That night at dinner, the two of us wore outfits that she considered “gender neutral,” consisting of jeans with white T-shirts. My mom made beef stew served over a bed of mashed potatoes for everyone except Dorathea. As a newly affirmed vegetarian, she was eating a grilled cheese sandwich and carrot sticks. Dorathea kept looking at me and finally nudged me under the table.
“I’ve been thinking,” I piped up. The whole family looked at me as I started into the statement we prepared in advance. “I’ve decided that I don’t want to play with Barbies anymore.” I tried to sound full of conviction.
The adults at the table exchanged uncomfortable looks. My uncle let out a deep, obvious sigh and took a large bite of mashed potatoes. My aunt watched him for a minute. Then she looked at my parents. My mom looked back at her like they were communicating telepathically.
The tension in the room was as thick as chocolate syrup. At times when you’re a kid it feels like adults are all in on a huge secret that makes them act weird about things that aren’t a big deal. I knew that I had said something important, but I didn’t know what.
“Well, Celia,” my dad said in his head-of-the-household voice. “That’s fine. We won’t buy you any more dolls. Is there some other kind of toy you would like instead?” My dad was so gentle when he said that. He didn’t even sound mad that he had just bought me three Barbies and I said I didn’t want them.
I had no idea what to say next. I was making a political statement about not playing with dolls, but I didn’t know what I should want to play with. I looked at Dorathea, but she refused to look back at me. She just took a bite of her grilled cheese and played innocent.
“Ummm,” I said, searching around for the right thing to say. “Hot Wheels?” I finally muttered.
My uncle laughed right out loud at that. He even spit a little wad of mashed potato on the table. My aunt shot him a silencing look and then she said, “Well, Celia, I would love to buy you some Hot Wheels.”
“Yes, June Bug,” my mom agreed. “We will get you whatever kind of toy you like.” Then she and my aunt both got up and started clearing plates off the table.
The next day Dorathea went back to Oregon, and I got the box out of my closet. My parents never mentioned it again, and for my next birthday, they bought me a Barbie convertible.
CHAPTER
22
All you need is one friend and suddenly a weekend looks like a wide-open field. I ate cereal on Saturday morning while reading my earthworm book. Mom was already at the hospital.
× × ×
“Oh, hello dear,” said the woman who answered the door at Drake’s house. “You must be Cecelia.” Drake’s grandmother was dressed in black pants and a black silk shirt. A thin, yellow scarf circled her neck and then dropped down past her belt. She was unlike any grandmother I had seen. My mom’s mother died when I was little, and my dad’s mother wore mostly clothing that was themed for the season. She had an impressive collection of snowman sweaters.
“Um . . . Celia,” I said sheepishly.
“Of course.” She took me by the wrist and guided me through her screen door. “Are you hungry?”
“I ate cereal at home.”
Drake’s grandmother’s house was pristine but welcoming. Her sense of home decor seemed to have stopped developing around the time of lime-green velour couches and lamp shades with fringe. The living room rug was so thick, I thought it would be impossible to hear a footstep, even from a fat man wearing boots. Every surface had a crystal candy dish filled with various hard candies.
“I’m so pleased that Drake met a friend in Hershey. He needs someone to spend time with besides an old lady, doesn’t he?” She elbowed me in the side like she had just made a funny joke. Then she looked at me for a moment with her eyebrows raised, maybe expecting me to make conversation. I put my hands in the pocket of my hoodie.
Drake emerged from the hall, holding his backpack in one hand and Dream It! Do It! in the other. I wondered if he had already been reading it that morning. “Library, Gran,” he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek and motioning for me to follow him out the front door.
“Come home smarter,” she called as we left.
“We have so much to do.” Drake pulled open the garage door to get his bicycle. Mine was parked on its kickstand in the driveway. “First, library. Second, your house to make Vision Boards.”
“Vision Boards?”
“Chapter three,” said Drake. “I’ve got all the stuff we need.”
Since Drake had reserved his books online, we were in the library for only a few minutes to check them out. Still, two librarians said hello to me. I felt proud taking Drake to the library, like I was introducing him to my friends. “I looked for other books by Buddy,” Drake said, “but I guess that’s the only one he wrote.” I noticed Drake had started to call the author by his first name.
After the library, we rode back to my house. Drake said Vision Boards might be messy, so we decided to work in my basement, which is unfinished. My basement is one large, concrete rectangle with a hot-water heater, a washer and dryer, a utility sink, and a door that leads to the backyard. My dad slept down there for two weeks before he left for Atlanta. So there’s a rug, a futon, a lamp with a glass base, and an old television perched on a coffee table.
“Nice lair,” said Drake, turning in a circle around the room. “This place has potential.”
Despite the warmth outside, the basement was chilly and smelled like wet towels. We spread out the supplies on the coffee table, including magazines, glue sticks, scissors, and tagboard. Drake reached into his backpack and pulled out Dream It! Do It! and started flipping through dog-eared pages. The last few times Drake had read to me from the book, his voice had taken on a serious tone as if he were reading from a religious text. This time was no exception.
“Chapter Three: Seeing
“Most people say that seeing is believing, but I say that Believing is Seeing. Average people want to see tangible proof that something is achievable before they believe that it is possible. Well, I can’t see electricity, but I believe it turns my lights on! Exceptional people allow themselves to Dream of the seemingly impossible.
“Start by making a Vision Board. Let your subconscious, creative brain take over as you select images that conjure up your Dream Future. Want to buy your Dream House? Put it on the Vision Board! Want muscular biceps? Put them on the Vision Board! Make it visually appealing and make it yours!”
Buddy Strong uses a lot of exclamation points in his writing. I don’t think excessive use of exclamation points is the sign of a very good writer. He also utilizes capitalization in odd ways, but I guess that’s Buddy’s poetic license.
“Okay, let’s do this!” said Drake as if all the preceding psychobabble had contained clear and straightforward instruction.
“Do what?”
Drake gave me the village idiot look. “Just cut pictures out and glue them down,” he said, handing me a pair of scissors and an O: The Oprah Magazine. Following Drake’s lead, I started flipping through pages and saw an ad for nail polish with fifty painted nails, an ad for vinyl flooring, two pages of medical warnings about collagen injections, an ad for mouthwash, and a photo spread featuring raincoats. Nothing in these pages was speaking to any inspiring visions of my future. I closed the magazine and put it down on the futon beside me.
“What’s the latest with BlackJack?” I asked, hoping to distract myself and Drake from the project.
“Catching a diamond smuggler.”
“What made you think of diamond smugglers?”
“Some world terrorism is funded by the illegal diamond trade,” he answered, sounding distracted. “Terrorism is big in comics right now.”
“Is Superman fighting terrorists?”
“Who cares?” Drake rolled his eyes. “Superman is lame. Anyway, I’m not really working on BlackJack anymore. I’m working on Dream It! Do It! now.”
Drake turned over the image he had clipped and start
ed rolling the glue stick in meticulous circles over the back. Then, he flipped it over, smoothing it down onto his thick piece of tagboard. It was a picture of the Manhattan skyline.
“New York,” I said, trying not to sound disappointed by his first image.
“Yep,” answered Drake brightly, “that’s the first part of my Dream. Well, I mean, that part’s already a reality. This time next month, I’ll be back there, starting at an arts school.”
“Oh. You made it off the wait list?” Drake hadn’t mentioned that he had gotten in anywhere.
“Not yet. My parents said that the school rosters were still full as of yesterday. Dad said he thinks it looks doubtful, but I know that doubt cannot compete with optimism. I still have two weeks, and I have a positive feeling about it.” I was nearly positive that Drake was quoting Buddy Strong on the power of optimism.
“So what would happen if you didn’t get in? Would you stay here?”
“Well, no way could I go back to the school I’m zoned for. They have permanent metal detectors and pat downs for weapons every morning. I don’t think it’s known for being especially gay-friendly. It’s basically arts school or nothing.”
“Nothing?” I said, aware that Drake had just called Hershey nothing.
Drake looked up at me. “Sorry, lame thing to say. I just meant that New York is where I belong, with Japhy.”
There went my heart down the elevator to my stomach. It’s so easy to get used to being happy, and it’s so hard to remember that it’s temporary. I picked up the Oprah Magazine again, flipping through perfume ads and luscious photographs of cakes.
“I finished the poem about the whale today,” I said, tearing out a picture of an aquarium in an elegant home library.
“Oh yeah,” said Drake. “Did you think of a good last line?”
Last lines of poems are the hardest, and I had told Drake I was struggling with this one.
“I decided to end the poem with a homophone. It’s a word that sounds exactly like another word, but has a different spelling and meaning,” I explained. “So, I’m going to end a poem about a whale with the word wail.”
Drake snorted. “Homophone, as in ‘Hello, Homo Phone . . . Drake speaking,’” he said in a lispy voice, which made me laugh so hard I snorted, which made both of us laugh. I put down my magazine and lay down on the futon, staring at the ceiling.
“Will you come visit after you go back? Like at Christmas or something?”
“Jewish, remember? We always go to Florida over the break to visit my other grandmother. But we come to Hershey every summer.”
“I’ll be in Atlanta then,” I said. “And for Christmas, too, I guess. And spring break.” It didn’t seem possible that I would really be spending every school break in a condo in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Weekends?” Drake suggested.
“Yeah, weekends,” I said. We were both quiet for a minute. I think it was dawning on both of us that we might not have a lot of chances to see each other after he left. “Do you worry about making friends in your new high school?”
Drake didn’t stop gluing. “Not really. Japhy will be my boyfriend, and arts school will hopefully have cool people. It shouldn’t be too hard.”
I would give anything for Drake’s confidence. Still, he seemed so sure he and Japhy would be together, but Japhy wasn’t even returning his emails. It felt like a stretch, but I couldn’t say anything. I had made a vow to support his effort. Plus, they did kiss. Maybe they would get together.
“We need to find you some friends for when I leave,” Drake said. “What about that guy Clock? He likes you.”
“Clock!” I pulled myself up to sit. “He doesn’t like me, he hates me.”
Drake gave me an incredulous look. “Oh, straight guys don’t know how to show girls they’re interested. Everybody, act surprised.” Drake did jazz hands while holding his scissors.
“But he’s horrible,” I said, a strange mix of feelings rumbling around my stomach. “Don’t you think he’s horrible?”
“No. I think he’s kind of cool. He’s unique.”
“I didn’t think any guys liked me,” I said, crossing my legs.
Drake put his magazine down and looked at me. “Do you really not get how pretty you are?”
“I’m pale and flat-chested and—”
“Celia,” Drake interrupted again, “negative self-talk.” Drake stood up and took both of my hands to pull me off of the futon. He led me over the utility sink where an old mirror was hanging on the cement wall.
“Look,” he said to me in the wavy reflection of the glass. I took my eyes off Drake and looked. Drake pulled my hood down and gently removed my ponytail holder. He smoothed my dark hair around my face and glasses. Then he pulled my shoulders back from where I was slouching, forcing me to stand up straight.
I don’t expect a modeling agency to call offering me a contract any time soon. But the way Drake was looking at me in the mirror was making me look again. I was surprised by how much I looked like my mom. Standing there with his hands on my shoulders, I felt like a different Celia. We stood, his fingers resting on my arms, staring at ourselves staring back from the glass. Drake bent over and whispered in my ear, “Seeing.”
CHAPTER
23
We finished our Vision Boards and decided to keep them in the basement, because I wasn’t interested in my mom knowing about my subconscious Dreams, and Drake felt uncomfortable with the idea of his grandmother finding his. Drake’s completed Vision Board featured a Manhattan skyline, the image of two men holding hands, a fire escape, and the words THIS IS IT, along with various things in pairs: pairs of socks, mittens, two coffee cups touching handles. It was pretty appealing. My Vision Board however was a messy compilation of books, brick libraries, letters cut out to spell POETRY, and, for no apparent reason, a puppy. “My subconscious knows,” I told Drake when he asked about the dog.
× × ×
“Going to Drake’s house,” I said to my mom Sunday morning as I pressed through the swinging door into the kitchen. She looked tired from working a double on Saturday. She was sitting at the table in her robe drinking coffee.
“To do what?” She asked.
“Stuff,” I answered.
“Um, I love doing stuff. I never get to do stuff anymore,” she said sarcastically. “Working the swing today, so I’m going in at two.” She sipped her coffee and looked down at the paper spread out before her. “Can you make your own dinner tonight? I’m busy this afternoon.”
“Sure,” I said uneasily, remembering again how I was too old now for Hershey Park. There was something else I had been thinking about since making Vision Boards with Drake. “Am I really going to Atlanta for Christmas?” I asked, grabbing an apple out of the fruit bowl and taking a bite.
“Well, we haven’t gotten you a plane ticket yet, but that was part of the agreement your dad and I made,” she said, putting her coffee cup down on the table and looking at me. “Wouldn’t you like to see your dad?”
The black hole feeling started. “Yeah.” I took a bite. “But why can’t he just come home? Half of his stuff is here and isn’t this supposed to be a trial separation?”
“Please don’t talk with your mouth full, Celia. That might be a possibility.” She looked into the mug between her palms. “Your father and I should probably have a talk and see if that sounds like a good idea at this point.”
A familiar anger shot through me. “So you’ll just have a private meeting and then pass down the verdict to me. Great. Be sure to keep me informed,” I said, opening the trash can and throwing my half-eaten apple hard into the bottom.
“Celia, you’re wasting food! And, you know that goes in the compost,” she said, getting up to open the trash can and pull the apple out.
“Arg.” I turned and pushed hard on the swinging door back into the dining room.
“Wait a minute,” my mom called as I headed for the front door.
I put my hand on the knob and refused t
o turn around to look at her.
“Home by seven at the latest,” she said. “You need time for homework. I’ll call to make sure you’re here.”
“Any other orders?” I asked.
“Have fun today,” she offered in a nice voice.
I just turned the knob and left.
× × ×
I biked to Drake’s house again and made it there by ten. We had planned to go to the mall so he could buy some new clothes as part of his self-improvement plan to win Japhy. I don’t go to the mall very much. My mom offers to take me shopping, but I prefer to buy most of my clothes at thrift stores, since I don’t want to have the same pair of jeans as every other girl in school.
For our trip to the mall, I was wearing a pair of green pants from the army/navy store that I rolled up around my ankles and a red-and-white-striped shirt. I didn’t put my hair in a ponytail. After looking in the mirror with Drake last night, I decided to wear it down.
Drake met me in his driveway, looked at my outfit, and said, “Look who discovered color.”
We pedaled to the mall, which was much farther than the library. A light rain started to fall as we locked up our bikes outside Nordstrom. We made it all the way to the makeup counter before we spotted two classmates, Vanessa Beale, from my French class, and Damian Poole, a freshman who went to my middle school, walking past the perfume display.
Drake pulled me behind a rack of handbags so they wouldn’t see us. He held a purple patent-leather clutch in front of our faces and said, “Do you think they’re on a date?”
The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door Page 10
