by Dyan Sheldon
I could hear my dad saying, Hi, there, Zelda… Savanna feeling better? And Mrs Zindle asking, Better than what?
“She changed her mind.” Strictly speaking, this was true, too.
“Really? Why was that?” My dad’s stare seemed to be pinning me to the foot of the stairs. “Don’t tell me something came up again.”
You had to wonder if he’d become a historian because he had a suspicious nature, or if he had a suspicious nature because he was a historian.
“No… You know… She just decided not to come back with me.”
He tapped his pen against the arm of the couch. “This seems to be happening a lot lately.”
“No. You know, not really.” I managed to move onto the bottom step. “She always changes her mind a lot.”
He nodded. “She’s just a woman of whims.”
“Yeah.” I slipped onto the next step. “She’s a woman of whims.”
My dad smiled. “So who was that on the porch with you, if it wasn’t Savanna?”
Suspicious and with the hearing of a bat.
“Nobody.” I shrugged. “You know, just Cooper.”
“Cooper,” repeated my dad.
“Yeah, you know… The guy you saw the other day? The one who got me interested in Neighbours?” When I’d finally told him about Neighbours, my father had thought it was great that I’d joined. He’s a big believer in community spirit. “He walked me home.”
Robert Mooney’s eyebrow twitched. “Again?”
I started edging further up the stairs. Casually. “Yeah. You know… He likes to walk.”
But Robert Mooney wasn’t done with me yet.
“I didn’t know you were seeing Cooper tonight. I thought it was just you girls.”
“It was. You know, just us girls.” Even though I was now back in a truth zone, I was still edging ever upwards, casual as a leaf in the wind. “He and Archie just happened to show up in Anzalone’s. For pizza. And, well, you know… they went back to Marilouise’s with us – you know, for ice cream and cake – and then Cooper said he’d walk me home so Mrs Lapinskye didn’t have to drive me.”
“I see…” My dad nodded. “He sounds like a very considerate boy.”
Boycott Coca-Cola… Don’t buy stuff made in China… Do good deeds…
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I guess he is.”
“Next time you should invite him in,” said my dad. “I’d like to meet him.”
“Sure,” I answered. “Next time.”
As if.
Savanna said she’d call me as soon as she got home, so I went to my room to wait. I was getting into my pyjamas when my phone rang. I had to hop over to my dresser on one foot, but I got it on the second ring.
“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod!” shrieked Savanna. “I’m in love. I mean, really. Really, really in love. You wouldn’t believe it, I’ve never ever felt like this before. I mean, seriously. Not ever. I feel like I’ve been in a coma for sixteen years and I’ve finally woken up!”
“Who is this?” I got the other leg of my pyjama bottoms on and pulled them up. “What number did you want?”
“Don’t tease me, Gracie.” Savanna laughed. “I am, like, so totally, ecstatically happy. I mean, like, really. I mean, like, any other time I thought I was happy, I wasn’t even in the same room as happy. If I was any happier, I’d probably pass out from joy. I mean it, Gray. This was like the most incredible night of my life. Really. Like totally incredible.”
I wriggled my LOVE IT OR LOSE IT T-shirt with a satellite picture of the Earth on it over my head. “So you had a good time?”
“Do birds fly in the sky? Do fish swim in the sea?”
So far they did.
“But it wasn’t just good,” Savanna rolled on. “To describe it as good is like describing Mount Everest as a big hill. I mean, like, really, Gray, you just wouldn’t believe how different going out with a college man is to dating high-school boys. It’s like moving into a mansion after you’ve been living in an apartment over a garage. I mean, talk about sophisticated! He opened doors for me. He pulled out my chair…”
I assumed she didn’t mean the way Pete or Leroy would, just as you were about to sit down.
Savanna did her deliriously happy goose impression. “Stop interrupting me, Gray. Don’t you want to hear
every supremely wonderful detail?”
“Of course I do. I’m all ears.”
“He took me to this really classy restaurant over by Lebanon Springs—”
“Lebanon Springs? But that’s miles away.”
“He had the car, Gracie, remember? He’s old enough to drive at night.”
Unlike boys who were still in high school.
“Anyway, you wouldn’t have believed this place, Gracie. It was sooo cosmically cosmopolitan. There’s nothing like it in Crow’s Point or even Lawson except in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. It was all, like, understated and miniature—”
“Minimalist.”
“Right. Really elegant and linen napkins. And each place had all this cutlery, like we were going to be eating for the next ten hours or something. It was awesome.”
“I’d have been terrified.” The two forks at Anzalone’s were enough to confuse me. “How did you know which to use when?”
“I just did whatever Morgan did.” Just saying his name made her sigh. “Anyway, it was, like, so cool. I felt like I was in my twenties.”
Unless I had a sudden growth spurt, I’d be lucky to feel like I was in my twenties when I was thirty-five.
I sat down on my bed. “So what did you eat? How did you know what to order?”
“I said I couldn’t make up my mind. You know, because everything sounded so good? So I let him do the ordering.”
You had to hand it to her, she was a natural. Either that or she’d learned more from her magazines than I’d thought.
“Well, that must’ve made him feel needed.”
“Gracie, please!”
First they had this amazing salad with noodles and shrimps and mango and avocado. Then they had this awesome fish with a squiggle of green sauce next to it on the plate. Then they had this thing that looked like a cupcake, but when you cut into it, it was filled with melted chocolate.
So much for Mrs Lapinskye’s carrot cake and chocolate ice cream.
“Not that I could eat much,” said Savanna. “I mean, I was like sooo charged up and nervous and everything. You know, in case I did use the wrong fork or spoon or something. I really wished you were there, you know, to calm me down like you do.”
Aside from the fact that it’s really hard to be in two places at once, where would I have been? Under the table with a book on etiquette?
“You know what I mean,” Savanna giggled. “Even if you were just across the room, I wouldn’t have felt so nervous.”
“You couldn’t have felt more nervous than I—” I began.
“No, really,” cut in Savanna. “I was, like, totally terrified of saying something that would tell him my real age or what the rents really do or something like that. You can’t imagine how stressful that is.”
I tried again. “I bet that I can.”
She wasn’t listening.
“So, after we ate we took this, like, awesomely romantic walk in the moonlight. You know, just like on television.”
“You mean life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad TV?”
“Oh, Gracie, don’t. It was really fantastic.”
They held hands. They talked about life and stuff like that. They saw a shooting star.
“You know what that means, don’t you?” demanded Savanna. “A shooting star?”
Normally, I would have said that it meant some
interplanetary dust had burnt out in the upper atmosphere, but I was still thinking about walking in the moonlight. Technically, I’d been walking in the moonlight, too, but it had only been romantic if you consider discussing pool shots a prelude to falling in love.
“No, what?”
&nb
sp; “It’s a sign, that’s what! You know, that my meeting Morgan and everything was, like, really destined. It’s the real deal.”
This, of course, would be ignoring all the people who saw the same star fall while they were putting gas in their cars or taking out the garbage. But I didn’t point that out, either. I would’ve felt like a grump.
“And then he kissed me!” Savannah crowed. “That was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced either. I mean, you remember what Archie was like when we first started going out?” I did. She’d said then that kissing Archie was like biting into something that bit back. “This was more spiritual than physical. It was, like, electric. It was like kissing clouds… Oh, I can’t describe it, Gray. It makes me go all weak and swoony just to think about it.”
It wasn’t making me feel weak and swoony. The more she gushed about Morgan, the more I thought of Archie, spending the night with Cooper, Marilouise and me – while the person he wanted to spend it with was exchanging saliva with Morgan Scheck.
I gave her a couple of seconds to recover, and then I said, “So now that you’re officially in love, does that mean you’re going to tell Archie about Morgan?”
“Ohmigod,” said Savanna. “Will you listen to me go on and on about myself. I never asked you how it went with Marilouise. Did she like my present?”
“She loved it. She was really sorry you’re so sick.”
“You see?” Savanna laughed. “Didn’t I tell you she’d buy it?”
“And guess who came into Anzalone’s while we were there?” I went on. “Archie and Cooper. They said they wanted a pizza, but I think, really, they dropped by because Archie thought he was going to see you. You know, I got the impression you told him he should drop by.”
“I don’t remember saying that,” said Savanna.
“Anyway, they wound up going back to Marilouise’s with us and—”
“Hang on a second,” interrupted Savanna. “I have another call.” She was back in a minute. “It’s Morgan! Can you believe it? He didn’t even wait till the morning. I have to go. I’m probably seeing him tomorrow, but I have to babysit Sofia tomorrow night. Mother Zindle’s going out at six. Come over at six-thirty and spend the night. Then we can really talk.”
“Right. Six-thirty it is,” I said.
But I said it to myself.
Savanna was already gone.
Chapter Thirteen
I Talk to Archie and Savanna Talks to Me
I’m not sure why (since we did have a date for that night), but I kind of thought Savanna might call me on Sunday morning. You know, because she’d had to hang up so abruptly. Only she didn’t. It was Cooper who called.
Cooper said he and Archie had had such a good time last night, they wondered if Marilouise and I wanted to go bowling with them and Leroy and Pete that afternoon. I wasn’t what you’d call a great bowler. I was more what you’d call a really bad one. Balls rolled behind me instead of in front, or bounced into the gutter. I figured it was because I was so short. Everyone else strode gracefully, while I scurried. Practically the only thing I’d ever knocked over was a giant-size soda Leroy put down on the bench. The only reason I ever went bowling with the others was because Savanna wouldn’t go without me. She wasn’t as humiliatingly awful as I was, but she wasn’t nearly as good as the boys.
I was surprised Archie wanted to go without Savanna.
“Why not?” laughed Cooper. “He was bowling a long time before they started dating, you know.”
“And you? You’re going bowling?” Cooper never came with us.
“I’m usually busy on Sundays,” said Cooper. “But I’m not busy today.”
I wasn’t busy either. I said yes. Marilouise said yes, too.
Usually, our games were more like a dramatic event than a sport. It always took us a long while to settle down because Savanna had to get the right pair of shoes and the right ball and exactly the right position before she could throw, which meant the boys had eaten all their snacks before we began and had to get more. There were always arguments over who was keeping score and whose turn it was. But somehow the presence of Marilouise and Cooper changed all that. Marilouise didn’t mess around. She took charge of the scoring, put on her shoes, found a ball she liked, and got a strike on her first go. In fact, she turned out to be almost as good at bowling as she was at pool. And Cooper turned out to be even better than Archie, who actually owned his own ball. We still had fun and laughed a lot, but it was more like we were goofing around while we played, not playing while we goofed around.
After my first ball bounced into the gutter, Cooper decided to show me what I was doing wrong.
“Loosen up. You’re not rolling it; you’re dropping it.”
I said that I knew that.
He stood behind me, his arm over mine. “Don’t let go, Gracie. Just go through the motions with me.”
Up … back … forward … forward … swing…
“Watch out!” warned Pete. “You know what a player he is!”
The others all laughed. I dropped the ball.
“Yo, Cooper!” called Archie. “Maybe you should become a professional coach.”
But by the second game, I was knocking down pins every time. Not a lot, maybe – but more than I would have if I’d sat out my turn.
“You see?” Cooper winked. “You just needed the right teacher.”
I started having a really good time.
And then, just before our last game, I decided to get myself a drink. Which would be about when my good time ended.
“I’ll come with you,” offered Archie. “I’m still hungry.” He looked at the others. “Anybody else want anything?”
After Archie had taken the orders and we were walking across the lanes, he glanced over at me and said, “So … did you talk to Savanna?”
I hesitated for a few seconds. Was she off the critical list yet? Should I say yes? If I said yes, what should I say that she’d said?
“No.” I went straight for the lie. “I called her this morning, but her mom said she’s still, you know, not well enough to talk. She’s still pretty much sleeping all the time.”
“Right.” Archie opened the door to the snack bar, but instead of walking through it he came to a stop. “Gracie?” He was practically whispering. “Gracie, can I ask you something?”
I must have known that he wasn’t going to ask me about the probable effects of unchecked global warming, but my guard was down. I walked into his question like a dolphin swimming into a tuna net.
“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”
“It’s just that … you know…” He took hold of my arm and guided me into the snack bar, steering me into a corner. Gently but firmly. “Since you’re Savanna’s best friend and everything…”
I nodded. Slowly. I was getting one of my bad feelings. Polar bears were pitching into icy seas. “Uh huh…”
“Well … it’s just … I mean…” He was shifting his weight from one foot to the other. I could hear him swallow. “OK … Look, it’s just that—” He took a really deep breath. “Is Savanna mad at me or something, Gracie?” He looked really worried. “Is that what’s going on? She’s mad at me?”
“Mad at you?” I laughed the way you do when someone tells a joke that isn’t funny. “Savanna’s not mad at you, Arch. I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing going on.”
“Well, she’s acting like she’s mad at me.” He stopped shifting and stood dead still. “Like I did something … or said something…” His foot tapped against the lino floor. “You know Savanna…” Taptaptap. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”
“Well, she hasn’t said anything to me.” I smiled in a bright, end-of-conversation way. “You must be having another one of your hallucinations.”
“I’m not so sure.” He didn’t smile back. “And I’m not sure you’re being straight with me. Maybe you’re just trying to spare my feelings.”
If I was, I wasn’t doing a very good job.
He finally managed half a smile, but it wasn’t what you’d call happy.
“Really, Archie. I’d know if she was.”
Somehow it was more horrible seeing someone as confident and happy as Archie undermined by doubt and worry than it would have been to see someone more like me bottoming out. I might have hugged him if it hadn’t meant burying my head in his stomach.
“Then why is she acting so weird?”
I said that I thought he was asking the wrong person.
“But I did ask Savanna.” Archie’s shoulders moved slowly up and down like the flippers of a dying seal. “She said that she didn’t know what I was talking about. She said there’s nothing wrong.”
I gave him an affectionate shove. “Well? What more do you want?”
“Yeah, but she didn’t hang out with me all last week, Gracie. She always had some lame-o excuse – either she had too much homework, or she was tired, or her mother needed her for something. And when I do see her at school… Well, you know how she is at lunch. She hardly talks at all any more. She acts like she’s had an iPod implanted in her brain and she’s listening to that.”
I smiled. Cheerily. “Well, maybe she’s just going through a quiet phase,” I suggested. “People do. Even really talkative people.” Even people who never shut up.
“Is that how she is with you?” asked Archie. “Quiet bordering on comatose?”
No, when we’re alone she talks about her other boyfriend so much that I don’t know when she has time to breathe.
“Well, you know, Archie… We talk about girl things. It’s different.” If my smile got any cheerier, I was going to start singing and dancing. “Except for not having much to say sometimes, Savanna seems the same to me.”
