by Laura Dower
He was kissing her.
Kissing her! Kissing her!
This wasn’t like the other few kisses Madison and Hart had shared that seventh-grade year, either; those had been quick pecks or near misses. This kiss lasted at least ten glorious seconds. Madison was very glad to be wearing her favorite strawberry-kiwi lip gloss just then. Her heart raced like a stopwatch.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“Because,” Hart said. “Why not?”
For a brief moment, Madison thought Hart might take her into his arms with another sweeping gesture and kiss her even harder, until her lips went numb, the way they always did whenever she ate Popsicles.
But there was no follow-up kiss.
Instead, they both started to laugh.
Chapter 20
“So that’s what you wanted to tell me? That’s the bad news?” Madison said, still catching her breath. She licked her lips. The gloss was gone.
“Well, that’s not exactly what I wanted to say…” Hart mumbled. He had stopped laughing.
Madison’s eyes darted around the yard, but other than the clowns (and, really, who cared about the clowns anymore?), they were alone. In the distance, Madison could hear a drumbeat. Everyone was off doing karaoke.
Hart rubbed his mouth. It looked a little as if he were wiping off the kiss, as a four-year-old would do, but Madison didn’t care. Her head was somewhere way up in the clouds.
She wanted him to kiss her again.
“You know, I like you,” Hart said simply.
Madison nodded. “I know. Seventh grade has been the coolest year ever, and I like you, too.”
“But I’m so bummed out,” Hart said.
Madison looked at Hart quizzically and then looked away. There was something in his eyes, something sad.
“Why are you bummed?”
“Maddie, my parents just told me something this week…”
Hart looked away. Madison didn’t speak. She waited for him to finish.
“We’re moving,” Hart blurted out.
“Moving on up?” Madison said, giggling at first.
Then she realized Hart was serious.
“Wait. You’re really moving?” Madison cocked her head to one side and looked Hart squarely in the eye. “But why? Wait! Don’t tell me…your dad got a job transfer…”
“How did you know that?” Hart said, looking at Madison with narrowed eyes. “Seriously, how did you know?”
“Everyone’s changing jobs, it seems,” Madison groaned. “It’s like the chicken pox or something.”
“Huh?”
“So, what about the summer?” Madison asked.
“I dunno. We’re leaving in three weeks. For Europe,” Hart said.
“You’re moving to Europe? That’s so far away…”
“Dad and Mom need to get over there, they said. We just put our Far Hills house on the market. Dad needs to meet with some people at his new gig.”
“What about lifeguarding at the pool this summer?” Madison asked.
“Well, obviously I won’t be doing that…” Hart said.
“But you just told me the other day…” Madison started to say. Her voice quavered.
Of course he wouldn’t be doing that. Duh.
“My parents didn’t really fill me in until this week,” Hart admitted. “Then they made this big announcement at the graduation party yesterday. I was out of the loop—way out of the loop—before that.”
“Does Drew know?” Madison asked.
Hart nodded. “Yeah, Drew knows. But you know him. He’s Mr. Easygoing.”
“Europe? Wow,” Madison said. For a split second, she had a mental image of Hart standing under the Eiffel Tower; Madison walked up to him in her imagined scene and took his hands and began speaking French while wearing a little blue beret and eating a baguette.
“You can come visit me there if you want,” Hart suggested.
“Yeah,” Madison said. “If I win the lottery. Otherwise, I guess we have to remain long-distance…”
“Why don’t you come with your mom when she goes over to do work on some documentary?”
“She isn’t going to Europe this year,” Madison said. “This summer, she’s off to Japan. Why don’t you move to Tokyo instead?”
Hart grinned. “No problem. Let me just call my dad and tell him.”
Madison reached for Hart’s hand.
“You can’t leave,” Madison said. “Not now. What about eighth grade?”
Hart shrugged. “I know. But at least we can always e-mail.”
They both stared into each other’s eyes—and then away again—off in opposite directions. As they stood there, a few kids came back out onto the lawn. Madison saw Aimee and Madhur out of the corner of her eye.
“Maddie!” they called from across the lawn. Soon, all the party guests were returning from the karaoke. Apparently the game was not as fun as being out in the backyard.
A moment later, Hart went off with Chet and a few other boys. He didn’t really say good-bye. The private moment was over.
It wasn’t the only thing that was over.
Madison tried to hide her disappointment from her friends. But that was a lost cause. Of course, they could tell something was wrong right away. BFFs have special radar for that sort of thing.
“Wait! Did you tell Hart about Will?” Aimee whispered to Madison.
“No!” Madison said. “No way.”
“Then what happened? You guys disappeared, and we all went inside. Drew didn’t even realize you were gone, and then he stopped the karaoke and I was looking for you…”
Fiona was babbling. She hardly ever babbled, which meant that just then she was truly worried about Madison.
“Fiona, I’m okay,” Madison said, trying to reassure her.
“Maddie,” Lindsay said, hugging her friend. “Are you really okay?”
“Because you look really not okay,” Madhur said.
Madison could feel all the emotion in her belly, pressing from the inside out. With Hart’s bad news, seventh grade had just come to its real screeching halt.
“I’ll be okay eventually,” Madison said, thereby admitting that perhaps she wasn’t one hundred percent fine. “It’s just that…Hart told me his family is moving away from Far Hills.”
Madison’s friends all gasped.
“And you thought we were moving,” Fiona said. “That’s terrible. Hart’s moving? Oh, Maddie, I am so, so, so sorry…”
“You can have a long-distance relationship, can’t you?” Madhur said.
Madison frowned. “I guess. But everyone says those things don’t work.”
“Seriously, it can! You can text and e-mail and visit on school vacations and…” Lindsay was trying to be upbeat, but it wasn’t really working.
“He’s moving to Europe,” Madison said flatly.
For a moment no one said a word. Maybe longdistance was out of the question.
“Well,” Madison finally said. “I’ll live.”
“You’ll live?” Aimee shot back. “How? Maddie, you’re talking about the guy you’ve crushed on forever. You’re talking about Hart Jones!”
Madison covered her mouth. Aimee was right. This was a bigger than big deal. But she didn’t want to cry.
So now what?
The only thing capable of holding back her tears was a very strong dam. So everyone pressed together in a group hug. No sooner had everyone huddled together than they heard a loud “Puh-leeze!” from nearby.
There was Ivy, flanked by her drones.
Madison stepped back with her arms crossed in front of her. Her friends did the same. Now they really looked like a dam, ready to block anything—especially the enemy.
“Back off,” said Aimee.
Ivy started to laugh. “Oh, like I’m so scared of you guys,” she said.
“You should be,” Madhur said.
“As if!” Rose Thorn snapped. She and Phony Joanie stepped forward a bit. For a moment, Madison th
ought they might actually get into a real fight.
“Look…” Madison started to say.
Ivy interrupted. “No, you look. Seventh grade may be over, but we are so not over, Madison Finn…”
“Remember what you said to me a few weeks ago, Ivy?” Madison interjected. “About how I would never be the class star…”
“And I was so-o-o-o right,” Ivy huffed.
“Well…uh…you know…stars fade,” Madison said. She wanted to say something cleverer, but she couldn’t think of anything.
Drat.
“Um, did you just say stars fade?” Phony Joanie grunted. “Good one, Madison.”
The drones and Ivy looked at one another and laughed.
“I don’t know why you’re laughing, Ivy,” Aimee said. “That was a real ‘star’ move up there on stage at assembly yesterday…”
Ivy looked instantly embarrassed. She smoothed down her skirt as if she were remembering what had happened up there at MUD.
“Hey, what’s going on over here?” Drew asked. He had appeared, wearing a black magician’s cape, carrying a top hat and wand. “You’re going to miss my show.”
Ivy and the drones finally backed away, rolling their eyes.
The rest of Drew’s party was fun and games, and a spectacle—as usual. A couple of the clowns did an acrobatic act, jumping around on a trampoline. After they finished, the party guests got a turn on the trampoline, too.
Madison, Fiona, Aimee, Madhur, and Lindsay decided to jump at the same time, holding hands. At one point, Fiona’s knees locked. It was a chain reaction: the five friends tumbled down at the same time.
“Attention!” Mrs. Maxwell’s voice boomed across the lawn. “Time for lunch, kids!”
Madison and the others hopped off the trampoline and headed for a large tent set up at the side of the Maxwell lawn. On a pair of tables was a buffet fit for a king, queen, and half of an entire kingdom: hamburgers, hot dogs, fifteen kinds of salad, fresh fruit, rolls, cookies, and much more. Eyes and mouths watered at the sight of the spread. Kids dived in with forks, spoons, and fingers. Just when it seemed as if Mrs. Maxwell had served up more than anyone could have dreamed, a couple of clowns rolled onto the lawn with a cart, to make personalized ice-cream sundaes.
“Check it out!” Drew said. “It’s a portable Freeze Palace!” he cried, referring to their favorite icecream spot in Far Hills.
Kids clambered for the hot-fudge brownie blast and cookies-and-cream explosion, two special recipes prepared expressly for the seventh-grade grads. Madison noticed that Ivy and the drones stayed as far away from her as possible.
Music blared from speakers on the Maxwell patio; the party went a lot longer than anyone expected.
Mrs. Maxwell didn’t seem to mind one bit. She floated from one group of kids to the next, serving more cans of soda and little bags of popcorn. Everyone was getting stuffed.
And it was getting late. The clock said five o’clock.
Madison and Hart had found time to hang out together more after their big talk, but neither of them mentioned Hart’s moving again.
That was a very good thing.
Madison knew that once the idea of Hart’s leaving really sank in, she would turn into a waterworks—and she certainly didn’t want to do it there in front of the whole ex-seventh-grade class. She would have to save all her tears and also her goodbyes for much later, over the phone, in person, and via e-mail. She’d think of a million other ways to tell Hart how much she would miss him. After all, who would call her Finnster from then on?
“Hey, Maddie.” Aimee came up beside Madison as they were all getting ready to leave Drew’s house. “I was thinking maybe you could come up on the roof with me. Fiona said she’d come, too.”
“What about Lindsay and Madhur?”
“They have to go home with their parents,” Aimee explained.
“So, it’s just the three of us?” Madison asked.
“The original musketeers,” Aimee said, spinning around with a savvy dance move on the grass. She really could twirl anywhere.
Fiona’s dad picked them up in front of the mansion. Chet didn’t go back with them, though. He’d decided to head over to Egg’s to play video games for a couple of hours and eat dinner with Egg’s family.
On the ride home, Madison gazed out of the window of the Waterses’ van, watching the streets and parks and stores of Far Hills pass by. It seemed hard to believe that so much could change in such a short time.
Madison saw a blond boy outside. He was riding his bike through an intersection, and for a fleeting moment, Madison thought maybe it was Will again. Of course, it wasn’t him. Will was nowhere near Far Hills just then. Madison wondered if she ever would see him again. Now that Hart was going to move away…
Stop overthinking. One day at a time.
By the time everyone got dropped off at Aimee’s house, it was six o’clock: dinnertime. Mrs. Gillespie told Mr. Waters that she’d “feed the troops” and that Fiona could spend the night, too. She called Madison’s mom, too, and asked permission to let Madison join the dinner and sleepover.
Madison and Fiona knew the invitation was a mixed blessing. It meant being served some kind of vegan, macrobiotic food, but that was okay. They’d already stuffed themselves with pigs-in-blankets, popcorn, and ice cream all day. A little brown rice and tempeh burgers wouldn’t be so bad on a junk-food tummy. Besides, the sleepover was the more important part of the night.
Aimee’s four brothers were all home for dinner that night; and they proceeded to tease Aimee and her friends mercilessly throughout the meal about being “dorky girls.” It wasn’t mean-spirited, however, and no one minded their barbs. For Aimee, of course, this was a nightly occurrence. For Fiona, too, it was second nature. After all, she lived with Chet. Although Madison had no brothers of her own, she’d gotten used to being teased after spending so much time with the four Gillespie brothers, Egg, and her other guy friends at school. In many ways, Madison Francesca Finn was not an only child. Not by a long shot.
After supper, Aimee led her friends up to her bedroom. She opened the window and screen and invited Madison and Fiona to climb out onto her rooftop. The air was balmy, with just a light breeze. Outside it smelled like charcoal from barbecues people were having that night in the neighborhood. Aimee sprayed insect repellent on everyone’s arms so the mosquitoes wouldn’t get them as the sun went down. Then she lit a citronella candle and they sat in a circle together.
Although it was past eight o’clock by then, it was still light outside. Madison, Aimee, and Fiona stared off at the clouds, waiting for night to come.
“So, what else did Hart say?” Aimee asked after a while.
Madison shrugged. “Not much. Uh…can we not talk about him?”
“Yeah,” Fiona said gently. “Let’s not talk about boys at all.”
“Who needs boys?” Aimee said.
Madison knew that Ben’s not having shown up for Drew’s party was another good reason for avoiding the boy talk. She knew Aimee was probably feeling down in the dumps a little bit herself.
“The only really dependable people in the whole universe…” Fiona started to say.
“…are girlfriends,” Madison finished. “Duh!”
Aimee smiled. “Hey, look! The moon is coming out, and it isn’t even dark yet. I love that.”
Way up in the sky, a round, white orb dangled between two clouds. But it wasn’t just any moon. That night it would be a full moon.
The “three musketeers” sat together as the sky turned darker blue, their faces illuminated by the flicker of the candle, the faint glow of the lights on the street below, and the lamp inside Aimee’s bedroom. Although they probably could have sat talking on the roof for hours about Hart, Ivy, and the promise of eighth grade, Madison and her two friends didn’t say much at all. Maybe it was because they were tired. After all, it had been a long day at Drew’s party, and an even longer week at school.
Madison thought of something Gra
mma Helen had said one time.
“I know you’re going to think I sound like a peanutty cluster,” Gramma Helen had mused, using one of her kookier expressions, “but people who love each other know one thing best: how to sit quietly together. Oftentimes, they know what the other person is thinking without even having to ask. One of the best parts of being a best friend is just ‘being.’”
As she remembered those words, Madison glanced at Aimee and then over at Fiona. Both of her friends gazed up at the stars in the darkening sky.
Madison’s thoughts raced. Where would the three of them be this time next year? What about the year after that? What boys would they know? What enemies would they face together? Where would they travel? What secrets would they share?
As Madison sat asking herself a zillion questions, she was sure the moment of silence wouldn’t last. Aimee would start talking, and then Fiona would join in, and then the three of them would sit there mocking Poison Ivy or a Far Hills teacher or complaining about the latest issue of Star Beat.
But that wasn’t what happened.
Aimee didn’t say anything. Neither did Fiona. They just sat there, wordless.
One of the best parts of being a best friend is just “being.”
In that moment, that quieter-than-quiet moment, Madison knew something deep in her heart.
This friendship was the real thing.
And these three would be friends till the end of everything.
Mad Chat Words:
W^?
What’s up?
DTS?
Doesn’t that stink?
9ML8R
Call me later
+:>)
Putting on my thinking cap
WBSTS
Write back sooner than soon
LTNE-M
Long time no e-mail
LMKWYT
Let me know what you think
HAY?
How are you?
IMU
I miss you
NSL
No such luck
W2US
Write to you soon
