicking every day, wherever you looked. I still hadn’t named them and was starting to think maybe it was better not to get attached.

  Spring had totally sprung, and the downstairs rooms suddenly seemed dark and dingy. I moved my diorama production to the dining room table. Since I was so close to completing the whole house, I decided to do the kitchen and dining room, and then, finally, the living room.

  The small, wiry Christmas tree was one of the few things left in the bag Naveen had given me, so I decided to make my living room diorama a Christmastime scene. I built a fireplace out of cardboard and covered it with gray and black and brown shapes to mimic the stone face. I cut orange and red tissue paper into flame shapes and lit it up. On the other end of the room, I cut windows and placed the Christmas tree in front of it. I didn’t think I could make ornaments small enough so I searched around my supplies for tiny beads and strung them on fishing wire, then wound it around the tree. I pulled out a box of our Christmas stuff from under the stairs and grabbed tiny pieces of tinsel and strung them as garland. I raided my mother’s wrapping paper and ribbon stash again and found leftover holiday paper, so I made small boxes out of whatever I could and wrapped them, and put them under the tree.

  It took me longer than any of the dioramas had so far. I spent a long time with wooden sticks and markers, trying to mimic the wooden beams on the ceiling. I worked in painstaking detail on the butterfly chair so that the pattern and colors were just right. I made mini-parents—one in each chair—and put Angus on the rug at their feet. Then I added myself, lying on the floor looking at the presents. It wasn’t based on any specific memory of Christmas, just a general feeling of being how we all ended up on Christmas Eve each year.