So Totally Emily Ebers

by Lisa Yee

  Nicole and A.J. are leaving for camp soon. I still don’t understand why I couldn’t go with them. But Alice insisted I “get used to Rancho Rosetta before school starts.” Get used to what? Being forced to play volleyball? Being ignored by the popular girls? Being away from you? Being a loner, probably for the rest of my life? And if that’s not bad enough, I keep wandering around town and getting lost. Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to have to ask a stranger how to get home?

  I hung around the mall again today. A lot of the salespeople know me. I kept seeing friends together. Big groups. Small groups. I saw three girls laughing as they ate ice cream. I wonder if they know how lucky they are. They’re probably spending the whole summer hanging out together, goofing off, and not playing volleyball.

  Alice refused to listen to me when I told her I was never going back to the gym again. She said, “You should try to stick with something.”

  Okaaay, like how about sticking with marriage, Alice?

  After the mall, I went to Stout’s. Libby brought me a big slice of chocolate cake and I didn’t even have to ask. Libby’s cool, and not just because she has a butterfly tattoo. She’s really easy to talk to. But, no offense to her, Libby’s really old. Maybe fifty-ish. I wish I had at least one friend my own age here.

  Love,

  Emily

  P.S. I love that you’re using my address labels. Thanks again for the postcard. For a while I was scared you had forgotten about me. How silly is that???!!!

  JUNE 26

  Dear Dad,

  Get this. I was lying on the couch with my feet over the back and my head hanging upside down, and suddenly Alice squats down. She gets right in my face and says out of nowhere, “Emily, try to cheer up.”

  Right. Alice cries every afternoon at 2 p.m., and then has the nerve to tell me to be happier?! Uh, sure thing. You go first, Alice.

  Actually, there is one thing to be happy about, but I’m going to try not to be too happy in case it doesn’t work out. Remember that girl I told you about, the one who got hit on the head with a volleyball? Well, she did end up coming back to practice, and so did I. So anyway, today the volleyball was barreling its way toward this girl like some sort of missile, and do you know what she did? She squeezed her eyes shut, and then she kicked the ball.

  Everyone on both sides of the net burst out laughing. Even Coach Gowin was in hysterics, though she tried to hide it. Yet the most amazing thing was that the girl just stood there with her head held high. She was so brave to stay put and take it. When I saw that, I just knew I had to meet her.

  After the game (which we lost), I noticed her sitting alone in the gym. While most of us carried boring gym bags, hers looked exactly like a briefcase. That is so fashion-forward — a faux briefcase! I’ll bet she reads Italian Vogue.

  “Hi!” I said.

  “How do you do?” she answered.

  “I’m Emily and I just moved here. Don’t you hate volleyball? Isn’t Coach Gowin just awful? She reminds me of a potato with toothpick legs. Wouldn’t you just love to get your hands on whoever gave her that whistle?”

  She gave me a funny look, and I thought, Oh no, I’m talking too much. It’s just that I haven’t had anyone to talk to for weeks, other than Libby, and Alice doesn’t count. But all of a sudden the girl says, “I’m Millicent L. Min. Yes. Yes. Ha! Yes.”

  How funny is that?

  “What do you think of these outfits they force us to wear?” I asked.

  Millicent looked down at her navy blue shorts and powder blue shirt. “It’s nice,” she said, “if you’re fond of prison garb.”

  It was so fun talking to her. Millicent has a wonderfully deadpan sense of humor. Half the time you can’t even tell if she’s joking. Just as I was describing the hideous uniforms we had to wear at Wilcox Academy, Julie and her backup singers walked toward us. “Keep her away from the doughnuts,” one of them said as she looked straight at me.

  They all laughed, even though nothing was funny.

  “That’s a good one,” I said, forcing a smile. “Thanks for the advice, but actually, I only eat healthy food!”

  After they left, I tried to change the subject really fast. “My mom thinks volleyball will be good for me,” I told Millicent. “You know, get coordinated and meet new people, blah, blah, blah.” I offered her part of my Snickers bar.

  “I thought you only ate healthy food,” she said. She nibbled all the chocolate off the outside before popping the rest into her mouth.

  “I just said that to make her feel bad,” I confessed. “I know my dress size is in double digits, but Dr. Seto said I’m healthy, so what’s the big deal? Now, tell me, why are you here? No offense, but you didn’t look like you enjoyed yourself at all. In fact, a couple of times I was afraid you were going to cry.”

  Millicent sighed, and I hoped I hadn’t hurt her feelings. “I don’t have gym, I’m homeschooled.” I looked at her carefully. I had never met anyone who was homeschooled before. “My parents want me to get more exercise,” she continued, “even though I’m not really into sports.”

  “Me too! Plus I’m totally uncoordinated, and I don’t like the idea of letting my teammates down.”

  Right on schedule, Julie returned.

  “I hope you two won’t hold the team back this year,” she said in a sweet voice that was as insincere as her smile. “Most of us played together last year and we almost won first place.”

  “We’re going to try our best,” I said, shooting a smile at her. I felt braver now that I had a friend sitting next to me. “Right, Millie?”

  I guess Millicent wasn’t expecting my nudge, because she almost fell over. “Uh, right,” she said.

  “Good,” Julie said. I loved how her smile fell off her face. “We all really want to win, that’s all.”

  “We want to win too,” I assured her. “We’ll try hard, if you promise to try hard too.”

  “Uh … yeah, sure.” Julie looked confused. “I promise.”

  Millie was quiet and I hoped I hadn’t embarrassed her. I looked down, and there was this orange stuff on the floor all around her.

  “Hey, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

  She turned pale. “What is it?”

  “Why are you sitting on your Cheetos?”

  Millicent laughed. “I don’t know, sometimes I just do weird things!”

  “Me too! I’m glad you’re not wearing white shorts.”

  “That would have been a disaster! I just thought maybe you were a health-food addict and would be opposed to Cheetos.”

  “Are you kidding? I love those, although Doritos are my favorite.”

  “What about Moon Pies?” Millie asked. “Do you like Moon Pies?”

  “What’s a Moon Pie?”

  “‘What’s a Moon Pie?’” she squawked. “Oh Emily, you really have to try one.”

  “But what is it? Is it like a pie made of cheese?”

  Millie laughed again. “Nooooo, it’s, it’s … round and made of graham cracker–like cookies and marshmallow dipped in chocolate.”

  “Ooooh, sounds great! Hey, wanna go get some ice cream? Or we could hang out at my house. My dad just bought me a new BeDazzler.”

  Millicent frowned and said, “Sorry, not today.”

  Ouch! I should have taken things more slowly and not just assumed we’d be friends. I was about to tell her I understood when she said, “How about some other time?”

  “Really? I’d love to!”

  “Me too!” Millie said, grinning.

  She gave me her phone number and I already have it memorized. Happy, happy, happy! Maybe this summer won’t be a total loss after all.

  Love,

  Emily

  JUNE 29

  Dear Daddy,

  Alice was being a pain. Again.

  “Please, please, please let me have a sleepover!!!” I had been thinking about this ever since I met Millicent. A.J., Nicole, an
d I had such fun at sleepovers.

  “I didn’t know you and this Millicent girl were such close friends.”

  “Well, we’re not. Not yet, anyway. But I can just tell we will be. I have a good feeling about her. So can I ask her about a sleepover?”

  “Emily, the house is a mess. Give it a week or two. I haven’t even unpacked the plates.”

  “I can’t wait two weeks. Two weeks is forever! You told me to go out and meet new people, and now that I finally met someone, you’re saying I can’t invite her over?”

  Alice pulled something out of a box. It was her bat mitzvah photo. It’s hard to believe she was ever my age.

  “What do Millicent’s parents do?”

  “How should I know what they do?”

  “Don’t get defensive, I’m just curious.”

  “Alice, it’s not like we sit around and discuss our parents’ careers.”

  “Oh. I suppose not.”

  Alice was quiet as she set a picture of her mother on the mantel. She sighed. “I just wouldn’t want your friend to think we live like this.”

  “But we do live like this,” I reminded her as I gestured around the room. There were unopened boxes everywhere, and where there weren’t boxes, there were massive piles of things, including a whole stack of Tupperware lids. Our house looked like a dump truck backed up and spilled everything out.

  It was the opposite of our Allendale house, where everything was so orderly. It was as if we crossed some invisible line while we were driving across the country, where uptight, together Alice disappeared and scattered Alice took over. I thought of that movie you took me to, the one where space invaders inhabited human bodies. Is that what was happening to Alice? An alien takeover? It would explain a lot of things.

  But what if Alice was right? What if Millicent Min came over and thought I lived like a total slob? What if she told all her friends, “We ate off of paper plates at Emily Ebers’s house because they can’t find their real plates”?

  “I can clean it up,” I said weakly.

  Alice placed one of her diplomas next to my baby picture. I stiffened as she put her arm around me. “We can clean it up,” she said. “Together. Then you can have your sleepover, okay?”

  What choice did I have?

  “Okay.”

  The rest of the day was a miracle. Maybe you heard about it on the news: Alice’s computer remained off! By evening we were exhausted, and when we stopped to admire our progress, we were shocked. Now there were empty boxes scattered on one side of the house and piles of junk on the other.

  “The house looks worse than when we started!” I moaned.

  “Don’t worry,” Alice said. “We’ll take it one room at a time, starting with your room. But first, food.”

  Ah yes, dinner. That meant one of two things: frozen food or Stout’s. I wonder if there’s something about divorce that makes people stop cooking? Alice never makes those lavish meals anymore. And you, you never had any food in your apartment. Remember when I was little and you used to make pancakes on Sunday mornings? I miss that. I found your favorite frying pan in one of the boxes. I put it under my bed for safekeeping.

  Don’t take this the wrong way, but your apartment sort of depresses me. Probably because there’s hardly anything in it, although all your speakers are awesome. I know — maybe you can get on that Compartment Apartment show where they redo your place while you’re out. And when the television cameras surprise you, you could tell them about the Talky Boys and maybe even play a song, and tell them about how famous you used to be!

  I’m going to ask Libby if she can add “Heartless Empty-Hearted Heartbreaker” to the jukebox at Stout’s. We ate there again tonight.

  “You two ladies been busy?” Libby asked.

  “I’m doing the final edits on an article called ‘What Happened to All of the Hippies?’” Alice replied.

  Libby’s eyes lit up. “You’re looking at one of the original hippies right here!”

  “Really?” Alice said, sitting up straighter. “Could we talk about this tomorrow morning? The article isn’t due till the afternoon.”

  “Right on,” said Libby, giving us the peace sign.

  As we ate dinner, Alice said, “I think I knew Libby was a hippie. She’s about the right age, and there’s something carefree and open about her.”

  We both looked at Libby, who was chatting with a policeman and laughing.

  After dinner Libby announced, “Tonight we have jumbleberry pie, and there’s lemon meringue made from lemons from my yard, and, Emily, there’s French silk.”

  “French silk, Emily!” Alice said, giving Libby a smile.

  French silk is my favorite pie. I’m not really one for cooked fruit, but I love piecrust. That’s why you and I were so good together. You loved the fruit and hated crust. I loved the crust and hated the fruit.

  “French silk …” Libby sang.

  Just the thought of chocolate and crust was almost enough to make me dizzy. But I heard myself telling Libby, “We’re sort of in a hurry tonight.”

  “Tell you what,” Alice jumped in. “Give us a slice of French silk to go.”

  By the time we got back home, I was ready to tackle my room. As Mongo Bongo kept us energized, we worked like the high-speed version of Maggie and Lola from Compartment Apartment. We were having trouble getting the posters of The Surfers of Solana Beach straight, so Alice suggested we just put everything on angles. (I guess she does have some good ideas now and then.) I even put up that old poster of the Talky Boys, the one where you had big hair and are sitting on a motorcycle.

  Finally, Alice handed me the hammer and climbed down the ladder. I yanked on the pull chain, and suddenly my room was bathed with soft blue light from the Japanese paper lantern you bought me with my credit card. It turned the purple walls lavender.

  “I think your friend will be most impressed,” Alice murmured. “Does she like purple?”

  I nodded, even though I didn’t know.

  “Okay, Emily, off to bed for you, and back to work for me.”

  “It’s after midnight,” I squawked. “You’re going to work after all this?”

  “I’ve still got to finish up my hippie article. It’s due tomorrow.”

  “But you spent all day working on my room….”

  “It’s okay, I’m actually reenergized just thinking about the article. I envy the outlook hippies had on life. They didn’t let stress get to them. Have you noticed how easygoing Libby is?” I nodded. “Good night, Emily.” She looked tired but content.

  “Good night, Alice.”

  From my room I could hear her computer turn on. I ran to her office.

  “Emily?”

  “Thank you.”

  The glow from her screen bathed the room in blue, like the light from my Japanese lantern. “Anytime, honey,” she said.

  I’m going to get ready for bed now. I’m pretty tired. Do you ever have trouble sleeping? Sometimes I do. I’ve never seen Alice sleep, but I know she has to because she says she has bad dreams.

  Oh! I almost forgot to tell you, I put pink heart stickers all over my walls. You can see them when you visit. Until then, here’s one of your very own….

  ZZZzzzzz,

  Emily

  JUNE 30

  Hi Daddy!

  Millicent Min and I are sooooooo much alike that we’re practically twins. Except that she is Chinese, about five inches shorter than me, and fifty pounds lighter. Oh, and she has bangs and shoulder-length straight black hair and dark brown eyes, and I have thick brownish-blond hair and light brown eyes. But Millie and I get along so well. When we talk it feels like I’ve known her forever. Have you ever felt that way about someone?

  I called her today about the sleepover.

  “Hi Millie, it’s me!”

  “Me who?” she asked, using a really funny fake formal voice.

  “Me, Emily Ebers. Wanna come over to my house for a slee
pover on Tuesday?”

  There was total silence. Alice says that if you don’t recharge the batteries on cordless phones, they can go dead. “Hello? Hello, Millie, are you there? Millie, are you still there? Hellooooo …?”

  “I’m still here,” I finally heard her say.

  “I’m afraid we might have a bad connection.”

  “No, no, the connection’s just fine.”

  “Okay then, as I was saying, if you don’t want to come to my house, maybe I can come to yours.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea….”

  For a moment I was scared that she didn’t want to have a sleepover and I would never make any friends in Rancho Rosetta. But when she didn’t say anything else, I jumped in and said really fast, “Then it’s settled, you’ll come here!”

  “Emily, I’d like to speak to Millicent’s mother,” Alice interrupted. I didn’t even see her come into the room.

  I covered the phone. “Why?” I cringed.

  “Hello?” I could hear Millie calling. “Hello?”

  “Emily.” Alice gave me her do-what-I-tell-you-to-do-or-else-you-are-in-so-much-trouble look.

  “Millie, my mom wants to talk to your mom.”

  “Oh.”

  “Exactly.”

  Alice took the phone. “Hello! This is Alice Ebers speaking…. Yes, well, yes, we would love to have Millicent stay over…. She can? Wonderful, Emily really could use a friend. She’s been out of sorts ever since we left New Jersey….”

  Urgggg, leave it to Alice to totally humiliate me. What other embarrassing things was she going to tell Mrs. Min? Or what if Alice decided to have one of her mood swings and suddenly started sobbing?

  I snuck out.

  At the grocery store I stocked up on popcorn and Snickers bars, since I know Millie likes those. (I put the Snickers in the mini-fridge in my room so they’ll be nice and cold.) I also got some magazines, strawberry air freshener, and Triple Badoobadoo Bubble Gum.

  Someone had stacked Brillo Pads into a pyramid that almost reached the ceiling. I resisted the urge to knock it over, but it was hard. Then right when I was about to get some Cheetos, I gasped. The best-looking boy in the entire world was headed toward me.