“Nicole?”
Her father was looking at her pointedly, which meant there had been a bunch of other words before that Nicole.
“Sorry?”
“I asked how things are going in French class.”
“French?” He would have to ask about her worst subject. Nicole was pretty sure she’d bombed her most recent quiz. If she told him that, he’d ground her. She searched her mind frantically for something to distract him, but what?
Nicole’s mother slid back into her seat. “I’m so sorry. But the buyer’s lawyer called Dru to say—”
“Nicole was just about to tell us about French,” her father interrupted.
“Oh, sorry, sweetie.”
“Uh...” Nicole’s mind was a complete blank. And then, it came to her. “Speaking of French, a French woman spoke to my English class today. She lived through the Holocaust.” The family phone rang shrilly from multiple outlets.
“I’ll get it!” Little Bit jumped up.
“Elizabeth, we don’t interrupt family time for—” Dr. Burns began, but his daughter was already gone. He eyed his wife. “Now, who do you think she got that behavior from?”
“Mine are business calls, Liam.” As if to illustrate the point, her cell phone rang again.
“Mary, really—”
She mouthed her apologies and strode to the kitchen, leaving Nicole and her father alone at the table. Dr. Burns began to slash at his chicken with little sawing motions. Obviously he had just entered the ticked-off zone, which meant that before he got ticked off at her, Nicole had to think of something to deflect him.
“Did I tell you that we’re going on a field trip to the museum tomorrow, Dad?” she asked, her voice a bit too bright. “To the Anne Frank in the World exhibit.”
He put down his fork and frowned. “It irritates me to no end that they saturate you kids with European material when you’re completely ignorant about the literary legacy of your own country.”
Bingo. She’d hit one of her dad’s hot buttons.
“As I recall, you read two Holocaust novels when you were younger, didn’t you? But you’ve never been assigned anything by, say, John Dos Passos? The U.S.A. trilogy?”
Nicole shook her head.
“He wrote during the Depression. Do you have any idea how terrible it was in America during the Depression? Honestly, Jews do not have a monopoly on suffering.”
“I know, Dad.” Agreeing with her father was always the safe choice.
Some killed themselves because the world had turned into a place in which they no longer wanted to live.
“Dad?” Nicole asked hesitantly. “Is it true that some Jews killed themselves?”
“Who killed themselves?” Little Bit scampered back into the dining room and plopped down in her seat. “Sorry, Daddy.”
“How about some dessert?” Mrs. Burns asked, appearing in the doorway holding a tray of brownies. “I’m sorry about that call, it’s just—”
“Nicole knows someone who killed herself,” Little Bit reported.
“That’s horrible,” Mrs. Burns exclaimed, as she set the brownies on the table. “I read an article in People about how teen suicide is an epidemic. Who was it, honey?”
“No one you know,” Nicole said softly. It was easier not to explain.
“Well, it’s still a tragedy. Elizabeth, would you like a brownie before you load the dishwasher?”
“It’s not my turn, it’s her turn.” Little Bit pointed at Nicole.
“Stop everything!” a voice commanded from the front hall. Mimi burst into the dining room. Pinned to her ratty-looking crocheted poncho was a yellow pin featuring a tearful baby harp seal, in protest against cruelty to animals.
“Oh, God, that poor chicken,” Mimi said, eyeing the leftovers. Then she rallied. “Nico, we have to go to your room immediately. It’s crucial.”
Mrs. Burns smiled wryly. “Hello, Mimi, another understated entrance.”
“Nicole can’t leave, it’s her night to load the dishwasher,” Little Bit reported. “I made a chores chart to prove it.”
“A chores chart?” Nicole echoed incredulously.
Mimi draped a gangly arm around Little Bit. “I’ve got a great idea. How about if you load the dishwasher and then you can give yourself a gold star on your little chores chart?”
“That’s not fair. Mom—”
Mimi yanked Nicole out of the dining room. “Yes! A clean getaway,” Nicole said, laughing, as they pounded upstairs to her room. She turned on her boom box. “Okay, about our choreography. I decided it’s kind of lame when we—”
Mimi snapped off the music. “Forget Fly Girls. The opportunity of your life is about to come walking through that door.”
At that moment, Suzanne walked in, dance bag slung over her shoulder. “Hey, what’s up? Am I late? Your sister let me in.”
Nicole eyed her dubiously. “Supposedly you’re the opportunity of my life.”
“Not her,” Mimi insisted, grabbing Nicole’s shoulders. “Would you please focus?”
“Fine. I’m focused. What?”
“Just now at the drugstore, I ran into the one and only J. Even as I speak, the one and only J is on his way over to the home of the one and only Girl X.”
Nicole gulped. “Did you just say ... ?”
“Who’s Girl X?” Suzanne asked.
Mimi grinned. “She is.”
Nicole was sure she couldn’t have heard what she thought she had heard. Amazing how loud wishful thinking could be. “Meem ... you aren’t telling me that Jack Polin—”
“I am telling you.” Mimi’s eyes shone, and she hugged Nicole hard. “Nico, your dream is about to come true.”
four
I have nothing to wear,” Nicole moaned.
“Right, you only own half the clothes in the mall.” Mimi pawed through Nicole’s closet. She considered a skimpy camisole. “Nah. Screams of trying too hard.”
“Hurry up, Meem,” Nicole muttered. “He’s gonna be here any minute.” She bit nervously at a hangnail.
“Are you and Jack a thing?” Suzanne asked. “I thought he and Heather—”
“Ancient history,” Mimi reported. “Nicole and Jack are an about-to-be thing. He has a massive crush on her.”
Nicole snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“This. This is it.” Mimi held up a little floral dress. “It’s perfect. Demure, yet sexy—”
“I never wear that. I look like a cow in that.”
“You do not, do not argue, go put it on,” Mimi insisted.
Nicole grabbed the dress and hurried to the bathroom. Off came the sweats, on went the dress. She looked in the full-length mirror to see if she looked fat. She did. “Okay, you look like barf,” she told her reflection.
Two sharp raps sounded on the bathroom door. “Nico, he’s here,” Mimi hissed. “And he’s with Eddie. Move it!”
Oh, God. No time to change. Stuck in her fat dress, Nicole tore the scrunchie from her hair and got to her room just as Mimi and Suzanne were shoving the last of her mess into her closet.
“I am so fat,” Nicole moaned. “Someone please starve me.”
“You’re not fat,” Mimi said. “Sit down. And act natural.”
Nicole heard Jack and Eddie talking sports as they came down the hallway. She struck a nonchalant pose on a chair as Little Bit ushered them into the room.
“It’s usually messier than this,” Little Bit informed them. “Things actually grow under my sister’s bed.”
Jack’s easy smile lit up his face. “Hey. Nice house.”
“Thanks.” Nicole tried to match his offhand tone. “So, what’s up with you guys?”
“Same old same old, you know,” Eddie replied.
“We’re rehearsing. For the talent show thing,” Mimi said.
“If we’re interrupting—” Jack began.
“No, no, you’re not!” Nicole insisted. She took a deep breath and forced herself back into casual mode. “I mean, we were just ta
king a break, anyway.”
Little Bit shined her thousand-watt smile at Jack. “I neglected to introduce myself. I’m Nicole’s sister, Elizabeth.”
Jack looked amused. “Hello, Elizabeth. How old are you?”
‘Older than I look.” Little Bit executed a perfect regulation Chrissy hair toss. Excruciating. Her little sister was flirting with Jack.
Nicole jumped up. “You were just leaving, Little Bit.” She pointed her sister toward the door, then turned back to Jack. “Sorry. I know she’s a pain in the—”
“Oh my gosh, Nicole!” Little Bit shrieked.
Nicole spun around. “What?”
“The back of your—”
“What?” Instinctively, Nicole reached behind her. Instead of hitting dress, she felt nothing but bulging panties. While she was changing clothes, she had somehow stuffed the hem of her dress inside her panties. Oh, God. She yanked her dress out and smoothed it down. Too late. Eddie was falling all over himself laughing, which meant he and Jack had seen everything. She wasn’t even wearing cute bikinis—she had on the baggy old-lady panties her mom had bought her.
“Those are the butt-ugliest undies I ever saw!” Eddie gasped, between peals of laughter. Burning with humiliation, Nicole dropped down on her bed and stared at the polished wood floor as if there was something there worth seeing.
“Oh, Eddie, grow up,” Mimi chided him. “What are you, six?”
Nicole risked a peek at the guys. Tears of mirth were rolling down Eddie’s cheeks.
“Cut it out,” Jack told him, but it was obvious he was trying not to laugh, too.
“You could go snow-blind from lookin’ at those two big ol’ white moons, man,” Eddie howled.
“My sister does not have a big moon butt!” Little Bit insisted, which made Eddie convulse anew.
Jack flicked his hand against Eddie’s back. “Like you’ve never done anything embarrassing. How about when you came out on the soccer field trailing, like, a yard of toilet paper?”
“That’s cold, Polin.”
Little Bit folded her arms. “You deserved it, Eddie. You were being extremely immature.”
Great. Her little sister was defending her. Nicole wanted to crawl into her closet with the rest of her mess.
Mimi spotted Nicole’s copy of Anne Frank’s diary on her desk, and picked it up. “Read this yet?”
“Got it covered.” Eddie smirked. “Saw it on cable.”
Mimi groaned. “You are such a Neanderthal. It happens to be amazing.”
“It is, I read it last year,” Suzanne agreed.
Little Bit grabbed the book from Mimi. “Does it have any dirty parts?” She started flipping through the pages.
“Yo, aren’t you a little young for that?” Eddie asked.
“I happen to be extremely mature for my age.”
“I’m only, like, thirty pages into it so far,” Jack said.
“Me, too,” Nicole agreed. “Who has time?”
“Oh my gosh, listen to this!” Little Bit exclaimed. “ ‘We are shut up here, shut away from the world, in fear and anxiety, especially just lately. Why, then, should we who love each other remain apart? Why should we wait until we’ve reached a suitable age? Why should we bother?’ ”
“No way was that in the movie,” Eddie said.
Little Bit shrugged. “What difference does it make? ”It’s a big fake. Anne Frank didn’t even write it.”
“Ignore her,” Nicole pleaded. “It’s just some stupid thing we saw on the Internet. She’s trying to show off.”
“I am not.” Little Bit folded her arms defiantly. “That man was a historian, Nicole. He knows way more than you do.”
Jack tugged playfully at Little Bit’s ponytail. “Go, girl. Don’t let ‘em dis you. Think for yourself.”
Little Bit shot Nicole a smug look. “Well, some people don’t care about thinking for themselves.”
“Yo, whatever,” Eddie said. “Who cares?”
“So listen,” Jack began. “About the talent show thing. Maybe at the party afterwards, the five of us could hook up. You up for it?” He looked at Nicole.
Her stomach bungee-jumped with happiness. She went for casual. “Sounds fun.”
Jack’s face lit up. “Yeah? Great!”
Nicole executed a regulation Chrissy hair toss, batted her eyelashes, and smiled seductively. For once, she pulled it off. She felt poised on the cliff of possibility, ready to spread her wings for the first time. And fly.
NOTES FROM GIRL X
CAUTION!!! WEBSITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!!
Day 4, 11:25 p.m.
... and that is exactly what happened. God, life is so weird. One minute, I’m dying of embarrassment’ cuz J saw my putrid panties. The next minute I’m dying of happiness‘cuz he asked me to hang out after the talent show.
Girl in the Middle: After everyone left, I looked at myself in the mirror. I was so much cuter than I had been just a few hours before. What is it: amazing, scary, or wonderful, how quickly your life can change?
Bliss: I will remember what happened today for the rest of my life. Today is the day I was transformed by love.
Heavy Ick Factor: Transformed by love???
Frightening Thought du Jour, Part Three: If love transforms, then who was I when neediness oozed off me like stale sweat? When J didn’t know I existed, it made me feel like I didn’t exist. Color me pathetic, boys and girls.
Tomorrow: I will see J.
Tonight: He will make love to me in my dreams.
five
Nicole scanned the faces of the crowd in front of her school. “Do you see Jack?”
Mimi cocked her chin. “Right over there.”
Nicole spotted him. He was with a bunch of his jock friends near the flagpole. “He hasn’t even acknowledged my existence. Maybe last night was a figment of my vivid imagination.”
Mimi unwrapped a stick of bubble gum and curled it into her mouth. “He’s into you, Nico.”
“How do you know?”
“Okay, I know I’m the one who gave love a jump-start here, but I gotta tell you, Nico, on the lame-o-meter scale of one to ten, your thing about Jack is pushing elev—”
“He’s looking at me,” Nicole hissed, as Jack’s eyes caught hers. He nodded and smiled, then went back to his friends. She grabbed Mimi’s arm. “Did you see that?”
“No. I was struck blind by the miracle of it all.” Mimi blew a bubble.
“Morning.”
Nicole turned around. David Berg stood there, a crooked smile on his face. In sixth grade, they’d worked together at the library on a science project. They’d talked for hours about everything; he’d had a crush on her since then that rivaled hers on Jack. Nicole had no idea why. She liked him, but he wasn’t Jack.
“Hey,” Nicole said.
“So... this exhibit should be great. I went to the Secret Annex in Amsterdam last summer. It was amazing.”
Nicole looked beyond his shoulder at Jack. “What’s that?”
“Where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis?” David asked with exasperation. “Ring any bells?”
“Oh. Sure.” Nicole forced herself to focus on David.
“Why do you do that?” His dark eyes probed hers.
“Do what?”
“Blow off reading like you’re an airhead, when you’re not.”
Nicole shrugged. How could she possibly care about something as trivial as a book right now?
“Unreal,” David muttered. “I don’t believe it.”
“What?”
He pointed at Doom, who was hanging out near the curb with three of his identically dressed friends. The Doom Squad, everyone called them. “I can’t believe he showed for this.”
“Me, neither,” Mimi agreed.
David’s eyes narrowed. “His walls are probably covered with Hitler memorabilia.”
“Come on, lighten up,” Nicole said. But when she looked over at Doom, she felt uneasy, too.
David’s gaze swun
g back to Nicole and he cleared his throat nervously. “So, Nicole, maybe we could sit together on the—”
“Nicole?” She felt the lightest touch on her shoulder. Him. She gazed up into Jack’s electric blue eyes. “Listen, can we sit together on the bus? I really want to talk to you.”
“Sure.”
“Great.”
Dizzy with happiness, she watched Jack stride back to his friends. Then Zooms‘voice got her attention as David drifted away. “Burns, Berg, Gullet, Polin, McPhee,” the teacher read, checking names off her list. “The rest of you will be on the next bus. Lee, Simmons, Baker, et cetera.”
“Now I won’t get to watch you and Jack,” Mimi moped.
“What if he forgets he asked me to sit with him?”
“Since you can’t seem to retain this, I say we tattoo it on your butt: Jack likes Nicole. It’s so sixth grade.”
“Please board your buses in an orderly fashion,” John Urkin, the new high school principal, called through a bullhorn.
From the crowd, Eddie taunted, “Urk-urk-urk-Urkin!”
“He’s such a butthole,” Mimi told Nicole.
“Who, Urkin?”
“Eddie. Someone told me Urkin was a medic in Vietnam. He risked his life and has a bunch of medals or something.”
Nicole regarded her balding, middle-aged, soft-spoken principal, who stood near the flagpole with his bullhorn. “I don’t think so. I mean, look at the guy.”
“I’m looking. Think he’s ever had sex?”
“More often than we have,” Nicole replied. Mimi laughed.
“Miss Burns, kindly go board your bus,” Zooms ordered. “Miss Baker, kindly move it.”
Anne Frank and Me Page 3
