“Don’t you have something better to do than harass us?”
“Oooh, harass. Someone’s been studying their vocab words.” Nicolette smirks, then turns to Shauna, whose snide look matches her own. Why is she so proud of herself for being so mean?
“Honestly, McKee. Find a new hobby,” Oliver says. I want to high-five him.
And now I can’t stop what I’ve started, because I add, “Yeah, did you follow us here just to make fun of us or…?”
“You wish,” she scoffs. Then, in an instant, her tone turns from snotty to sticky, irritatingly sweet. “Have you talked to your bestie lately?”
I shake my head. I haven’t seen Laramie since Friday, and we haven’t talked since I texted that I was going away with my family. I feel a bit of shame when I realize that since I got back from Ojai, I’ve been more excited to talk to Edie than Laramie. And I think, at first, that Nicolette is trying to rub it in that she’s been hanging out with her more than me. But there’s something off about the way she’s talking and looking at me.
“Oh, really? Never mind.” Her voice is so exaggerated, she sounds like one of the drama kids at school going over their lines.
Don’t take the bait, don’t take the bait, don’t—
“Why?”
Nicolette’s eyes get big like she’s said too much. She exchanges a look with Shauna, who mirrors her expression. “Oh, nothing.”
It’s pretty obvious she wants me to ask again, but I know Nicolette. This won’t end well. And even though I’m dying to know what she’s getting at, I decide it’s not worth it. I can ask Laramie myself. Besides, Ewing Beach is small enough that anything important will eventually find its way to me.
“Okay.” I shrug at her and stand up, turning to Oliver. “Ready to get out there?”
“Definitely. It really stinks around here all of a sudden.”
“Yeah, smells kind of like a barney to me.”
We grab our boards and walk down to the water, laughing the whole way. A barney is someone who’s not very good at surfing, and Nicolette knows it. I look back before we paddle out, and her face is pinched into the sourest expression ever. Mission accomplished.
Turns out she didn’t ruin my perfect day after all. The water is amazing: crystal clear and cool. It’s always cool on the Central Coast—borderline cold—but the fall is the best time to surf here because it brings the greatest waves.
We see a good one coming up and Oliver points toward it, getting my permission to go for it. He’s closest to the peak, so I wave him on and watch as he pops up and crouches, riding it smooth as butter. If he’s this good at soccer, his dad might have a point about varsity.
I don’t think I’m going to take off on the next one, but at the last minute I catch it with a flawless pop-up and launch into a bottom turn, maneuvering my body toward the lip. Then, as the wave starts to break, I bend my knees even lower and, gaining speed, shift my weight and try to ride along the lip of the wave. I don’t last long before I go under, but I guess it’s long enough because when I come back up, Oliver is cheering for me instead of waiting for the next wave to roll in.
“Nice floater!” he yells, water dripping from his raised victory fists.
I smile as I take a minute to catch my breath. Competing may be what I really want to do, but I guess my dads weren’t totally wrong. Just having fun with surfing is still… fun.
BRAVE CHOICES
LARAMIE IS ABSENT ON TUESDAY. EVEN THOUGH I’M kind of glad we don’t have to sit across from each other at the lunch table being awkward, I send her a text to check in, remembering how Nicolette asked about her yesterday at the beach. She says she’s fine, just home with a sick stomach.
Edie is in a slightly better mood. When I saw her in math class, she apologized for not getting back to me until late yesterday. Her mom took her on a last-minute trip to Santa Cruz over the long weekend. I saw their car pull into the driveway after dark, when I was already getting ready for bed. When she texted back, I told her I had something to tell her today.
She tells the guys about the Halloween party and says they’re all invited. She doesn’t even say anything to Jamie when he mumbles that it must be her favorite holiday. She just arches her eyebrow so fiercely that he doesn’t utter another word.
I’m practically bursting by the time school is over. The 1968 journal is buried at the bottom of my backpack, but I can feel it burning hot as Edie and I walk home.
“Want to stop by Coleman Creamery?” I ask as we get to the main drag.
“I thought you had something to tell me.” She’s looking down at her phone, but the screen is black and she’s not actually using it. Just staring, like she’s willing it to do something.
“I do, but I can tell you over ice cream. Leif’s treat.” I’m a little worried I won’t be able to make it the few blocks home. Every time I think about the journal, I feel itchy trying to keep the news in.
“Okay, but my dad is supposed to call sometime before dinner, so I might have to talk to him.”
A few of the restaurants in town shut down for the year once the summer is over, but Coleman Creamery is open off-season. Usually only a few hours a day, but always after school. And it’s always packed with kids doing homework, shouting over one another, and making Leif’s job difficult.
He’s working today and looks relieved to see us when we walk in. “Finally, someone I can talk to. I just had to break up an ice-cream fight over there,” he says, pointing to a table of sixth graders. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going good,” I say.
Edie smiles at him but doesn’t say anything.
“Butter pecan, Alberta?” Leif asks, wielding the scooper in his plastic-gloved hand.
I start to say yes, but then I stop. I think about Constance and all the brave choices she made in her life. She took chances, even when she knew how scary it could be. I’ve always gotten butter pecan because I know I like it and won’t be disappointed… but it’s just ice cream. If I hate whatever I try, I can get butter pecan the next time.
“Actually… I want to try something new. You can choose.”
“You got it, boss.” He paces behind the case with his eyes narrowed as he studies the tubs of ice cream. He stops, pointing his scoop to the front row. “There it is. Honey rhubarb. You want a taste?”
“No… I trust you.” I watch him dig out a heaping scoopful. “Hey, is Laramie okay? She said she had a stomachache.”
Leif rolls his eyes. “I guess. She barely talks to me since school started. She about bit my head off when I asked her if she had any plans on Saturday. I just wanted to know if she needed a ride anywhere.”
“Yeah… she’s been like that with me, too.” And, to be honest, I’m relieved that it’s not just me.
He sighs, handing me the cup of ice cream. “Middle school girls, man.” Then he pauses. “High school girls, too. You’re all tough to figure out.”
“Like you guys are so much better,” Edie says, talking for the first time since we walked in. Her eyes flit over the ice-cream case. “Can I get a scoop of rocky road in a cone?”
I slide a bite of ice cream on my tongue and let it melt. I close my eyes. I haven’t had anything but butter pecan in years. And this is amazing. It’s tart and sweet and light at the same time. I eat half my cup before Leif has even scooped up Edie’s rocky road.
When he walks out to the floor to wipe down tables, I pull out the journal, open it to the entry I read last night, and push it in front of Edie.
But she’s not paying attention. She’s still looking at her phone, even though it hasn’t lit up once since we left school.
“He’ll call,” I say in my best encouraging voice. “And you’re going to see him again. I’m sure he feels really bad that he—”
“That’s easy for you to say, Alberta! You have so many people here who…” She stops, takes a shaky breath, and goes on. “You have two dads, and now you have your bio mom, and—you don’t get it. My dad is my
favorite person on the planet and everyone’s acting like it’s okay that I’ll only get to see him a few times a year now.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. And I really mean it. She’s right. I don’t know what it’s like to have divorced parents. Or a dad I only get to talk to over the phone.
“Well, if you’re sorry, then stop telling me it’s going to be okay,” Edie snaps. “I’m tired of hearing that, especially from someone who has no idea what it’s like. It’s not going to be okay until I get to see my dad.”
I shrink into myself like she slapped me. Edie has been quiet lately. Cranky, for sure. But she’s the one who kept telling me everything was fine with her dad. And she’s never talked to me like that. Her voice seeps into me like venom. I drop my spoon; the ice cream is sour on my tongue.
Denise said Laramie’s moodiness probably has nothing to do with me, and I know Edie’s doesn’t, either. But I’m tired of people snapping at me when I’m just trying to be a good friend to them.
I hop down from the stool, zip up my backpack, and push my shoulders through the straps.
“Where are you going?”
“Home. It’s the only place nobody’s ever mad at me.”
“Alberta—”
“You should read that journal.” I stab my finger at the book in front of her. The book she never even bothered to look at, after all the time we’ve spent trying to figure this out. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I think Constance used to own the B&B. Mrs. Harris was passing for white.”
Edie’s eyes widen. “Alberta, wait—”
But I stalk away from her, straight for the door. The mooing cow is the last sound I hear.
ACCIDENT
I FEEL A STRANGE ENERGY IN THE AIR AS SOON AS I walk into school Wednesday morning.
I can tell right away that it’s not about me, because the students standing around barely give me a second glance. But I sense people are talking about something. There’s a buzz in the atrium, and people keep giggling behind their hands. And the worst part is I can’t even ask Edie if I’m imagining it.
Last night after dinner, I found a text from her apologizing. She asked if I wanted to talk about Constance. I did want to talk about Constance, but I was still too upset with her. Dad and Denise kept asking me if something was wrong, and I just said I had a lot of homework I wasn’t looking forward to. Which wasn’t totally false.
But when I sat down to do my reading, all I could think about was how it seems like I never know the right thing to say to my friends anymore. Somehow, Edie snapping at me hurt more than when Laramie did. We don’t get in a lot of fights or anything, but I’ve known Laramie longer. And for Edie to not be interested in the journals… well, that hurt, too. Constance has taken up so much of our time over the last few weeks, and Edie ruined the big reveal. Plus, it was our thing. The one thing we both cared about enough to work on like it was an assignment. The one thing we shared that no one else from school would understand the way we do.
I finally texted back that maybe we could talk about the journals soon. Even though I was dying to know what she thought, and if Mrs. Harris had left behind anything else, and if Ms. Whitman knew anything about the situation. When Edie texted back that she had a dentist appointment the next morning and would see me at lunch, my shoulders sagged in relief.
I say hi to a few people on the way to my locker, but nobody tells me what’s going on. As I’m opening my locker door, I see Nicolette and Gavin walking this way. She has her arm looped through his and he’s smirking as they saunter through the hallway to the eighth-grade wing, looking like they own the school. She catches my eye and gives me a nasty look. I roll my eyes and stare right back until she looks away.
I stop in the bathroom before homeroom, even though first bell is in four minutes. But I don’t want to go all the way to Mr. Simons’s room, get the bathroom pass, and come back, so I chance it. I can always run.
I’m washing my hands when I hear something behind me. I thought I was the only one in here, and when I look under the stalls, I don’t see any feet. I shut off the faucet, soapy water dripping from my fingers. The room is silent. But when I turn on the water, I swear I hear it again.
The faucet squeaks off. “Hello?”
Still nothing.
I dry my hands with a scratchy paper towel and go down the short line of stalls. The door to the last one is partially shut, and when I push it open, Laramie’s teary brown eyes are staring back at me.
“What are you doing in here?”
She’s squatting over the closed lid of the toilet, her back against the stall wall and her feet planted on the seat. Her face is a splotchy pink and her curls are a mess, like she’s been running her hand through them over and over again.
“I need to go home,” she whispers.
“Is it your stomach? Do you want to go to the nurse?”
Her tears well over, splashing down her cheeks. “It’s not my stomach, Alberta. It’s… Nicolette.”
I stare at her. “What do you mean?”
“Are you sure we’re alone?” she chokes out between thick sobs.
I drop my backpack on the floor, check each stall again, and then come back to hers. “It’s just us. What’s wrong, Laramie?”
She sniffles loudly. “Nicolette… she said…” Laramie tries to tell me, but her words keep coming out in chokes and hiccups. The bell rings. She flinches and looks at me. “You should go so you don’t get in trouble.”
I shrug. “It’s just homeroom. Simons won’t get mad if I tell him I was helping someone. Laramie… what did she say?”
“I… I spent the night at her house when you were gone last weekend. On Saturday. And I told her that Gavin… that Gavin tried to kiss me the other day. After school.”
My mouth drops open. “He did?”
Laramie’s had her first kiss, too?
“He tried, but… I pushed him away. And I told Nicolette because I thought that’s what a friend should do.” She swallows. “You guys were right. Nicolette has a crush on him. But she told me first, so it felt like I couldn’t like him, too.”
“What did she say?”
“She pretended like everything was fine when I told her. Like she wasn’t mad at me. But then, the next day… she started telling people I had an accident all over her bed and she has to get a new mattress.”
“She told people you wet the bed?”
“No.” Laramie shakes her head and squeezes her eyes shut. Her voice is barely audible when she says, “My period.”
My stomach seizes. That’s what people were laughing about this morning? And I guess that’s why no one bothered to tell me what was going on. “Is it true?”
“No! She’s just being awful because of the Gavin stuff. After I told her about the kiss, I said I’d had a crush on him, but I wasn’t going to do anything since she liked him first. The rumor started with just a few of her friends, then it spread. And now it’s all over the school today.” She frowns through her tears. “I saw sixth graders giving me weird looks this morning.”
I put my hand on her arm. “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this? About the kiss and—”
“Because you hated Nicolette and Gavin. And you’ve been, like, attached at the hip with Edie since she moved here.”
“We haven’t been attached at the hip.”
“You walk to and from school together every day. You go over to the B&B all the time, or she’s at your house. You were so excited when she moved here, and I felt… I don’t know. When Nicolette started being nice to me, I figured you wouldn’t even notice. It felt like you’d been waiting your whole life for Edie to move in across the street.”
I put my hand on her arm. “I’m sorry, Laramie. I…” I want to explain how good it feels to finally have someone here who understands the parts of me she’ll never know. I want to tell her about the journals and how they connect Edie and me with a part of being black that we’re still trying to understand. But now is not the time.
/> “I guess you were right about Nicolette.” She lets out a shuddery breath.
I’m not thinking about how I was right, though. All I can think about is how sad and hurt my best friend looks right now.
I put my arms around her so her sobs muffle into my shirt instead of echoing through the cold, empty bathroom.
Laramie eventually stopped crying long enough to call her mom and ask to go home. I walked her to the office before I went to homeroom, and when the secretary saw the shape Laramie was in, she was nice enough to write me a late pass.
The guys are on their best behavior at lunch. They obviously know what people are saying about Laramie, but they don’t mention it. Edie arrives from her dentist appointment with a bag of fresh In-N-Out, including fries for the whole table.
“Well?” Jamie says after Edie takes a bite of her burger.
Around us, everyone is staring enviously at Edie. The cafeteria is serving Philly cheesesteaks today; the guys couldn’t shut up about how good they were earlier, but now they’re picking at their lunches. They’re savoring the fries like they’ve never had them before in their life. Even Fletcher is eating them one by one, rationing so they can last through the end of lunch.
“Fine, it’s a good burger,” she says, rolling her eyes. She doesn’t come up for air again until she’s half-done.
Edie walks up to my locker after school just as I finish looking at my phone. Laramie hasn’t responded to my texts. I hope she’s okay.
“Hey,” Edie says.
“Oh, hey.” I was relieved we didn’t have to walk to school together this morning, but I forgot about getting home. I slip my phone into my pocket.
“I was thinking maybe we could talk about Constance? You’re totally right. She has to be Mrs. Harris.”
“Um, yeah,” I say, stuffing my history textbook into my bag. “But can we get together another time? I need to go check on Laramie.”
Edie is quiet for a moment. “Oh. Is she okay?”
The Only Black Girls in Town Page 17
