by Rachel Vail
“It’s the Grand One,” Morgan whispered. “I think she’s a bad influence on CJ.” Her lower jaw slipped a little forward, and she narrowed her eyes. “Her and Tommy, both.”
Morgan was looking through the birthday and anniversary cards, lifting one after another out of the rack, opening each partway, reading it, then carefully replacing it in the rack. She didn’t look amused by any of them. In fact, from the look of grim determination on her face, they might as well have been division flash cards. I read a few myself. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Morgan wiping her eyes.
“You OK?” I asked. I slurped the spit back into my mouth and thought about the two Tylenols in my pocket. I wasn’t supposed to take them for another hour. My mouth ached so terribly I didn’t know how I was going to make it.
She said, “Fine,” but then sniffed.
“You like Tommy Levit, don’t you?” I whispered. “You can tell me. Is that why you’re mad at CJ? For going out with him?”
“No,” she grunted. “Tommy is a jerk. And so is CJ. They deserve each other. They don’t want to be with me? I don’t want to be with them. Who needs ’em, right?”
“Right.”
“I’m looking for a card for you. For getting your braces.”
“Really?”
“How about ‘Good luck in your new home’?” She held out a card with some mice carrying suitcases from one hole in the wall to another.
I smiled. She put it back and pulled out another.
“How about ‘I’ll miss you’? I could address it to your teeth.”
I laughed. “My teeth might appreciate that,” I said, which made her laugh, too. She bent her head so that her silky hair fell over my face, as we laughed together. She and CJ used to laugh like that, all last year, both of them tangled up in Morgan’s shiny hair. I’d watched them over the tops of my books, sometimes.
“‘Sorry for your loss,’” Morgan read from a soft-focus sympathy card, and we cracked up again. “‘Please know I’m here for you at this most difficult time,’” she read.
I pushed my lower lip away from the bottom braces with my tongue, and covered my mouth with my hand. I looked up, searching for a thank you card to read Morgan in response, but instead I saw CJ and Zoe, standing near the checkout counter, staring back at us.
fifteen
They both waved. Morgan and I waved back. After a few seconds, CJ and Zoe started walking toward us.
“Don’t say anything,” Morgan whispered to me.
“At all?” I whispered back.
Morgan laughed silently and shoved me lightly. “You’re so funny,” she whispered, her hand cupped around my ear.
CJ asked me how my braces were. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be literally silent, so I just opened my lips to display the glinting evidence.
“Wow,” Zoe said. “Does it hurt?”
“It killed, getting them on,” I answered. “And I can’t eat anything. I’m starving.” I slapped my hand over my mouth. Morgan bumped me with her shoulder. When I glanced at her, she was smirking and not looking back at me.
“Did your mother drive you guys here?” CJ asked.
I didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but then I started feeling just plain rude so, with my hand still covering my mouth, I told CJ, “We walked.”
“Because your mother is at the museum until three, right?”
I nodded.
“Getting psyched for apple-picking?” CJ asked us, a big, fake-looking smile stretching out her pale face.
I wasn’t about to answer. I just stood there with my hand over the bottom half of my face.
“We’re buying some candy and stuff,” Morgan said gruffly.
OK, so we weren’t giving them the Silent Treatment. “Not that I can eat it,” I mumbled.
“We’ll buy some, too,” CJ offered.
Zoe shrugged. “I’m always up for candy.”
“You don’t still like Tommy, do you?” Morgan asked CJ. We all looked at her for a few seconds. Morgan carefully replaced the sympathy card she’d been holding in the rack. “After yesterday?”
“What?” Zoe asked.
Morgan looked at Zoe like she was shocked. “You don’t know?”
We all shook our heads.
“Even though CJ told Tommy not to fix up Zoe and Lou, he was going around the upper playground after school like, Zoe and Lou, Zoe and Lou—he was telling everybody you’re after him.” She shook her head at Zoe. “I thought you knew.”
I stared at Morgan. I couldn’t speak.
Zoe swallowed hard. I had to look away. What Morgan said was, of course, a total lie. I left school with her yesterday. She had tried riding me to the orthodontist yesterday on her bike. We didn’t even see Tommy, at all.
“I-I-I . . .” CJ stuttered.
I looked up at Morgan again and waited for her to correct herself.
“It’s not your fault,” Morgan said to CJ. “I mean, you shouldn’t have said anything to him in the first place, but once you told him to forget it, he didn’t have to be such a jerk.” She looked at me pleadingly.
I nodded and said, slowly, “That’s just cruel.”
Morgan tilted her head a little, still looking me in the eyes. I opened mine wide, trying to ESP her, What the hell are you doing?
Then, to my horror, I drooled. I sucked in quickly and said, “Sorry. It’s really hard to control your spit when you first get braces.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Morgan said. “We understand.”
Zoe and CJ nodded.
“Thanks,” I said to Morgan. “See? That’s what I mean. Girls are so much nicer than boys.” Hint, hint.
“He really did that?” Zoe asked Morgan. She looked up, her big blue eyes frightened and sad.
I turned back to Morgan, who said, “I thought you knew.”
CJ and Zoe shook their heads. I shook mine, too. A week ago, I just would’ve said, That’s a lie! But this week, I don’t know. Morgan’s my best friend, and it’s complicated, but I felt like I had to wait and confront her later, privately. Maybe I’m developing tact, I told myself. It felt like an excuse.
“That’s why I thought,” Morgan said, looking down at her feet. She stopped, and I thought she might be about to tell the truth after all, and I congratulated myself on having given her the chance to do it herself. “Well,” she said.
I smiled to myself.
“I figured CJ probably broke up with him,” Morgan said. “I would. But, whatever.”
“I’m going to,” CJ said.
“Really?” Zoe asked.
I shook my head at Morgan, who sucked her lips into her mouth and looked away.
CJ stammered, “That’s just, I mean, that’s so cruel. And you’re my, you’re more important to me, than, so . . .”
“We have to stick together,” I said. Hello!
Morgan looked up from the ground into my eyes.
“Let’s find some sucking candy,” Morgan whispered.
Morgan found an eight-pack of Life Savers and asked if I liked them. I nodded. She handed them to me gently.
Zoe picked up a bag of miniature Snickers with a big sticker that said SNICKERS FUN SIZE and said, “Boy, this sure is a fun size!”
“I never had such fun,” Morgan said. “Not with any other size!”
“I’m having fun already,” CJ added.
“What?” I asked.
“Hey,” CJ said. “I was just thinking, when you said we have to stick together or whatever?”
“What about it?” Morgan asked.
“Well,” CJ said. “Zoe and I got these rings here last week, and I was thinking, wouldn’t it be great if you guys got them, too?”
“I don’t know,” Morgan said. She put the bag of SweetTarts she’d been considering back on the sh
elf, and dug her fists into her hips.
“It could be like a th-th-thing,” CJ said. “Like a, you know, like a bond. Between us.”
“Among us,” I told her. “Between is if there are only two.”
“Whatever,” CJ said, in an annoyed voice.
“I don’t know if Zoe wants us to,” Morgan said.
“Me?” Zoe asked.
How about me? I didn’t ask. Don’t forget to ask me!
Zoe smiled, but didn’t look directly at anybody. “They have plenty. In a bag. Under the thing. Counter. These aren’t the only two.”
Morgan looked at me, her eyes scanning my face. I knew she thought the rings were boring and ugly. I knew she didn’t think much of Zoe and that she and CJ weren’t getting along too well anymore. Her eyebrows were raised. I couldn’t tell what she wanted. I didn’t know if I wanted a friendship ring at all. I was confused and angry and my mouth hurt.
Morgan shrugged.
I whispered, “Do you want to?”
“I don’t have much money with me,” Morgan answered.
“I have, don’t worry,” CJ said, quickly and happily. “You only have to put down five dollars, then it’s two dollars a week, after.”
“Installment,” Zoe said. She picked up a bag of Hershey’s Bars and put it back without really looking at it.
CJ and Morgan were grinning at each other. Zoe and I followed them up to the counter. As we tried on rings, Morgan said, “Olivia’s fingers are so long and skinny, aren’t they?”
Zoe and CJ both agreed. I knew I was supposed to say, No, no, they’re short and fat, but I didn’t feel like it. “This one fits,” I said without smiling.
Morgan asked, “What’s wrong?”
I made some excuse about my braces hurting.
“Right, sorry. Let’s hurry,” Morgan said.
“You have beautiful hands,” Zoe told me. I looked at my hand as I waited for my mother’s change, less than I’d planned to be able to give back to her, but she wouldn’t mind. She’d be happy I was in a group, if that’s what makes me happy. She’d be surprised, though. I never wanted to be in a group before. I wasn’t even a Brownie.
The most popular group, that’s what we’d be, it was obvious.
Olivia Pogostin, popular girl.
It felt peculiar even to think those words. It’s not a way I’ve ever thought of myself. I have many goals, but popular has never been among them, and yet there I stood, wearing a friendship ring identical to the one being worn by the three most popular girls in seventh grade—rings that would declare our bonds of friendship, and shove our popularity in the faces of all the poor unchosens. Zoe Grandon, CJ Hurley, Morgan Miller, and, of all people, me.
sixteen
The ring really does look good on you,” Morgan told me, putting her arm around my shoulder as we walked down the sidewalk, away from Sundries.
I didn’t answer.
“What’s wrong?” Morgan asked.
I shrugged her arm off my shoulder. “You didn’t even see Tommy after school yesterday.”
“I saw him. Before you came out.”
“I walked out right behind you. You were never near the upper playground.”
“I meant . . .” She kicked a rock. “It was after . . . Oh, I get it.” She bumped me with her shoulder. “You like Tommy.”
“Tommy?” I asked. “Levit?”
“You can trust me. I won’t tell anybody, if you don’t want me to. CJ is breaking up with him, so he’s free. Go for it. You want me to talk to him for you?”
I stopped walking. “I don’t like him.”
“Who do you like?” She looked me in the eyes.
“Nobody.” I looked away, up at the stop sign at the corner. “I don’t like anybody.”
“Including me, obviously,” Morgan said.
“You know what I mean.” I couldn’t face her, with my lie hanging between us. But it’s not anybody’s business who I like, and anyway, that wasn’t the point. She was just distracting me.
She pulled the eight-pack of Life Savers out of the paper bag and offered it to me.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want candy. What you said made CJ feel terrible.”
“You should hear some of the things CJ says about you, and you would quit being so protective of her all the time.”
I shook my head and resisted my impulse to ask for details on that. “It’s not just about CJ’s feelings, anyway.”
Morgan was unwrapping the eight-pack. “Do you like butterscotch?”
“Morgan!”
She popped a butterscotch Life Saver into her mouth. “If you don’t like him, what do you care if Tommy was or wasn’t saying anything about Zoe and Lou, anyway?”
“Did you see Zoe’s face?”
“You have a friendship ring for half an hour and you think you’re Zoe’s big protector all of a sudden now, too?”
“No,” I said. “That is so not the point,” I told her.
“Oh, and what would the point be, professor?”
“Truth!”
“Oh, truth. Yes. We’re all pretty lucky to have you around to keep us honest, aren’t we?” She dropped to her knees and bowed down to me. “Blessed be holy Olivia, forgive us our trespasses.”
“You lied,” I said.
Morgan put up her hands in surrender. “Call the cops.” She stood up, turned away and walked two steps, then spun back and marched toward me. “You think you’re so mature. You think you’re always right. Let me tell you something, Olivia. You have no clue. You think you’re so much better than everybody? You’re not better. You’re just different. That’s what everybody thinks.”
I swallowed but didn’t look away, and asked her as calmly as I could, “Are you talking about the color of my skin?”
“No,” she said.
Neither of us moved. I didn’t know whether to believe her or not.
“That’s not what I meant at all,” Morgan said, pushing her face forward toward mine. “I can’t believe you would think that of me.”
I shrugged.
“You just called me a racist, basically.”
“I thought you were calling me . . . something.” I blinked a few times and looked down at my sneakers. I hope I’m the one in the wrong on this, I thought.
Morgan jammed her fists into her hips. “Your skin is practically the same color as mine, anyway.”
“So that’s why I’m OK? What if I were as dark as my dad?”
She shook her head. “Do you really think I care what color your skin is?”
“If you do,” I mumbled, “you’re wrong to.”
“I don’t. I can’t believe you! I can’t believe you would ever think that of me. Would I have a crush on your brother if I cared about skin color?”
“You have a crush on my brother?”
“Oh, grow up,” she said, stalking away from me toward the street. “Everybody has a crush on your brother.”
She started crossing Oakbrook Boulevard, without looking. A car sped toward her, horn blaring. I ran after her, grabbed her and yanked her back, just before the car would’ve slammed into her. We fell onto the grass together. I was on top of her. I rolled off and lay on my back, catching my breath.
“You don’t have to rescue me,” she growled, sitting up.
I slapped the ground. “I can’t do anything right!”
“No,” Morgan said, standing up and dusting herself off. “You can’t do anything wrong. That’s your problem.” She walked back toward the curb.
I grabbed her by the arm before she could step off and demanded, “What is that supposed to mean?”
She shook her arm out of my grasp. “Did you ever get less than an A, Olivia? Did you ever blow off preparing for a test, or take a risk, or do a stupid, reckless thing?”
“Stupid, reckless things don’t seem fun to me!” I yelled. “They seem stupid. And reckless.”
“Good,” she said coldly. “Then you’ll never get hurt. Stay safe, and alone.”
I took off my new friendship ring and threw it at her feet. “I like to be alone. I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody.”
“Obviously,” she said, kicking my ring lightly. “You’re right, you don’t need me. You’re right. Hooray for you, Olivia, you’re always right.”
“Here’s something I got wrong,” I told her with my hands on my hips. “I thought we were friends.”
“Come on,” Morgan said. She knelt down, picked up my ring, and placed it in the brown paper bag with the Life Savers. “Did you really think we were friends?”
I swallowed, barely trusting myself to answer without crying. “We’ve always been friends,” I managed.
She stood up. “Now who’s lying?”
I pictured being grabbed by Morgan, Monday morning, and dragged into school. I remembered how surprised I felt, all the beginning of this week. Has it only been a week?
“OK,” I said. “Since Monday.”
“Monday? Monday morning I just didn’t want to walk into school alone, and you happened to be there. You didn’t choose me. I barely chose you.”
“You’re the one who said, you wrote, you signed your note Your best friend. I have the note.”
“Congratulations. I’ll send the FBI over to get it.”
“Fine,” I said, clearing my throat. “So we’re not friends.”
She held the paper bag out to me. “You wanted the truth? There it is.”
I didn’t take the bag. Instead I turned my back to her and crossed the street without looking. I just had to get away from her.
A car’s brakes squealed, and I saw a bright red car hurtling toward me. I stopped, squeezed my eyes closed, and waited for the impact. All my muscles cramped. But I wasn’t hit. I wasn’t hurt. The driver of the car driver pounded on his horn. I took a deep breath, opened my eyes, and continued across the street. I didn’t look back at Morgan. I wanted to be the one walking away from her this time.
