A Friend at Midnight

by Caroline B. Cooney

  In her heart, Lily knew Amanda was a lonely person. Her life only looked perfect. Her brilliant, wonderful parents worked twelve hours a day, including commutes, and Amanda had essentially brought herself up. She was fine with it, but what she wanted for herself was a house like Lily’s: busy, noisy and chaotic, with little boys to hug and read aloud to.

  Amanda, like Rebecca, just wanted to get married. She wanted the husband and the home and children they would have together, and all the demands and the privileges these meant. Amanda didn’t care about a career. Lily felt the reverse. She’d already been the parent, both to Michael and to Nathaniel. Lily craved the demands and privileges of life on her own.

  Amanda said, “Did you keep the bill for the airline tickets?”

  After the credit card bill arrived, Lily had gone to the bank and emptied her savings account and the bank had written its own check to the credit card company. Since she’d gone to a branch Mom and Kells didn’t use, Lily was unknown to the bank, and all it was, was a transaction. The teller hardly noticed it going by. Then Lily canceled the credit card. “I kept the bill,” Lily told Amanda.

  “So show it to them. That backs up your story.”

  Lily’s lunch tray was old. The plastic sides had gotten frizzled in the dishwashers and the edges rubbed against her palms like sandpaper. She didn’t take any food off the tray. Hunger seemed distant and unknown. “It’s Michael’s story to tell if he wants to. And he doesn’t want to.”

  “So what?” said Amanda. “If Rebecca wants her father at her wedding, that’s her privilege. But nobody should be confused about the kind of guy Dennis is. No matter what Michael thinks, you need to tell, because Michael can’t go off with this guy again. And that could possibly happen.”

  Trey Mahanna slid into the chair next to Amanda, facing Lily. “Hi,” he said, interested, because he knew perfectly well this was not in fact her lunch period.

  Lily mustered a fake smile. “Hi.”

  “So he’s coming to the wedding,” said Trey.

  The girls gaped at him.

  “Michael called Jamie right away,” Trey explained. “Michael’s thrilled.”

  Lily hated it that all these perfect people—Trey’s family, Freddie’s family, Amanda’s family—knew the flaws in Lily’s; they were following her story like a soap opera. They had their favorite characters; they knew what episode they wanted next.

  “Lily,” said Trey, looking awkward and nervous, “was the thing that your father did to Michael—was it like—well—sexual? Because my father says that—”

  “No!” whispered Lily. “It was not! Don’t you dare repeat or think or say such a thing. Don’t you dare make things worse, Trey Mahanna. You and your father stay out of this!” It took such effort to keep her voice down. She was sorry she hadn’t crushed Trey with a chair last year in Anger Management. Maybe right now she’d flip the table on him and smash his questioning jaw. “Stop speculating,” she hissed at him. “Stop trying to be helpful. Just stop.”

  Lily worked at the orthodontists’ that afternoon, her usual hours, three to five-thirty. Her job was to carry out cheerful little chores in a cheerful little way and she pulled it off until four-fifteen, when she looked up to see Trey.

  “I have an appointment,” he mumbled, not meeting her eyes.

  “We’re running a few minutes late,” she said stiffly. “Please have a seat.”

  He chose an alcove where they wouldn’t have to look at each other.

  Lily never entered the treatment room when Trey was the patient. It was okay for some eleven-year-old to be all splayed out, mouth propped open, chairside assistant sucking up saliva. It was not okay for some seventeen-year-old, especially not a boy you knew. Middle school kids liked being part of the orthodonture crowd; it was like some subdued anxious club. High school students loathed it. She glanced at Trey’s record. It was a long appointment. Trey was getting his braces off.

  At five-fifteen, Dr. Alzina requested that Lily take Trey’s After photos. There were always two: one to staple to the record and another to staple to the bulletin board where little signs proclaimed YAY! CONGRATS! YOU LOOK AWESOME!

  Trey was waiting in the little blue hall with the bright lights where Lily would snap his picture. He didn’t look at her. She lifted the Polaroid camera. “Your teeth have to be in the photograph, Trey.”

  “Huh?”

  “You have to smile. That’s the point of all this suffering. Smiling.”

  “What do I get in return?”

  “I tell you how handsome you are.”

  He grinned and she quickly took his picture. Slowly the photograph slid out, firmed up and got clear. “Trey, you are a total doll. Look at those teeth. You are so handsome.”

  “You get paid to say that.”

  “True,” said Lily. Really true in your case, she thought. “All Afters look great, though,” she told him. “I love how every Before really and truly does become an After.”

  Dr. Alzina had rooted around in Trey’s records to get the photo from before he got braces. Trey looked awful. Receding chin, overlapping teeth, sticking-out teeth, one extra deformed tooth and a look of terror. The whole staff crowded around, as was the custom to celebrate Afters. “Trey, you’re such a hunk!” cried the receptionist.

  “I’m in love with you,” said the insurance clerk.

  Dr. Alzina photographed Lily smiling at Trey’s Before and After.

  “Can I keep that one?” asked Trey.

  “Sure,” said Dr. Alzina. Then he got interested. “You two an item? Orthodonture romance. It’s the best.” He focused the camera on both of them. “Give us a kiss.”

  “We haven’t had our first kiss yet,” said Trey.

  “What’s the matter with you?” said Dr. Alzina. “Pick up the pace.”

  When the last patient was gone, Lily still had to clean up. It was her turn to do the patients’ bathroom. She slid on disposable gloves, swabbed sink and toilet and found her poise going straight down the toilet with the cleanser. She could be the dutiful employee here, all cheerful and smooth, but once she got home, she’d be the middle child who was nothing but a threat to her brother and sister.

  When she finally got to her car, there in her front passenger seat sat Trey Mahanna. Lily got in the driver’s side, slid behind the wheel and put the key in the ignition. “Yes?” she said.

  “I’m not an ordinary After,” said Trey.

  He spoke the truth. He was an extraordinary After. Not only was he good-looking, but like his father, he was nice all the way through. All the way down. All through the years. But Lily did not want to be nice. She hated being nice. How come it wasn’t other people’s turn to be nice to her?

  Jesus, Jesus, she said to Him. When I’m paid I can be nice. But I can’t be nice to family. I can’t be nice to Trey. And I sure can’t be nice to Dennis Rosetti. Oh, Jesus, I feel as if I’m running to a place where I never want to arrive. The place where I’ll hate my sister. Jesus, don’t let it happen.

  “Want to go to a movie tonight?” asked Trey.

  “I’m busy.”

  He sat very still.

  Jesus, Lily continued, I want to love people. But they have to make it easier. People are so annoying and they never go away when they should.

  Jesus was definitely amused. Lily could tell.

  “What’s funny?” said Trey.

  “God.”

  “Are you swearing at me or answering?”

  “Answering. God is funny. The way He does or does not show up.” She was going to sob now. She was not going to do this in front of Trey Mahanna. “Does Jesus ever actually help you?” she asked him. “Are you ever actually nicer to people because of Jesus?”

  Trey got out of her car. He shut the door. He leaned back in the window. “I’m nice to you, aren’t I? If that doesn’t take the help of God, I don’t know what does.”

  chapter

  13

  When Lily finally got home from the orthodontists’, the hou
se was completely quiet.

  She peeked in the family room. Kells was asleep in his recliner in front of a silent television, Nathaniel snoozing in his arms.

  She tiptoed into the kitchen and saw a note taped to the refrigerator, because everyone in the family opened the refrigerator door upon returning from anything. Lily hardly ever snacked, but she always liked to assess what was available.

  Mom and I are at the bridal mall, said the note. Home for dinner. A million things to tell everybody. Rebecca.

  Lily wrenched the note off the door, screwed it up in her hand and flung it at the trash can. They had gone wedding gown shopping without her? It was her own fault. How could they take her to the bridal mall when she had refused to be in the wedding?

  “Hi,” said Michael.

  She would never get used to how silent he was. It was like living with a cat. Every now and then you heard the slightest patter of feet or a purr. Otherwise, his presence was unknown to you.

  “They went wedding gown shopping without me,” blurted Lily, when she would have liked to shout, How can you possibly be glad you’ll see that snake again? but Michael, being a boy, didn’t understand the meaning of this and just opened the refrigerator door, no doubt grateful he hadn’t been taken shopping. “There’s chocolate pudding,” he suggested.

  “It isn’t real,” said Lily. “It’s in those little plastic cups.” Lily liked cooked pudding with the skin on the top.

  “I’ll make real pudding,” Michael offered.

  “Only if we have whipped cream,” said Lily, purposely being annoying.

  Michael checked the refrigerator door for the squirt kind and there was a new can, which he held up for Lily’s approval. Her annoyance level fell a little bit. Michael opened the pudding mix carton and dumped it into a pot. Lily measured out two cups of whole milk while Michael stirred with a whisk. There was no piece of equipment Michael didn’t love, including kitchen equipment. She could see him owning a hardware store someday, or a sports store. It would fail, though, because Michael was so silent he’d never sell anything.

  Her heart was gripped again by her grief for Michael, who was not the person he was supposed to be. What kind of fourth-grade boy comforted his sister and made her chocolate pudding? He should be off with Jamie, being noisy and hard to find and up to no good.

  If only Nathaniel for once in his life could be hard to find. Instead, he was out of Kells’s lap and yanking on their elbows, demanding to stir, and wanting to be the one to pour it into dessert cups.

  “Like we’d let you pour chocolate pudding,” said Lily. “The floor would have more to eat than we would.”

  “We could have a whipped cream fight,” suggested Michael.

  “No!” yelled Kells from the recliner.

  The front door opened, the screen door slammed, car doors were opened and more doors slammed, as if dozens of people were coming home, but it was only Mom and Rebecca, laden with purchases, flushed with success. The department store and specialty shop bags, with their bright colors and twine handles, meant that they had gone without her to the best malls. “There was school today,” Lily said to her mother, the teacher.

  “I took a personal day. Rebbie and I went everywhere. We got a few little things but nothing major. We simply could not find a wedding gown. That bridal mall? Nothing at all.”

  “Well, actually, hundreds of gowns,” Rebecca corrected. “But nothing perfect. My wedding is going to be perfect.”

  “We stopped at Antonio’s Deli on the way home,” said Mom. “I have veal marsala, chicken tetrazzini and four-cheese lasagna.” She popped three trays into the microwave, upended a container of Antonio’s walnut, cranberry, feta and romaine salad into a bowl, flipped a long thin garlic loaf under the broiler, took a spoonful of Lily’s pudding and said, “But we do have colors picked out. White and three shades of pink: deep, deeper, deepest.”

  Lily was so relieved to be back in the wedding she didn’t even complain about the pink end of the spectrum. “What kind of shoes?” she said. Rebecca loved shoes.

  Michael set his chocolate pudding down untouched. Look at all that stuff Mom and Rebecca bought. You knew girls were serious about stuff when they got shoes to match.

  Michael tried to tamp down his excitement. Mom and Lily might turn on him if they felt it. Last year when he said he was going to live with Dad, Mom almost went crazy. Nothing must jeopardize the chance to see Dad again.

  He washed Nathaniel’s hands while Lily set out forks and Rebecca checked to see if the butter had melted on the garlic bread. They carried everything to the back deck so they could eat in the fresh air. Michael always loved the strange trek of carrying everything from a perfectly good table in the kitchen to a less good table outside, the domestic effort his mother would not make for anything else: a picnic.

  Lily always had good stories from the orthodontists’ office. Michael meant to sit quietly while Lily talked and then casually wedge in a few questions about Dad. But Lily said nothing and Michael could not wait. “Exactly how long till the wedding, Rebecca?” he asked, meaning Exactly how long till Dad gets here?

  “Six weeks,” she told him. “October twenty-fourth. I’ll be busy every second. I have to admit that I thought this would be easier. I’m still surprised the bridal mall was so unhelpful. If everything’s that hard, like finding the right reception hall…”

  His classroom did not have October’s calendar up yet. As soon as it went up, Michael would make a copy and bring it home and cross out the days the way he had last summer when Dad was coming.

  Michael did not want to think about the visit he had unmemorized. It was like turning a sock inside out. All sweat and lint. Or maybe stronger than that. More like unlocking a bank vault. And now something as lovely and shining as his sister’s wedding was opening the vault. Michael didn’t really want to see in. He tried to see around instead. There was, for example, reading. He was kind of good at it now. Dad wouldn’t be so ashamed.

  Maybe there would be a printed program for the wedding the way there was for everything else in church, and Michael could read out loud for Dad. He would practice ahead of time.

  Michael felt blurry, filled with a kind of anxiety and a kind of love that made him want to go out in the driveway and practice layups or something. What had Reb meant, exactly, that Dad would walk her down the aisle? She couldn’t walk by herself? What would Michael’s role be? How much would he see of Dad?

  Vaguely he heard Rebecca accuse Lily of having a temper tantrum. Vaguely he heard Lily say that Rebecca was a brat. He didn’t want to be part of any argument. He wanted to luxuriate in the new calendar shape: the six weeks. On the classroom calendar, the thirty days of September were divided into rows across and rows down and you learned to think of them that way. He tried to envision the thirtieth day of September on the classroom calendar and then mentally tack on October, so that its days too formed rows across and down.

  Suddenly his mother’s voice was very loud. Mom was furious—apparently at him.

  “What is this?” she demanded. “I’ve had it! What is going on here anyway? Michael, you begin. What really happened during that visit to your father? How did it involve Lily?”

  A sort of cavity developed in his chest. His heart and lungs and rib cage were getting sucked down, and he was out of air. He had one of those dark moments when he was alone, when the car drove away, when there were only strangers, when the phone calls wouldn’t go through and he was a thief. “It didn’t involve Lily, Mom.”

  “But what was it?”

  “It wasn’t anything.”

  “Honestly, Lily,” said Rebecca. “In that case, it’s time to face what you’ve done to this family. We’ll work through it. I forgive you, Lily. But when Dad—”

  “I didn’t do a thing to this family!” shrieked Lily. “He did it. And don’t you start forgiving me, Rebecca Rosetti! I’m the one who’s right! I’ve always been right!”

  Rebecca stood up fast, jarring her glass of
water. Kells made a quick save. Naturally Rebecca ignored this. “You made Dad into an ogre, Lily, and then you poisoned Michael against him. You did it on purpose. You haven’t let Michael have anything to do with Dad all this time. And as for you, Mother, you are equally responsible. It’s comfortable for you to have no contact with your ex-husband. You probably like Lily’s behavior!”

  Nathaniel started to whimper.

  Michael steadied himself. Both his sisters were piercing him with their eyes. He was expected to be somebody’s ally. They were going to slug it out and the result would be that Dad might not come.

  “Michael, have you forgotten how to talk?” yelled Rebecca.

  No sentence came to mind that would rescue him from failing Dad yet again.

  And then Lily began to tell. “Dad wasn’t nice to Michael,” she said, in the kind of voice that’s just getting started, the kind of voice with lots more to say.

  “Everybody’s not nice some of the time, Lily,” said Rebecca. “It’s been a whole year. Doesn’t Dad deserve another chance? And even if he doesn’t deserve another chance, it’s only for a weekend. You can smile for forty-eight hours.”

  “It isn’t that simple,” said Lily.

  “What’s the hard part?” said Rebecca, sounding pretty hard herself.

  “I can’t hug him or pose in pictures with him,” said Lily. “I can’t introduce him or listen to his voice. I can’t look at Kells, who pays for everything, and then smile at Dad, who got off. I can’t—”

  “I don’t know why you have to bring money into it,” snapped Rebecca. “Money isn’t everything. You’re so pathetic, Lily, judging a person by money.”

  “Actually,” said Kells, “this is partly about money, Rebecca. Weddings are expensive. I’m paying for this, I take it?”

  “Fine!” shouted Rebecca. “I’ll get married at Freddie’s. His family isn’t obsessed with money.”

  Nathaniel began to cry.

  Rebecca glared at him. Even Lily glared at him. He cried harder.

  “Kells,” said Mom stiffly, “kindly allow me to handle this.” Without another word, their stepfather collected Nathaniel and went back inside the house.