“You okay?” he said.
“Sure. I’m fine.” My throat felt sore and I drank some water.
Dad pushed aside his plate and took a picture from his wallet. “Look, I brought this for you. Here’s your sister Rachel.” My eyes were blurry and I could barely see the picture. A little girl with curly blonde hair and tiny white teeth. “I think she looks a lot like you,” Dad said.
Why would he say that? I had dark straight hair and so did Wilma and Chris. He handed me another picture of Rachel, this one with Marcia holding her in her lap. I held it near the candle to see it better. I held it so close it suddenly caught fire. I froze. I didn’t drop the picture. I watched the blue and yellow flames race to my fingers.
Dad threw water over my hand. A hissing sound. The picture was ruined, curled and blackened. “Sorry,” I whispered. My face felt hotter than the tips of my fingers where the flames had touched them. Dad dropped his napkin over the mess on the table. “Are you okay? Let me see your hand.”
I shook my head. “It’s okay.” I kept my hand in my lap.
Dessert came, a cool pudding sort of thing. We were sort of awkward. Dad tried to keep things light. He told me a funny story about how hard it was to live in Chicago and be a Boston Red Sox fan. I laughed politely. It wasn’t until later, when I was in bed, that I let myself think about what Dad had said before I burned the picture, and what it meant. He was never going to come back to us. Never.
Chapter 23
Sunday morning, while we were having breakfast, Dad said he had a longing to see the ocean again. “I want to see it and smell it. How about you?”
I shrugged.
“What does that mean?” Dad said. “Is that indifference or agreement?”
“It means if you want to go to the ocean, it’s okay with me.”
“I don’t want to do something you won’t enjoy.”
I shrugged again.
Dad looked at me with a little smile. “Emmy—come back.”
“I’m right here,” I said, but I knew what he meant. Since last night I felt sort of cool and removed.
We put on jeans and sweatshirts, and we took the subway, a long ride, over an hour, out to Coney Island. I didn’t feel like talking, but Dad kept a conversation of sorts going. “I know you’ve been to the ocean before, Emmy, but not Coney Island. Coney Island is special. Too bad we’re going this time of year.”
“The water will still be there,” I said.
“Yes, but in the right season there’d be music, we could eat the famous Nathan’s hot dogs, and take a ride on the loop-the-loop, and the boardwalk would be crowded with thousands of people. Thousands!” His eyes sparkled.
When we finally got there, there weren’t thousands but there were quite a lot of people, old people mostly, sitting on the benches along the boardwalk. I thought it was beautiful. Below us, the sand stretched for what seemed like miles. The sky was pale and there was a blurred sun behind a ripple of clouds. The wind was blowing, and I zipped up my sweatshirt as we walked down the steps and over the sand toward the water. From a distance, the sand had looked smooth, but walking on it, I saw that it was full of bits of shells and plastic and chunks of glass.
And it wasn’t as empty as I’d thought at first, either. A girl and a boy, standing in the middle of the beach, looking like a poster for a movie, were kissing passionately. A man was fishing, and a bunch of kids were playing on the big finger rocks that reached out into the ocean. Dad and I walked along the edge of the water. I turned around to look at the Ferris wheel and the roller coaster behind us. They looked black and sort of bony against the sky. I wished I had my journal with me to write that down.
“Great, isn’t it?” Dad said. All of a sudden he took off running. He ran a little distance, turned, and came running back, whooping and panting. Just as he came close to me, he picked up something from the sand. “Hey, look what I found!” He grinned and held it up. It was a green plastic water gun. “It must have washed in. Fruits of the sea!” He handed it to me.
I was going to put it in my pocket and give it to Wilma. But suddenly I bent over, filled it with water and aimed at Dad. A jet of water hit him in the arm. I shot again and got him in the chest. “Emily!” I didn’t stop. I was squirting him, shooting him. I shot again and got him full in the face. And again and again.
“You’re going to pay for this,” he said, ducking and covering his face.
The fingers I’d burned last night started to tingle. I dropped the gun and walked away. What did he mean, pay? What would he do? Go away? Leave me here on the beach? Walk away from me and never look back? I don’t care. Let him go! I looked over my shoulder. Dad was coming after me, waving for me to wait for him. Instead, I started running, running really hard. The wind was in my hair, I picked up my feet and let them slap down on the sand. I don’t care … I don’t care … I don’t care.… My feet pounded to that rhythm.
Then I heard Dad calling me again, and I looked back. He was bent over, kneeling on the sand, his head down, as if he’d collapsed. I turned, skidded in the sand, half fell. I ran. Oh, please … I was praying again. I do care … I do care … When I got to him, he was brushing off his knees, and he looked chagrined, not sick. “Dad?” I said.
“I got out of breath running after you. Stupid.” He sat down on the sand, and I sat down beside him. The sand was cold through my jeans.
“Dad, you’re out of shape,” I said.
“I know, I know.” He handed me the water gun. “Don’t you want to bring it to Chris?”
“Chris hates guns. Wilma will like it better.”
“Wilma …” he said musingly. “Yeah, I can see it. I wonder if Rachel will be like her. Or you? You’re all so different. You, you were always looking, from the time you were a little thing. Your mother and I used to joke that you were taking notes on the world.”
“What else?” I wanted him to remember more about me.
“Let me think. Oh, yes, the way you talked, that was something. You could say anything. Any big word, you’d just repeat it.” He put his hand on my shoulder.
It was just a touch, my father’s touch, my father’s hand on my shoulder, nothing unusual, but it brought me a kind of revelation. Maybe it was the sun that did it, the dazzle of light on the water clearing out my mind. Or maybe it was just that warm, ordinary touch of his hand. Because, right then, I knew with a kind of pure certainty that, even if Dad didn’t think of us as much as we wanted him to, even if he forgot to call us and write us, even if he was away from us, no matter where he was, he was still and always our father. And we were his children, and nothing could take that away from us. Nothing could change that.
I leaned back, leaned against him, and he put his arm around me and kissed my hair. “Emmy,” he said. Then we sat there for a while, looking out at the bright metallic water.
Chapter 24
“It was great, just great,” I said. “New York was great. I definitely want to go there again.”
“I don’t see that you did so much that was different,” Bunny said. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed. “You saw a movie. You can see movies here.”
“Two movies,” I corrected her. “Plus the museum, plus Coney Island, plus fabulous window-shopping, and Mexican food, and the hotel—”
“Hold it, Em, I just heard the bell downstairs.” She got up. “I’ll be right back.”
I lay back on her bed with my hands behind my head. I heard voices downstairs. Bunny’s voice. And then another voice. I sat up. A voice I recognized.
“I really like that you’re so tall,” I heard Robertson saying as I went down the stairs. “I admire a tall girl.”
Bunny laughed. “You make it sound like a talent.”
“If you think about it logically, it is a talent, something given to you that you use. You’ve been given height and you use it to play great basketball. When I see you striding around the halls in school, I say to myself, ‘Robertson, that girl stands tall!’”
I
went into the front hall. “Hi, Robertson,” I said.
“Emily!” He looked a little shocked.
“It’s me, your very own true love.”
“What are you doing here?” he said, which was not the brightest question in the world, especially for a bright boy like Robertson.
“Visiting my friend, Bunny Larrabee. I take it you’re doing the same. I heard you were busy while I was in New York. As busy as a little boy bee can be busy.”
Robertson got an injured look on his big face. “Hey, hey, hey, Emily, what’s all that sarcasm about?”
“Sarcasm, Robertson? I’ll get to the point. What about you and Bunny? I heard something was going on.”
“What?” he said. “What? Nothing’s going on.”
“Nothing? Oh, wait a second,” Bunny protested.
“I heard that you love her.”
Bunny nodded.
“And that you’re through with me.”
Bunny nodded again.
“I still like you, Emily.”
“Not much,” I said.
“No! A lot.”
“A lot?” Bunny said. “What about me? I thought I was the one now. You better explain yourself, Robertson.”
He looked from me to Bunny. From Bunny to me. “Both of you,” he said.
“Both of us? Emily, this boy is greedy! I think we need a conference, don’t you?”
She gave me an elbow in the side, and I said, “Absolutely right. Robertson, you wait here. Bunny and I are going to have a conference.”
We left him in the hall and went into the kitchen and closed the door. “What are we going to do?” I said.
“Teach him a lesson.”
“We already tried that, Bunny, remember? We didn’t have much success last time. Maybe we should just tell him to choose one of us.”
“I don’t like that. It gives him too much power. Why should he choose us? Why don’t we get to make the decision? Besides, if he chooses me, you’re going to feel slighted, and it’s going to hurt our friendship.”
“What if he chooses me?” I said. “Are you going to feel slighted and hurt our friendship?”
“I refuse to be jealous of my best friend.”
“Me, too!”
“Good. Now the next question is, which one of us does he get? Oops, I mean, which one of us gets him?”
“Wait a second,” I said. “Before we answer that question, we should decide if we even want him for a boyfriend.”
“You’re right!” Bunny said. “Do you want him?”
I thought about it, then I shook my head. Robertson was nice when you could keep him on a leash, sort of rein him in. But that was too much work and not my idea of the way to have a boyfriend.
“I don’t actually want him, either,” Bunny confessed. “I just liked the novelty of it. And he is rather adorable and handsome.”
“Mmm, his eyes,” I said.
“Mmm, his lips,” Bunny said.
Which gave us the idea for our plan. It didn’t seem too original to me, but Bunny’s brother, Shad, came in, and the plan got better.
Shad was carrying his pet parakeet in the crook of his arm. The bird chirped, and Shad gave it a kiss on the bill. I think Bunny and I both had the same idea at the same moment. We sort of interrupted each other explaining to Shad what we wanted.
“No, thanks,” he said. He stroked his parakeet’s back.
“Do it for me,” Bunny said. “Do it for your sister. Where’s your family loyalty?”
“No, thanks.”
“Emily will kiss you as a reward,” Bunny said.
That came as news to me.
Shad looked at me and blushed. “You will?”
“Uh, sure.”
“You don’t have to, Emily,” Shad said. “I’ll help you out, anyway.”
“I knew you would! You’re a good kid!” Bunny gave her brother a smart slap on the back, then we went out into the front hall.
Robertson was leaning against the wall, whistling through his cupped hand. “Patiently waiting,” he said. “Have you finished your conference?”
“Yes, and we’re going to give you a test,” Bunny said. “We’re going to test your powers of, of—” She looked at me.
“—discrimination,” I supplied.
Bunny nodded. “You may not think this is too original, Robbie, but this also involves kissing.”
Robertson smiled.
“First, we blindfold you.” Bunny tied a dishcloth around his eyes and whirled him around. “Now, concentrate, Robbie. You’ve got to guess who is kissing you in what order. Got that?”
“Got it.” His smile was even bigger.
Bunny pointed at me. I stood on tiptoes and gave him a strong kiss. Bunny whirled him again. I kissed him again, more softly this time. By then Shad had tiptoed in. Bunny pointed at him, and he touched his lips to Robertson’s and tiptoed out. Once again, she whirled him around. Then she kissed him three times in a row.
After that, we took the dishcloth off his eyes.
“Now you have to say which one of us kissed you and in what order,” Bunny said. “This is classic, Robbie. We find out who’s your true love this way, because true love recognizes true love’s kiss.”
“You want to do it again, so I can really concentrate?” he asked.
“Sorry.”
“What happens if I fail this test?”
“You lose both of us.”
“No problem, anyway, because I know,” he said, with his usual confidence. “First time, it was Bunny.”
“Okay. Then who?”
“Emily.”
“Then who?”
“Bunny again, two more times.” He thought for a minute. “There were six kisses. It was Emily, the last two times.”
“Let me get this straight,” Bunny said. “Me, Emily, me, me, Emily, Emily?”
“Right,” Robertson said.
“Wrong,” Bunny said. “It went like this. Emily, Emily, Shad, me, me, me.”
“Shad?” he said.
“My brother. Didn’t you ever hear, Love me, love my brother?”
“Your brother kissed me?”
“He didn’t do it willingly,” Bunny admitted.
Robertson wiped his hand across his mouth. “You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”
I shook my head.
“Scouts’ honor,” Bunny said, and we both raised our hands in our old three-fingered Girl Scout salute.
After that, we walked Robertson to the corner, one on each side of him. “This is the last mile, Robbie,” Bunny said. “It’s kind of sad, isn’t it?”
“The passing of an epoch,” I said. “The epoch of Robertson.”
“I really didn’t pass?” he said.
“No, you didn’t.”
“So what does it mean?”
“What it means, Robbie, as I told you before,” Bunny explained kindly, “is that you can’t have either of us.”
“Neither of you?” he said weakly.
“But you can be a friend to both of us. You can come to us for help with your other girlfriends.”
“I don’t have any other girlfriends.”
“Well, we’re sure you’ll have someone before long.” We were at the corner. “This is as far as we go with you,” Bunny said.
Robertson walked a few steps, then looked back at us. “Don’t you think it was cheating to include Shad?”
“Yeah, probably,” Bunny admitted. “Sorry about that.”
He walked a few more steps, then turned again. “Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? I can’t understand it. Don’t you like me?”
“He sounds so pathetic,” Bunny whispered.
“I know, it’s sad.”
We looked at each other, then we ran up to him and threw our arms around him. “We’ll always love you, Robertson,” I said.
“We’ll never forget you, Seventh Grade Lover,” Bunny said. “And don’t forget, we’re going to be in your life, to give you good advice about your ne
xt girlfriend.”
“You really think I’ll get another girlfriend?”
“It’s guaranteed,” I said.
We watched him walk away. He seemed to straighten up and sort of hop and skip along as if he were having happier and happier thoughts.
When we went back to Bunny’s house, Shad was taking his bike out of the garage. “I’m gonna collect, Emily,” he said.
“I thought you helped us out of the goodness of your heart.”
“I changed my mind,” he yelled, getting on his bike.”
“Great,” I said, looking at Bunny. “At this rate, I might hit it lucky and have a three-year-old boyfriend by summertime.”
Bunny just laughed.
About the Author
Norma Fox Mazer (1931–2009) was an acclaimed author best known for her children’s and young adult literature. She earned numerous awards, including the Newbery Honorfor After the Rain, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for Dear Bill, Remember Me?, and the Edgar Award for Taking Terri Mueller. Mazer was also honored with a National Book Award nomination for A Figure of Speech and inclusion in the notable-book lists of the American Library Association and the New York Times, among others.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1991 by Norma Fox Mazer
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1126-6
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10014
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