by Jenn Bishop
Avery nods. “I’ve lived here my whole life, you know? I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go somewhere new for seventh grade, start all over again where nobody knows me.” His voice trembles and part of me wants to hug him, but then I think that would be weird. I don’t know what he wants right now.
“Did you tell your friends?”
“I try to, but they don’t listen. They don’t get it, Maddie. We don’t really talk about serious stuff. It’s not like with you. You’re the only one who understands what I’m going through.”
You’re the only one who understands.
I’m stuck on what he just said and what it means, but I have to say something back. “With my friends, all we ever do is talk. But I haven’t really talked to them about the tornado. Or what it was like losing my house. And losing Hank.”
“At least, you’re getting a new house.”
“I know. I’m so lucky, I know that. I just wish…” Thinking about it makes my eyes start to tear up. Imagining a shiny new kitchen, but without Hank’s food bowl. The crumbs he always scattered on the kitchen floor. Mom kept trying and trying to find a mat that would catch his crumbs, but she just couldn’t. Hank went all out at mealtime.
“Are you guys—do you think you’ll get a new dog? I mean, not that you should or anything. I just wondered….”
I shrug. Dad hasn’t mentioned it since that day I got mad at him for taking that man’s phone number about the labradoodles.
“Too soon,” Avery says. “The other day, my mom thought she’d figured out a way to make the insurance people pay. A loophole, you know, but one in our favor. And she was so happy, but then, of course, it turned out to be not true at all.” Avery shakes his head. “Sometimes it feels sort of like I’m up to bat but the umpire’s got some weird idea of the strike zone and I’m going to get called out no matter what I do. You know?”
I think about how, for the most part, I’ve been okay with losing my house, but then, every now and then, it’ll just hurt—I’ll go to look for something from the past and remember it’s gone forever. Or think about Hank. And suddenly I’m not okay with everything that happened. Not at all. “I get what you mean.”
Avery goes quiet for a moment. “Hey, do you think that carnival will still come to town at the end of the summer?”
“I don’t know.”
“If it comes, we should go.”
“Okay,” I say almost before he’s finished. You’re the only one who understands.
“It might be my last time.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I can’t even imagine it being true.
My stomach growls and Avery looks at me like, Is that really your stomach?
“Do you want some mac and cheese?” I ask.
Avery stares at me. “You know how to cook?”
“No.” I laugh, heading toward the kitchen. “But I’m pretty good with the microwave.”
“You have enough?” He gets up to follow me.
“There’s plenty.”
Avery hops onto one of the barstools while I dig through the freezer drawer, looking for my frozen mac and cheese. It’s not like with you. I keep hearing what he said in my head, and it’s hard to concentrate. I almost pull out a hunk of frozen tuna instead of the mac and cheese.
I come across a container of Mom’s frozen veggie dogs. “Do you want a veggie dog, too?”
“Do I want to barf?”
Now, that’s more like the normal Avery.
I pry one veggie dog out of the package, heat up the skillet, and stab holes into the frozen mac and cheese with a fork.
“I didn’t realize you had to kill it first,” Avery says. “Isn’t mac and cheese already dead?”
I laugh. “If you don’t give it room to breathe while it’s heating up, it explodes all over the place. Trust me, I’ve made that mistake before. And aren’t you the scientist? Don’t you know about heat expanding things?” I place the tray in the microwave and set the timer.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
I serve the macaroni and cheese, plus my veggie dog, on two plates and sit down on one of the barstools next to Avery.
The second I do, he hops down from his stool. “What do you want to drink?” he asks.
“Just water.”
He pours two glasses of water from the spigot on the fridge and sits back down. I take a bite of the macaroni and cheese. “How’d I do?”
“You could probably be on Top Chef.”
“Ha-ha.” I swipe a sliver of veggie dog through my mound of ketchup.
As I’m chewing, it hits me. Two people eating a meal together. Am I on a date with Avery? Suddenly swallowing becomes a lot harder. I have to gulp some water to get my veggie dog down, and then I clear my throat a few times.
“You okay?” Avery asks. “It’s been a while since I Heimliched anyone.”
“You’ve Heimliched someone before?”
“Not a real person. Just the dummy. I shot a pea across the room.” He smiles at me and takes another bite of mac and cheese.
“When did you Heimlich a dummy?”
“It was in this babysitting class my mom made me take last summer. Gregg’s mom signed him up, too, so, well, let’s just say there were lots of peas being shot all over the room.”
That sounds like Gregg, all right. I dip a bite of mac and cheese in the ketchup.
“Do you know how to do the Heimlich?” Avery asks.
I shake my head, my mouth still full of food. After I swallow, I say, “I probably should learn, though. With the tornado, I realized I’m not that prepared for any disasters. Like, we have the lockdown drills at school, and we learned to stop, drop, and roll in kindergarten, but nobody ever told us what to do if there’s a tornado. Or what if someone is choking and I’m the only one there to help?”
“Totally,” Avery says. “I thought I was the only one who noticed. The tornado, it made me think about all the other things I’m not prepared for. That none of us are, right?”
I don’t know what to say to that, except that I get it. Somehow, not saying anything seems right, so I nod and finish the food on my plate.
When we’re done eating, Avery puts the dishes in the dishwasher, since I was the one who cooked dinner. Barely, but still. I wipe down the countertop, and soon he’s done.
“So, what else were you going to do tonight?” he asks.
I shrug.
“Please, no more Taylor Swift.”
My ears burn at the memory of Avery catching me dancing, but I grin. “The dance party is over,” I say. “Want to watch some TV?”
“Okay.”
I sit down on the couch instead of the chair I usually choose when we’re all watching TV and wait to see what Avery does. There are tons of seats to choose from, but if this has somehow turned into a date, then he’s supposed to sit on the couch, too. But does he know that?
He sits down on the couch but chooses the cushion furthest from me.
Well, at least he still chose the couch.
I turn on the TV and start flipping through the channels. “What do you want to watch?”
“I don’t care.”
There must be five million channels with the McLarens’ cable package. It’s so quiet even with the TV on that I can hear Avery breathing all the way from the other side of the couch.
“Okay, so I said I don’t care, but I actually would rather watch one thing than a little bit of everything,” Avery says, smiling.
I switch to NESN, which is showing the Red Sox game. Seems easy. Not really a date thing, but at least we both like it and I don’t have to choose channels anymore. “How about this?”
“Sure.”
Stella strolls onto the rug in front of us and flops over on her side with a thump. She rolls onto her back and bats at her face, like we’re supposed to think she’s cute or something. Avery claps his hands together when one of the Red Sox players scores a run. “Woo-hoo! Yeah, Mookie!” Stella scurries out of the living room real fast.
“You scared the cat,” I say.
“Stella peed on my bed the other day. Now we’re even.”
“Not the biggest fan of the cats, huh?”
“Are you kidding? I’m a dog person, all the way.”
Avery leans in toward the TV, elbows on his knees. “Come on, Bogaerts.” He’s so different now, so intense and focused, but happy, too. It’s like what happened earlier didn’t happen at all. The upset, lost, unsure Avery I saw was just pretend. This is the real one, the one I’ve known forever.
But I can’t forget what he said. Moving to some suburb of Springfield. Leaving our school.
This summer has been going by so fast. I used to think that was a good thing. We were getting closer and closer to moving into our new house. Closer and closer to starting seventh grade.
But maybe that means my time with Avery is going by fast, too.
Avery stands up and yelps as Dave O’Brien says, “That ball is outta here!”
Going, going, going, gone.
On Saturday, it’s Mom who offers to drive me to Kiersten’s for the planning meeting. With the pool party just two weeks away, Kiersten’s been getting more and more frazzled. While we’re at camp, she’ll get an idea all of a sudden for something she forgot, or something we need to do differently, and dart off to write in her planner.
That’s fine when it’s beach day at the lake. Not so much when we’re in the middle of yoga class and supposed to be doing silent meditation.
We’re halfway to Kiersten’s house when Mom turns down the radio. “I was just thinking how nice it is that you and Kiersten have connected with Gabriella this summer.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s not an easy age to make a big move. Where did she come out here from, again?”
“Minnesota,” I say. But then I think it’s wrong. Michigan? Montana? Definitely one of those faraway M states.
“I bet she’s glad to have found new friends so quickly.”
“Uh-huh.” I stare out the window as we pass by the town pool. The sign for our party is up already. As if Kiersten would let anybody forget the date. Still. It’s like a second chance at the sixth-grade dance. We’ve earned it, right?
“It never hurts to have more friends when you head into junior high. So many changes.”
Is Mom trying to say that she thinks I should be making other friends? That Kiersten’s not enough?
When Mom drops me off at Kiersten’s house, Gabby’s already there. It makes sense—her being next door and all—but still, there’s something weird about how she’s always around now. Even when I’m not.
Kiersten insists we meet on the porch because her brother and his friends have taken over the living room with their video games and pizza. Even from out here, we can hear them yelling and laughing.
Kiersten turns to me. “Did your dad’s work agree to donate paper plates and cups?”
“Yup,” I say. “But he says he wants any leftovers back.”
I scribble down on my notepad: Remind Dad about paper plates and cups.
Gabriella’s phone starts playing a song in her pocket.
“Gabriella!” Kiersten screeches.
“Sorry. I’ll put it on vibrate.”
“How about silent?” Kiersten pushes the button on her phone to check the time. “It’s been almost half an hour and we have literally accomplished nothing.”
I glance down at my list, where, in addition to my note about reminding Dad, I also wrote: To do. Not exactly nothing.
“Calm down, Kiki,” Gabriella says. Kiki? “We’ve got plenty of time till the pool party.”
“Plenty of time?” Kiersten raises her voice. “We have two weeks. And actually, really that’s more like one week. Right now we will have plates. Oh, and a few streamers because my mom had some left over from a baby shower she threw last week. This is not good enough.”
More like one week?
“Why don’t we have two weeks?” I ask.
Kiersten glances over at Gabriella. “Gabby invited me to go with her family on their vacation next week.”
“But we have camp.” Not that camp’s the most exciting place to spend your summer, but still. We’ve done it together every year.
“I’m sorry,” Gabby says. “Since my sister’s bringing a friend, my mom said it was only fair if I was allowed to ask someone, too. And I asked if I could bring two friends, but—”
“It’s fine.” My voice comes out an octave higher than normal as I think of what Mom said in the car. Going on and on about changes and how it’s so nice for Gabby to have friends.
My brain jumps ahead to camp. I have some other friends there. And I get along with the counselors. But who will I sit with on the bus? We’re supposed to go into Boston next week to ride the duck boats and visit the aquarium. Kiersten loves the duck boat ride.
Kiersten and Gabby are both looking at me, like they’re expecting me to say something else. But what can I say? I can’t change the rules Gabby’s mom made. If she even made them in the first place. It’s a pretty easy cop-out, actually. My mom said…I’ve used that excuse before. “I understand. Totally.”
Kiersten bites her lip. “Okay, anyway, so we still need to figure out how to take care of the rest of the things on the list.”
I stare down at my creased printout—Kiersten’s list of forty-three things we need to get done before the party—but all the numbers and words run together. First Avery, and now Kiersten. But no. This is worse. Avery can’t control moving away. It’s not his choice. Kiersten’s still right here, choosing Gabby over me.
“I can take care of chaperones,” Gabby says. “My mom’s been trying to meet a lot of the other moms in town, so I bet she’ll want to help out with that.”
“Great.” Kiersten scribbles on her notepad. “Okay, that leaves food, games, decorations. Maddie?”
I pop my head up.
“You’re doing the decorations, right?” She turns to Gabby and says, “Her mom’s wicked crafty. You should see the Halloween costumes she made for us when we were little.”
Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion. Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. R2-D2 and C-3PO.
“Maddie?”
I stare back at my former best friend. “Yeah?”
“You’ve got the decorations under control?”
All of Mom’s crafting supplies—plus what she inherited from Grandma—are gone now. Destroyed. It took years to build up that closet. Maybe decades.
“We don’t have any of that stuff anymore.”
“But your mom could take you shopping, right? You’ll get reimbursed from the PTA.”
“Okay,” I say. “Sure.” And I add that to my list. Buy decorations with Mom.
Kiersten keeps assigning jobs and my fingers move the pencil across the page to write them down, but all I can think about is my house, the way it used to be. Me and Kiersten on the front steps in our dance costumes back when we both took dance classes. (It didn’t last long. We were as bad at dancing as we are at tennis.) And that blue pop-up tent that Dad put on my bed for sleepovers, the one with the stars on the ceiling. We haven’t fit in it for years—at least, not the two of us. We’re way too big now. But back then, we’d zipper it all up and pretend we were ninja warrior zombie princesses. Like that made any sense.
But it always did. All the games we made up, they made complete sense to me and Kiersten, even if they didn’t to anybody else.
“Maddie? Did you write down what I just said?”
I look up at Kiersten. “Huh?”
She peeks at my notebook. My to-do list with only two items and about a dozen doodled stars. “Have you been paying attention at all?”
“Sorry.”
Kiersten’s mom steps onto the porch. “You girls want any more iced tea?”
Gabriella’s eyes light up. “Yes, please.” Kiersten’s mom says we can call her Julie but I always feel weird about that. Plus, I don’t know if it’s correct to call her Mrs. Wiley since she’s not marrie
d to Kiersten’s dad anymore.
“This meeting is officially done-zo.” Kiersten crisscrosses her legs and sits back in the wicker chair.
“Maddie, how are things going with your house?” Gabby asks.
“Pretty good,” I say. “They started the framing.”
“How long is it supposed to take?”
I shrug. Dad said it all depends on the weather. “Hopefully, we’ll be in before school starts.”
“What about Avery’s house?” Kiersten asks.
I wonder if I’m supposed to keep it a secret. I decide it can’t hurt to say what anyone could see driving up our street. “I’m not sure. They haven’t started any construction yet.”
“Maybe he can come and stay in your house once it’s ready,” Kiersten says, smiling.
“It’s not that big,” I say, noticing the way Gabriella is staring at a spot on the coffee table. Is it just me or does she look like she could burn a hole in it with her eyes?
“I was just kidding,” Kiersten says. “I’m sure it’ll all work out.”
I think about what Avery told me last night. “I hope so.”
“Gregg was talking up the party big-time at soccer camp last week,” Gabriella says, looking right at me. “He seemed pretty psyched for it.”
I glance at Kiersten. She didn’t tell her, did she?
Julie comes back out with a pitcher of freshly made iced tea. “What’s this I hear about a boy at camp?”
“Mom!” Kiersten says.
“Now wait a minute. Who likes Gregg?”
I shake my head, like that will make my cheeks stop turning red. “Nobody.”
Julie hands me a glass of iced tea with a little blue umbrella in it. “Does nobody’s name begin with an M?”
“Stop it, Mom. Seriously. You’re such a creeper.”
“I may be a grown-up now, but I was your age once.”
“Yeah,” Kiersten says. “In the Stone Age.”
Julie laughs it off and continues to pour iced tea. “Can I tell you girls a little story?”
“Yes!” I say. Kiersten’s mom always has the best stories.
“Okay, fine.” Kiersten leans back in her chair with her iced tea.
