“Lily, stop,” Zinnie said. She sighed and clicked Undo until the waterfall reappeared.
“Not fair.” Lily pouted. “I want a turn.”
“Don’t yell at her, Zinnie,” Marigold said, and scooped Lily up.
“You would kill me if I touched your computer, Marigold,” Zinnie said. “But if Lily does something annoying, you don’t care. No one ever gets mad at Lily.”
“Because Lily’s so cute and little,” Marigold said.
“I’m not little,” Lily said. “I’m big.”
“Hurry up, Zinnie,” Marigold said. “I want to get Mom while she’s in the bathtub.”
“Good point,” Zinnie said, saving her work and unplugging her laptop. The best time to ask Mom for something was at the end of the day when she was in her nightly bath. She was so relaxed that she was much more likely to say yes. Marigold led the charge as the three sisters made their way down the hallway into their parents’ room and knocked on the bathroom door.
8. The Presentation
“It’s us,” Marigold said.
“All of you?” Mom asked from inside.
“Yes,” Lily answered.
“Well, come on in,” Mom said. “I guess it’s a party.”
“We have something to show you,” Marigold said.
Zinnie followed her into the bathroom with the computer under her arm.
“I had ideas too,” Lily added, taking a seat on the bath mat.
“I can’t wait to see it,” Mom said. She was covered up to her neck in a fluffy blanket of bubbles.
“We came up with this presentation to show you in a calm and responsible way that we have realistic options for staying in L.A.”
Zinnie placed the computer on the sink and pulled up the title slide. In a last-minute decision, she cued up the classical music that Mr. Herrera played during independent study time. The first dramatic notes always made Zinnie feel serious and important. She turned up the volume, pressed Play, and a resounding duh duh duh duh filled the room. Mom sat up a little in surprise. Marigold jumped. Lily covered her ears. It was louder than Zinnie had intended, not having taken into account the small space and the tile floor. She lowered the volume as the music continued into a gentler-but-no-less-important-sounding melody.
“You definitely have my attention now,” Mom said with a smile.
“Here are three good options for July that allow us to stay in L.A.,” Marigold said. Zinnie opened the next slide. “First, Grammy can come stay with us. It will be easy and convenient. We hardly ever see Grammy, and it’s important to spend time with her now that she’s so old.”
Zinnie watched the corners of Mom’s mouth turn up, and she was pretty sure that was because of the sparkle effect. She opened the next slide.
“A second idea is that we could stay with friends,” Marigold said. “You always say how valuable true friendship is. This time will give us a chance to really get to know our friends in a way that we can’t just by going to school with them.”
Mom pressed her lips together and nodded. Zinnie wondered if she was trying not to laugh.
“Also”—Marigold continued—“this will save you money on plane tickets. As the old saying goes, a penny saved is a penny earned. And finally”—Zinnie opened the slide for option three—“Berta and her mother could both stay here. We all love Berta, and she loves us, and we can all take turns taking care of her sick mother. The end!” Marigold took a bow.
Zinnie ended the slide show with the picture of the waterfall and raised the volume for a moment to finish with a bang.
“Brava, girls,” Mom said. She clapped, and bubbles slid down her wrists. “The opening was my favorite part. No—maybe the rockets. Actually, I like the waterfall.”
“See,” Marigold said, “we don’t have to go. We have three good options.”
“Well, Grammy is too old to be looking after three girls by herself. So that’s out. And I’m not having you stay with friends for three weeks. It’s too much to ask.”
“Why?” Marigold said.
“Who would you stay with?” Mom asked.
“Pilar. Anyone. I bet I could stay with Clint.” Clint Lee was the very handsome star of Seasons. He always said hi to Marigold on set and sometimes even joked around with her.
“Clint Lee? Oh, no,” Mom said.
“Not to be his girlfriend or anything,” Marigold said, feeling her cheeks color.
“Oh, well, that’s good,” Mom said, and laughed.
“What about the third option then?” Marigold said, quickly changing the subject. “With Berta.”
“My idea,” Lily said.
“It makes sense, Mom,” Zinnie added.
“Her mother isn’t able to leave Mexico. She’s very sick,” Mom said. “Besides, you guys are going to love Aunt Sunny. She taught science to kids for twenty years. She knows everything about everything.”
“How old is she?” Zinnie asked.
“What color is her hair?” Lily wanted to know.
“Does she know I’m allergic to strawberries?” Zinnie asked.
But Marigold raised a hand to silence them. “Mom, I need to talk to you alone.”
9. The Great Opportunity
Mom left a trail of damp footprints on the carpet as she headed toward her closet and changed into her pajamas.
“Mom, how could you do this to me? Do you even know what a big deal getting an agent is? Do you care?” Marigold asked, following her.
“She’ll still be your agent in August. You’ll only be gone for three weeks,” Mom said, smoothing some lotion on her face. “And of course I care. I care about you.”
“But they’re auditioning for Night Sprites on July seventh. Remember? It’s just one day, and Jill told me she might be able to get me an audition.”
“Those books are not exactly literature,” Mom said, taking a seat on her bed.
“They’re literature to me,” Marigold said, and sat next to her mother. “Mom, have you ever wanted something so badly that it was all you could think about?”
“Yes,” she said. “When I was your age, I wanted a perm.”
“Really?” Marigold asked. Mom’s straight, shiny blond hair was her crowning glory. People sometimes stopped her on the street to tell her what beautiful hair she had. Marigold couldn’t imagine her wanting to change it in any way.
“Oh, yes, all the girls in my class were getting them, but Grammy said no way. She said the other girls looked like they’d stuck their finger in a socket, and why would I do that to myself?” Marigold laughed. Mom continued. “I begged, I pleaded, I cried, but Grammy wouldn’t budge until finally I threatened to let Joanie MacDonald, my best friend’s older sister, give me one herself. She was in beauty school and needed someone to experiment on.”
“Did Grammy finally let you do it?” Marigold leaned in a little closer. This was getting good.
“Nope. Instead, she took me to her hairdresser, who set my hair in rollers and made me sit under one of those big dryers to show me what I would look like if I went through with it.”
“How did it look?” Marigold asked.
“It was awful,” Mom said, laughing as she remembered. “I washed it out as soon as I got home, and I was so glad my mother had saved me from months of terrible, embarrassing hair.”
“I guess that this audition is like my perm,” Marigold said, trying to refocus the conversation. “Only imagine if that perm was the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“Look,” Mom said, “the truth is, your dad and I don’t want you to get too swept up in this whole acting thing. We know how excited you are that you have an agent, and we want to support your dreams, but we have a job as your parents to do what we think is best for you. We think it’s more important that you have this experience with your great-aunt and your sisters. You only get to be a kid once.”
“But I want to be like Amanda Mills.”
“No, you don’t,” Mom said. “Do you have any idea how messed up her lif
e is? Poor girl didn’t even know her mom until she was nine years old, And remember how late her mom was picking her up from Jill’s office? I think Amanda is probably very troubled.”
Dad wandered into the room, carrying a scribbled-on script. “I can practically feel the drama from downstairs,” he said, kicking off his shoes and sitting on the sofa opposite the bed. He dropped the script on the floor and folded his hands behind his head. “So is this a tragedy or a comedy?”
Mom tilted her head, considering. “I think a dramedy,” she said.
“What?” Marigold said, hunching over and pressing her fists to her tired eyes. “It’s not funny. It’s not funny at all. Daddy,” she pleaded, “please don’t make me go away. Please let me stay. I have an agent and a chance to audition for my dream movie. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. “
“You have a lot of lifetime ahead of you, kiddo,” Dad said.
“The answer is no, Marigold,” Mom added. “Let it go.”
10. Zinnie in Midair
“Do you think we’ll see a whale from up here?” Zinnie asked when their gondola reached the top of the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier. The gondola was a circle-shaped bench with a high back and little swinging door for people to get on and off the ride. Zinnie, Dad, Marigold, and Mom were seated inside.
“Not without binoculars,” Mom said. “Shoot! We should have brought them.”
Zinnie made a visor with her hands and scanned the horizon, hoping that with just her naked eyes she’d still be able to see a whale or a pod of dolphins. She’d even settle for one dolphin. She just wanted something to remember California by. They were leaving for the East Coast in two days for three whole weeks, and her parents had agreed to take them to the pier as long as they were packed for Pruet. Zinnie and Lily, with Berta’s help, both had their suitcases ready to go in about a half hour. Marigold, on the other hand, had spent the entire morning packing, and they hadn’t been able to leave the house until after lunch.
After some pretty bad traffic and an emergency frozen yogurt stop, they were finally here, though not all of them were on the Ferris wheel. Lily and Berta were at the carousel, which was back by the bridge, much closer to the road. Lily was terrified of the ocean and refused to walk out beyond the old-fashioned ice cream parlor.
Zinnie, however, thought all the fun started once she walked past the carousel and ice cream parlor, went beyond the fruit carts and the tourist shops and the arcade, and arrived at the amusement park. Even if they weren’t as scary or as fast as the ones at Universal Studios or as elaborate as those at Disneyland, she loved the rides that swept and looped and suspended her above the Pacific Ocean. She wasn’t about to take off for three whole weeks without reminding Dad that he had promised they would come here once school was out.
The Ferris wheel paused at the tippy top of its cycle, and Zinnie held her breath as she looked down at the crowds on the pier and beach below. People were eating hot dogs, tacos, ice cream, and funnel cake. They were playing tag and splashing barefoot in the surf. Boyfriends and girlfriends were holding hands and hugging. One family was even swimming, even though it was chilly enough for Zinnie to wear a light jacket. Mom wouldn’t let them go in the water here because she said it was polluted, but the blue-green waves looked clean and inviting from where Zinnie sat. Behind her was the city of Santa Monica with its office buildings and shopping malls. To the left were the fancy hotels where Marigold said some girls in her class were going to have their bat mitzvahs next year. And to the right was Malibu with its mansions and rugged pink cliffs.
Above it all, swinging over the sea, with a chilly salt breeze blowing on her face, Zinnie felt peaceful. She wondered if the beach was what she would miss most about California. Mom said there was a beach in Pruet, but she’d also mentioned that it didn’t have an amusement park attached to it, or a mall down the street, or the best taco truck in the whole wide world parked on the street nearby.
“Do they have any taco trucks at all in Pruet?” Zinnie asked, wondering if she could actually survive without good taquitos, burritos, or churros for three whole weeks.
“I don’t think so, Zin,” Dad said, putting an arm around her. She leaned against his shoulder.
Now that Zinnie thought of it, she was going to miss a lot of things about California. Her mom kept saying that three weeks wasn’t that long, but it felt that way when it meant that she wasn’t going to be able to go to the summer program at Miss Hadley’s with her best friends, Milly and McKenzie, who were probably at this very moment deciding what classes to sign up for. And Miss Hadley’s summer program was totally different from school. It had classes like fashion design and ice cream making and field trips to Dodgers games and a real animation studio. As hard as Zinnie was trying to have a good attitude, Pruet sounded boring in comparison with all that she would miss.
The Ferris wheel started again. This was Zinnie’s favorite part, when the gondola began its descent, because there was always a moment when it felt like she was flying. They tipped forward, and her stomach fluttered with suspense. Zinnie held tight to Dad’s hand and, looking at the ocean through cracks of the swinging door, delighting in the tingling thrill that there was nothing but air between her and the watery depths below.
Marigold had always loved this Ferris wheel too, but her eyes were totally glued to her cell phone. How could she be texting right now?
“Can you put that phone away?” Mom asked Marigold. “The point of today is to spend time together.”
“It’s Pilar,” Marigold said. “I need to see my best friend before I leave. Can I hang out with her tomorrow night?”
“Only if you put that away,” Mom said.
“Just let me finish this one thing . . . ,” Marigold said, not even looking up.
“But you’re missing the best part,” Zinnie said, reaching to cover the screen of Marigold’s cell phone. Zinnie was too forceful, and Marigold’s phone slipped from her hands and fell to the metal floor. Zinnie’s stomach clenched as the phone slid toward the opening.
“Zinnie!” Marigold shrieked just as her dad’s foot stopped the phone from falling through the crack.
“I didn’t mean it!” Zinnie said.
“What were you thinking?” Marigold asked, her cheeks pink with anger.
“Relax,” Dad said, bending to pick up the phone and handing it to Marigold.
“If you had lost my phone, I would have—” Marigold began to say. Their mom didn’t let her finish.
“But she didn’t,” Mom said. “The phone is safe. So it’s all good.”
But it didn’t feel all good. Marigold was scowling even though her phone was safely back in her hands, and Zinnie couldn’t help wondering what Marigold would have said to her if their dad hadn’t caught the phone with his foot. And the Ferris wheel was already at the boring bottom, and the attendant was standing ready to open the door for them to get out.
“But I missed the right-over-the-ocean part,” Zinnie said.
“Then it’s lucky we still have time for one more go-round, isn’t it?” Dad said, wrapping his arm around her.
11. Fake Kiss
The day before Marigold’s dreaded departure to Pruet, Massachusetts, she and Pilar had plans to go to the Farmers Market, a historic marketplace with about a hundred restaurant stalls and farm stands. It was one of Marigold’s favorite places to go in L.A. She loved all the different kinds of food there, especially the kimchi at the Korean stall, the pancakes at the 1950s diner, and the pupusas at the Salvadoran stand. And it was dessert heaven! There was ice cream, French crepes, and, Marigold’s personal favorite, the Periwinkle Pie Shop, the oldest pie shop in Los Angeles.
She also loved the knickknack stores because she could always find at least one thing that she could afford with her allowance, like a package of stickers to seal the notes she passed in class or a piece of English toffee. And of course she loved the fancy outdoor mall behind the Farmers Market. It had all the coolest clothing stores. Even if s
he couldn’t buy anything, it was still fun to try stuff on.
The girls were going to the Farmers Market to get something delicious and discuss their summer plans. At least that was the story. What they were really doing, Pilar said, was meeting up with Alex Key, the cutest seventh-grade boy at Epiphany, the boys’ school down the street from Miss Hadley’s. Alex Key had dark-blond hair and eyes the color of green Jolly Ranchers, and he smelled ever so faintly of Right Guard “fresh scent” deodorant (Pilar and her sharp nose had memorized the scent when they all were dancing to a fast song at the Winter Snowball, reported back, and initiated a research investigation at Rite Aid). He could snowboard, skateboard, breakdance, and beatbox. Now that he’d gotten his braces off and had a cool surfer haircut, Pilar had nicknamed him California Dreamin’, after the Mamas and Papas song that played on her grandma’s favorite radio station once an hour.
Pilar had heard through the Miss Hadley’s grapevine that Alex Key thought Marigold was cute. Despite her own crush on him, Pilar was determined that someone should go out with Alex Key, even if she wasn’t the one. She also knew that Marigold, who was prone to shyness around the opposite sex, had never held hands with a boy. Pilar wanted her friends to be in the loop and on the cutting edge. Pilar wanted Marigold to get kissed.
So did Marigold.
In fact, when she hadn’t been thinking about landing a part in Night Sprites, she had been thinking about kissing.
Marigold’s secret was that she had been kissed a month ago on Seasons. Thankfully, the scene had been cut, so no one knew about it. When she’d read the kissing moment in the script, she put a hand over her mouth and yelped. Her belly clenched. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to kiss anyone. Especially not Martin Goldblatt, the young actor who played the boy. He was only eleven! And he chewed with his mouth open! But she was too shy to voice her concern. Ronald P. Harp had taught her to always be professional. So when the director called action, Marigold ignored her churning stomach, puckered up, and touched her tremulous lips with Martin Goldblatt’s. Even though their mouths were closed, she could smell the nachos he had eaten at the craft services table. His hand was on her knee, and it was so light that it tickled her.
The Forget-Me-Not Summer Page 4
