by Susie Salom
“Is that why it’s called circular power?” Reed asks.
“Look at you.” Coach smiles. “The two of you should be teaching this class, not me.”
Oh, go on.
After showing us how to stand a bit more, Coach moves on to the next pair. Reed and I glance at each other then fold our arms in front of us to start. I spread mine like wings to circle them when I spot Sheroo outside the door in the hall. She’s mouthing something but I have no idea what she’s trying to say. Reed looks over his shoulder and notices her, too.
“I think she needs to talk to you,” Reed tells me as she slaps both hands on her legs and stomps. “Either that or she’s having some sort of attack.”
I glance at Coach and tell Reed, “Cover for me.”
Then I sprint to the door and slide into the hall.
“What is the matter with you?” I say. “You look like—”
“What is the meaning of this?”
She lifts the note Donna told me to give to Brooke.
“Why do you have that?” I ask.
“You can’t go to Sasha’s party but you’re having a secret party at Donna’s with all your new friends and you invite Brooke but not me! You are such a liar and a sneak!”
“Sheroo—”
“You can forget about sitting with me at lunch,” she hisses. “Sit with Donna and whoever this Cameron is and”—she looks through the door of the gym and lowers her voice—“Reed! You knew I like him and you’re purposely not inviting me because you want the chance to have him all to yourself!”
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s just smashing,” she says in a weird voice. “Just look at you two! Partners for gym. Why don’t you just throw yourself into his arms and get it over with!”
“Sheroo!”
“You are a selfish friend, Constantini. And don’t forget what comes around goes around!”
She tosses the note at my feet and turns on one heel, booking it out of the building in a galactic huff. I pick up Donna’s note and try to stick it in my pocket but can’t because I’ve got on my big, fat gym shorts and they have no pockets.
I walk back into P.E. on rubbery legs only to find Ino giving me a crummy grin.
“I’m telling,” he says.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I answer, stopping myself before I call him Doublefart. Or worse.
“You’re passing notes out of class,” he says.
“Just leave me alone, Ino.”
He flicks my fedora off my head and it sails to the ground.
“It ain’t over between me and you,” he tells me. “So, watch your back, Wonder Woman.”
I stand there with my face getting hot until Coach says, “Stay with your partners.”
I feel a nudge on my arm and turn to look at Reed. He’s picked up my fedora and is holding it out to me.
“What are you, her little bodyguard now?” Ino asks Reed.
“She said leave her alone, mate.”
Ino steps up to Reed. He’s about half a foot taller than Reed. Not to mention kinda, I don’t know, meatier. Looking at him get in Reed’s face, I almost can’t believe I socked him.
Reed shakes the bangs out of his eyes. “This isn’t what you want.”
“Oh, and how do you know what I want, you little British monkey nut?”
I’m amazed Reed doesn’t even squeeze his fists.
“What you want,” Reed tells Ino, “is respect. And you’re not gonna get it picking on girls half your size.”
“Nevarez.” Coach is standing next to us. He seriously comes out of nowhere. Like the Ghost of T’ai Chi Future. “It’s imperative you remain with your partners.”
“My partner ain’t here today, Coach,” Ino says. “My good friend Reed here was just helping me push hands.” He grits his teeth at Reed when he says it.
“You’re absolutely right,” Coach tells Ino. “Miss Diamond isn’t here today. My fault entirely. I’ll need to set you up with a temporary partner. How about myself ?”
Ino looks stunned. I think maybe he’s never heard anyone tell him he’s absolutely right before.
I know I haven’t.
Ino steps away from Reed and me. “All gravy, Coach.”
I stare at Coach as he leads Ino to the other side of the gym without so much as touching the edge of his shoulder.
“Don’t let him bait you, Fedora.” Reed swipes at his cheek with the back of his wrist. “Not worth it,” he says. “I promise you, this sort of thing is never worth it.”
I nod dumbly.
At the end of class, I sneak a peek into Coach’s tiny office—squished between the boys’ locker room and the girls’—on my way out. There’s a cloth poster with a saying on it, pinned neatly and straightly to the middle of the back wall.
BE WATER, MY FRIEND.
At lunch, I’m sitting with Brooke and Marcy while Sheroo is laughing it up with Sasha and a couple other fuzz balls. (Okay, friends.) Sheroo’s pretending to ignore me. I know she’s faking because she keeps itching her shoulder with her chin so she can look back at our table. I want to go over and explain how the party at Donna’s wasn’t even my idea—that it’s for NAVS—but Sasha kind of makes me feel like I’m not very cool. She’s not super beautiful or anything but she does always have interesting clothes. And then everyone starts wearing something just because she did.
For example, today. Two of the girls at Sheroo and Sasha’s table are wearing things with zebra stripes. Meantime, Sasha’s in a sweatshirt that looks about as sturdy as toilet paper and is sliding off her shoulder. I’d be willing to bet that by the end of the week half those girls will be wearing see-through sweater tops that are three sizes too big.
Sasha’s also got on earrings that hang down like pieces of chandelier and some shiny mint-green lip gloss. It’s pretty but, man, I hate lip gloss. It always makes my hair stick to my mouth and then I end up spending half my life trying to spit it back out.
“Did you give the note to Reed?”
I turn to see Donna standing like a shadow over our table. I blink and pull the note from my pocket. “No, but you can if you want.”
Reed is sitting by himself on a stack of red and navy gym mats by the corner, away from the crowd. He’s munching on a nectarine and looking totally into his comic book.
“Well, I’ve already got Reed’s check mark so maybe I’ll just find Cameron myself,” she says. “I’ll pass out maps to my house tomorrow, but don’t give them to anybody outside of NAVS.”
She walks away before I can say anything back. I probably wouldn’t have said what I was thinking anyway, which is that I don’t think anyone outside NAVS wants a map to her house but whatever.
“I think your friend might be a little mad at you,” Marcy tells me.
I lift a shoulder and pull a banana out of my lunch sack. “Donna’s always moody these days.”
“I don’t mean her,” Marcy says. Then she looks past me and I know she must be talking about Sheroo.
I glance at Brooke who takes a surprisingly quiet bite of a carrot stick and raises one eyebrow. Curiosity starts to burn a hole in my brain so I turn a little in the bench to look. Sheroo’s staring right at me as she whispers something in the ear of a girl I don’t know. When she sees I’ve spotted them, she flips around to face away from our table and tosses her hair.
I swivel back to Marcy and Brooke only to find Cameron standing by our table.
“I look forward to working with both of you,” he tells Brooke and me.
Then he backs away and walks off to where Reed is sitting. Reed’s finished his nectarine and has the pit sticking halfway out his mouth. He doesn’t move anything but his eyes when he notices Cameron. Cameron tells him something and Reed sets down his copy of Wolverine before offering his hand. Cameron glances at it before reaching his own hand out all funny—like he’s afraid Reed’s gonna take it and forget to give it back. Reed spits the pit out and tosses it by his comic book before hopping off the ma
ts and taking Cameron’s hand like they’re gonna arm wrestle. Then he shows Cameron the three-strings-on-a-cup shake and fist bump, which Cameron picks up pretty quick, surprisingly.
Reed jerks his chin at Cameron and climbs back up on the mats. Cameron gives Reed a half smile then walks away, looking a little taller. Reed follows him with his eyes and smiles his laughing-on-the-inside smile and something deep inside my kidneys goes squish.
Because even though he doesn’t have a freckle—just a gap in his teeth big enough to suck a fettuccine through—I think I might be starting to like Reed Youngblood a tiny bit better than Chris Dixey.
“What do you think, Keith?”
Mom’s slapping a nasty scoop of soybean casserole onto Dad’s plate as I twist my hands beneath the table.
“It’s for NAVS, Mom,” I say. “I have to go because Principal Bracamontes said.”
Mom gives me a look like I just socked her in the gut and Meowsie closes his eyes slowly and shakes his head.
I know.
Shouldn’t have said anything about my visit to the principal’s office. Chunkface move.
“Did you know they launched Pac-Man for the smartphone this year?” Dad says.
“Keith, put that thing away at the table,” Mom says. “What kind of example are you giving the twins? Roger, get off the phone and come and eat your dinner!” she calls out to my older brother in the den. “Your food’ll be colder than a dead man’s tuchis!”
“That’s charming, Nick.” Dad spreads his hand over the touch screen like a magician and enlarges whatever he’s looking at.
I wish I could do that in real lives. I’d make enormous pillows out of the ones on my bed and build a cloud mansion with those bridges that get pulled up to keep out all the gorgons. Either that or I’d blow up Dad’s old electronic Simon and use it for the floor of a disco.
Mom moves around the table and snatches the tablet away. Dad flashes both palms and makes a face.
“Eat.” Mom points at his plate. “And please help me decide whether or not to allow Kyle to go to the Donahues’ house tomorrow afternoon. Circe, honey, for the hundredth time get down from there.”
Mom lifts our cat, paws spread out like she’s in the middle of a skydive, from the edge of Roger’s place mat and sets her on the ground. Circe meows and bolts in the direction of her food bowl.
“I don’t see what there is to decide,” Dad says. “We told her she could go to the meetings. The principal says she has to go.” He lifts a forkful to his mouth and makes another face. “Michael, pass your father the salt.”
Meowsie tries to hand the shaker to Dad but Mom gets to it first.
Interception.
“You need to lower your sodium intake,” Mom says. “We all do.”
“Nicki, that is such outmoded thinking. Only iodized salt is bad for you. I deliberately bought the sea salt—”
“Roger!” Mom bellows. “Now!”
My older brother Roger breezes into the kitchen on his phone. He shakes his head and laughs into it.
“I’m tellin’ you, baby girl, those pants were ill.”
Off. The phone, Mom mouths.
Roger lifts a finger. He thinks he’s big Kahuna ’cause he’s good looking and in tenth.
Come to think of it, he is kind of popular.
“Yeah,” he says. “No, no,” then he laughs again. “Listen, I gotta go but I’ll holler back at you before you can miss me. All right.”
He slaps the screen and slides his phone into his back pocket.
“What’re we having?”
My brother Roger is shaped like a model in a magazine—skinny with a perfect face. He’s not very tall but he still has about fifteen girlfriends and everything they do, say and wear is crispy or ill. He’s always gonna call all of them back before they can miss him. He must have an army of loverboy clones powered up in his closet.
His phone rings and he answers it.
“I’m listenin’.”
Mom grabs it from him and dumps it along with Dad’s tablet into the electronics drawer, then slides it shut with her hip.
“We are having,” she says in a cotton-candy voice, “dinner.”
Meowsie slips what he’s reading under his leg on the chair. Me and him both still like to read books where you can turn actual pages so none of the stuff we sneak to the table ever gets tossed in the drawer.
Roger stretches his arms over his head and drops into his chair.
“Remind me that was Cree Mom hung up on,” he tells Meows.
“Who were you talking to before?” Meows asks him.
Roger looks at the ceiling. “Sondrine.”
I wonder if Meowsie wants lots of girlfriends like Roger. Do all boys want lots of girlfriends? I may have to bring it up sometime.
“Will your sponsor be attending the meeting at Donna’s?” Mom asks me.
“What’s a sponsor?”
“The teacher managing the team,” Dad says. “Will he or she be there?”
I clamp down on my bottom lip. I have no idea if Mrs. A. will be there. Probably not. But maybe. I think probably she would be there.
“Yes,” I say. “Of course.”
“What are we talking about?” Roger tucks an entire roll into his cheek.
“Kyle is on the NAVS team at her school,” Meowsie says. “She has a meeting tomorrow at somebody’s house and Mom and Dad are deciding whether or not to let her go.”
Roger swallows the roll after like three chews and shakes his bangs back, which out of nowhere makes me think of Reed. But then my brother does something I can’t ever imagine Reed doing. He picks up a knife and looks at his face in it.
I wonder how many selfies Roger has on his phone.
“I don’t see a problem with letting her go, Nick,” Dad tells Mom.
“Keith, we have to enforce the terms of her punishment. We can’t just be letting her out with her friends three days after she punched a child in her class and knowingly got on the wrong school bus. We have to nip this behavior in the bud.” Mom snips the air with her fingers.
“You clocked somebody?” Roger looks at me for the first time.
“She was coming to someone’s defense,” Meowsie says. “Not just picking a random fight.”
Roger looks from Meowsie back to me and smiles. “Somebody get this girl a cape.”
“No,” Mom puts in. “This is not something we want to encourage.”
Dad moves his eyes to the salt shaker.
“Right, Keith?”
“Violence is never the answer.”
“Exactly.” Mom takes a seat and lays a napkin on her lap. She tastes a bite of the casserole and tries to hold back a gag.
“Needs salt,” Dad says. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I need a phone number for Donna’s father,” Mom tells me.
“What about her mom?” I ask.
Mom looks at me for a long time without saying anything.
“What?”
“Honey,” she starts. “Mrs. Donahue passed away in July.”
“Was it the lymphoma?” Dad asks.
“It was,” Mom says quietly. “Yes.”
“That sucks,” Roger mutters.
Dad takes a long breath and keeps his eyes on the far end of the table.
I look at Meowsie and he stares back without saying anything.
THERE ARE TERRIBLE THINGS IN THIS WORLD.
He gives me one slow, small nod.
Donna’s house is different from how I remember it. I’ve only been there once—when we were all in fourth grade—for Donna’s tenth birthday. It was a movie party and there was a huge blow-up Mario Brother to jump in so we didn’t get to swim.
As I’m waiting on the doorstep with Dad, I’m wondering if there will be lots of pictures of Donna’s mom in the house or if there will be none.
“Mom’ll be by to pick you up,” Dad says.
“I thought Roger was getting me.”
“Roger wishes. He only has his provision
al license. He’s not going to be doing any shuttling around for another year,” Dad tells me. “And even then,” he adds under his breath.
I look back at the entrance as the knob starts to jiggle. Donna answers the door.
“You’re the first one here,” she tells me. “Hi, Mr. Constantini.”
I say bye to Dad and step into Donna’s dark house. The blinds are all shut and—even though it’s hot and bright outside—the inside of her house is cool and quiet except for the air conditioner.
“What kind of pizza do you like?” she asks.
“All kinds, I guess. Except pepperoni.”
“Who doesn’t like pepperoni?”
“I don’t,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes and lets out a breath. “Well, did you bring the three dollars?”
I pull three bills out of my pocket. They were flat and crispy when I put them in there. Now they’re not. The doorbell rings and I have a chance to look around the front hall while she goes to answer it.
There’s a framed picture of Mrs. Donahue on top of a table that has other things, like a big, pearly-pink seashell and a lamp. She’s holding Donna—who still has long hair in it—and Donna and her mom are both smiling.
“Let’s go to the kitchen,” Donna says. Brooke and Cameron are both behind her.
“You have a nice foyer.” Cameron waves at himself in a mirror hanging on the wall.
“Thanks,” Donna mutters.
I glance at the inside of Brooke’s arm. No patch but now there’s kind of an orange stripe.
What sort of tests would leave an orange stripe, I wonder?
“Did you know foyers were originally invented as a place for people at concerts to get together and talk about the show?” Cameron faces Donna. “During intermission.”
“That’s fascinating, Cameron.”
Donna leads us down the hall into one of those dens that’s a step lower than the rest of the house. The room is really clean. Almost like no one lives here. Donna’s an only child; this I remember. I wonder where her dad is.
“Donita.” A woman in a Fozzie Bear sweatshirt with a thick black braid hanging down her back sticks her head out from the open kitchen bar to look at us in the den. “¿Quieren un platillo de fruta?”
