by Elly Swartz
“Okay, today’s Shakespeare day,” says Mr. Bearson. “We’re going to pair off for a Shakespeare project—and I want you to think outside the box. No dioramas or posters. Consider something online, something musical, something totally unique. Surprise me!”
I look over at Elliot, he nods. Good, partner picked. Now what can we do that’s unpredictable Shakespeare?
Mr. Bearson isn’t done with his instructions. He finishes explaining the directions and then says, “So here’s the list of partners.”
What?
Before I can raise my hand, I hear him say, “Frankie and Jessica.”
My happy-star feeling disappears like Gram’s famous chocolate, chocolate cookies at check-in.
We have thirty minutes in class to work on an idea that we’ll present later this semester. I slide my chair over to Jessica’s desk. She doesn’t lift her head from her unicorn doodle. It’s actually pretty good. Even the horn.
“Um. So do you have any ideas for the project?” I open my notebook and title the page Shakespeare Ideas.
She says nothing.
“Okay, I was thinking maybe we could turn Macbeth into a picture book. It’s my favorite Shakespeare play. Gram and I read it together last summer.” Gram called it our Season of Shakespeare. She said she was getting me ready to road trip with her to Boston to see Shakespeare on the Common and wasn’t sure which play we’d be able to get tickets for. So we read a bunch of the most famous ones. How could anyone not like a play full of witches and ghosts?
Radio silence.
“Or, um, we could do a skit. I could play Macbeth, and you could be Lady Macbeth.”
Still nothing.
“Or you could be Macbeth.”
Nothing.
I consider bringing up her curbside cryfest to see if she’s even listening, but decide to stick to Shakespeare. “Look, we need to work together on this,” I say.
Jessica sees the stars sitting in my open bag. “Why do you even hang out with Ms. Devlin anymore? It’s not like she’s still your teacher.”
My glare screams shut up!
“She was my mom’s best friend,” I say.
“So?”
I don’t bother explaining.
But she doesn’t stop talking, dissecting Annie like a formaldehyde frog. It shocks my insides that from the first day of kindergarten to Columbus Day in fourth grade, Jessica was my closest friend in the world. We used to spend every Friday night at the B&B watching movies, and every Saturday night with her parents at Sami’s Bucket counting how many so-hot-it-hurts chicken wings we could eat before guzzling down a glass of milk. Then that thing happened. It was the Tuesday after Columbus Day weekend that Jessica’s dad moved out. I remember because we were on a bus for a field trip into Boston to walk the Freedom Trail, when her mom called and told her to go home with me that day. We were excited to have a sleepover on a school night until we found out her dad left and took some woman named Elsa with him. That was the end of our sleepovers, movies, and wings.
The bell rings, and I’ve written absolutely nothing under the heading Shakespeare Ideas.
Elliot and I head to the town library after school. On our way down Leopold Lane, I ask him, “What did I ever do to Jessica? She’s so rude. I can’t believe we used to be friends. Best friends.”
He says nothing.
“I mean I didn’t walk out on her.”
He still says nothing.
“I called, I went to her house, but she wouldn’t see me or talk to me. No movies. No wings. No sleepovers.”
“Come on, Frankie. There’s more to it than that. I mean, I’m not defending her. She’s like stale beef jerky, tough and purged of any of the good stuff, but maybe you weren’t the most sympathetic friend.”
“Not true.” I dig into my brain and remember calling and stopping by. I also remember that she refused to talk to me. The day her dad left was like the finish line. Once crossed, there was no going back. To anything or anyone. Including me.
Elliot stops and stares at me. “Did you or did you not say to her, ‘Well, at least you have parents. They may not be together, but they’re not dead’?”
“I did, but that was, and remains, factual. Of all people, you should appreciate that.”
“I do, but not sure she did.”
In the library, the hum of the lights ricochets off the walls. Ms. Bradley, the librarian, sends an overly-happy-to-see-you smile our way. I return with an obligatory grin of sorts, somewhere between Gram-you’re-hugging-me-too-hard and thanks-I-love-that-ugly-sweater.
As we head to our table near the back wall, Elliot pulls his Ghost-Hunter Super-Charged Laser from his backpack. “Why did you bring that thing here?” I ask.
“I did some reading. Did you know the library was originally the home of the Jacoby family? As in Beatrice Jacoby, who died of a broken heart in her house just two hours after she lost her husband?”
“Why do people say they lost someone? People aren’t like keys or homework. You don’t just misplace them.”
“Anyway, Beatrice died, and rumor has it that her spirit sometimes returns to the library.”
I try my best to ignore the monotone tick of the laser. I slide into my seat and see someone’s carved E.S loves J.S. on the table leg and in the top right corner wrote Sagittariuses Rule in black Sharpie. I wonder if E.S. is a Sagittarius. I grab my phone and open our forever game of Word Play. My word has four letters. Before I can tell Elliot how I thought of this word in a dream in the middle of the night, he’s checking the aisles for the ghost of Beatrice. When she doesn’t turn up, he goes over to the very living Ms. Bradley. He returns five minutes later with copies of old articles on the Hogan family. Elliot’s convinced the ghost meter reading, Mr. Barker’s warning, Mickey, and all the weird stuff people are saying about the B&B are linked to Reggie, so he’s digging into the Hogan family’s past for clues.
“I think I’ve got you on this word,” I say, pointing to the Word Play app on my phone.
He ignores me, and the game, and launches into how these articles have lots of details on the Hogan family fights, the hundred-year-old murder of Jameson, and the history of the family land wars. “Frankie, the Hogans have been fighting each other over land and money for decades.”
“Okay, now will you just guess a letter?” I smile and stick my phone on top of the papers.
“If I guess, will you help me?”
I pause, wondering if it’s worth it. Then I look at Elliot. And the articles. “Fine.”
“A,” he says.
“There’s one A.”
The door to the library opens, and Jessica walks in with her little sister. A tinge of guilt taps my gut. Maybe the freeze between us is my fault. She looks my way. No wave, no nod, no hello.
Nope, I don’t own this. She’s made of ice.
I turn back to Word Play. Elliot goes on to guess wrong seventeen more times, so I win on the four-letter word jazz.
“Short but surprisingly hard.”
“I know, right?” My insides do a victory dance. Our current game record is Elliot fifty-seven and me, fifty-six.
He slips one of the articles in front of me. I steal a glance at Ice Queen. She’s reading Sophie’s Squash to her sister. She almost looks like she has a heart.
I spend the next hour with Elliot creating the Hogan family tree. I draw the trunk and the branches, and he fills in the details. Who married who, who had which kids, who died and how. At the top we have Jameson and Louisa Gross, Lloyd and Bethany Hogan, Marilyn and Egbert Richards. They each have two kids who have kids. The married and kids part we get down, but how they died seems fuzzy. There are newspaper articles, gossip columns, and, somewhere buried in there, the truth. The articles say Ned and Mort both died in accidents shortly after the neighbors heard their cousin Red, Reggie’s grandfather, fighting with them over the rights to their land.
Maybe Elliot’s right.
The first thing I feel as I flip my pillow to the cool side is Lu
cy’s wet nose.
“Go back to sleep,” I tell her as I wriggle farther down into my sheets.
Her cold nose goes from slight lean-in to full-on nudge.
My clock flashes 6:30 a.m. “Lucy, it’s way too early for a Saturday morning.” Lucy licks my face in the get-up-I’ve-got-to-pee kind of way. Which by all her squirming, baying, and nudging seems like it could be right now.
The rain’s falling hard.
As I grab my jacket and step into my slippers, Lucy pees in the middle of my carpet.
“Really?”
Then she kisses my face.
I bring her downstairs and weave around a new pile of Gram’s boxes sitting in the middle of the welcome area to let Lucy outside. Then I trudge back upstairs to clean my carpet because, after all, people are counting on us at the Greene Family B&B. When Lucy comes back inside, she brings me a soggy toilet paper roll and a tennis ball.
I look out the window and see the sparrows at the bird feeder. Since most of the world is still asleep, I work on the new puzzle for a while. It’s a litter of beagles. I put in the last piece on the far right and connect the frame. Now to tackle the cookies. I drag the stepstool over to grab the vanilla and see a slip of paper stuck to the back of Gram’s favorite cookbook. It’s a recipe for My Famous Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. I read through the ingredients, and written on the bottom are the words I love you more than these cookies! A smiley face with no nose is the only signature.
Mom.
I remember the nose-less smiley face and the best cookies ever.
In twenty minutes, I’m tasting the batter, and in thirty, the cookies are in the oven.
“What are you doing awake at this hour?” Gram asks as she walks into the kitchen and pours herself a cup of hot water. She gave up the tea bag a while back. Now it’s just hot water, honey, and lemon. I look at Lucy.
She nods, picks up the recipe and her eyes smile. “I remember these. Where did you get this?”
“It was stuck to the back of The Baking Life.”
Gram’s face goes soft the way it does whenever we talk about Mom. She says loss is hardest when it’s out of order. I don’t know. I think loss is always hard.
Gone is gone.
And gone stinks.
Gram looks at me with warm eyes, “Love you, Smart Cookie.”
“Love you, too.”
Then she walks over to the boxes. “Oh, great, they got here.”
“What is all this stuff?” I ask.
“Some baskets, a few ocean breeze candles, but mostly hangers.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you buy more candles and baskets and hangers?”
“I need them,” she says, like it’s as obvious as putting mustard on a hot dog. “Now, how about some cinnamon French toast to go with those cookies?”
Lucy’s ears perk up. My stomach growls a loud yes.
Nutmeg and cinnamon share the air with peanut butter and chocolate. I tell Gram we need to make a room spray that smells just like this. She agrees. We decide we’ll call it Baked.
Soon Gram’s French toast lines the counter, enough for the entire B&B. I drizzle, then pour over my stack the syrup Dad got from the Lawrence’s sugar bush. “Gram, these are amazing.”
“They were your mom’s favorite.” She pulls out the chair and sits down next to me. Her soft hands rest on top of mine.
“Nice jeans.” She’s wearing the ones I helped her pick out. Thankfully, she took my advice—it was these or a pair with an elastic waist.
“Thanks.” Her voice sounds weird. Not scratchy or froggy or gone like when she lost it cheering on the Patriots during the first home game of the season. It’s nothing I can point to, just not regular Gram.
“You, okay?” I ask in between bites of my French toast.
“Of course.”
“What’s with the perfume?” She never trails a scent, and today she smells like the lilac bushes Dad planted next to the shed.
She smiles and says nothing.
“What’s going on?”
She moves the wayward hair away from my face. Her hand smells like nutmeg.
“Nothing.”
I know this means we’re done talking about it, so I give her a hug and text Jessica. I’m not doing this project alone. She can’t ignore me forever.
No response.
I email.
No reply.
I call.
Right to voice mail.
Mr. and Mrs. Mendelson join us. “Good morning!” Mr. Mendelson says cheerfully. “Nine hours and counting until I get to remarry my bride!” He grabs Mrs. Mendelson and dances around the room.
“It’ll be a great party,” I say as I open Trinket Treasures and dive in, eyes closed.
I feel a smooth stone, small clock, pocketknife, ring, snake-shaped pin, bottle opener, deck of cards, and a piece of hard candy (likely from Mr. Rubin in Candy Land—he owns a candy store!). I tuck the sour apple sucker in my pocket for later.
Gram takes a long sip of her hot water.
I try Jessica again. We need a project plan.
Radio silence.
Then a new message. When I look down, it’s not Jessica, but Evelyn, Possible #2, agreeing to the plan to meet.
I run up to my room two steps at a time and pull up Evelyn’s photo again. With her curly brown hair and nice eyebrows, she kind of reminds me of Mom. Not sure if that’s weird.
“Brad” messages her back and confirms the time of their date.
No message, voice mail, return text from Jessica-call-me-Jess. I grab my bag and tell Gram I’ll be back when my Shakespeare project’s done or at least started.
The apartment where Jessica lives is only a few blocks over. I tug my hat down to cover my ears. The frost from the night still lays across the blades of grass, but the sun’s slowly pushing the chill from the air.
I knock, but no one answers. I stand on my tiptoes and can see Jessica in the kitchen.
I ring the doorbell.
No answer.
I call.
Nothing.
Then I push gently on the door.
I’m totally unprepared for what I see.
The smell of garbage smacks me in the face. Dirty dishes are piled in the sink, macaroni and cheese decorates the counter and the floor, and Jessica’s sister cries in her arms. I hear something to my right. I turn and see Jessica’s mom, the one who used to make us banana chocolate chip pancakes every Saturday morning, the one who’s supposed to be running the float, asleep on the couch. In her clothes. Her hair’s stuck to her face and her body imprint on the floral fabric is deep.
Jessica spins around. “What. Are. You. Doing. In. My. House?”
I have no good answer.
“I, um, was, um trying to reach you about the, um, Shakespeare thing.” I crack my knuckles and try to think of a better answer. But I realize there is none.
“And when you didn’t hear back from me, you decided the next move was to walk through my front door?” Leila stops crying for a moment and rests her head on her big sister’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry. I just thought—”
Jessica walks toward me still holding Leila. “I don’t care what you thought. Get out!”
Her mom groans, and Jessica’s face turns a mix of blue and barf green. She’s seen this before.
“Now!”
I step back. “Jessica, come on.”
“Leave.”
“Don’t be like this. We used to be friends. Good friends.”
She looks over at her mom. “That was a long time ago.”
Another groan from the parental.
“What’s going on?” This picture is so far from the happily ever after I imagined in my head. Even without her dad, I thought things were different. Better. Not this.
“You don’t get to ask me that. Now leave.”
Leila gives me a gentle wave good-bye as Jessica backs me out of the apartment and slams
the door.
I sit on a bench outside and take out Macbeth. As I reread Act 1, I wonder what kind of creative project I can come up with.
Alone.
When I get to Headquarters, I check Dad’s profile. There’s one new message.
Brad,
I’d love to meet you. And I can’t wait to introduce you to Nugget, Peaches, Mr. Kazoo, and Princess Pie, my cats. I’m sure we’ll all love the B&B.
Signed,
Cat Momma
Four cats plus one beagle plus one hedgehog plus one allergic Gram equals a big fat no. Delete.
Elliot bursts through the cardboard door. “You’re not going to believe what I found out,” he says as he opens his computer to an entire folder filled with lists dedicated to the Hogan family.
Marriages
Kids
Property Owned/Rented
Known Disputes
Pets
“Reggie’s great-uncle had a marmoset monkey. It was actually pretty cute—big eyes and a white face.”
At least Cat Momma didn’t have a pet monkey. “What does that have to do with Reggie and the maybe ghost?”
“Nothing.”
I hand him one of Mom’s cookies. I had packed a couple as sort of a peace offering for Jessica, but they never made it out of my bag.
He takes a bite and stares at me. “These are amazing. New?”
“Mom’s recipe.”
He gets a weird look on his face. Worry mixed with have-you-lost-your-mind.
“Relax, I don’t think she was resurrected to make me a batch of cookies. Although, that would totally work for me.”
His face relaxes.
“I found this old recipe of hers.”
He shoves the rest of the cookie into his mouth.
I slump down next to him. My mind goes back to Jessica. When we were little, we’d sit in here and she’d pinkie-swear tell me her secrets while I wrapped her hair into the perfect princess bun.
“Can you believe it?” Elliot asks.
The confusion on my face tells him that I haven’t heard anything he’s said. I hand him an apology cookie. “Sorry.”
“What’s up with you? You stuck on the mom-parade thing?”
