by Lynn Galli
“I think so.”
“Wear what makes you comfortable. You can try everyone else’s suggestions once you’ve got your routine down at school.”
I looked at her understanding eyes and wondered if she was reading my mind. Aunt Nell and Paige picked out something pretty for today. Briony picked a different shirt. Eden thought I should wear shorts and a t-shirt. I selected the short sleeve button up shirt that Briony liked and a pair of blue and white striped crop pants. Halfway between pretty and laidback.
Caleb opened the inner door of the bathroom as I clicked off the hairdryer. He was already dressed in new cargo shorts and a t-shirt with the logo of Quinn’s basketball camp. He’d probably be bragging to all his friends that he’d gotten to work there this summer.
“Hey, Livy,” He sounded more like a human than the grunting zombie who stumbled past me to shower minutes ago.
“Hi,” I repeated my earlier greeting he must have missed.
“You nervous?”
Every possible emotion someone can have had already hit me all week long while we waited for the judge to sign the papers. I really didn’t have time to dwell on how I should feel about starting at a new school today.
“Don’t worry. I’ll show you the trick to opening your locker in a hurry and let you in on all the shortcuts around school. I had your homeroom teacher last year. She’s great. You’ll like her.”
“Okay, thanks.” She could be the worst teacher ever, and I wouldn’t care because I was home. I stowed the hairdryer under the counter and shared M’s news, “They’re making waffles.”
His eyes brightened. They weren’t quite as gold as Briony’s but very near. “Mom always feels guilty on the first day of school. We can ask for anything this morning and she’ll give it.”
I laughed but knew that wasn’t true. He’d already tried to get Briony to let us keep the cellphone that Willa had given me. I didn’t care that she was taking it away until I started high school, but Caleb tried to come up with any way we could keep it to share. Not even guilt would make her change her decision on that one.
“Time?” he asked as he shoved a comb through his short hair.
I leaned out the door and looked into his room. The large red digital display said 00:22:13 then 00:22:12 and counting. I reported the time and headed for the stairs.
“Morning, sweetie. Ready for your first day?” Briony came over to my stool and kissed my forehead then squeezed an arm around me.
“Sure,” I said, not feeling any of the apprehension I usually felt when I started a new school. It wouldn’t be totally new, and all that mattered was that I’d be dropped off by M and picked up by Briony and tonight we’d be right back home.
After scarfing down on two waffles, I ran up to my room to grab my shoes and backpack. I checked that the new notebooks, pens, and calculator were inside before going back to the kitchen for the packed lunch M made.
Briony walked us to the door with lots of encouraging words. She pulled Caleb into a hug. “Have a good day, honey. I love you.”
“Me, too, Mom,” Caleb replied, patting her back twice before lurching toward the door. He was ready to see all his buddies again.
Her bright eyes accompanied a happy smile when I stepped up for my turn in the assembly line of hugs. “You have a good day, too, sweetie. I love you.” She squeezed me tight.
“Thanks, Briony. Love you.” I no longer held in those words around them anymore. They were going to be my parents. They wanted me. They loved me, and nothing felt better.
M kissed Briony and hustled us into her car. First stop was Hank’s. His grandmother waved from her open door and wished us all a good first day. Then we drove to Eden’s. I was really glad we were giving her a ride today because I didn’t want to walk into school alone. Caleb and Hank might see some of their friends and ditch me, but Eden wouldn’t.
“Morning,” Eden’s dad greeted us as we pulled into his driveway.
Eden’s middle brother was getting into the beat up Jeep their oldest brother drove last year. The youngest brother raced out of the house and playfully shoved Eden on his way by. She stuck her foot out but was too slow to trip him. I wondered if I’d ever treat Caleb like the nuisance she thought her brothers were.
“Ah, so much love you have, sons,” Eden’s dad kidded them. “Don’t bother saying goodbye like normal people or anything. Wouldn’t want to wish your sister good luck on her first day of middle school and be mistaken for loving brothers.”
If the oldest brother wasn’t off at college this year, he might have had something really nice to say. Instead, the youngest brother scoffed and made a funny face with his fingers pulling at his lips and stuck his tongue out. Middle brother waved and called out from the driver’s seat, “Don’t do anything dorky on your first day, Eden. It’ll stay with you all year.”
Eden cupped her hand to her ear like she couldn’t hear them. They did this a lot, but unlike other siblings I’d seen, they all actually liked each other. Eden waited until they screeched away in their car before giving her dad a hug and climbing into the backseat with me and Hank. She was in new shorts and a new t-shirt with a fancy design that her mom got her. Her hair grew about an inch over the summer, and it looked styled, a little like M’s, which made me smile. It hadn’t been styled yesterday when we spent the day at Willa’s pool. I wondered if her middle brother, who was the king of hair product, had given her a lesson last night.
“Be good, kids.” Her dad tapped the roof twice and M pulled away.
We barely had the chance to talk before we were at the middle school. Nerves hit me then, but one look at Eden and Caleb and the nerves left me. I had a best friend and a brother to be with this year. Nothing to be nervous about.
M parked and got out of the car with us. She reached out to grip my shoulder as the boys signed goodbye and started for the doors. “It’s a whole new year,” she whispered to me as she leaned in for a quick hug. “You’ll do great. I couldn’t be any more proud of you.”
“Love you, M.” I squeezed her tight before stepping back.
She pressed a hand to her heart then pushed us into motion with an encouraging smile. “Bye, girls. Have fun.”
“What’s your locker number?” Eden asked as we hurried to catch up with the boys. I pulled the paper from my backpack and told her. “Hope we’re in the same area.”
“Our lockers are over there,” Caleb pointed down the first hallway inside the building. “Seventh grade lockers are this way.”
“Cut through the commons to get to PE then use the locker room’s outside exit to get over to your next class. It’ll be faster,” Hank told Eden when he looked over her schedule.
“You guys have PE together?” Caleb grabbed my schedule from my hands. “Good, but your next class is math, so that’s back through the commons shortcut. Homeroom and your first two classes are in the same hallway.”
At our lockers, Eden and I high-fived when we saw that I was on one side of the U bank of lockers and she was on the other. It would make it easy to hang out between classes. Caleb showed us his trick with the lock then a group of his friends wandered by and pulled the boys away.
Eden slid down to sit on the floor in front of her locker. She patted the spot next to her. I sank down next to her as three girls that weren’t from our elementary school did the same in front of their lockers. They smiled nervously and said hi. A boy I recognized had the locker next to Eden’s. He glanced down at us as he banged on the door when it wouldn’t open. Eden popped up and showed him Caleb’s trick to get his locker open. She was just sitting back down when Krystal and Kortney walked by. Their last names should put them in the other bank of lockers, but that didn’t keep them from stopping.
“Look here, Kortney. The freak twins are together again.” She smirked at Kortney and signaled for the rest of her pack to surround us. To Eden she said, “Still can’t decide if you’re a girl or a boy?” Then she turned her sneer to me. “Surprised you passed the sixth grad
e, dumbbell.”
The guy next to Eden slammed his locker and faced Krystal. “Grow up.”
Eden and I shared a surprised look at his words and watched as he pushed past Krystal’s group. The girls sitting near us frowned and shook their heads. They probably had their own set of mean girls to look out for.
“Did you forget how to talk over the summer?” Krystal taunted me. “Maybe you should be in the special school.”
Eden spoke up as she usually did whenever Krystal got on a roll. “It’s great that you put on some weight this summer, Krystal. You looked like a stick figure last year.”
The girl pack gasped at Eden’s suggestion that Krystal got heavy over the summer. If she had, it would have been a mean thing to say. But the only extra padding she had this year was in her bra.
“Shut up, freak,” Krystal screeched at her.
“Hey, Liv,” Caleb called out from behind the pack. They parted to look at him and, as one, started twirling the ends of their hair and smiling stupidly. “Ready to walk to your homeroom?” His eyes passed over every girl, lingering on Krystal with a look I’d never seen on him before. He got along with everyone, liked everyone, but this look didn’t say he liked her.
“Hi,” she almost sang out to him. I knew that tone. She thought he was cute. “I’m Krystal.”
Caleb looked at her again. “I’m Olivia’s brother.”
Her eyes practically fell out of her head as she looked at him then at me and back to him. “He’s your brother? I thought Mrs. Lomax said you didn’t have a family.”
Eden and I got to our feet. Caleb came to stand beside me. He looked like he was going to stick up for me again, but something swelled in my chest. Something powerful like I’ve never felt before. I met her stare and announced, “I have one now.”
“With an awesome brother,” Caleb inserted and flashed me a cocky smile. “And buddies who’ll always be close by.” His hand gestured to Hank, Terrance, and several of his other friends all waiting to walk with us.
His meaning was clear. Krystal would have a hard time talking about Eden and me the way she had last year without one of Caleb’s friends hearing about it. Her brand of mean fun just got cut off, and my seventh grade existence just hurtled past the best of any other grade.
M / 33
Waiting in the lobby of Jessie’s gym always provided entertainment. Members came and went. Everyone seemed to know each other because Jessie fostered a community atmosphere. Rare was the person who just walked through the lobby and over to the security gate on a mission to get to her workout. I could spend hours watching the people here. I never minded that Willa took five minutes longer to dry her hair after our workouts together.
“Hey, M,” Jessie called out as she sailed down the stairs from her office. “How’s things?”
I smiled at her as she greeted a few other people who were grabbing beverages from the juice bar. I expected her to continue on to whatever class she was teaching based on her exercise ready appearance, but instead she stopped in front of me.
“Good, thanks. You?” I glanced up and up some more at Jessie’s six foot one inch frame. “Willa said the expansion is going to be done before winter?”
She nodded and smiled with what looked like pride. “Sure is. We were lucky to get the space next door. Des had fun knocking through walls for a while. You like racquetball?”
I shrugged, not really one way or another on the sport. Willa was jazzed about the courts going in, so I knew we’d be spending at least one of our workout mornings playing as soon as they were done.
“Willa’s orders.”
I wondered if that was really the only reason her expansion included two racquetball courts. I wouldn’t put it past Jessie. She was pretty damn good at being a friend.
“How’re my favorite kids?”
My smile this time was pretty wide. Kids, plural. Nothing felt better. Olivia was back and everything was right in our world. Thanks to Lauren’s efficient work getting the papers filed, the home study would be completed in a few weeks, a month at the most. “They’re good. Olivia is loving soccer and Caleb’s trying his legs at cross-country this year.”
Her head tilted back with even more pride because she knew she was the influence behind Caleb’s interest in running. Nothing like an Olympic bronze medalist in the heptathlon to inspire a young man’s mind. Especially when he worshipped her to begin with. “When are the next events? I called Bri about it, but she couldn’t find the schedule when we talked.”
I tried not to let my surprise show. “You want to go?”
“Sure. It’s no secret we like your kids.” She leaned down with a teasing smile and looked like she might bump my shoulder. I almost took a step back but didn’t need to because this was Jessie. Once when she’d been my personal trainer, she tried to correct my form by placing her hands on my shoulder and side. I flinched so hard she jumped back a foot. She never tried touching me again.
“Saturday morning for soccer and Caleb’s running Tuesday night. I’ll text you the times and places.” The kids would be thrilled to see Jessie at their activities. I was again amazed by how good a friend she could be when most of the friends gave her a hard time for being casual about so many things.
A minute after Jessie left to teach her spinning class, Willa showed up. A gym bag dangled from one elbow as she finished slipping her other arm through a light blazer. “Ready?”
We’d just spent an hour on various weight machines. It used to be free weights, but we’d have to spot each other. Now we preferred the machines so we could work out together and not worry about adding and subtracting weights along the way.
I nodded and fell into step with her. “Do you have time for coffee before work?”
She glanced at me as we exited. Her eyes shot back to the door. She was probably wondering why I waited until we’d left before proposing coffee. We could have gotten it at the little stand inside. “Sure, Caroline’s?”
“Uh,” I hesitated and thought about how busy Caroline’s deli would be right now. “Someplace a little quieter.”
She came to a full stop and turned. Her brown eyes swept over me briefly before nodding. “Want to grab a coffee and head back to my house?” She read my mind and added, “Quinn’s off to work already.”
“Your place, yes.”
We got into my car, stopped at a drive thru coffee place, and made the short drive back to her house where I’d picked her up earlier. She chatted about Quinn’s best recruit this year, somehow knowing I wasn’t ready to start the conversation I’d asked for.
When she let us inside, she followed me toward her living room. “Please say you’re not moving?”
I pushed out a relieved breath. “Not moving.”
“Oh, good.” She turned and dropped onto the sofa with a sigh. “You had me scared there.”
Her words warmed my heart. She was such a good friend to me. From the moment we met at her office when I brought my first operations class to see how her company worked, through the years of hanging out with just each other, to being forced to become part of her group when I met Briony, Willa had been the best friend I’d ever had. That she’d be upset if I moved was a wonderful and very welcome thing.
She took a sip of her latte and waited me out. She almost never rushed me.
“As long as nothing goes wrong with the home study, Olivia’s adoption could finalize in a few months, maybe sooner.”
She nodded like I hadn’t already told her this. When I didn’t offer more, she encouraged, “That’s great.”
“Yeah.” Amazing and more than I could have hoped for in my life. “She’s taking my name.”
Willa popped forward in her seat. “M, that’s great. Really great. I thought with her birth mom and everything that she’d want to keep her last name.”
“Me, too, but I guess her mom wasn’t too fond of the name to begin with and with her grandparents being…”
“Pig-headed dicks?” Willa guessed with a smirk.
/>
“Pretty much, so I guess that was part of it, but she really wants to be part of the family.”
A frown creased her forehead. “But Caleb has Briony’s name.”
“She thinks it’ll combine us all even more.”
“She’s smart, that one.”
“She’s the best.”
“Olivia Desiderius,” she mused. A smile appeared as her thumb tapped her chin twice. “Sounds just right. Congratulations, M. I said it before, but you’ve done a wonderful thing here, and it’s all the better because she’s just as wonderful.”
I tucked my chin against my chest. “Anyway, that will make her officially ours and with that…” I tried to piece together what I wanted to say. I’d rehearsed it, but it wasn’t coming out smoothly. I should have let Briony come with me, but I thought it might add too much pressure on Willa. I needed her to give me an honest answer not a pressured one. “I wanted to ask you…”
“Yes?” She sat forward, her eyes earnest.
“This is harder than I thought.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”
I tried to keep from scoffing in disbelief. “You can’t know that.”
“What did I tell you about personal favors for friends?”
That she’d always do them. “But this is more than just a favor.”
“I know you’d never ask me for something I can’t or won’t give. I’d never do that you to either.”
“This is,” I didn’t finish. I needed to shut up and stop convincing her that she’ll decline. “Since Olivia will be ours legally, I don’t want her to worry about…that is, Briony says her parents would, but if Caleb is with one of his aunts and Briony’s parents are older, and Olivia doesn’t really know them yet, and what if it happened before she did?” Now I was just talking in circles. This wasn’t any better.
“M?” she waited for me to focus on her. “That sounds like you’re talking about guardianship. Are you asking me to be Olivia’s guardian if something happens to you and Briony?”
“Yes, I am. We are,” I corrected because Briony was worried, too. Caleb’s guardianship was settled, but with Olivia barely knowing Briony’s parents right now, we had to think what might work best for her. “Olivia’s only met Briony’s parents once. They’ll be down for the adoption signing and we’ll be back at Christmas, but if something happened to us before she really got to know them…” I looked up to catch Willa’s understanding nod. “I want her to have a choice.”
