“You didn’t!”
“I knew you wouldn’t do it yourself—you think too much about everything. So I had to do it for you. It’s the first step toward breaking us out of our shells. Floey Packer, you have now broken free from your ordinary, drab little world.”
For an otherwise sensible girl, Azra had some stupid ideas. I wondered if somebody dropped her on her head as a baby.
She giggled again.
Ha ha.
I didn’t speak to her for two weeks. Even after that, it took us a while to get beyond this. But after she slipped a tin of homemade peanut butter brownies, my favorite, into my backpack, I was able to remind myself that, misguided as she was, she was my best friend and she meant well.
I should have called Aunt Sarah right away to tell her that the thank-you note wasn’t from me, but I didn’t want to think about it—it was just too horrible. And then time went by. By the time Lillian announced her engagement to Helmut and I realized I was actually going to have to see Aunt Sarah at the wedding—and found out that her two kids would be staying with us for the three weeks after the wedding—it was too late.
After that, in the months leading up to the big event, I blushed every time I thought of my aunt.
* This morning I thought of a plan to help him over his shyness thing—sort of a birthday gift from my brain! If I ask Gary, I’m pretty sure he’ll give me a part-time job working with him and Wendel at the studio. Spending more time together ought to help the boy along. Sure, I’ll need to figure out what to say to Azra, but as long as it’s Wen who makes the move and not me, I haven’t broken our deal, right? (Note to self: Start working up an interest in photography.)
** This, of course, may just be wishful thinking, but it’s my birthday, so I can dream, can’t I? (Note to self: Start leaving the Help Wanted section of the newspaper on Lillian’s pillow.)
chaptertwo: in which
my sister gets married
or
dodging aunt sarah
Saturday, June 28, 7:10 a.m.
I am too depressed for words. My sister is getting married today, so I should be enjoying myself, but the following things are ruining it for me:
Wen dumped me.
It’s clear to me now that he never had any idea he was my boyfriend.
The wedding is going ahead even though I have convincing evidence that love doesn’t last and only ends in pain. (See item a.)
For the next three weeks there will be two strange kids, cousins I barely know, in my home, my personal space. Worse, one of them will share my room.
If I don’t find a way to avoid Aunt Sarah today, I may just die of shame.
Frank Sinatra has been looking at me like I’m out of my mind.
He might be right.
Thank God Rebecca Greenblatt was such a fatty.
Rebecca, the other bridesmaid, shifted her position, so I shifted mine, too. She was chunky enough that if I kept behind her, I could stay pretty well hidden from about a third of the guests, including Aunt Sarah.
From the front row of folding chairs, my mother was giving me the evil eye. Floey, she mouthed silently, stop … moving.
I fixed my gaze on the main event and pretended not to see her.
With her veil, tiara and bouquet of white lilies, Lillian looked like a princess. I, on the other hand, clutching my Alice-in-Wonderland bouquet (What flower has big, red, floppy elephant-ear petals? And who, other than my sister, would choose them for her wedding?), felt ridiculous in my bridesmaid gown. It was a horrible pink thing with ruffles and a silly neck, and it looked even worse on than it did hanging in my closet. Anyone who wore this dress should have been blond and waiflike, and I was neither. I felt like a troll in a doily.
Seeing how happy Lillian and Helmut looked only made me consider how pointless relationships were. I’ve read that half of all marriages end in divorce. Doesn’t that tell you something? In Ma’s case it wasn’t divorce, but I bet when she got married, she never thought her husband would just drop dead and leave her with two daughters, aged ten and two, to raise by herself. Sure, Helmut and Lillian seemed happy now, but how long could it last?
Then, of course, there was Wen and me.
For almost three months we’d been working together part-time as Gary’s assistants, going every few days to the photography studio, helping at the front desk and getting the cameras and backgrounds ready. Wen was funny and sweet with me, and eventually I started thinking of us as kind of a unit. At home I talked about him so much that my mother and Lillian asked if he was my boyfriend, and stupidly, I told them he was. At the time, I didn’t think it was a big leap. I thought of him as practically my boyfriend already.
Only I never told him.
I know that sounds dumb, but I didn’t. I guess I didn’t want him to tell me it wasn’t true.
And then the bomb dropped. Three days before the wedding, Wen quit the studio, supposedly so he could spend more time on his music. Later that day, Azra saw him holding hands with Kim Swift. Only then did I realize that, incredibly, Wen had no idea how I felt about him. If I hadn’t already been convinced I was invisible, that was all the proof I would have needed.
I never told my mother or Lillian. What would I have said? That I was dumped from a relationship that had never really existed in the first place? I was too embarrassed.
As I watched Lillian take her vows, I wondered if Wen and Kim were together now, not thinking about me.
Oh God! Would I ever be able to stop torturing myself?
Gary was standing between the minister and the harpist, taking pictures. Every now and then I caught him taking his eye off the wedding to sneak a look at my mother. I was pretty sure he had a thing for her. Between snapping shots and stealing peeks at Ma, he kept wiping tears from his eyes. Gary’s a big crier. For his sake and for the sake of the wedding album, I hoped he’d make it through the ceremony without melting away.
“Lillian, do you take Helmut to be your husband, to love, honor and comfort, to keep in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, from this day forward, so long as you both shall live?”
That’s when I felt the first raindrop on my nose. A moment later another big fat blob plopped on my ear, dribbled down my neck and eventually soaked itself into the poofy pink shoulder of my awful dress. My mother’s face suddenly looked panicky. Some of the guests glanced up at the sky.
If everyone was forced inside, where was I going to hide?
Soon the wind picked up and my elephant-ear bouquet flapped around. Then, all at once, the raindrops began to fall more quickly and the minister started talking a lot faster. By the time the wedding party hurried up the aisle with the guests hurling birdseed, my dress was almost soaked.
“The flowers!” Lillian wailed.
“Everybody grab something!” my mother shouted.
Friends and relatives grabbed the giant arrangements of bizarre flowers and hustled them, along with anything else that seemed important, up the back steps and inside to safety. Our house wasn’t really big enough for seventy-two people. Other than our big living room, there were only the two bedrooms, the kitchen, a small television room, and a tiny office the size of a closet. Still, there was no choice except to cram everybody in.
Lillian was so upset by the unexpected rain that she locked herself in our only bathroom, crying. Her new husband stood at the door trying to comfort her for twenty minutes before she finally agreed to come out and rejoin her guests, who flocked around her sympathetically.
I, on the other hand, found an empty corner and sat there quietly for at least half an hour. In such a small house, staying out of sight would have been difficult for anybody else. But not for me.
Right then, for instance, my mother was standing only a few feet from me, talking with Gary and poor Helmut’s square-faced father, but I could tell she had no idea I was there.
Wallpaper, thy name is Floey.
For ten minutes, I’d been sitting so close to Ma that I could almost have
reached my arm out and touched her. Would she ever look in my direction? How could she not notice me?
A tray of champagne glasses drifted by. My mother always made a big deal that she didn’t want me drinking alcohol, so as a test, I stood up and grabbed one of the glasses. “Hello, Ma,” I said through the wall of people. “I’m right here and I have a glass of champagne.”
She kept talking.
I decided to wave my arms around, moving the glass back and forth in front of my face, trying to get her attention. Incredibly, she still didn’t notice me. I felt like Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles. No, worse. At least at the end of the movie, the forgotten girl gets the cute guy in the red car. Where was my cute guy in the red car?
Then my glass knocked into something hard. It was a blue suit.
“Whoops! Hold on!” it said.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t—”
The boy in the suit took out a handkerchief and wiped his jacket, which now had a dark wet streak on one sleeve. He was older, fifteenish.
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” he said in a slow, friendly voice.
“Really, I feel just horrible!” I grabbed a couple of napkins from the sideboard next to me and tried to help him.
“No, no. It’s fine.” He had a slight accent like he was from the South or something, definitely not from Rhode Island. “It’s not so bad. That’s why they make them with two arms.”
I stopped wiping. He was smiling at me. He was a head taller than me, blond, with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen.
“Have you been standing here all on your own?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“Listen, I do believe we ought to get you another glass of champagne.” At that moment the tray came by again, so he grabbed two glasses and held one out for me.
“No, thank you. That other one was just for show. My mother doesn’t allow it.”
He stepped in a little closer. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said, still holding out the drink. “What your mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
“But my mother would know. She’d see.” I nodded toward where Ma stood.
When he saw who she was, he stepped back a little. “You couldn’t be … you’re not Lillian’s little eleven-year-old sister, are you?”
I shook my head. “Thirteen.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, blushing. “I didn’t know. I guess I should have—You look a lot like her.”
I probably ought to have been flattered, but beyond the dark wavy hair and pale skin, I think we only look alike if you’re not paying attention. Still, he seemed so nice I didn’t want to argue.
“It’s just that you seem older than I expected. More, you know, mature.” I didn’t want him to see how happy that made me, so I tried my best to keep a poker face. He looked down at the chair I’d been sitting in and then glanced around at the crowded room. “It must be hard for you today.”
I studied his beautiful face. Was he only being nice to me because he thought I was just a sad nobody who needed cheering up, or did he really think I was mature? I wished I weren’t wearing the Glinda the Good Witch costume.
My mother was still listening to the square-faced man, only now his jolly-looking wife had joined them. Here I was just a few feet away with an older boy who might even have lewd intentions, and Ma was completely oblivious.
“I changed my mind,” I said. “I will have that champagne.”
He hesitated, but I grabbed the glass out of his hand and took a sip. It was sweet, like lemon soda.
“Maybe we’d better go into the kitchen,” he said. “Would you like to come with me?”
I almost said no, but he moved away, so I followed him. We had to fight our way through the people. Once we reached the kitchen, a group of Helmut’s incredibly tall, German-speaking relatives blocked us from my mother’s view. We found an empty space at the corner of the counter.
“Okay, she’s not around anymore.” He raised his glass. “To never being afraid to have a glass of champagne at your own sister’s wedding.”
I felt my cheeks grow warm. I raised my glass too and then emptied it in one long swallow. He watched me, surprised. Finally, I handed him the empty glass and said, “What’s your name?”
“I’m Calvin,” he laughed. “Helmut’s uncle, sort of. His stepmother is my sister.”
Another failed relationship.
“I like your accent,” I said. “Where are you from?”
“Providence,” he said, and then grinned. “But transplanted two years ago from Oklahoma City.”
“I’m Floey,” I said. Then I noticed the top of Aunt Sarah’s head bobbing in the doorway of the television room just above one of the shorter German ladies. “Would you mind standing right here?”
Since Calvin didn’t seem to understand and wasn’t moving quickly enough, I grabbed him by the arms and pulled him into place. I was starting to feel a comfortable glow across my face.
“Wh-what?”
I whispered into his ear. “It’s my aunt Sarah. I don’t want to talk to her.”
“Ahh …,” he said, as if he understood. He looked over his shoulder. “Which one is she?”
“Skinny lady. Tight hairdo. Ugly brown dress. Please don’t stare.” He turned back. He had a wonderful smile. I suddenly felt relaxed and wicked. “What do you do when you’re not pushing alcoholic beverages on underage girls?”
He grinned. “I’m a poet.” When I didn’t say anything, he continued, “Well, I go to school, of course. Moses Brown. I’ll be a sophomore this September. But I do poetry readings all the time. You know, open-mike nights.”
I liked the idea that I was talking with a handsome, soulful artist from Oklahoma. And a high school sophomore. Hmmmm. Very exciting.
“You stand in front of people and read poems? I couldn’t do that.”
“Sure you could,” he said. “An audience can bring out the best in a person. It’s fun, too.”
“No, I really couldn’t. The last time I had to give an oral report in class I nearly passed out. They sent me to the nurse.”
“You putting me on?”
I shook my head.
He seemed to consider this for a moment. “I guess I used to be kind of the same way,” he said. “Whenever I had to give any kind of speech or whatever at school, I couldn’t sleep the night before. The first time I read one of my poems to an audience, I pretty much had to force myself. But after a few times, I got over it. It doesn’t bother me now.”
I stared at him. “Sounds like torture to me.”
He looked like he didn’t know what to say, so I changed the subject. “What does that mean?” I asked, pointing at the little round pin on his shirt pocket. It said LIFE IS SUFFERING, ZEN YOU DIE.
“This?” he said, looking down at it. “Oh, it’s sort of a Buddhist thing. Deep, don’t you think?” He must have seen that I was still puzzled because then he said, “Maybe it’s about how insignificant we all are, compared to the universe and all that. Know what I mean?”
“Sort of depressing.”
He shrugged. “Can I move my head now?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, looking carefully over his shoulder. “Yes, I think she’s gone.”
He turned his head but there was nothing to see except dressed-up people squished together like pickles in a jar. He laughed. “You’re a very … interesting person, Floey Packer.”
This time I couldn’t help grinning.
“So,” he said. “What do you do when you’re not hiding from your relatives?”
I started giggling and then so did he. It surprised me that I felt so comfortable talking with this complete stranger, this Adonis. It was the first relaxed moment I’d had all day. I was just about to ask him if he was really a Buddhist when my mother’s voice rose above the other noise.
“The caterer is ready to serve dinner,” she said, sounding almost like she was apologizing. I caught a flash of her purple dress between two giant German men sta
nding in the doorway. “It’s going to be a little crowded, and we’ll need help setting up the tables.”
I looked back into Calvin’s blue, blue eyes and suddenly found myself unable to speak. I didn’t want our conversation to end. So far he had been the one cheerful part of an almost completely cheer-free weekend.
He gave me another friendly smile and squeezed my arm as if to say, “Don’t worry. You are by far the best thing at this wedding. Everything will be all right.” What he actually said was, “Well, I guess it’s time to help out. Catch you later.”
And then he left and I was alone again.
Maybe it was the champagne starting to affect me, but instead of feeling abandoned I felt strangely excited. Out of all the people here, this nice, incredibly gorgeous poet had chosen to talk with me, Floey. And even though he’d gone away, he had said “Catch you later,” hadn’t he? And didn’t that mean he wanted to talk even more?
Folding tables sprang up in just about every available space: not only in the living room, but also in each of the bedrooms and even some in the doorways between rooms. Eventually, my mother and Lillian came to get me.
“There you are,” my mother said, taking my arm. “Let me walk you to your table. Come with me.”
They brought me to my own bedroom. Somebody had moved my desk to make room for a small card table, where all the little children, none of them over eleven and a few of them much younger, were sitting. They grinned at me.
I was horrified.
“Ma, you’re not serious! I don’t want to eat here, with them.”
“I’m sorry, honey. Please don’t make a fuss.” She tugged at an unraveling curl. “I’m afraid it’s the only spot we have.”
“I’m not a child. I don’t belong at this table. If this is the only place for me then I’ll eat standing up. Or I won’t eat at all!”
Lillian’s eyes welled up with fresh tears. “Floey always has to ruin everything for me, Ma! This is my wedding, and I want her to eat at a table!”
“We don’t have time for a scene, Floey. Why don’t you just do it? This one day, please be flexible.”
I Am the Wallpaper Page 2
