Amandine

by Adele Griffin

  From far away, I heard a phone ring, and then I sensed that the other people in the house had crept off in different directions. An hour later, I thought I heard one of the cars pull out of the driveway. Nobody came in once to bother us or disturb us or to remind us to turn off the lights.

  When I woke, cramped, to the iced air of early the next morning, the television was still on, muted to an early-bird cooking show. I felt a peculiar pressure and realized that Amandine’s hand had locked itself around my wrist, five skeleton fingers handcuffing me. She was asleep, but I could see by the twitch of her closed eyes that she was having a bad dream. “I dare you, then!” she whispered once. Whether her body was tensed in fear or anger I couldn’t tell.

  I didn’t know what to do, so I waited it out. When her grip eased, I tugged my hand away.

  There was a small bit of fuzz on her cheek. I suppose I could have plucked it off with my fingers or ignored it, but instead, I leaned over her and lightly blew it into flight.

  Amandine’s eyes flew open and she slapped a hand over her nose.

  “Delia!” she reprimanded loudly, outraged. “You should know better. Never, ever blow on someone’s face. That is the grossest manners.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean it to be gross.”

  “Plus, you have morning breath.”

  “Sorry, I said.”

  She rolled up onto her side and propped herself up on an elbow, facing me. “Delia, you’re weird,” she pronounced solemnly. “There is something wrong with you.”

  And she seemed so sure that it scared me a little. Probably I could have retaliated; there was a lot of weird, wrong stuff about Amandine, too. But to say anything seemed defensive and babyish.

  The only thing to do was to smile in what I hoped was an uncaring way.

  “How was the sleepover?” asked Mrs. Gogglio, the first thing out of her mouth when she picked me up for school at the beginning of the next week.

  “Fine. Not too exciting. We had Italian food.” It had become my stock answer, the one I’d given my parents. Because I had decided not to tell them anything about Jin and the Frightful Fun House, and the fact that we’d had cold leftover pasta and tap water for breakfast. It seemed like a secret and besides, what was the point? All that my parents would do was frown on Amandine and, worse, prevent me from visiting again. I doubted I wanted to, but it was my choice. My secret.

  “Funny situation over there.” Mrs. Gogglio’s voice was conversational, inviting me to respond.

  I glanced at her. She knew.

  “You mean, with that … guy?” I threw and then slackened the line, waiting for her next tug.

  “Mmm. Jim.”

  “Jin.”

  “Right. He lives there, you know. In that guest house or garage, but that’s close as close gets. My friend Nancy Krause takes tickets at the Cineplex, she says they come in every Saturday night. The mother and her beau, and him barely out of some art school in New York City.” Mrs. Gogglio clucked her tongue. “The times we live in.”

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I said. “Everyone gets along okay.”

  “It’s not natural.”

  “He’s nice. Nice means a lot,” I added, borrowing her phrase.

  Her mouth pursed into a bud of doubt. But now I was glad Mrs. Gogglio knew about the Frightful Fun House. Otherwise, it all might have felt like a dream, something false and unsettling that I had made up in my head.

  She changed the subject by telling me a story about poor old Miss Benedict over at Sunrise Assisted, who kept a box of fabric scraps on her bedside table. The weekend duty nurse accidentally had emptied the box on Saturday, and Miss Benedict had sunk into a deep depression.

  “I got the call yesterday,” said Mrs. Gogglio. “She’s been real blue. All that needs being done, I told Jenny—Jenny’s on my routines for the weekend—all that needs being done is to replace the lost scraps with some new ones, you get to be as old as Miss Benedict, it’s not about the actual things themselves, it’s about hanging on to what you think is yours. Gives a person a sense of belonging to the world and vice versa, you see?” I nodded. I could see that.

  Spring fitness was scheduled Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. It was a class designed for the kids who did not play the “real” spring sports, which were softball, track, or soccer. The class was filled with kids like Eddie Patimkin, who used an inhaler, or Marissa Ruiz, who wore a back brace.

  I took spring fitness by choice, because being on teams made me nervous, and Amandine took it because of her shinsplints. The class was supposed to satisfy the state physical fitness requirement, but I don’t know how. We were always doing corny activities like square dancing or obstacle-course hopscotch. Things that didn’t feel like sports at all. Still, I hated it—the damp-towel smell of the gym, the itchy nylon shorts we had to wear, the uncomfortable quiver in my stomach that lingered after the exercise was over. My face always heated up when I sweat, too, and Amandine would make fun of me.

  “Wee wee wee, all the way home,” was her joke. “That’s you, Delia. “You get as pink as a little piggy.”

  When Mom picked me up early that Tuesday for an orthodontist appointment, I was so happy to be getting out of spring fitness that I forgot to tell Amandine. It wasn’t until I was in the car that it hit me.

  “I need to go back in,” I said uneasily. “I forgot something.”

  Mom’s cheeks puffed in a show of impatience. “Is it absolutely dire?” she asked.

  I thought. “I guess not.”

  “Because we’re late already.”

  “Then forget it,” I said, biting my lip. I didn’t owe Amandine any explanation. She wasn’t my boss. “Let’s just go. Let’s go.”

  For once, I had done something right.

  “Everything looks wonderful,” said Dr. Ang. She leaned forward across her desk and smiled from Mom to me and back again. Pretty and serene and a little bit remote, she did not seem to be the type to give compliments. But she was the type who had a passion for her job, and she stared admiringly at the X ray as she slid it to Mom. I could tell Mom did not want to linger over the ghostly imprints of my teeth.

  “No, no, no,” Dr. Ang reprimanded. “Look at it.” She turned her attention to me. “You’ve been wearing the appliance for twelve hours a day, haven’t you?”

  I shrugged a yes. I’d hated having braces and welcomed the switch to a retainer, and I took all the precautions that would keep me from regressing to a mouthful of railroad tracks.

  “You’ve made fine progress,” said Dr. Ang. “Compared with the previous set of X rays that your dentist in Connecticut sent, it’s remarkable. Remarkable.” My mother’s eyebrows lifted. Now she picked up the X ray and held it at arm’s length, seeking out its hidden value as if she had just been told it was a Frank Lloyd Wright original blueprint.

  “Delia’s got a beautiful bite,” said Dr. Ang.

  An embarrassed tingling spread through me. It was rare to hear the word “beautiful” in the same sentence as “Delia.” Even as I shrugged and pushed deeper in my chair, I wanted to go find a mirror so that I could stare at my beautiful bite in private.

  “I thought it was starting to come along,” said Mom.

  As we walked out to the parking lot, she tugged a piece of my hair. “Good girl,” she said. “See what you can do when you put your mind to it?”

  It was the best my mother could do for a compliment, so I took it as one. I am not one to ruin a happy mood.

  The next day, when Amandine was not at my locker and I couldn’t find her at lunch, I figured that she was absent. Entering the gym for spring fitness, however, I was surprised to see her and Mary Whitecomb sitting together on a pile of folded exercise mats and laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “We’re just doing this skit,” said Amandine. “I’m being Coach Frost and Mary has to rope climb and I’m looking at her underwear.”

  “How intellectual.” I rolled m
y eyes, but my insides gnawed uneasily. “Where’s Jolynn?” I asked Mary.

  “Around,” she answered with a roll of her shoulders.

  Mary Whitecomb and Jolynn Fisch were another pair of friends who took spring fitness. Amandine and I joined up with them when we needed to be a foursome for square dancing or baton relays. Mary seemed okay, but Jolynn scared me. She had a double-stud nose piercing plus a tongue piercing and wore aluminum-colored lipstick. Every afternoon she sneaked across the highway over to Holy Ghost Prep so that she could ride the bus home with her boyfriend, who was a sophomore there. Mary, who was vastly tall and had an underbite and wore thick scratched glasses, was less intimidating than Jolynn—though she did not seem as interesting, either.

  And since when did Amandine do skits with her?

  “We made up the skit yesterday,” Amandine said, as if reading my thoughts. “When you were absent.” Her voice was accusing, slightly triumphant.

  “Okay,” I said. “Fine by me.”

  Then Amandine whispered something in Mary’s ear. I edged away, unsure of what to do or where to place myself. This was my punishment, I knew, for being gone yesterday and not telling her.

  Class got worse, as it was one of those rare days when Coach Frost decided to pick out partners himself, separating friends so that kids wouldn’t cheat on that session’s activity, which was a timed calisthenics test. But he paired Amandine and Mary.

  My partner was Wendi Squires, who was a math whiz. She wouldn’t round off the times on her stopwatch. “Delia, you can chin hang for eight point one six eight seconds,” she announced. “One point eight three two more seconds would give you a perfect ten.”

  “Mmm.” Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Amandine and Mary whispering endlessly in each other’s ear. When I checked on Jolynn, who was paired with Marissa Ruiz, she didn’t seem to care at all.

  Suddenly, I found it hard to breathe, and in that moment I also desperately missed Lexi, and the easy friendship we’d shared back in Connecticut. A friendship that skipped across a week easy as checkers or Parcheesi, the same moves every time. Amandine’s friendship was like a game of strategy, and it always reminded me how bad I was at strategy, and how much I didn’t know.

  Still, I kept quiet, waited. After school, it was as if nothing had happened. While we waited for our rides, we drew sketches of rotten eyeballs in Amandine’s Ugliest Things notebook. Disgusting drawings were getting easier for me.

  I didn’t brave the subject until she called me on the phone that night. And even then I was careful, waiting for the right moment.

  “What do you think about that girl, Mary?” I asked.

  “She’s all right,” Amandine answered. “She’s kind of a grub, but did you know she’s in a fight with Jolynn? They don’t speak to each other anymore.”

  I hadn’t known, but I was used to Amandine noticing everything. “What’s the fight about?”

  “Jolynn’s just a boy-crazy slut and Mary’s had enough. I’m gonna ask her to sit with us at lunch tomorrow.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? I’ve been thinking, Delia. We really need a third friend. I mean, what happens if I’m absent one day? Who are you going to hang around with?”

  I thought about that. I saw myself wandering the halls alone. Sitting by myself in assembly. Pretty awful. But Amandine and Mary were in the same homeroom. What if they got to be better friends and started to share secrets and leave me out of stuff?

  “Mary’s dad’s a minister,” I recalled. “And she’s sort of a priss, too, isn’t she?”

  “Don’t be horrible. Just because she goes to church doesn’t mean she’s a priss. In fact, she was my computer lab partner last year, when we both were at James DeWolf Middle. She’s so not prissy.”

  “Delia, you’ve been on that phone for over an hour,” Dad said, startling me as he came out to the kitchen from the study. He was carrying his and Mom’s empty tea tray, and I realized I’d forgotten to give them their nightly kiss. “Time’s running … out.” He said the last word like an umpire as he set down the tray and reached for the phone.

  “Is that your dad?” Amandine squealed. “Tell him hi! Tell him I say, what’s going on, old man!”

  “It’s Amandine,” I said. “She says hi.”

  Dad misunderstood. He took the phone from my hand. “Hello, ballerina! When are you coming to fix our floors?”

  There was a pause. Then Dad laughed.

  “Oh, really?” he asked. And then, “What sort of tools and equipment might you need?”

  A longer pause. Dad laughed again. “Of course, you’d be paid a working wage!”

  Then Amandine said something else, and Dad’s face lost its grin. “All right, miss. I’m saying good night from all the Blaines,” he said. “Good night! Good night!”

  He hung up the phone, his expression carrying faint amazement. “Miss Amandine,” he said. “She’s a real piece of work.”

  “Why, what’d she say?” I asked. “What’d that mean, about fixing our floors?”

  “It was a joke she made up on the way to the hardware store, about turning the house into a dance studio, that morning I drove her home …” Dad looked troubled for a moment, as if he might tell me something more. But then he just said, “Okay, Honeydew, I’m turning in and so are you.” His voice was loud, the way it had been on the phone. “Good night! Good night!”

  The next day, Amandine asked Mary Whitecomb to sit with us at lunch. She brought extra food, I noticed—a half dozen of Jin’s nutmeg cookies and a vending machine bag of Gummy Worms. She made a show of splitting everything into three equal parts. She was wearing a collared shirt, and her hair was rolled elaborately into two sausage curls pinned on either side of her face.

  “It’s my Joan Crawford from Mildred Pierce look,” she told us. “A classic.”

  “It’s nice,” said Mary doubtfully.

  “It’s to make you think she’s trustworthy,” I said with a small laugh. Amandine didn’t like that one. She glared, then sucked in her cheeks and looked past me, heavy-lidded.

  “Oh, would you just get a load of Jolynn, sitting with all those guys. What a slut,” she said with a sniff. I craned my neck. In fact, Jolynn was sitting in a mixed group of girls and guys.

  Mary looked, too. “Actually, that’s the debate team,” she admitted. “They’re competing against South Kenworthy High this afternoon. They’re probably practicing.”

  Amandine arched her thickly penciled eyebrows and straightened her back. Her mouth downturned slightly, in an imitation of somebody I could not quite place. “You know what? You have a very pretty face,” she said to Mary. “Contact lenses could change the whole essence of you.”

  Mary blushed. “Really, do you think?”

  “Absolutely, dear.” The imitation was of my mother. The same politeness, sincere and detached.

  “Jolynn tried to set me up with Robby Verdone last year,” Mary confessed. “He’s a junior, he just got his license and a Vespa scooter. But it didn’t work out. He’s way too old for me. We went to the movies and I couldn’t think of a thing to say all night.”

  “Robby Ver-done.” Amandine wrinkled her nose. She would have said it about anyone, though. Amandine was not interested in the guys here, except to pluck as characters for our skits. In real life, they hardly seemed to exist for her. Not that I minded. Even gorgeous Mark Ingersell looked better from a distance. Up close, he made me feel sweaty and wrong.

  “I’m taller than Robby, anyway.” Mary frowned. “I’m taller than everyone. You guys know Jasper, my brother, he’s on the varsity basketball team and I can hardly run three steps without tripping. Every time he sees me, Coach Frost probably thinks, there goes DeWolf’s most humongous waste of arms and legs. ’Cause I mean, what’s the point of being so tall if I can’t even play basketball?” She was speaking fast, angrily, as if she had given the subject a lot of thought but had reached no peace with it.

  “Delia’s big brother, Ethan, plays r
unning back on the football team at Washington State, and she can’t do any sports, either,” said Amandine. “And she’s not even that much of a brain. She’s just regular.”

  I’m in advanced math and English, I thought, but there seemed no point in mentioning it.

  Mary looked at me with wistful empathy. “Isn’t it awful? When the brother gets it all? My parents always compare me and Jasper.” She looked so defeated that I was quick to say the thing I knew she needed to hear most.

  “Mine, too.”

  In the back of my mind, I knew that our three-way friendship wouldn’t last, but our brief togetherness was a welcome break. Amandine could be intense, yet Mary seemed able to stand in Amandine’s heat without feeling the burn. And now I was allowed to sit in the shadow, to observe quietly. Which was fine by me.

  Mary shared her lunch with us every day. She often brought us homemade foods, brownies or cupcakes, treats far better than anything Amandine or I could offer. Sometimes she joined in the skits, but our skits didn’t amuse Mary the way they got to me. Too often, usually right at the point when Amandine had thrown in her wrench and revealed that her character was a pervert, freak, or snob, Mary would break out of character and shake her head disapprovingly.

  “You guys,” she would say. Or, worse: “I don’t know how you talked me into these … story-plays. It’s the stupidest kid stuff. I mean, we’re freshmen”

  She probably had a point, though I wished she wouldn’t keep making it. When I peered down the halls or across at the other tables and desks, I didn’t see other kids doing skits. I didn’t see Samantha Blitz and her crowd living in a world of imagination and improvisation and make-believe. Everyone else was interested in beer and concerts and staying out and hooking up. Then I felt ashamed of myself, and I wondered what was wrong with me, why I couldn’t be normal, and what Amandine had spied in my character that made her know that.

  But Mary was normal enough. Mary was sweet, too. One morning, she arrived at school with a handful of woven friendship bracelets that she had made over that weekend. Mine was purple and white. Amandine’s was pink and white. Mary’s was pink and purple and white.