The Kind of Friends We Used to Be

by Frances O'Roark Dowell

  “Owen is sick,” a sheep calls from the corner. “I forgot his mom said for me to tell you that. He has a cold and maybe strep, only she couldn’t get an appointment to find out, so she was going to take him this afternoon to Urgent Care over by the Food Lion so he—”

  Reverend Mayes cuts the sheep off. “Thanks, Seth, I think I get it.” He turns to a thin woman who is busy hemming an angel’s robe. “So who can we get to substitute, Lisa? Any ideas? It’ll look strange to just have two wise men.”

  The woman looks around the room. “How about Rhetta?”

  Rhetta holds up her hands, like she’s trying to keep that idea from landing on her. “I’m strictly behind the scenes, Dad. We’ve talked about that.”

  “But it’s an emergency, honey. Help me out here.”

  Rhetta looks over at Marylin, and Marylin shakes her head no. It’s not that she’s afraid of standing up in front of crowds. As a middle-school cheerleader, she does it all the time. But she has never stood in front of a bunch of people trying to look, well, holy. She doesn’t think she can pull it off.

  Reverend Mayes catches the look between Rhetta and Marylin and smiles. “Marylin! You’d be an awesome wise man—or wise woman, if you prefer. Do me this favor, sweetheart. It would mean so much to all these children, who have worked so hard to put together a nice pageant.”

  Well, how are you supposed to refuse a minister? How is Marylin supposed to say no to all these little lambs and angels? So she lets Rhetta put a humongous crown on her head and drape her in a red velvet robe lined with fake leopard skin. One look in the mirror and Marylin knows she looks ridiculous, but she supposes it’s for a good cause. Besides, it’s not like anyone from school besides Rhetta will be there.

  When it is the three wise men’s turn, they march down the aisle of the church singing, “We Three Kings.” Fortunately, Marylin knows all the words, even from the second and third verses. She tries to remember to sing loudly, but she is pretty caught up in keeping the gold coins from falling off the pillow she is carrying. With every step, they slide a little closer to the edge of the pillow, and Marylin thinks if she doesn’t get to the baby Jesus soon, those coins are going to fall off and roll down to the altar.

  Sure enough, when the wise men come to a stop, one of the coin slips off the pillow and onto the floor, but looking around, Marylin doesn’t think anyone has noticed. They’re all too busy oohing and aahing at the baby Jesus, who is a real baby, a girl with blond, wispy hair. The baby Jesus is looking around and smiling at everyone, and Marylin can tell this is making people happy by the way they are making little cooing sounds.

  After she has set down the pillow in front of baby Jesus’s straw bed, Marylin stands up, relieved to be done with her part. She realizes she hasn’t seen her parents and Petey yet. In fact, she has sort of forgotten they’d be here. This isn’t their church, after all, not that they’ve gone to any church very much in the past year. If she hadn’t agreed to help Rhetta with the Christmas pageant, Marylin and Petey would already be at her dad’s apartment, miles away from any church Marylin could think of.

  She scans the pews, expecting to find her father on one side of the aisle and her mother on the other, but no, there they are, all together, slightly toward the back of the church, with Petey scrunched between them. She catches her mom’s eye, and her mom waves at her, then taps her dad on the shoulder, as if to tell him, Hey, Marylin sees us! Her dad’s face lights up in a grin, and he waves a little half wave. Marylin waves the tiniest wave back.

  After the pageant, Marylin introduces her parents to Reverend Mayes, who shakes her dad’s hand and says, “Call me Jack. Marylin was a lifesaver tonight. She’s a great kid.”

  Her parents beam. “Yeah, she is,” her dad says, and her mom nods her head in agreement.

  “Come visit us some Sunday,” Reverend Mayes says to them. “I know you two ... I know you’re not together anymore, but, hey, as long as you’ve got these two fine kids here, you’ll always be family.”

  Marylin’s mom tears up a little. Marylin’s dad shakes Reverend Mayes’s hand again, says thanks, and the four of them walk out to the parking lot.

  “Not bad, for church,” her dad says. “He seems like an all right guy. Strange-looking daughter, though.” He reaches into his pocket for his car keys. “That’s the girl you’re such big friends with all the sudden?” he asks Marylin.

  “We’re sort of friends,” Marylin says. “I mean, yeah, we’re friends. She’s much more normal than she looks.”

  Marylin’s parents have parked next to each other. Marylin is opening the door to her dad’s car when Petey yells, “Oh, no! I forgot something! Something important!”

  “What did you forget, honey?” Marylin’s mom asks. “Your pj’s?”

  Petey looks sheepish. Marylin can tell he doesn’t want to say. “I forgot my notebook,” he mumbles. “It’s, uh, for science. And I really need it.”

  Marylin’s dad checks his watch. “We really need to be heading out, kiddo,” he says. “My plan was to order Chinese tonight, and if we don’t get back to my place soon, it’s going to be eight before we eat.”

  “Dad, you don’t understand,” Petey pleads. “I need that notebook. It’s got equations in it. I can’t explain it. But it’s kind of a Christmas project.”

  Marylin’s mom puts her arm around Petey’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go back to the house and have dinner there? We’ll order some pizza, Petey can get his notebook, and you all can hit the road.”

  Please say yes, please say yes, Marylin thinks, crossing her fingers. She wants her family to eat pizza together on Christmas Eve. She wants one thing about this Christmas to be almost normal. She looks up in the sky and finds an especially bright star to make a wish on. I promise I won’t think my parents are getting back together, she tells the star. I promise I know we’re not all going to show up at church as a family on Sunday. Just let me have this one thing.

  The star seems to wink at Marylin, and then it shines a little brighter in the cold air. She closes her eyes and waits.

  “That sounds like a good plan,” Marylin’s dad says after a long pause. “I’ll follow you over to the house in my car.”

  When they pull into the driveway, Marylin hops out of the minivan. She feels like dancing across the lawn, even imagines she hears Christmas music in the air.

  And then she realizes that she does, in fact, hear Christmas music in the air.

  “Where’s that coming from?” her mom asks, getting out of the van. “It’s beautiful.”

  That’s when Marylin sees it, someone standing in Kate’s driveway. It is a boy with a guitar, and he’s singing “Silent Night.”

  “It’s him,” Marylin says, pointing to the boy. She takes a few steps toward Kate’s house. She wants to get closer, see who it is. Just then, the Fabers’ front door opens, and Kate walks outside, followed by somebody else—Flannery? How strange, Marylin thinks. Both girls appear to be carrying guitars.

  Petey grabs Marylin by the hand. “Christmas caroling! Come on, Marylin!” He pulls her in the direction of Kate’s house. “We’ll be right back,” he calls to his parents.

  “Five minutes!” his dad calls back, like he still lives at their house, like he’s still the boss of it.

  Marylin and Petey cross the street and run across the lawns to Kate’s house, holding hands and laughing, and when they get there, they start to sing, without even bothering to say hello, without bothering to ask if they can, just joining in, because it is Christmas Eve, and everybody is welcome.

  Looking for more Kate and Marylin?

  Turn the page to read the beginning

  of The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away

  Available now from Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  what would you trade?

  “Do you think bugs have dreams?” Kate asked Marylin, nudging a rock with her foot. A mob of roly-polies scurried toward the sidewalk in a state of panic.

  “I don’t think bu
gs even have brains,” Marylin said, pulling her knees to her chest so the roly-polies couldn’t crawl up her legs. “I wouldn’t touch those if I were you,” she added. “They might carry really gross diseases.”

  Too late. Kate was jabbing roly-poly after roly-poly with her finger to get them to curl into tiny balls. She scooped up a bunch of the silvery bugs and watched them roll around in the palm of her hand. “Yum,” Kate said. “Want some peas for dinner?”

  It was at times like these that Marylin thought Kate still had some growing up to do.

  A lightning bug flashed a few feet away from where Marylin and Kate were sitting on the front steps of Kate’s house, and then the evening sky dimmed just a notch and suddenly the yard was filled with lightning bugs. According to Marylin’s little brother, Petey, when lightning bugs flashed their lights, they were sending signals to each other. Here I am, they were saying. Have I told you lately that I love you?

  Kate was up and running. She swooped like a bird every time a lightning bug flashed in her path, using her cupped palm like a small butterfly net to nab one bug after another. The sky dimmed another notch, and now Kate’s tanned legs looked white as paper, as though she’d turned into a ghost. Marylin could see Kate’s bare feet glowing like two little moons as she ran through the damp grass.

  “Okay, let’s see here,” Kate said, walking back to the steps, her hands trapping the flashing lights, red glowing through her fingers. She peeked through the small crack between her thumbs. “I count six, no, seven lightning bugs. What would you trade for seven lightning bugs?” she asked Marylin.

  What would you trade? It was the game Kate and Marylin had been playing ever since the beginning of nursery school, when Marylin had moved into the house five mailboxes down on the other side of the street. What would you trade for my peanut butter sandwich? My Mickey Mouse ears? For seventeen Pixy Stix?

  Marylin dug into her pocket and pulled out half a stick of Juicy Fruit gum. She held it out to Kate.

  “No trade,” Kate said. “I’m not allowed to chew gum unless it’s sugar free.”

  “That’s all I’ve got,” Marylin said. “Take it or leave it.”

  Kate opened her palms to the humid air and watched the lightning bugs flutter away into the dark. “I guess we shouldn’t trade living things, anyway.”

  The porch light flickered on. Marylin stuck out her leg in front of her and examined her foot. “How about toes? I’d trade toes with you.”

  Marylin thought her toes were her worst feature. She couldn’t believe she had never noticed how weird her toes were until Matthew Sholls had pointed it out to her at the swimming pool the day before. Her second toes were longer than her big toes, and her little toes barely existed. All the rest of her toes were sort of crooked. Kate had perfectly normal, straight toes. Her big toes were the longest, just like they were supposed to be. Kate’s little toes were like two plump peanuts.

  Kate sat down next to Marylin. “Toes? Who cares about toes?”

  Marylin faked a laugh. “Yeah, I know, it’s pretty dumb. You’re right. Who cares about toes?”

  “Come on,” Kate said. “Let’s go see what’s on TV.”

  Marylin followed Kate inside. The air-conditioning hummed a steady stream of cool air through the house. Marylin shivered a little as she and Kate made their way down the stairs to the basement TV room. She should have brought a sweater with her. She should have brought some socks to cover up her crooked toes.

  As much as Marylin hated to, she had to admit it: She was the sort of person who cared about toes.

  In three weeks Marylin and Kate would begin sixth grade. The idea of starting middle school made Marylin’s stomach go icy cold, like she’d swallowed a cupful of snow. She thought it was possible she would start having boyfriends in sixth grade. A lot of girls she knew had boyfriends. It was a very normal thing to do.

  The fact was, Marylin hadn’t officially talked to a boy since she’d punched Dale Morrell in the nose in fourth grade. Boys made her nervous, and Marylin preferred to avoid nervous-making situations. But according to the books on puberty her mom had given her last week, any second now she could be chasing Dale Morrell through the hallways of Brenner P. Dunn Middle School trying to make him kiss her. Marylin had known some fifth-grade girls who had done that. Brittany Lamb was practically famous for it. It was the sort of thing Kate couldn’t stand. Kate hated kissing of all kinds.

  Marylin had mixed opinions about kissing. She liked it when her dad kissed her on the nose at bedtime, but she hated being kissed by Grandma McIntosh, whose kisses left gooey, fuchsia lipstick prints on Marylin’s cheek. As for kissing boys, well, Marylin just didn’t know. If they were movie stars, sure. Marylin had already spent a lot of time imagining kissing movie stars. But in real life Marylin didn’t know any movie stars. She knew boys like Matthew Sholls and Dale Morrell. They were not the kind of people who inspired her to dreams of kissing.

  Before going over to Kate’s house, Marylin had been sitting on her bed, pulling her left foot as close to her head as possible so she could examine her toes, when her mother had walked into the room and flopped down next to her.

  “Mom, do you think my toes would look normal if I put nail polish on them?” Marylin asked. She wiggled her toes so her mom could take in the full effect of their weirdness.

  “You have wonderful toes!” Marylin’s mom exclaimed. “You have my aunt Bette’s toes. Everyone loved Aunt Bette.”

  “Yeah, but did everyone love her toes?”

  “What is this toe obsession of yours, Shnooks?” Marylin’s mom put on her I’m-a-concerned-mother-and-I’m-here-to-help face, which Marylin liked a lot better than the leave-me-alone-I’ve-just-had-a-fight-with-your-father face she’d been wearing earlier in the afternoon, right after Marylin’s dad had left on another business trip. Marylin tried not to think about the fight or the trip or the fact that she had to spend the night at Kate’s tonight so her mom could call up Aunt Tish and complain about her dad. She’d rather think about toes.

  “I don’t want to miss out on any of life’s big opportunities because of my toes,” Marylin explained. “Am I too young for plastic surgery?”

  That was when her mom talked to her for a long time about boys and how, no matter what, Marylin was not to pull any stupid beauty stunts to get boys to like her, like bleach her hair platinum blond or pluck off all her eyebrows or get plastic surgery on her toes. And makeup was definitely out. Marylin’s mom was famous for being against eleven-year-old girls wearing makeup. It was one of her favorite topics of discussion.

  “You’re a very pretty girl, Marylin,” her mom insisted. “People pay to have hair like yours—it’s like moonlight. And brown eyes? Please! Don’t ruin what nature’s given you.”

  “But what about nail polish, Mom?” Marylin asked when her mom was through. “Nail polish isn’t really makeup.”

  Her mom considered this for a moment. Ever since she and Marylin’s dad had been fighting so much, you could sometimes get her to change her mind about things. It was like she had only so much fighting energy in her. “No black,” she said finally, giving Marylin a stern look. “I absolutely forbid black.” “No black,” Marylin had promised.

  “So when did you start painting your toenails, anyway?” Kate asked Marylin during a commercial break. “I can’t believe your mom would let you do that.”

  “She said it was okay,” Marylin said, wiggling her toes so they shimmered a little in the TV’s blue glow. “I just can’t use black or purple or anything like that. My mom said pink is perfectly respectable.”

  “Whatever,” Kate said, turning back to the TV, where a glamorous woman was shaking her head around so that her hair bounced up and down like a Slinky. The woman was wearing a long, silky dress that was cut low in the front. Watching her made Marylin feel itchy. She wondered what the glamorous woman’s parents thought when they saw her on television. Did they wish she’d covered up a little more?

  Marylin picked up a pen an
d a pad of paper from the coffee table. Lately she’d been practicing her signature, trying to make it look more sophisticated. Who knew—maybe she’d be a movie star one day and would have to sign autographs left and right. A few weeks ago she’d changed the spelling of her name from Marilyn to Marylin, to make it seem less old-fashioned. How her parents had come up with the idea of naming a girl born on the very brink of the twenty-first century Marilyn was beyond her.

  “Who’s ‘Marylin’?” Kate asked, peering over Marylin’s shoulder. “Did you know you were spelling your own name wrong?”

  “This is how I spell my name now,” Marylin explained. “It’s the new me.”

  “Why do you need to be a new you?” Kate wanted to know. “There’s nothing wrong with the old you. I like the old you.”

  “I’m sick of the old me,” Marylin said. She hadn’t realized this until she said it out loud, but she instantly knew it was the truth.

  Sounds of distress from the kitchen suddenly tumbled down the stairs. “Scram! Go on now!!” Kate’s mom cried. “Get away from there, you dumb cat!”

  Kate jumped up. “What’s wrong, Mom?” she called, running to the stairs.

  “Oh, there’s this stupid cat—” Mrs. Faber’s voice broke off. Marylin could hear her pounding on the window. “Stop that! Stop that!”

  Kate flew up the steps, Marylin following close on her heels. When they reached the kitchen, Mrs. Faber was out in the yard chasing an orange cat with a bird in its mouth.

  “Drop it, you stupid animal!” Mrs. Faber yelled after the cat as it disappeared in the dark border of the boxwood shrubs. She turned to Kate and Marylin, who had joined her in the yard. “This is why we have a dog,” she said angrily. “Dogs don’t eat birds.”

  “Don’t you remember that time Max tried to eat a duck?” Kate asked her mom. Max was the Fabers’ basset hound.

  “Max wasn’t trying to eat the duck,” Mrs. Faber said, sounding irritated. “He was trying to smell it. That’s what basset hounds do. They smell things.”