“Everything’s changing, isn’t it?”
“Everything but us. I mean us as friends. Promise that won’t ever change.”
“I promise,” said Katy. “Cross my heart.” At the same exact second, both of us moved and tumbled into each other’s arms. It happened so fast that we bumped our heads together, and it hurt so much we started to laugh, and we laughed so much we started to cry—and Katy and I were friends again.
It’s August now, and middle school begins in a week. Michael Trefaro moved to New Jersey right after graduation. He wrote me a letter and I wrote back to his new house on Willow Avenue. But after that he never wrote back.
When Katy and I made up, I told her, of course, about the kiss.
“Wow,” she said. “So what was it like?” The way Katy asked me was different from the way Yolanda and Tyesha asked. I mean, it wasn’t like she was asking for herself—so she could imagine herself getting kissed—but like she really wanted to know how it was for me. How I felt and if I liked it and would ever want to do it again. Then she said it was weird to think of me doing something she hadn’t done yet, but she was happy for me anyway. I told her I would feel the same. I mean, if something happened to her that hadn’t happened to me. And then we decided that we won’t get our periods until it’s time for both of us to get them. That we’ll get them on the very same day. We made a pact, the Period Pact. We told ourselves if we really put our minds to it, we can make it happen, we really can.
Graduation was fun, and we had a party afterward in Kendra’s big apartment. She made sure we all went to her room and didn’t see any Barbie dolls, even in the closet, which she’d left wide open so everyone could look inside.
Two weeks ago Tom went off to Harvard. We drove him there and stayed for the weekend doing stuff in Boston. Then on Sunday we left him in front of the big tall gates. Waving goodbye, seeing him there squinting in the sunlight like someone in a photograph, I could only imagine how Katy must feel every time she leaves Sam at Fern Brook and goes away for another week.
Katy and I, of course, will be going to Central West Side Middle School, where we will be in a lot of the same classes. We see each other every day, and she still has dinner at my house a few times a week. Sometimes now I stay over at her house too. Her room is cool. She painted it red, and there’s not a fairy doll in sight. As a matter of fact, when Bug Eye moved to the other room, she got rid of all her fairy stuff. Now she’s just into soccer, and the pictures hanging on her walls are of her and her teammates running around or holding up their silver trophies.
Once in a while I go with them to visit Sam. We take the ferry, and sometimes we bring sandwiches. It’s a little sad, but honestly, he seems okay. He’s thrilled when we bring him candy, and I found out they make gummy everything—not just worms, but all kinds of insects and even mice. Katy’s mom seems happier too. Sometimes on the ferry ride, I look at her face, her cheeks all rosy in the wind, and I see how pretty and young she is.
Katy and I are better friends than ever. I think I finally get it now, my father’s New Beginnings thing. What he meant was that to have a new beginning, something has to end. Which is just what happened with Katy and me.
Sometimes we talk about what’s ahead. How after middle school we’ll go to the same high school and after that to the same college. If we ever get married, it will be to guys who are best friends like us, and we’ll live in the same building and have parties on the roof and take trips together. And if we ever have kids, we’ll wheel them around together like the moms we see on Broadway with their strollers. And our kids, of course, will grow up together and be best friends like us. It’s fun to think about stuff like that.
Sometimes, though, I have to admit, I miss the way we used to play. Me being Aunt Mimi and Katy being Johnny. And sometimes—it’s strange—once in a while I just miss us, Katy and Anna, those girls who played and are gone now.
About the Author
Celeste Conway is a writer, an artist, and the author of Where Is Papa Now?, a picture book, and The Melting Season, a novel for teens available from Delacorte Press. She lives in New York City.
ALSO BY CELESTE CONWAY
The Melting Season
Published by Delacorte Press
an imprint of Random House Children’s
Books a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Celeste Conway
All rights reserved.
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eISBN: 978-0-375-89127-4
v3.0
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