Little Bigfoot, Big City

by Jennifer Weiner

  “Pearl! Behave yourself!” Mrs. Philpott said, looking alarmed. “I must apologize. She’s never done that before.”

  “She doesn’t like her smell,” said Millie.

  “What was that?” asked Mrs. Philpott, who was hard of hearing and was, according to Alice’s mother, too vain to wear hearing aids.

  “She doesn’t like her smell,” said Millie, pointing her chin toward Jessica. “Because she has a—”

  Jessica glared at Millie before she could say the word “tail,” which was Jessica’s big secret and which, according to Millie, was a thing that other species could smell. Pearl barked, squirmed out of Mrs. Philpott’s arms, and stood on the floor snarling at Jessica, her teeth showing and what little fur she had bristling. “Nice doggy,” said Jessica, extending her hand. Millie moaned and tried to flatten herself against the elevator’s back wall.

  “Oh dear,” Mrs. Philpott said as Alice bent down, snatched the little poodle, and handed her back. “Oh dear.” She tucked her pet underneath her arm and practically ran through the doors when they slid open. Millie tried to follow her. Alice pulled her back in.

  “Don’t touch those!” Jessica said as Millie stared at the rows of buttons. “If you press them, we’ll stop at every floor!”

  “I want to stop!” said Millie, stabbing randomly at buttons. “I am not liking this ellervator!”

  The doors opened again at the nineteenth floor, then again at the twentieth. On the twenty-second, Alice said, “We’ll take the stairs,” and pulled Millie out into the hallway, leaving a miffed-looking Jessica on the elevator alone. “Come on,” said Alice, and sighed, dreading the climb. Millie hung her head.

  “I am sorry,” she said in a very small voice. “But I am never before being in a room that moved. And that lady had a bad smell.”

  “She wears a lot of perfume,” Alice acknowledged, but Millie was shaking her head and shivering.

  “Not a perfume smell, a sick smell.” Millie looked at Alice, her eyes still too wide, her nostrils flaring. “You couldn’t smell it?”

  Alice shook her head, even though, the truth was, she thought that she had noticed something funny about the air in the elevator. Millie was looking at her gravely.

  “It is not just her,” Millie said. “This whole building has a sickish smell.” She shuddered. Her eyes were still enormous, and her fur, instead of bristling, seemed to have acquired a dispirited droop. “There’s something wrong with this place. How can you live here with it smelling this way?”

  “I don’t smell anything. And be that as it may,” Alice said, using one of her father’s favorite expressions, “you can’t just go around growling at people or talking about how they smell. It’s rude.” She began walking down the hall, toward the staircase, feeling Millie scurrying miserably behind her. “People are going to think there’s something wrong with you. They’ll know you don’t belong here.”

  When she turned around, Millie’s head was hanging even lower. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I am being sorry.”

  “Come on,” Alice said. She grabbed Millie’s hand, leading her toward the door at the end of the hallway. The building’s halls and public rooms were wallpapered and lit and carpeted, but the stairs, which hardly ever got used, were concrete, and the stairwells smelled faintly like the cigarettes the residents weren’t allowed to smoke in their apartments. She could feel Millie’s hand trembling. “Come on,” she said again. Good, she thought as she felt Millie flinch. Let her be sorry. Let her be scared.

  They climbed the stairs in silence, Alice taking them two at a time, Millie lagging behind her. “Come on,” said Alice. “We can have a snack. A snackle.”

  Millie shook her head. “I don’t think I can eat. I feel so . . .” She set one hand on her belly. “Nyebbeh.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Alice. “In this context.”

  This earned her a brief and quivery smile. “It means that I am very scared.”

  Alice thought. “When I get scared, my mother makes me tell her what’s the worst thing that can happen. Usually the worst thing isn’t even that bad.” Even as Alice was speaking, she was realizing that this particular case could be the exception to Felicia’s oft-cited rule. The plan was for Millie to wait for her name to be called, then step onto the stage with Jessica beside her, and explain that Jessica had lip-synced because Millie was shy. Jessica would wear one of her most stylish outfits. Millie would have swallowed her potion, but in case it didn’t work or her fur came back, she would wear layers—socks and leggings and a long skirt, a high-necked blouse and a long-sleeved sweater and a knitted wool hat with flaps to cover her ears.

  “The worst thing,” said Millie, “is that someone could see me and know what I am. I could be trappled and put away in a zoo, never again to see my home.”

  Alice remembered how much she had always enjoyed her friend’s poetic way of putting things. “If anyone tries,” she said, “just tell them what you guys are supposed to say. About your glandular condition.”

  “I know we are supposed to be saying that,” Millie whispered. “Will they believe it?”

  “I think so,” said Alice. “People believe what you tell them if you say it like you believe it.” She climbed another half flight. “It also helps if you’re a grown-up. What else?”

  Millie listed her fears, one for each step. The judges at The Next Stage could refuse to let her sing because she’d gotten this far by lying and pretending to be Jessica Jarvis. Or they’d let her sing and she’d get so nervous that she’d faint or forget the words. “Or disgrace myself in some other way,” Millie added. Or she’d sing but sound horrible. Or she’d sing and do fine, and they’d like her, but she wouldn’t be able to figure out how to get herself to wherever they wanted her for her actual performance. Or her fur would come back, and they’d call the news crews and the tabloid photographers, and she’d be trapped and sent to a zoo.

  For each fear, Alice had an answer. Of course there was a chance that the judges would decide that she and Jessica had broken the rules, but it was just as likely that they’d let them both compete. She was sure that the judges had seen nervous kids before and would let Millie start again if she got nervous. She pointed out that Millie had sung the song so many times that it would probably just pour out of her mouth, no thought required. Her fur could reappear, but she’d be covered from head to toe.

  “And why buy trouble?” Alice asked. “My mom says you shouldn’t worry about something unless you actually know it’s going to happen.”

  Millie did not look especially comforted. “And what if they like me?” she asked. “What if I have to do it again?”

  “Just worry about getting through this round first. My mom says it’s like running a race. You just put one foot in front of the other.” She was remembering all of her Septembers, every first day at every new school. I know it’s a lot, her mother would say—which, maybe, was how Alice had known to say those words to Millie—but you just put one foot in front of the other. Just keep going. Don’t look down.

  After what felt like an hour of climbing, Alice opened the door to the penthouse floor. The girls stepped out of the stairwell and found Jessica waiting, hands on her hips and one foot tapping impatiently, with her suitcase leaning against the wall and her duffel bags beside it.

  “Your mother has much wisdom,” Millie said. It surprised Alice, who wasn’t used to thinking of her mother as wise or kind or patient. It was easier to think of Felicia as a thin and frowning presence, a woman who’d float in and out of Alice’s bedroom—and her life—on a cloud of hairspray and perfume, a woman who could make Alice feel bad simply by being so lovely. But maybe that was . . . well, not wrong, exactly, but uncharitable. Just lately it seemed like whenever she reached for some bit of adult wisdom or piece of strategy or advice, it was Felicia’s voice she was hearing in her head.

  Strange, she thought, then she unlocked the door and heard Millie gasp. Even Jessica sounded impressed when she said, “Nice
place.”

  Millie stepped forward tentatively on the glossy white marble floor—probably a material she’d never seen, Alice thought—and, with her fingertip, touched a petal of one of the lilies in the flower arrangement that stood in the Chinese ginger jar on the table in the center of the entry hall.

  “That’s not real, is it?” Jessica was staring at the little oil painting in its gold frame on the wall, where it had stood since Alice could remember.

  “It’s a real painting,” said Alice, which was what her father said when anyone commented on the Monet.

  Jessica pursed her lips and gave a soundless whistle. “What’s your dad do?” she asked.

  “Finance,” said Alice.

  Feeling shy, she led the other girls into the kitchen, one of the few places in the house where she’d ever felt even slightly at home. Millie was taking tiny, tentative steps, as if the shiny floor were ice that could collapse underneath her. She stared at the ovens and the towering stainless-steel refrigerator, which, Alice knew from experience, generally contained little more than champagne and fancy mustards, capers, and olives, garnishes for foods, not food itself. Millie touched the marble countertop, specially installed for rolling out pastry (her mother never cooked, but when they had parties, they’d bring in caterers who did), then ran one fingertip over the polished granite and oiled wood that made up the rest of the counters.

  Alice bustled around, locating the peanut butter and honey she’d bought when she was home for break; pulling sprouted-wheat bread and butter from the freezer; emailing the grocery store for a delivery of fruits and vegetables, crackers and cheese, and oatmeal to make the next morning; and, finally, ordering pizza for their lunch.

  Jessica had set herself up in one of the guest rooms, where she was unpacking her bags, pulling out the outfits she’d brought with her and holding them up to the light before arranging them on hangers to snap a picture. “Do you have a steamer? I’m going to have our followers vote,” she told Alice.

  “You’re going to let them decide what you’re going to wear?”

  Jessica nodded. “People like to feel involved. And if they see me wearing the outfit they wanted, they’ll be even more likely to vote for me.”

  Alice nodded. Millie had settled herself gingerly on the couch in the living room, holding herself so stiffly that Alice suspected she was afraid that the apricot-colored sectional sofa would swallow her. When Jessica waved the remote at the television set to turn it on, Millie gave a gasping shriek, and when Stavros buzzed up to let Alice know that the food had arrived, Millie gave a despairing moan. She didn’t move from her spot on the couch, and she refused to try even a nibble of the pizza. All she did was poke at the cheese, say, “Gooey,” and close her mouth up tight.

  “Get it together,” Jessica muttered. “You can’t be freaking out like this at our audition.”

  “I am not freaking out. I am freaking in,” said Millie. Jessica rolled her eyes. Alice thought of the things that soothed her when she was anxious or sad. Would a shower or bath help Millie, or would the idea of a man-made rainstorm in a glass box only scare her more?

  “Millie,” she said. Millie’s head snapped around. Her eyes were wide, and her lips were trembling. “Do you want to take a bath?”

  Millie considered, then nodded. Alice led her to her parents’ bathroom, which had a deep soaking tub the size of a small wading pool. Pots and glass jars of bath salts and gels lined the ledge of the tub. Millie took a deep sniff and smiled for the first time since she’d arrived in the city when she saw that one of the little jars had an “Out of the Woods” label, which meant it had been made by the Yare and sold on-the-line.

  “Our balsam body scrub was in a magazine,” Millie said. “That is what Old Aunt Yetta told me. We got so many orders it took us months to keep up.”

  “That’s good, right?” Alice asked.

  Millie nodded and looked at the tub. “In our village,” she said, “we have one big wooden tub.” She held out her arms to indicate the tub’s size. “On Sundays, every family boils up its biggest pots of water and carries them to the tub, until it is full. And then all the littlies go in for their scrubbing.”

  Alice imagined it, a half-dozen Yare bobbing in the steamy water like furry soup dumplings. “Do they like it?”

  Millie’s face crinkled. “They are hating it, every time. Yare do not like to be wet. They do not like the feel of water in their fur, and they do not float.” She looked ruefully at the taps, maybe remembering her own failure to swim across the lake. When Alice turned on the taps, Millie asked how the water got all the way up here, to the top floor, and when Millie reluctantly pulled off her boots, she asked why the floor felt so warm.

  “It’s heated,” Alice said.

  “A wonderment,” said Millie. “Your world is so full of wonderful things.” Her words were cheerful, but her voice was bleak.

  “Are you okay?” Alice blurted. She hadn’t meant to ask. She’d meant to stay angry at Millie, to remind herself that Millie had abandoned her, in favor of fame and Internet clicks and Jessica Jarvis. But Millie looked so pathetic, so lonely and so scared, that Alice couldn’t stop remembering all the times she herself felt that way and had no one to comfort her.

  “I am not,” Millie whispered. She looked up, and her silvery eyes were filled with tears. “I am here, in the big city, and it is my dream come true, but all I am is afraid.” She bent her head, her eyes turned toward the water that was filling the tub. “And you are feeling angry. And that is all my fault.”

  “I’m not angry,” Alice said, the words coming out of her mouth before she could think about them. The truth was that she did feel angry, but her whole life, whenever she’d been mad or sad or jealous or envious or disappointed, she had learned not to say so, to smile and deny it and say that she was fine. Girls and women weren’t supposed to feel those things, she’d learned, and if they ever said they did, they were punished, told, “Young ladies don’t behave that way,” or “Stop being such a baby.”

  Millie looked at her. Alice finally said, “Yes. I am angry. I feel like you don’t like me anymore, and I didn’t do anything wrong!” She hung her head and muttered, “It’s not my fault I’m not pretty like Jessica.”

  Millie, who had been sitting on the ledge of the tub, stood up and crossed the room, taking quick, hopping steps over the heated floor, and took Alice’s hands. “Is that what you are thinking? That I like Jessica because she is pretty?” Her voice was getting higher and higher. “Do you think so little of me? That I am choosing my friends because of how they look?”

  Alice frowned. Now that Millie had said it out loud, she realized that it was not a very flattering assessment. “You never want to spend any time with me,” she said. “You barely talk to me. You were my friend, and I never even had a friend before, and when I thought that I was one of you—that I finally, finally was going to have a place where I wouldn’t feel like such a freak—you wouldn’t help me. You wouldn’t even listen. All you cared about was this stupid show.”

  She waited for Millie to deny it, to tell Alice that she was wrong or exaggerating; that she was being silly or just imagining things. Instead, Millie gave a slow, solemn nod. “I am sorry,” she said. “You are right. I have been”—she paused, inhaling slowly, before pronouncing judgment on herself—“a badfriend.”

  Alice couldn’t keep herself from smiling a little. “It’s two words, you know.”

  Millie did not seem to have heard her. “You did not do anything wrong, and I think you are strong and lovely. But you are right. I did not listen to you. I . . .” Alice heard Millie’s voice wobble. “I forgot about you, because I was trying so hard to be having what I wanted, and I saw that Jessica would help me, and I did not listen to you. I should have listened to you. I should have tried to help. And so I am badfriend.” Her hands were balled up into fists, and she was hitting her chest, not too hard, but with enough force that Alice could hear the blows. “I did not listen to you. When y
ou told me about the bad boy. When you said you might be Yare. When you asked me to help. I thought only of my own self. I didn’t listen, and I didn’t believe.”

  “It’s all right,” Alice said, but Millie was shaking her head.

  “It is not being all right. Not! Not! Not!” she said, punctuating each “not” with a little punch. Then she crossed her hands at the wrists and held them out to Alice. “I am sorry,” she said, her voice slow and somehow formal. “I was wrong. I was a badfriend. Alice of the No-Fur, will you do forgiveness?”

  “I will,” said Alice, taking Millie’s hands and trying not to giggle. “I will do forgiveness.”

  “You are my only true No-Fur friend,” Millie said. “My best friend of everyone. I am sorry if I behaved like I had forgotten.” She went to her little bundle of clothing and pulled something out. “You see, I am packing the sweating-shirt you gave me, on the very first night we met.”

  Alice felt her throat get thick with tears.

  “I wear it when I am afraid,” Millie said. “I wear it because it makes me think of you and how you saved me and how you are brave and that I can be brave too.”

  “I’m not brave,” said Alice.

  “Oh, but you are,” said Millie. “Think of all the new schools you have been to. All the new towns. Everywhere you went, you made a place for yourself.”

  Alice began to say that it wasn’t true, that she’d never had a real place for herself until the Experimental Center, but Millie wasn’t through.

  “You stayed and stuck. Even when it was hard and you were lonely. Even when that bad boy had people chasing after you.”

  Alice smiled, remembering how she had run, and how Jeremy and his mob and the television crews had discovered not a Bigfoot lair but a hundred students and teachers who all announced that they were freaks.

  “I tell myself,” said Millie, “that if I could be the tiniest bit as brave as you, then maybe tomorrow will be a-okay.”