Girlhearts

by Norma Fox Mazer

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  PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF NORMA FOX MAZER

  “Mazer is one of the best of the practitioners writing for young people today.” —The New York Times

  “It’s not hard to see why Norma Fox Mazer has found a place among the most popular writers for young adults these days.” —The Washington Post Book World

  A, My Name Is Ami

  “A satisfying novel about the ups and downs of 12-year-old Ami’s relationship with her best friend Mia … The writing is light but consistently sensitive and realistic, as the joys and disasters of the characters flow towards a moving and memorable ending.” —School Library Journal

  “The atmosphere and the girls are right on target.… An accurate slice of teenage life.” —Publishers Weekly

  B, My Name Is Bunny

  “[Bunny] is a likeable, true-to-life character who hates her name and wants to be a professional clown. Her friendship with Emily is the source and depth of this simple story of two teenagers learning about life … [a] story of growth and acceptance with accurate and touching emotions.” —School Library Journal

  C, My Name Is Cal

  “Deftly sketched … Mazer’s skill in telling the reader more about Cal than he knows about himself, while narrating Cal’s unique, taciturn voice, is especially memorable.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “Readers will recognize themselves.” —Booklist

  Dear Bill, Remember Me?

  A New York Times Notable Book and a Kirkus Choice

  “Highly accomplished short stories, variously funny and moving, about ordinary, contemporary girls and their relationships with mothers or boyfriends.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “Eight short stories, powerful and poignant, about young women at critical points in their lives.” —The New York Times

  “Stories that are varied in mood and style and alike in their excellence.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

  Summer Girls, Love Boys

  “Featuring female protagonists, the stories mix the bitter and the sweet of life while encompassing a variety of narrative techniques, settings, themes, and tones.… Mazer writes honestly and provocatively of human emotion and circumstances while she demonstrates her versatility as a writer.” —Booklist

  Good Night, Maman

  “Mazer writers with a simplicity that personalizes the history.… Direct … honest.” —Booklist, starred review

  Girlhearts

  Norma Fox Mazer

  In memory of my beloved niece, Lucy Northrop,

  June 12, 1950–September 2, 1999; and my dear

  mother, born Zlotky Gorelic, August 27, 1903;

  died Jean Garlen Fox, June 1, 2000.

  ON SECOND THOUGHT

  I was wrong about happiness. I thought

  if I just knew where to look it would be

  easily retrievable, like a hair brush

  I lost between the cushions of the couch,

  or the name of someone I used to know.

  —Meg Kearney

  ONE

  On the last night of my mother’s life, she came into my room in the middle of the night and called my name. I was dreaming, and her voice became mixed with the dream. A big green bird was talking to me. How intelligent, I thought, and then I woke up. My room was dim, only a little light filtering in around the edges of the shades, and there was Mom standing by my bed, saying, “Sarabeth, come on, wake up.”

  “What time is it?” I said.

  “Two o’clock, I think.” She took me by the shoulders. “Come on, sweetie, up. You have to see this.”

  As mysterious as her words was the way she was dressed, as if for a party, in a close-fitting red dress with a deep neckline. It had been hanging in her closet for years.

  “You look nice,” I said. “What’s happening?”

  She handed me my clothes. “You’ll see.”

  She took my hand and pulled me through the house, out the door, and down our road. The air was chilly and had that wet earth smell of late fall. Everything was dark, dark and quiet. Not even a dog barked.

  At the top of the long blacktop road that wound down the hill, Mom stopped. “It’s not there! Where is it?”

  I wondered if something awful was happening to her, the way it had to Melissa Schmid’s mother. Everyone in school had heard about Mrs. Schmid running down her street naked, calling out for eyeglass donations. “For protection, for protection, people, do you hear me?” she was shouting when the ambulance came.

  “Mom.” I moved closer to her. “Are you okay?”

  She seized my hand again, and we ran down the hill toward the highway. A wind came up and blew against our faces. “Yes,” Mom whispered. She pointed across the road. On one side, our side, the pavement was dry; on the other side, rain drizzled down in a soft silvery sheet. The split between the two sides was as neat as if someone had laid it out with a ruler.

  “Cool,” I said.

  Mom gave me a triumphant smile. “Was that worth getting up for or what? I couldn’t sleep,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself, “so I got dressed and went out for a walk. I was just walking around, all around, and then I saw this, and—”

  “Why couldn’t you sleep?”

  “—I heard the rain on the pavement, you know that sound, sort of pattering? I could smell it! I love that smell. Then I saw this, this curtain of rain, only it was happening higher up, at the top of the road, where we stopped before, and it was so … beautiful. So beautiful. I just had to show you.”

  She was still wearing only the red dress, not even a sweater over it, and it seemed to me that she glowed, as if lit from within by a secret fire. “So beautiful,” she said again. “Beautiful and mysterious. What do you think it means? Do you think it means something? Maybe it means my luck will change.”

  I stepped across to the other side of the road and stood in the drizzle. “Maybe it’s a sign from the universe,” I said, and I wished I’d thought of something more original.

  “I could use a sign from the universe.” Mom moved her hands as if parting the curtain of rain and came to stand next to me. “A sign from anywhere, actually. Hey, universe,” she yelled.

  “Shhh, Mom!” The rain was coming down harder. We were both getting wet. “We should go back,” I said. “We’re wet as noodles.”

  “Yeah.” But suddenly she covered her face, her shoulders shook, and little mewling sounds came out from between the fence of her fingers. Was she laughing or crying? Was it the Leo thing again?

  Leo had a new girlfriend, a woman with the ridiculous name of Pepper Black. Mom insisted it didn’t bother her, that she was glad for him. She had been the one to make the break happen, she reminded me. “I should have done it a long time ago. Leo’s sweet, and I’ll never stop loving him, but we were a worn-out story.”

  She said the same thing to Cynthia Ramos, her best friend, and she even talked about it to some of our neighbors, but in the past week or so, her mood had changed. Two nights ago, she’d had a real crying jag. It was strange. She never cried.

  “Mom,” I said, touching her bent head. I didn’t want her to cry and feel rotten. And I didn’t want to hear her crying and feel rotten myself. “Let’s go, Mom.”

  She parted her hands, looking out at me. “First, we drink rain.”

  “Mom,” I protested.

  “Honey, this is special. Sign from the universe, remember? We drink rain for luck. Good luck, that is. Do I need good luck? Yes. Do you need good luck? Yes. Everybody needs good luck.” She lifted her face, and now she was laughing, definitely laughing. “Come on,
Sarabeth. You, too. Drink the rain!”

  “Mom …”

  “Is that all you can say? Maaoom,” she bleated.

  I pulled my hair in a wet bunch over my shoulder. My mother was unlike anyone else’s. Harder working, younger, prettier, poorer, and, I thought with a tiny pang of guilt, weirder. I opened my mouth and drank rain.

  TWO

  When I walked into the kitchen, Mom was standing with her back to the sink, gripping a cup of coffee. No red dress this morning, just work clothes—jeans and a plaid shirt. The rain had turned to snow, and Mom’s mood had turned, too, though I didn’t realize it at first.

  “Cup number which?” I said. I turned the radio up a notch. They were playing a song I liked. “I know that’s not your first cup.” I’d been trying to get her to cut down on the coffee drinking.

  “Three … I guess.” She frowned into the cup. “Might be four.”

  “Mom!” Tobias was curled up in his favorite place, near the refrigerator, wheezing away. He had a cold. I nudged him over with my foot and took out the milk carton. Mom had already put the cornflakes box and a bowl and spoon on the table for me. “You said you were going to cut back to two cups, max, in the morning.”

  She gave a shudder and gestured at the window over the sink. “It’s snowing out there. Snow already, and it’s only the middle of November. This is a bad omen. What are we going to have this winter, fifteen feet of snow for the car to break down in every day?”

  “We got through last winter okay,” I said.

  “That’s not the way I remember it.”

  I sat down and poured cornflakes into the bowl. The heater was going full blast in the other room, but chilly air rippled around my legs. We were never completely warm after summer.

  The news came on. Mom yanked the radio plug out of the socket. The off-on knob had been missing forever. “What are we listening to this junk for? Same old, same old, bad music and worse news.” Then, without missing a beat, she started on me. “Sarabeth, look at you. Your posture is awful. Is that the way you’re going to school? Your jeans are torn! And that shirt—ugh, it’s way too bright and way too tight.”

  I looked down at myself. Tight? So what? I had nothing to show, not like Mom. She had the real thing. You could see her breasts even under her loose plaid shirt.

  “Go and change, right now,” she said. She started rummaging around in the tote bag she carried to work with her. “Where’s my scarf? Have you seen my fish scarf?”

  “Are you thinking about Leo, Mom?” That could explain her big mood plunge. Leo had been almost the best thing in our lives, right up there with Cynthia and Billy. We’d as good as lost them, too, when they moved over to the north side of the city.

  “What’s the color of that shirt, anyway?” Mom said.

  I tucked my feet up on the chair rung. “Violet.”

  “It’s violent.”

  “My friends like this shirt.”

  “Oh, your friends.” One of her cheeks was streaked red, as if someone had smeared crayon over it. Veins or something.

  “What does that mean, Mom?” She’d always liked my friends.

  “It means bad taste, Sarabeth. Your friends and you. And don’t you dare say you got that from me.”

  Laugh line, I guess, but I didn’t feel like congratulating her with even a snicker. Had I dreamed last night, the two of us getting wet together, then dashing back through the rain, holding hands and, once inside, drying each other’s heads?

  At that moment, I remembered my actual dream, the one with the green bird, and I realized that the bird had been James. James from the bus. James from my algebra class. James! Wrong shape, wrong color, but James, and he’d talked to me.

  “Why do you have that look on your face?” Mom said.

  “What look? Why do you have that look on your face?”

  “Don’t be a freshmouth!”

  “I’m not. Don’t call me that, Mom.”

  She held the coffee cup next to her cheek. “You think it’s so terrible? That’s what my mother used to say. ‘Freshmouth. You’re a freshmouth, Jane Halley.’”

  “And what did you say?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Which meant, Subject closed.

  I didn’t know Mom’s parents or my father’s or, for that matter, any of my relatives. All I knew was that they had all lived in a town called Hinchville and when Mom got pregnant, no one helped her and my father, even though they were just teenagers, neither one even out of school yet.

  “Are we quarreling this morning?” Mom sat down and scooted her chair close to mine. “Let’s not.” She took me by the chin. Her hands were chilly. “Look at that face. I love that face. You’re so pretty, Sarabeth. But sloppy. I want you to be proud of yourself.”

  “Mom, come on, I have to eat.” I knew where she was headed, right to the “Rules for Life” lecture. After “Be proud of yourself” came “Study hard,” then “Go to college,” and “Don’t get involved with boys,” and “No sex until you’re through school.” Et cetera.

  “Look at the clock,” I said. “Time to go!” I got up and put my dish in the sink.

  The phone rang. I reached too fast for the receiver, and the base fell off the knob on the wall and crashed to the floor. “Sorry about that,” I said, picking up the base.

  “Say ‘Silver residence,’” Mom hissed.

  I made a face at her, but I said it. “Silver residence.”

  “This is Mrs. Milleritz. Is that Sarabeth?”

  “Yes, it is, Mrs. Milleritz.”

  “Dear, will you tell your mother I don’t need her to clean today? Today is her day to come to me, but tell her not today.”

  “Okay, Mrs. Milleritz.”

  “Tell her next week as usual, but not today. Thank you much, dear. Don’t forget,” she trilled, “not today, next week.”

  “Alison Milleritz is canceling again?” Mom said, when I hung up. “She’s always canceling, and then calling and changing her mind, just when I’m going to someone else. She’s impossible.” She slumped over the table, her head on her arms.

  “Mom, she said she wants you as usual next week.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said into her arms.

  “Is this going to screw up our budget?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “I feel like calling her back,” I said. “I want to tell her off. I want to tell her how miserable she is to you.”

  “No, no!” She sat up, looking alarmed. “Don’t do that!”

  “Mom, I wouldn’t do it. I just said I felt like doing it.”

  She nodded and pressed her fingers into her forehead. “Oh, Lord, I’m so tired.” She reached for the phone, dialed, and said in a bright, punched-up voice that I hated, “Mrs. Reigel? Hi. This is Jane Silver. I have a free day today, and I remember you said you needed some extra help.… No, no … of course … sure … the usual … G’bye to you, too.”

  She dialed again. “Mr. Alberts? Hi, how are you? Jane Silver here. I’m free today if you’d like me to come over and take care of the attic? You were saying you wanted it cleaned.…”

  I left. I didn’t want to hear any more. I changed my jeans and brushed my teeth. “Any luck?” I said when I came back. I knelt and petted Tobias. His poor eyes were crusted, and his fur was dry.

  Mom shook her head. “Maybe I’ll just sleep today”—she looked out the window—“or maybe I’ll go for a walk over in the park first.”

  “It’ll be pretty this morning with the new snow,” I said. Mom looked wiped out, and I wanted to say something else to cheer her up. “Mom, remember last night? That was fun, and you looked great in that red dress.”

  For an instant, her face was blank, as if she was thinking, Last night? Red dress? Then a little smile appeared. “Yeah, it was. Sort of stupid fun. I should have let you sleep.”

  “No, I’m glad you woke me up.” I glanced at the clock. “I have to go; the bus’ll be coming.”

  She pointed to her cheek. “Plant me one right her
e. Come on, you’re not too big to kiss your mother.” The same thing she always said. She held me around the waist, and I bent and kissed her. “I love you, honey,” she said.

  “Love you, too.” It was automatic. That’s what I can’t forget.

  THREE

  “Hello! What’s your name?” A boy with blond hair sat down next to me on the school bus.

  “Sarabeth. What’s yours?”

  “Sam.” He held out his hand for me to shake. He was about nine years old. I’d seen him on the bus before, but this was the first time we’d talked. He started telling me about a show he’d seen the night before, some Star Trek thing.

  “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” I said, yawning and leaning on my hand. I was probably the only person left in the universe who was a complete Star Trek idiot. Now and then, Mom tried to bring me up to par. I had gotten a little interested when she told me that my father, Benjamin Robert Silver—which was the way she talked about him sometimes, almost as if he had been a movie star or someone fabulous she had once known—had been a Trekkie, but even that hadn’t taken.

  Sam talked without stopping for at least fifteen minutes. All Star Trek stuff. I could easily have fallen asleep to the sound of his voice. “So what do you think?” he said finally.

  I sat up. “What do I think about what?”

  “What I just said. The whole story I told you. Duuuh! Did you like it?”

  “Mmm,” I said.

  “Were you listening?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Sure,” I said.

  The bus stopped just then at City Heights, which was full of the kind of houses Mom cleaned. Huge, with multiple chimneys and rows of big shiny windows and four-car garages. Then James got on and, when I saw him, the bird dream came winging back to me.

  “You glad I told you the story, anyway?” Sam said.

  “What? Oh … yes … sure.”

  James walked by me. I could have reached out and touched his arm. I glanced at him and then away, as if I wasn’t interested. He had really big ears, like that basketball player who was so cute, but whose ears stuck out like satellite dishes.