by C. C. Payne
I felt a little homesick lying in Miyoko’s bed, but it didn’t bother me—because you’re supposed to feel homesick when you’re away from home.
Chapter 16
On Friday night, when I hauled my suitcase and myself downstairs, ready to leave for the Valentine’s dance at school, Mom demanded, “Are you wearing lipstick?”
“No, ma’am,” I said, and it was true. I wasn’t wearing lipstick; I was wearing strawberry Jell-O. (With just a little water and a packet of strawberry Jell-O powder, I’d created a natural-looking lip stain—at least, I thought it looked natural.)
Mom gave me a doubtful look as I put on my coat, but Keene was there waiting, so she didn’t say anything else.
“All set?” Keene asked.
Mom and I nodded and followed him out the door. Mom and Keene were dropping me off at school on their way to see a movie; Dad would pick me up from the dance, since it was his weekend.
The car ride was silent. And tense. I began to regret offering Miyoko a ride to the dance—she would surely feel that something was wrong as soon as she got in the car—but the thought of walking into the dance alone . . . with a suitcase . . . had completely clouded my judgment.
As soon as we turned into the driveway, Miyoko appeared, hurrying through the cold night air toward our car. Mrs. Hoshi waved, from just inside the front door—instead of coming out to inspect us, the car, and its safety features, which I thought was nice of her. It turned out that Aunt Liz had decorated the Hoshis’ house. After Mrs. Hoshi had learned that I’m Liz Talbott’s niece, she was a lot nicer.
We all waved back and even that small, unified gesture felt weird to me—like we were trying too hard to look like a normal family when we knew darn well that we weren’t.
When Miyoko pulled the car door shut, I said, “Miyoko, this is my mom and her . . . um . . . Keene.”
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Miyoko said. “Thank you for giving me a ride to the dance.”
“Our pleasure,” Mom said. “It certainly is cold outside, isn’t it?”
I knew then that Mom was as uncomfortable as I was, because she only resorts to talking about the weather when she gets really nervous.
“Yes, ma’am,” Miyoko said.
“But spring will be here before we know it,” Mom said. “In six weeks, Lush Valley will be lush and green again, with blue skies and sunshine.”
“And wedding bells,” said Keene.
Mom reached over and sort of petted Keene on the back of his neck while he drove. “We’re getting married in April,” she explained to Miyoko.
Miyoko gave me an uncertain look.
My stomach felt icky. I took a deep breath and held it.
Miyoko reached over and gave my hand a sympathetic little squeeze.
• • •
We could hear the music pounding outside the school before we even opened the door.
Zach was sitting on the stairs in the foyer when Miyoko and I entered. He stood and gave us a lopsided grin when he saw us.
Miyoko smiled back and gave me a little shoulder bump.
Zach trotted down the stairs and came to a stop in front of us.
“Zach, this is my friend Miyoko,” I said. “Miyoko, this is my friend Zach.”
“Hey,” Zach said.
“Hi,” Miyoko said.
“This way, ladies,” he said, extending his arm toward the gym.
A HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY banner hung over the door leading to the gym—even though Valentine’s Day wasn’t until tomorrow. The gym was dark except for little spots of light thrown out by two disco balls hanging from each basketball hoop. Because the gym also serves as an auditorium, there was a stage up front, cluttered with coats and purses piled one on top of another. Miyoko and I went to the stage and took off our coats. I pushed some others aside, hefted my suitcase onto the stage, and did my best to cover it with my coat. Then I looked around to see if anybody had noticed, but no one was paying attention.
Kids danced in little groups—of mostly girls. A lot of boys stood around, leaning against the walls. A few boys chased each other around the perimeter of the gym.
Zach tilted his head as if to say, C’mon. Miyoko and I followed him into the crowd, where we found a spot and began dancing together. The full skirt on Miyoko’s red dress swished in a pretty way as she moved and made me rethink wearing my regular old jeans. But I preferred jeans over my church dresses, and I’d worn my favorite pale-pink thermal shirt, which I had reasoned was sorta Valentinesy. I remembered my Jell-O lips then and they boosted my confidence just a little.
When a slow song came on, I started to move off the floor, but Zach grabbed my hand.
I leaned into his ear—to be heard above the music—and said, “I don’t know how to slow dance.”
“I’ll show you—it’s easy,” Zach said, his breath warm on my ear. Zach said something in Miyoko’s ear, too, and she nodded. He stepped in front of her, giving Miyoko his back, as she placed her hands on his shoulders. Zach placed my hands on top of Miyoko’s, on his shoulders, and then rested his hands—light as feathers—at my waist. I fought the urge to laugh—I’m very ticklish—plus, I felt nervous, which sometimes causes me to laugh inappropriately. Then we all three rocked from side to side in time with the music while rotating in a circle. My eyes went from Miyoko to Zach to my feet—to make sure they didn’t step on Zach’s feet—and back again.
Miyoko looked all around the gym, which I understood—it was weird if we stared at each other.
Zach kept on smiling, seemingly to himself more than anybody else, which finally caused me to lean forward and say into his ear, “What?”
The smile widened. “Man, I must look really cool right now—these other guys can’t work up the nerve to ask even one girl to dance, and here I am dancing with two!”
I did laugh then.
But Buffy and Christine must’ve agreed with Zach, because when the next song came on—a fast one—they pushed their way into our little dancing threesome, on either side of Zach.
Zach took a step forward and said loudly, “I’m thirsty. Fizzy, Miyoko, y’all thirsty?”
Miyoko and I nodded and followed Zach out of the gym, leaving Buffy and Christine to dance with each other.
• • •
We filled paper cups with Valentine’s punch from the table in the hallway, between the bathroom and the cafeteria, and we stood off to one side of the hall drinking it. I’m pretty sure the punch was just cherry Kool-Aid—I bet I could make lip stain with that, too.
“Thanks for teaching me to slow dance,” I said.
“Thanks for making me the coolest guy in the building.” Zach grinned.
Miyoko downed her punch and announced that she had to go to the bathroom.
“I’ll come with you,” I said.
“Think I’ll wait here,” Zach said, grinning again.
Miyoko stepped in front of the bathroom mirror and leaned over the sink to inspect a pimple on her nose. “It’s grown since I left the house,” she reported. “And it has an eyeball! A big white eyeball! Ugh!” She touched the blemish. “And it’s throbbing! I think it has a heartbeat!” She turned from the mirror. “Fizzy, I think I’m growing another person on my nose!”
I laughed. “It’s not so bad.” The truth is that it was pretty bad now that I was looking at it, but I hadn’t really noticed the pimple until Miyoko pointed it out.
“I’m going to call him Ogle,” Miyoko announced. “Ogle, the nose pimple-person.” With that, Miyoko went into a stall and closed the door.
I was just about to unlock my stall and come out when Buffy and Christine came into the bathroom talking. “Did you see Fizzy’s lipstick?” Buffy said, in a way that let me know she wasn’t a fan of my Jell-O lips.
“How could I not?” Christine said. “People across the street can see it
from here—and I’m sure they think it’s tacky, too!”
I felt my face heat up. I took a deep breath, unlocked the door, and forced myself to walk calmly to the sink.
Buffy was reapplying lip gloss in the mirror while Christine fluffed her hair. When they saw me, they exchanged a smirky look.
I’d just turned off the faucet and was reaching for a paper towel when I heard the lock open on Miyoko’s stall door. I looked up at the reflection of her door in the mirror. It remained closed.
Then, BAM! Miyoko kicked the door open and burst out of the stall into a lunge, her knees bent and her hands poised to do the chop-choppy thing in the air. Buffy, Christine, and I all jumped.
“Say something else about my friend Fizzy,” Miyoko dared them. “Go ahead. I want you to.”
“Sorry,” Buffy mumbled as she scurried from the bathroom.
“Yeah,” Christine murmured, following close behind her.
Note to self: It’s never smart to mess with a girl who has a pimple with an eyeball—or her friends.
When I was sure Buffy and Christine were gone, I turned from the mirror to face Miyoko. “That was awesome!” I gushed. “How did you do it?! If I kicked a door open, it would just bounce back, hit me in the face, and probably knock me out!”
“I didn’t consider that,” was all Miyoko said, and then she washed her hands.
I looked at my Jell-O lips in the mirror and wondered if they were “tacky.”
“You look great,” Miyoko said, reading my mind. “You, me, Ogle—we all look great. Buffy’s just mad because Zach’s not dancing with her.”
Zach was still waiting for us in the hallway. When he smiled at us, Miyoko said, “Are you looking at my pimple?”
Zach took a step backward, showed Miyoko his palms, and said, “Not me.” Then he showed her his teeth.
Apparently Zach’s I’m-not-a-violent-maniac smile also doubled as his I’m-not-looking-at-your-giant-zit smile, too.
“I’ve named him Ogle,” Miyoko announced, “because even if you’re not watching him, he’s watching you—he’s like the Mona Lisa of pimples.” She looked around self-consciously.
“Well, nobody else is looking either,” Zach said, letting his hands fall to his sides. “We’re all too worried about our own Ogles to notice yours.”
I thought about my suitcase then and realized that Zach was right. As we all walked back to the dance, I couldn’t help wondering what Zach’s Ogle was, but I decided it’d be rude to ask.
Later, when my dad arrived a few minutes early and I said good-bye to Miyoko, Zack seemed surprised. “Thought y’all were having a sleepover,” he said.
It took me a minute to realize that Zach had thought that because of my suitcase, and it made me feel much better. Note to self: Suitcases don’t have to say, “My family is a big, broken mess and so am I!” They can also say, “I am a totally normal person who has friends, and I’m sleeping over with one of them! Yay!”
• • •
Suzanne was sitting on the couch eating a box of Valentine’s chocolates when we walked into the house.
“We have a Valentine’s surprise for you,” she said in between bites of chocolate. She smiled at Dad.
He smiled back.
I smiled, too, thinking, I could go for some chocolate.
“We’re having a baby,” Dad just blurted out, the same way he might’ve said, We’re having blueberry pancakes for breakfast.
I felt my smile slip, but I hoisted it back up and said, “That’s great.”
Suzanne smiled and nodded. “Of course, it’ll be some months before we actually get to meet the baby.” She patted her stomach.
“That’s great,” I said again, staring at Suzanne’s stomach, which I now noticed stuck out almost as far as her chest—how had I missed this? That baby must’ve been doing some serious growing lately!
Dad stared at me.
“Wow, um . . . well, I’m pretty tired,” I said, “and I still have to unpack, so . . . um . . . good night.” I waited a few more seconds—in case someone wanted to give me Valentine’s candy—but no one did.
That night, I lay awake in bed wondering what it would be like to have a baby in the house. It’ll probably be like having a puppy, I told myself. Okay, a bald-ish puppy, but still. Who doesn’t want a puppy?
Chapter 17
At home, things were as awkward as ever between Keene and me—even after our “talk.” It felt as if we were both waiting for the other to take the first step in a dance neither one of us knew how to do—it was a lot harder and more complicated than The Middle School Slow Dance, that’s for sure. Eventually, we gave up waiting for each other and instead waited for the song to end. I waited for Keene to go home. And he seemed to wait for me to go anywhere: to Dad’s, to Miyoko’s, or even just back to my room. But I knew it was only a matter of time before the song—and the dance—no longer had an end.
Of course, I ignored that thought—Mom’s wedding—as much as possible. When I couldn’t ignore it—due to wedding invitations, seating arrangements, fittings, gift registries, cake tastings, and bridal showers—I hoped for something, anything, that would stop the wedding. A major fight between Mom and Keene, a natural disaster, an outbreak of bubonic plague—any of that would’ve been fine with me.
• • •
Well . . . except that a disaster or disease would’ve kept me home from school—and school had become one of the few places I could escape to where I pretty much knew what to expect and what was expected of me and where I’d actually begun to feel comfortable. Mostly when I was with Zach and Miyoko. The three of us did everything together: We ate lunch together, sat together during assemblies, stayed together during field trips, and walked home together whenever Zach didn’t have to stay after school.
All of these things made the very, very short list of Things I’m Happy About.
Buffy Lawson, on the other hand, seemed less than happy with our lunchtime seating arrangement—she stared at us and did a lot of eye rolling. Obviously, she couldn’t stand me.
So I was pretty surprised when she shouted and waved as Zach, Miyoko, and I carried our lunch trays through the cafeteria that Thursday.
“Fizzy! Fizzy, come sit with us!” Buffy called out.
Now, I’d heard my name, but still I stopped and looked around, thinking there must be some other Fizzy with whom Buffy Lawson was willing to be seen. No other Fizzys in sight.
Miyoko stood frozen beside me, her eyes fixed on Buffy like she was a dangerous and deadly spider.
“Um, I’ll just go see what she wants,” I said.
“Want me to come with you?” Zach asked.
Honestly, I wanted Zach and Miyoko to come with me, but there wasn’t enough room for all of us, and I didn’t want Miyoko to be left alone. “That’s okay,” I said.
Miyoko opened her mouth but then closed it again. She nodded without looking me in the eye.
When I started toward them, Buffy and Christine immediately made room for me, right next to Buffy. Wow, I thought as I sat down. I felt very important.
“So,” Buffy said, tossing her hair over her shoulder, “what’s going on?”
“Um, not much,” I said. “What’s going on with you?”
Buffy and her followers exchanged amused looks.
Finally, Buffy said, “I thought maybe you’d like to give us the scoop on Zach Mabry,” like she was doing me a big favor.
I squirmed a little in my seat, not sure what to say. Eventually, I came up with, “He’s nice.”
Buffy laughed, and then all her friends laughed, too. “I know that,” she said, still giggling, “but does he have a girlfriend?”
“Oh. I . . . um . . . I don’t know,” I said, realizing I’d never asked Zach that question. I felt a little disappointed at the thought that he might have a girlfriend.
Buffy looked disappointed, too, but she recovered quickly. She recovered and ignored me for the rest of lunch.
Her friends ignored me, too, so it was a really long lunch—not unlike dinner at home. I wanted to get up and go sit with Zach and Miyoko, but since we’re not allowed to change seats after we sit down in the cafeteria, I just sat there.
Mostly, Buffy and her followers talked about their clothes, shoes, and bags. I remembered how Miyoko’s dad had told her that people who talk about their stuff are scared. I wondered if they were scared. When they moved on to discuss other people’s clothes, shoes, and bags, I knew they were scared. They were right to be scared—of each other—because they all could be really mean. I was glad when Buffy gave the nod indicating that it was time for their “big catwalk moment” and that lunch was over.
While I was dumping my tray, Mrs. Hunt, the lunch lady, crooked her finger at me, as if to say, Come here.
I went to her. “Ma’am?”
Mrs. Hunt smiled and came out from behind the stainless steel buffet line. “You know, a true friend is hard to find.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I nodded.
“And you’ve found two,” Mrs. Hunt said, still smiling.
I knew she was talking about Zach and Miyoko. “Yes, ma’am . . . I . . . I’m pretty lucky.”
“You are,” she said. “I used to worry about you, but . . . you’re going to be just fine, Fizzy.” Then she fished a piece of foil-wrapped chocolate out of her pocket and handed it to me.
“Thank you, Mrs. Hunt,” I said.
Lunch ladies are a lot like office ladies, I thought as I got in line to leave the cafeteria. They’re quiet, but they know everything.
• • •
“What did Buffy want?” Zach asked, using one hand to shield his eyes from the sun as we walked home that afternoon.
Miyoko kept walking and pretended she wasn’t interested, but I knew she was.
“She wanted to know if you have a girlfriend,” I said.
Zach rolled his eyes. “And?”
