by Rachel Vail
CJ turned to me. I had to look her in the eyes, her wide, vulnerable green eyes, which were flicking around my face, begging for approval. “Well,” I said. What could I say? As talented as she is, she was also right—it was her decision. It might not be the choice I’d have made in her position, but I had to respect her for following her own conscience. Sometimes she seems so eager to please her mother she forgets to be a person herself. “Congratulations,” I told her.
“Thanks,” CJ said gratefully. “And I’m coming apple picking, too.”
Morgan’s head snapped up to look at CJ. “You are?” she asked.
I unwrapped my box of pretzel sticks to keep from reminding Morgan she had already asked me to sit with her. Last year when we went to the waste disposal plant, I didn’t care one single bit who I sat with. I think I ended up with Gabriela Shaw one way and Roxanne Luse the other, and I read a book the whole time. It was strange to me that I cared, this year—cared a lot, honestly.
I shoved the box of pretzels at Morgan, who took some and smiled gently at me. I looked away and offered some pretzels to Zoe, who usually grabs a handful but this time she shook her head. I held the box in front of CJ, who never accepts. This time she did.
“I handed in my permission slip today,” she told us proudly, and took a loud bite of the three pretzel sticks.
I felt like I should say something to her. “I was wondering why your name was finally erased from Ms. Cress’s board,” I managed.
“That’s why,” she answered.
Morgan blew the bangs away from her eyes. “I guess we won’t be having a class trip to see you in The Nutcracker this year, then,” she said to CJ.
CJ’s smile sunk a little.
Morgan crumpled my lunch bag and tossed it over me and CJ into the garbage can. We all watched it arc in perfectly. Then she leaned toward me and whispered, “You ready to go outside?”
I shoved the last bunch of pretzels into my mouth and nodded as I chewed them and stood up, all at the same time. I tried to think of something else to say to CJ, but nothing came to mind.
“As if you’d tell your mother,” Morgan muttered to me as I hurried after her, down the hall.
“My mother probably knows already,” I said. “They talk every day.”
“Some people,” Morgan started, but then said, “Forget it,” and pushed out the door. She paced around the perimeter of the playground, dragging her fingers along the metal fence. She hung her head, hiding her eyes behind her bangs, and pushed her lower jaw forward, not saying a word. I started chattering like a bimbo, but I couldn’t help myself. I knew I was acting foolish, the way CJ used to—hustling to keep up the pace with Morgan, complimenting her, asking her if she was OK. She ignored me and when the bell rang, sprinted in alone.
In English/social studies, I passed her a second note when she didn’t answer my first, assuring her I wasn’t planning on saying anything to my mother in case that’s what she was mad about. I was annoying myself, not to mention Morgan.
We were in different groups for gym, which gave me a rest from pursuing her, and I spent the time berating myself—Have a little self-respect, would you, please?—but after, when we were changing in the locker room, unable to stop myself, I slid over next to her. “If you want to talk . . .” I said.
Obviously she didn’t want to talk because if she wanted to talk she would talk.
“I’m here,” I added, in case somehow she’d managed not to notice.
She turned her back to me and took off her white gym top and in the same motion, pulled on her blue shirt. I considered telling her it was a nice shirt, but miraculously exercised my first moment of self-restraint in over two hours and stood up instead, and went back to my own locker. She slammed her locker shut and said, “Don’t.”
I turned back around. Morgan was walking toward me. Poor Gabriela Shaw, who was putting on her pants sitting on the bench between Morgan and me, pulled her long legs in and scrunched up as small as she could to get out of Morgan’s way. I shrunk down into my shoulders, wondering if Morgan was about to punch me.
Morgan stood in front of me, too close, and whispered, “I’m not bringing any junk food for the trip, Monday.”
I swallowed. “OK,” I said.
She didn’t move away, and I started wondering if I had misinterpreted what she said. She’d said it as if it would insult me, or as if it were of terrible consequence. I couldn’t, as hard as I tried, think of a deep and consequential meaning of her not bringing junk food for the trip.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” I whispered, and then since she didn’t seem to have any reaction to that, I added, “I’m getting braces this afternoon anyway so I couldn’t eat junk food anyway, so I’m not bringing any either, so it really doesn’t matter to me at all. Anyway.”
She stood there for another few seconds, and just when I was starting to feel another big babble about to vomit itself out of my mouth, she turned away. Thank goodness. She almost knocked Gabriela off the bench again. Gabriela and I shrugged at each other. Morgan grabbed her backpack and stormed out of the locker room.
thirteen
Morgan was waiting for me outside the locker room door. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m not great at dealing with somebody being nice to me.”
I shrugged.
We walked together out to the bike rack.
“There’s just,” Morgan whispered to me. “There’s a lot going on at my house right now. I need to talk to somebody. Not need, but . . .”
“You could try me,” I suggested.
Morgan bent over her bike. “My mom was laid off.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Yeah. No big deal, you know, it’s just, I can’t exactly ask her for junk food money when she can’t even manage lunches, if you know what I mean.”
“Sure,” I said. I didn’t know what to do and wished I had something to give her. My own lunch gurgled around in my belly. “Oh, no. I’m really sorry I said that thing about dieting. Before. I didn’t realize.”
“That’s OK.” Morgan snapped open her bike lock. “Anyway, I don’t know why I told you. It’s not like I need sympathy, or anything.” She blinked a few times.
I thought of touching her shoulder, but then I thought that might make her cry even more. I felt honored she was trusting me with her secret, and I didn’t want to mess it up. I wasn’t sure what to do.
“You won’t tell anybody, right?” she asked, flicking her long hair back from her face. “Not even your mother.”
I shook my head.
“Not that it matters, it’s just, I’m not supposed to tell anybody.”
“I won’t say anything.” I crossed my heart. “I swear.”
“Thanks.” Morgan blinked a few times and looked up at the sky.
I put my arm around her, and she leaned slightly down toward me, until her head rested on my shoulder. We stood there like that for a while.
“You’re gonna be late,” she said.
I gasped, yanked my arm off her, and looked at my watch. It was already three-fifteen; I was supposed to be in the orthodontist’s chair already.
“You want me to ride you?”
“No,” I said. “That’s OK, I don’t need . . .”
“You’ll be really late.”
“I can walk fast.”
“Fine, ’bye.” She yanked her bike out of the rack.
“Hey!”
“Hey yourself,” she said. “You could need me sometime, too, you know.” A tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.
“OK,” I said.
“Forget it.”
“No,” I said, touching the seat of her bike. “Please? I’m so late.”
She wiped her nose. “Hold onto me,” she said. “I won’t let you fall. Don’t worry.”
I climbed ont
o her bike as she held it steady. I glanced around, hoping my brother was long gone. My toes just reached the pavement. I leaned forward to hold the handlebars while Morgan unhooked the helmet and held it out to me.
“No,” I protested. “It’s yours. You should wear it.”
She placed the helmet on my head. “I never do.”
“You should. It’s really unsafe . . .”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” She tightened the strap under my chin. “I have a hard head, really.” She turned away and hiked her right leg over the crossbar. “A thick skull and small brain.”
I wiggled the helmet to fit better over my pigtails. “I don’t feel great about this,” I told her. “What would my mom say?”
“Not that she’ll ever know,” Morgan said. “CJ tells her mother everything.”
I buckled my helmet under my chin and fiddled with the strap.
“Her mother is one of the things that came between me and her. Mothers don’t like me.”
I swallowed. “Mine does.”
“I wasn’t fishing for compliments. Even my own mother doesn’t like me much. Hold my waist,” she said. “And just lean with me.”
“OK.” I didn’t know where to put my feet so I held them straight out.
“Just relax,” she yelled as she started pedaling. “You have to trust me.”
“I do,” I insisted. We were coming up to the curb so I yelled, “Careful!”
She jerked her head toward me. We toppled off the bike onto the road. No cars were coming, luckily. Her knee was skinned, but otherwise we were both fine.
“Sorry,” I said, disentangling myself from her bike.
“Don’t do that,” she scolded, lifting it off the ground.
“Maybe this is too dangerous.”
“You have to just go with me, let me watch out. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.” We got on again. I gripped her waist with my hands—she felt very solid. I, on the other hand, was shaking. As we rounded the corner at the end of the circle, she leaned into the turn, but I felt like we were about to capsize again so I leaned the other way and over we went.
“You have to lean with me,” she repeated. “Stop trying to steer!”
“I can’t help it.”
“Then we’re just going to keep landing on the pavement!”
“Maybe I should ride you,” I suggested. “It might be easier for me, that way”
“My bike’s too big for you,” she pointed out.
“I could just walk. It’s OK if I’m a few minutes late.”
“Fine.”
“Want to walk with me?”
She shrugged.
“That would be great,” I said pleadingly. “Please?”
I walked along the curb, and she walked on the sidewalk, with the bike between us.
fourteen
The next morning, I found her barefoot on my front porch.
Her knees were propped under her chin and her tan arms were wrapped tight around her muscular legs. Her long, shiny hair fell over her eyes. She was rocking slightly while she waited. Anybody else would’ve rung the doorbell.
I had wandered into the kitchen and found Dex, standing in his boxer shorts and staring out the window as the water overflowed the glass he was holding under the tap. He’s an environmentalist, so it was unlike him to be wasting water. “What are you doing?” I asked him, and looked out to the front porch, where he was focused.
“How long has she been there?” I asked Dex.
He turned off the water and took a sip from his glass, still staring out the window at her. “Don’t know,” he answered.
We stood beside each other staring out at her for another minute. Dex finished his water and placed the glass in the sink. Water is the only beverage he’ll drink. People think he’s so easygoing, but actually he’s just charming. He has a great smile, slow and knowing, which makes people think he’s carefree. He flashed it at me. “Should we rescue her?” he asked, drying his hand on his hair.
“She’s not a kitten,” I answered, and padded over to the front door, my tube socks muffling my footsteps on the white tiles of the entrance hall. Dex’s bare feet slapped along behind me. We use the back door, usually, so it took me a minute to fumble with the front door lock.
She didn’t jump or gasp when I sat down next to her on the top step. “How long have you been here?” I asked.
“Are you busy?” she asked.
“No.” I pulled my knees up into the big gray sweatshirt I’d slept in.
“If you’re busy, I could go,” she said.
I looked back at Dex, who was leaning against the open front door, standing there in just his boxer shorts. “Yes?” I asked him.
“Aren’t you gonna invite her in?”
Morgan turned to look at him. Her sandals, neatly aligned, sat between us. I touched the black strap on the one closer to me and asked her, “You want to come in?”
She shrugged, slowly looking away from Dex. “Nah.”
“Why did you come over?” I asked her.
“How are the braces?” she whispered.
“They kill,” I admitted. “It took all afternoon, yesterday, getting them on, and I haven’t been able to eat since.”
“They don’t look too bad.” She glanced back at Dex. He smiled his slow smile, then stepped inside and closed the door softly.
I drew my breath in hard, to gather my spit, which was a major new challenge with the braces.
Mom pushed the door open and peeked out. “Oh, hi, Morgan,” she said. “I didn’t know you were here. What a day, huh? Can you believe I have to spend it at the museum?” She stepped out onto the porch with her shoes dangling from one hand and her yellow pocketbook looped over her shoulder. She sighed, looking up at the sky through her wire-rimmed glasses, then sat down on the porch swing. As she leaned back, she lifted her shiny black braid out of the way and draped it over her shoulder. “Ugh,” she grunted, settling in. “So? What’s new?”
Morgan looked at me.
“Nothing,” I answered.
“How are you, Morgan?” Mom asked her. “How’s your mother doing?”
I shrugged at Morgan and shook my head. I hadn’t said anything to Mom about Morgan’s mother. Mom was just being polite.
“Fine, thank you, Dr. Pogostin,” Morgan mumbled. My mom has a Ph.D., but most people just call her Betsy.
“Send her my regards,” Mom told Morgan. “Oh, what a day. You girls don’t want to come to the museum, do you?” She wiggled her shoes onto her feet.
“No, thanks,” I said. “We were, um, thinking maybe we’d go to, um, Sundries.”
“Oh, right,” Mom said. “I forgot, you said something about wanting to get some junk food for the bus ride. Here.” She reached into her pocketbook and pulled out a twenty. “Bring me change, please, miss,” she told me.
I was so embarrassed. I took the money and folded it quickly. “I will,” I told her. “I probably can’t eat any, anyway.”
“Maybe some sucking candy. Right, Morgan?”
“Right,” Morgan mumbled.
Mom stood up, came over, and kissed me. “’Bye, sweetheart. Have fun. ’Bye, Morgan. Make sure Olivia doesn’t just get healthy food, huh? So responsible.” She smiled and went back inside.
“I didn’t say anything,” I swore to Morgan.
She held her feet in her hands.
“I didn’t!” I shook her by the knee. “Trust me.”
“I believe you,” she said.
“Good,” I said. “Did you eat breakfast?”
She glared at me.
“Because I didn’t,” I explained. “Want some oatmeal? I’m starving.”
“Me, too,” she said.
She followed me into the kitchen. I heated some water in the kettle, emptie
d two envelopes of instant oatmeal into bowls, and placed them on the table. She nibbled at the dried apples in her bowl while she waited. After I poured the water in, she said, “Your hair looks good like that.”
I touched my hair. “It doesn’t know what ethnicity to be.”
“It must be so . . . cool,” Morgan said, swallowing a big mouthful of oatmeal.
“What?”
“Being, you know—having . . . ethnicities. What you said. I’m boring, just Irish and English. Nothing.”
I sat down next to her. She watched me. I knew it was my turn to insult myself, to make it an even exchange. “My nose is so wide,” I said tentatively. “And I hate my lips.”
“You have nice lips!” Morgan pulled a napkin from the holder on the table and wiped her own mouth. “What’s wrong with your lips?”
I took a napkin, too. “They’re almost the same color as my skin, and thin.”
“You’re lucky,” she said. “My mouth is too big for my face.” She opened her mouth wide to demonstrate.
“At least you have straight teeth.” I opened my mouth and showed my new hardware.
“You’ll get used to them soon,” Morgan assured me. “It’s amazing what a person can get used to.”
I smiled at her, and we finished our breakfast.
She washed the dishes while I got dressed and tugged my hair into pigtail braids. Then we walked slowly to Sundries. It was the first time, really, that I felt totally relaxed with Morgan. It really felt like we were best friends. I kicked her a rock and she kicked it back. I decided that someday when I look back, this was a moment I should remember in my life. We walked along in rhythm with each other, our legs stepping in unison, like soldiers’ legs.
As we got to the strip, Morgan asked, “Can you believe CJ?”
“That she quit dance?” I asked, slurping again.
“Unbelievable,” Morgan said. “Not you. Don’t worry about it. I mean, CJ. I can’t believe she really quit ballet.”
“What a waste,” I agreed. “She was born to be a ballerina.”
I pulled open the door of Sundries and held it for her. She walked past me, her sandals thwacking against the tile floor. I followed her up the toy aisle, straight to the back where the cards are.
