D, My Name Is Danita

by Norma Fox Mazer

  “Dani, I said it.”

  “Laredo! What are you telling me?”

  “Dani, what I am telling you is that I did a really good thing for you. Now I’m going to tell you again. Very slowly. I called Jon Haberle. The Jon Haberle. Angel boy. Blond boy. And I said … ‘Hi!’ And he said, ‘Hi.’ And I said, ‘This is Dani Merritt.’ And he said, ‘Oh, hi, Dani,’ And I said, ‘Hi, Jon.’”

  “How many times did you say hi, for god’s sake!”

  “Easy, girl, easy.”

  “Laredo!”

  “To continue, Dani, I next said … ‘Jon, I was wondering … would you like to go to a movie with me Friday night?’”

  “This is a joke. This is supposed to be funny, right? Okay, I’m going to laugh. Ha ha. Now the joke is over. Right?”

  “Wrong. It’s not April Fools’ Day, Dani. It’s not even Halloween yet. I’m serious. Consider this an early birthday present. I swear to you, this is what I did. I just hung up with Jon. You could call him up now and ask him.”

  “I will not!”

  “Well, you’ve got a date with him Friday. This is Tuesday. Wednesday, Thursday, then comes Friday, and you and Jon will be at the movies together.… Hello? Are you there?”

  “I can’t believe this. I don’t want to believe this. How could you do a thing like this to me? What got into you? What happened to your brains?”

  “Jeeze, Dani, I thought they were working overtime.”

  “You did this behind my back, Laredo! You didn’t even ask me.”

  “What if I had? What would you have said?”

  “I would have said what any normal person would say. Forget it! No, you can’t do it! No! No way!”

  “That’s what I thought. That’s why I didn’t ask you.”

  “Laredo, you really did it? You actually called Jon?”

  “Yes.”

  “But what were you thinking of? What was going through your mind? I thought you were smart. How can you be a doctor if you’re not a smart person?”

  “I am a very smart person and getting smarter. This was not a dumb thing, Dani. The only dumb thing is how you’re reacting.”

  “I beg your pardon? Hello? My reaction is dumb? My best friend goes crazy, impersonates me behind my back, and I’m dumb to be mad?”

  “I wanted to do something nice for you.”

  “Then you should have stuffed a tablecloth in your mouth.”

  “Thank you so much. Do you want to know how it happened?”

  “I thought I just heard.”

  “I mean why it happened.”

  “No! But I guess I’m going to hear, anyway.”

  “First I called Geo. You know who Geo is?”

  “Yes, I know who Geo is. Naturally, I know who Geo is! Geo is your phone friend. What does Geo have to do with any of this?”

  “You haven’t met Geo.”

  “Right! Neither have you.”

  “Exactly the point. I called Geo, and we were talking as usual about this and that and everything, and we were saying how great it was that we were friends, even though we’d only talked to each other on the phone. And then I said, ‘Well, Geo, maybe it’s time we met.’ You remember how he and I met last summer, Dani, when he called the wrong number, and—”

  “I know the story. I know the whole story, Laredo. Thank you very much. You can skip it.”

  “Calm down. I want to tell this my own way.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m a dog, Laredo. Woof woof! I’m going to hang up. You’ve got a real attitude tonight.”

  “I’ve got a real attitude? Dani, hello! Planet Earth is calling. We’re talking about Geo. Okay? So I said, ‘Geo, let’s go out to a movie or something, I’ll pay!’”

  “Ha! I told you to ask Geo, and you said you wouldn’t.”

  “Well, I decided you were right, Dani. I decided on the spur of the moment. And I’m glad I did. Geo was so enthusiastic! He said, ‘Great! I’ve been waiting for you to say that.’ I said, ‘What, that I’d pay for your movie?’ I was teasing, but then he got so embarrassed. He kept apologizing. ‘No, no, I don’t mean about paying! About us meeting.’ He was very cute.”

  “What does this have to do with Jon?”

  “Well, I got to thinking. Geo is so nice on the phone, but what if he’s different in person? What if he turns out to be a big disappointment? What if he’s this prematurely bald, shrimpy guy?”

  “He could be cross-eyed, knock-kneed, and bowlegged, Laredo. And have dragon breath, besides.”

  “Right. So this is where you and Jon come in.”

  “You mean you and Jon.”

  “No, I mean YOU and Jon. Because, we’re all going to go to the same movie. Geo and me. You and Jon. Double date.”

  “Laredo, point of information. I’m not going to a movie with Jon. I’m not going anywhere with Jon, because I wasn’t asked.”

  “You asked him. And he accepted.”

  “No! I didn’t ask Jon anything!”

  “Dani, when you think about this in a calm frame of mind, you’re going to realize I did a selfless act for you. You’re going to be happy I’m your friend and did this. You’re going to be thanking me for a long, long time.”

  “Laredo, I can hardly make sense out of this. I’m so—so—”

  “—surprised?”

  “That hardly says it! How about astonished? Amazed. Dazed! No, when you get down to it, Laredo I’m dead. D-E-A-D. I’m supposed to be going out with Jon, and I’ve never said more than three words to him, and they were all about ice cream.”

  “Don’t you worry about a thing, Dani. I’ll be right there with you the whole evening. Same movie, remember?”

  “Did you tell him it was going to be a double date, when you called up and impersonated me?”

  “I didn’t think it was necessary. I didn’t want to confuse the situation.”

  “Thoughtful.”

  “Sarcasm will not get you out of this. Here’s the scenario. On Friday night—”

  “The scenario? Are we in a movie, Laredo? Have you totally lost touch with reality?”

  “—you come to my house, and we go to the theater together. Geo shows up. Hello, hello. I introduce you. We both look him over. Meanwhile, we’re waiting for Jon. Now, what if Geo turns out to be a dog? This is where you’ll see how brilliant my plan is. Because you will then save my life by sticking close to me, so I won’t be stuck alone with Geo. Maybe it sounds heartless—”

  “I didn’t say it, you did.”

  “—but I’m just trying to be more realistic than I usually am. Not build castles in the air. Anyway, the other part of the brilliant plan is that if you’re having any problems talking to Jon, or anything, I save your life by being there.”

  “Thank you, Laredo! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your concern. It’s really touching! What would I do without you?”

  “Dani, when did you get so sarcastic? Just remember this, I did it for you. By calling Jon, I got you over what could be the hardest moment of your life. I know you. Without me, you could be lurking behind curtains for the rest of your life.”

  “Maybe I don’t have that much longer to live. I might just kill myself before I have to go to school tomorrow morning and face Jon.”

  Chapter 18

  The next day was a total day of dread.

  I didn’t want to see Jon.

  What would I say? What could I say? And how would I act? Guilty? Pleased? Panicked?

  All morning I slunk through the halls, avoiding every place I’d ever seen him.

  I saw him, anyway, later in the afternoon, talking to some other guys. They were laughing and pounding each other the way boys do, as if they know some wild, funny, energetic secret. I always wonder what it is they say to make each other laugh like that.

  But that day I knew. They were talking about me. Me and “my” phone call. Oh, yes. What else could they be laughing about except Danita Merritt, an eighth-grader who had the total brassy nerve to ask a jun
ior boy for a date!

  My face blazed, my neck was sweating. Was I sick? Feverish? Was I going to die? That wouldn’t be so bad, as long as I passed away quickly and painlessly, and before Friday night.

  Chapter 19

  I was on my way upstairs to bed when the phone rang. “I’ll get it up here,” I called.

  “No, Dad’s got it,” Mom answered.

  Which meant I had no reason to pick up the phone in my parents’ room. I know why I went in there—to borrow one of Mom’s shirts for school tomorrow. But why did I pick up the phone? Why did I eavesdrop? I don’t do that. I hadn’t done it for years, not since I was Lizbeth’s age. It was almost as if I knew something.

  First I heard Dad. “Well, who are you, exactly? I don’t understand. Could you tell me—”

  “Mr. Merritt, I just want to meet you and talk to you,” the other person said. “I have something to tell you. I think it’ll be interesting to you.”

  “Is this a business call?”

  “Well, yes and no. I’ll tell you everything when we meet.”

  That was when I recognized D.T.’s voice.

  “I don’t do business this way,” Dad said. “If you want to meet me, Mr., uh—you know you didn’t identify yourself …”

  “But that’s part of what I’ll tell—” D.T. began.

  Dad cut him off. “Why don’t you call the print shop tomorrow and ask my receptionist for an appointment? Good-bye.” He hung up.

  I went back to my room. I couldn’t fall asleep. The phone conversation kept replaying in my mind like a tape. I’ll tell you everything … I just want to meet you and talk to you … it’ll be interesting to you … I promise …

  Should I tell Dad about D.T.? What would I tell him, though? I didn’t know anything about D.T., really, just that he was from California, and he was here on a “mission.” Wasn’t that the word he’d used? A mission. To find his father. What did Dad have to do with that? Maybe D.T. thought my father had known his father years ago.

  I turned over and pushed my pillow into a soft lump the way I liked it. Maybe D.T. had gotten that idea because I’d told him Dad had grown up in Menands, the same place where D.T.’s mother and father had come from. That made sense. But why didn’t he just say it to Dad? Why be so mysterious? Oh, I knew! That was D.T. He was so dramatic; he had that intense way of looking at you and waiting to see your reaction, just staring you straight in the face. I tried to imagine D.T. and Dad meeting. I wondered if Dad would like him.

  Oh, well, I decided finally, if D.T. wanted to go for Dad, why not? Let him do it! If he was lucky enough to get an appointment with Dad during his working hours, more power to him. I only wished I could be there, a fly on the wall, watching it all.

  Chapter 20

  Laredo and I were eating lunch when Jon stopped at our table, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, “Dani? I guess we’re going to a movie tonight.”

  “Yeah.” My eyes kept shutting, the way they do when you stare up into the sun.

  “Well, how do we do this? Where do we meet? We didn’t talk about that the other night.”

  “There. At the movie theater,” I got out.

  “I guess it would help if you told me which one.”

  This was so embarrassing. I hated Laredo. She was just sitting there, chewing her sandwich and looking smug. I said the name of the theater. “Seven o’clock; the movie begins at seven.”

  “See you then.” He walked away.

  I let out my breath. “This is not going to work,” I said. “This is terrible. I can’t talk to him. He doesn’t want to go out with me—he’s just too nice to say it. Anyway, he’s going with Shirley.”

  “Dani, if he was going with her, why would he go out with you?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the question. Why?!”

  “Look on the bright side,” Laredo urged. “You’re going to the movies with Jon Haberle! If somebody told you that you HAD to ask a boy to the movies, that it was a test or something, who would you have asked?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody.”

  “Come on,” she said patiently. “It’s a test. You have to take it. Who would you have wanted to ask?”

  “Jon …” I mumbled.

  “So there you are!”

  “So there I am, where?”

  “So there you are with me having picked the right person. Dani, no insult meant, but you know you would never have had the nerve to do for yourself what I did for you.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Admit I did something valuable for you. Like a boost over a fence you’ve wanted to climb.”

  “Who says I wanted to climb the fence? I never said a word to you, Laredo—”

  “Shhh! Dani, will you relax?! Relax and be yourself, just be yourself, so Jon can see what a great person you are.”

  “Laredo, I’m less relaxed than I’ve ever been in my entire life. Tomorrow night is going to be a disaster.”

  “Tonight,” Laredo said. “Tonight’s the night.”

  “Oh, help.” I buried my head in my arms.

  Chapter 21

  I think what I did after school was mainly to get my mind off my date with Jon. I went over to the Springfield Mall to look for D.T. I was going to ask him why he’d called my father. It was drizzling. I walked fast, heating up, my face and hair getting wet. I could hear my father’s voice. Dani, you could have caught a bad cold!

  I ran and walked, ran and walked. I felt strong, too strong to catch a cold. Was I strong enough to catch something else? Someone else? Catch D.T. in his little scheme, or whatever it was? I laughed. I suddenly felt really good. I’d find out what he was up to, and then I’d go to Dad and say, Look, Dad, this is what that phone call the other night was all about. I found out about it for you. Me, your daughter Dani, the one you’re always hovering over, the one you think can’t chew gum and take ten deep breaths at the same time!

  It didn’t occur to me that D.T. might not be at You Can Be a Star, Too. I just barged on ahead, happily planning to confront him. But when I got there and rang the bell on the counter, a boy I’d never seen before came out from the back.

  “Is D.T. here?” I asked.

  “D.T.?” the boy said, as if I were speaking Russian.

  “He works here.”

  “Who?”

  “D.T. Goodman.”

  “Goodman?” he said doubtfully.

  Just then, a man holding a tiny girl by the hand came in. The man had a snouty nose, thin lips, stiff whiskers sticking out from each side of his face. “My daughter wants to be a star!” he said. He looked like a turtle, and the girl looked like a fish—a silvery face with green eyes.

  The boy rang a bell, and the woman who’d helped Laredo came out. She was wearing the same silver dress.

  “My daughter wants to be a star!” the man said.

  The woman in the silver dress smiled at the tiny girl. “You’ve come to the right place.” She opened the door and took them in back.

  “I’m looking for D.T. Goodman,” I started again. I put my hand up to indicate his height. “Red sneakers. A ponytail.”

  “Ponytail?”

  Was I still speaking Russian? “D.T. Goodman,” I said again.

  “He works here,” the boy admitted.

  “Is he here? I’d like to see him.”

  “Do you want to make a video?”

  “No. I came to see D.T. It’s business,” I added.

  “Business?” We were back to foreign languages.

  “Business,” I said, standing up straighter.

  “He’s on his break now.”

  I left and walked around the mall, looking into this place and that for D.T., but being careful not to go anywhere near Ice Dreams. I didn’t want to even think about Jon right now.

  I found D.T. sitting at the counter in a sandwich shop. I went in and sat down next to him. He swiveled around. “Dani!”

  “D.T., I want to ask you something. Why’d you phone my father?”

  �
��What?”

  “You called our house the other day.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I picked up the phone, and I recognized your voice.”

  He put down his sandwich and looked at me. “I guess I might as well tell you, though this is a weird place to do it.”

  “Tell me what?”

  He kind of coughed and cleared his throat. “Don’t you think it’s, uh, interesting that we have the same name?”

  Why was he talking about our names? “We don’t have the same name, D.T. Didn’t we have this conversation once before? Your name is Daniel. My name is Danita.”

  “Masculine and feminine forms of the same name. Or let me put it this way. We’re both named for our fathers. Your father is Daniel, my father is Daniel.”

  “I know, I know. We talked about that, too. Lots of people are named for their fathers. D.T., do you think my father knew your father in high school? I was wondering what you wanted to talk to Dad about. And I remembered you said your mom and dad went to high school in Menands, the same as my father, so it just suddenly clicked—”

  “Dani.” He put his hand over mine. “Slow down. Wait a second. Listen to me.”

  “Your father and my father might have been friends.”

  “Dani.” His voice was quiet. “Dani, I don’t know any way to say this except to say it. I’m your brother.”

  I wanted to smile, felt my lips twitching.

  “I’m your brother,” he said again. “Your father and my father are the same person.”

  On the wall in front of me was a sign. IN CASE WE TRUST. I kept reading it.

  “That’s why we have the same names. I mean related names. Daniel and Danita. We’re both named for him.”

  “Daniel and Danita,” I said. “Sounds like a law firm or a department store, doesn’t it,” I joked.

  “I called the other night so I could make an appointment to see him. I didn’t want to just dump it all on him over the phone. I don’t want him to think I’m some punk kid. I want him to meet me. I want him to know me.”

  I squinted at the sign. IN CASE WE TRUST … In case of what? Emergency? What if it said, IN TRUST WE CASE? Would that make more sense? I picked up a glass of water and drank. Suddenly it all came clear to me. D.T. was searching for his father. He’d met me by chance, but when he found out the coincidence of our names, he’d snapped onto it like a dog with a bone, decided that our names proved my father was his father. Logical, in a crazy sort of way.