Talia Talk

by Christine Hurley Deriso

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY CHRISTINE HURLEY DERISO

  COPYRIGHT

  To Greg, with all my love.

  Don’t forget our deal.

  1

  “Pull, Otters, pull!”

  I squinted and puffed out my cheeks. Weighing only about ninety-eight pounds, I didn’t have much to offer my team besides fierce facial expressions. Plus, my hands were sore by now, so maybe my squinting would fool people into thinking I was actually trying.

  “Harder, Talia, harder!”

  Busted. My best friend, Bridget, was at the front of our team’s line (Bridget had been in front of every line I’d ever been in), but even with me standing behind her, she could tell my heart wasn’t in it. Tug-of-war was totally pointless.

  But not to Bridget. Bridget was so competitive, she could turn a spelling bee into a contact sport. And tug-of-war against a team that included Meredith and Brynne? The rope might as well have been a red cape flashing in front of a bull. Bridget would own that rope, even if she had to pull five times as hard to compensate for her scrawny teammates (me being the scrawniest and, let’s face it, the least motivated). To Bridget, it was a matter of principle…of willpower…of sheer determination. That, and since she was at the front of the line, she’d be the one to tumble into the muddy creek if we lost.

  Through my squint, I noticed Meredith and Brynne pulling on the opposite side of the creek bank. Even in the middle of tug-of-war, their ponytails looked bouncy and their lips glossy. What was it with those two? When had they morphed from scabby-kneed goofballs to dainty princesses? And why hadn’t Bridget and I received the morph memo?

  “Pull harder, Otters!” Bridget bellowed, clutching the rope with one hand while she quickly wiped the sweat from her brow with the other.

  Which was all it took for Meredith and Brynne’s team to give the final heave that knocked Bridget off balance and sent her tumbling into the creek. My fellow Otters and I groaned gamely but didn’t exactly have rope burns on our hands.

  The camp counselor blew a whistle. “Game, Sea Turtles,” she said in a last-day-of-camp monotone before adjusting the score on a clipboard.

  Meredith and Brynne pointed at Bridget thrashing in the ankle-deep creek water and giggled into their fingertips. They dropped the rope and gave each other high fives, then turned to their teammates for more palm slapping.

  “Sea Turtles rule!” Meredith crowed, which, let’s face it, was the understatement of the millennium. If there had been any doubt at the beginning of the week that the Sea Turtles ruled, by the last day of camp, we were all clear.

  “Weaklings!” Bridget moaned as she staggered to her feet and splashed us with creek water. “We’ve lost almost every single competition this week!”

  My fellow Otters and I nodded apologetically but couldn’t help sucking in our own giggles. Bridget was covered in mud and looked like she might spin off into space, her head was shaking so indignantly.

  “It’s just a game, Bridge,” I said.

  “Just a game!” she roared. I might as well have said “just a nuclear war.”

  Meredith and Brynne nonchalantly inspected their nails and tightened their ponytails.

  “So what’s the damage for the week?” Meredith asked our counselor.

  The counselor tapped items on the clipboard, counting as she went along. “Sea Turtles ten, Otters one.”

  “Well…our quilt is prettier!” I sputtered, then thought that might possibly be the lamest thing I’d ever said.

  “Maybe you girls better stick to quilting,” Brynne said, rubbing her hands on the back of her jean shorts. She and Meredith waved a fluttery goodbye, then headed back toward the mess hall for lunch.

  The counselor and other campers scattered too, except for me. Bridget had crumpled in defeat back onto the creek bank, and I sat beside her for moral support, ignoring the mud creeping up my thighs.

  “Don’t utter a word about camp to my mom,” I said, planting my chin in my hand. “I can see it now: she’ll yak on her show about how hopeless we were in every competition except quilting, and the whole town will send me fabric patches to try to cheer me up.”

  Mom’s TV fame had started innocently enough. After my dad died of cancer when I was seven, she got a job doing the morning news for WBJM. Sitting behind a shiny oak desk and reading off a TelePrompTer, she told viewers about local elections, courtroom verdicts, traffic snags and other items that fall under the category “Things I Don’t Mind the World Knowing About.”

  But she was such a hit on the news that, pretty soon, her producer asked her to cohost WBJM’s chatty midmorning show, Up and At ’Em, an hourlong hodgepodge of host chat, interviews and artsy-craftsy segments. Host chat usually covers items that fall under the category of “Things I Mind the World Knowing About.” Things like how I threw up on my piano teacher while she played a duet with me during a recital. It was tough enough being a kid (and a half-orphan at that) without everybody in town knowing about my intestinal woes.

  Viewers always raved about how funny and charming my mom was. Whatever. It never struck me as funny or charming that the whole town knew I had a first-grade crush on the paperboy and just happened to be “dusting the porch” every time he came by. Why did anyone else need to know about the time I trick-or-treated as a road map because I’d used a permanent marker to connect the dots of my chicken pox? And whose business was it that I glued antlers onto my head with bubble gum one Christmas?

  Trying not to watch my mom’s humiliating tell-alls was like trying not to think about a polka-dot elephant when somebody says “No matter what you do, don’t think about a polka-dot elephant.” Just knowing I was being talked about was excruciating enough. Knowing without knowing the specifics was even worse and drove my imagination into overdrive.

  “Promise me,” I said to Bridget, “if Mom asks how camp was, just say fine.”

  Bridget shrugged. “It’s not the worst thing in the world to have a mom who’s a celebrity,” she said. “Being the kid of a teacher is worse.” Bridget was so sure of herself that when she offered an opinion, she sounded like she was reading from a history book: “When the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, they encountered Native Americans, who introduced them to maize and explained to them that being the kid of a teacher is worse than being the kid of a celebrity.”

  “No way,” I said.

  “Way.”

  “Prove it, Smarty Pants,” I told her. “Compare and contrast.”

  Bridget smiled, like she’d studied the subject and had been waiting for someone to ask. “Your mom can tell the whole town about your rashes,” she said, making me cringe with the reminder that, yes, Mom had recently gabbed about my rash. “But my mom,” she continued slowly, raising her eyebrows, “is like a walking billboard: ‘My kid is doomed.’”

 
“Not as doomed as me,” I grumbled.

  “ ‘I,’” Bridget said. “ ‘Not as doomed as I.’”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What are you, my English teacher?”

  “See? Teachers really are annoying.”

  “But even teachers don’t blab their kids’ secrets all over town,” I pointed out. “And we’ll be in middle school in the fall, so you won’t be in your mom’s school anymore.”

  Bridget considered this for a moment, then said, “Well, your mom could be the lunch lady and make you eat leftover school mush every day for dinner. That would be worse than having a celebrity for a mom.”

  And I really couldn’t argue with that.

  Bridget pulled a wildflower from the ground and absently plucked its petals. “Camp used to be so fun,” she said.

  “That’s when Mer and Brynne used to be fun,” I said. “Now, they’re just…fungus.”

  Bridget looked at me quizzically and I shrugged. It was the best insult I could muster off the top of my head.

  Funny how Bridget and I had suddenly found ourselves on the outs with Mer and Brynne. Until recently, the four of us had been inseparable—playing kickball in my front yard, building a fort in the woods behind Bridget’s house, inventing new Pop-Tart-based desserts in Brynne’s kitchen, trimming each other’s bangs in Meredith’s froufrou bedroom…. It was at the beginning of summer that Meredith and Brynne had started making up excuses not to join us on the trampoline or race through our path in the woods. But even then, we still felt like a foursome.

  Until camp. They’d acted like they were allergic to us from day one, and Bridget writhing in the mud on our last day symbolized the slow death of our friendship.

  Mer and Brynne had killed it.

  “So I guess I’ll see you when school starts next week.”

  I folded a T-shirt and stuffed it into my duffel bag as Brynne and I packed side by side. Our cots were adjacent in the cabin, but this summer, we’d forgone our usual camp tradition of whispering secrets till three in the morning. The best we’d been able to manage this week was tight smiles as we made our beds, then crisp “good nights” before lights out. Things were even icier at the other end of the cabin, where Bridget’s and Meredith’s cots were.

  “Yeah. Guess I’ll see you then,” Brynne responded without looking up from the jeans she was folding.

  I sighed and let a pair of underwear drop from my fingers. I took a couple of seconds to gather my courage, then planted my hands on my hips and looked straight at Brynne.

  “Why aren’t we friends anymore?” I asked softly.

  Brynne’s eyelashes fluttered. At first, she tried to keep her gaze planted on her duffel, but after a moment, her green eyes locked with mine.

  “It’s Bridget,” she said, the words tumbling out as if they’d been held captive in her mouth all week. “She’s so loud. And bossy.”

  “She’s always been loud and bossy,” I replied, feeling a little guilty, but, hey, that wasn’t exactly a news flash, was it?

  “Uh, duh,” Brynne said, as if I’d just proved her point. “And obnoxious. Did you notice how she was stamping on everybody’s feet during the hoedown? And playing pool with her French fries and peas in the mess hall? When I came out of the shower last night, she’d hung my pajamas from a tree and left a Barbie outfit on my cot in their place. I had to go outside in my towel to get my pj’s! And did you hear she filled Meredith’s shampoo bottle with syrup? God. She is so immature.”

  I frowned. “But we’ve all been best friends since kindergarten.”

  Brynne’s fingernails dug into her jeans. “We’re not in kindergarten anymore,” she said. “Bridget embarrasses us.”

  Right. “Us.” She and Mer were now definitely an “us.” Apparently, so were Bridget and I, since I was somehow being held responsible for her being loud and obnoxious.

  “Bridget’s a great friend,” I said defensively. “Who ran five blocks to get your mom when you broke your nose skating?”

  Brynne shook her head slowly—a “you just don’t understand” head shake. “We’re in middle school now,” she said, as if that explained it all. “But we miss you, Talia. Meredith’s sleeping over tomorrow night. Why don’t you come?”

  My eyebrows arched. “We all sleep over at Bridget’s house the night after camp. It’s a tradition.”

  How stupid. After the way this week had gone, it would take a total moron not to realize our tradition was history.

  “Can we at least hang out in school?” I asked pleadingly.

  Brynne stared at her hands. “Yeah. I’m sure we’ll see each other around. It’s just…”

  She didn’t finish her sentence.

  She didn’t have to.

  2

  It was happening again.

  The look.

  My mom and I had stopped by the grocery store on the way home from camp. We were squeezing cantaloupes in the produce section—well, she was squeezing cantaloupes and I was inspecting my split ends—when I remembered why I should never inspect my split ends in public.

  The lady in the produce aisle glanced right past us at first. But then her eyes widened, and then her eyelashes fluttered as she forced herself to look away. Next came the pause, then the sneak-peek back at Mom.

  “You’re Chelsea from Up and At ’Em!” Tomato Lady said, holding her bag of produce in one hand and pointing at Mom with the other. She was already walking toward us.

  “Guilty as charged,” Mom said. That’s what she always said when she was recognized, and always in that “I’m humble and a good sport” kind of way. Next, she would toss me a sympathy glance and we’d steel ourselves for a ten-minute conversation with a complete stranger.

  “Oh, I love your show!” Tomato Lady gushed. “You’re so witty! I watch you every morning, and you always make me laugh.” Pause as Tomato Lady’s eyes moved from Mom to me. “And you must be Talia!”

  Pinch alert! Pinch alert!

  I managed to smile back, but it was my fake smile, the kind that didn’t make it all the way up to my eyes.

  “I laughed for half an hour straight when your mom talked about you throwing up on your piano teacher’s shoes at your recital!” Tomato Lady told me.

  “Oh, that was ages ago,” Mom said, trying to soften the blow, but Tomato Lady might as well have smacked me in the face with a piece of produce.

  “I don’t blame you for being nervous, dear,” Tomato Lady said, and here it came: the face pinch. Grrrrr… “I used to give piano lessons myself, and I know how the tummy fills with butterflies on the big day. Of course, I never had a student throw up on me—”

  “Well, that’s all behind her now,” Mom said too quickly. “She’s blossoming into a beautiful young woman.”

  Tomato Lady studied me with a crinkled brow, trying for the life of her to see the beautiful young woman in my gangly eleven-year-old body clad in mud-stained shorts. Didn’t Mom know by now that her lame remarks only made things worse?

  “Right,” Tomato Lady said, unconvinced, but then her face brightened again. “I feel like I know you, Talia!”

  “Oh, everything I say on the show is vastly exaggerated,” Mom insisted. Give it up, Mom, my stern expression told her. Didn’t matter. Tomato Lady wasn’t listening to her anyhow.

  “You remind me of my granddaughter,” she prattled on. “She’s just a bit clumsy and absentminded, too. I told her about your shoe flying off during a dance recital. The same thing happened to her!”

  “Well, it’s lovely to have met you,” Mom said with the same clip in her voice she would use if a fire alarm sounded. She knew when I’d had enough and took no chances on my being snarky to kindly piano teachers.

  Tomato Lady opened her mouth to respond, but Mom was already pushing the grocery cart past her. “Bye, now!”

  Just for fun, I stayed planted in my spot for a couple of seconds. Mom grabbed my arm and I let out a vague yelp as I went flying behind her.

  “Let’s go!” she whispered when we we
re out of Tomato Lady’s earshot.

  “Oh, why, Mom?” I whined. “She hadn’t even gotten to the part yet about the time I tried to hard-boil eggs in the microwave, or the time I scored a strike in the wrong bowling lane.”

  Mom couldn’t help grinning. She tousled my hair with one hand as she pushed the cart with the other. “You’re just so lovable,” she cooed. “What can I say?”

  “What don’t you say?” I groused, but I smiled in spite of myself.

  “I still haven’t heard a word about camp,” Mom said as we meandered down the aisle. “Tell me everything.”

  I shook my head. “My camp experience is not for public consignment.”

  Mom stifled a smile. “Consumption. Public consumption.”

  “Whatever. Hey! Don’t use that on your show.”

  “Whole-wheat, Talia.”

  “What?”

  “Get the whole-wheat bread, not the white.”

  “Are you even listening to me?” I grabbed a loaf of bread and tossed it in the cart.

  “Yes, honey. Awful job. You hate it. I know.” Mom put a check mark on her grocery list, then headed for the soup aisle as I trailed along.

  “Why don’t you get transferred to a different department?” I said. “Maybe you could fix TVs or something.”

  Mom pulled the grocery cart to a stop and turned to face me. “Honey, here’s the thing,” she said, putting her hands on my shoulders. “The stuff I talk about on the show is universal. People can relate because their kids do the same things. It’s kid stuff. It’s not Talia stuff.”

  “Wrong! Throwing up on my piano teacher was a Talia thing! None of her other students did it.”

  “But they could have,” Mom said.

  “But if they did, their moms wouldn’t talk about it on TV. Mom, you’ve got to stop talking about me,” I said, though she was already in motion again and putting check marks on her list. “I start middle school next week, and I think it’s about time I start blending into the woodwork.”

  “French,” Mom said.

  “What?”

  “French dressing, not ranch. We already have plenty of ranch at home.”

  I grabbed the bottle and tossed it into the cart as Mom made another check mark on her list.