by Rachel Vail
I tried to read her body language but couldn’t. Maybe I am not okay too.
“Sure,” she said, and put down whatever it was she’d been holding.
“That would be great,” I said.
“Is it because of Danny?” she asked quietly. “I know you worry people will judge you if he has a tantrum or something, and you should know that I hundred percent would not judge you or him or anyone.”
“I know that,” I said.
“If you’d rather come here, for the sleepover, that would also be great. I’m sure my mom would say yes, I would just have to confirm, but—”
“No,” I quickly said. “I mean, yeah, that would be great. Sometime. Just, maybe not tonight, if that’s okay.”
“Oh,” Holly said. “Okay.” I noticed that beside her on the bed were her sleeping bag, a tote with a stuffed goose sticking out of it, and an art case.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Niki.”
“I mean, thanks.”
She tilted her head slightly and said, “Okay then, I guess.”
And she hung up.
32
“OH! REALLY? CANCELED?” Mom asked. “Is Holly okay?”
“Yeah,” I said impatiently. “Anyway, since that’s not happening, is it okay if I go to a party at Isabel’s?”
“At Isabel’s?”
“Yeah.”
“When were you invited to that?”
“Mom!” I yelled. “What is the difference? Can I go or not?”
“Niki. It’s fine if you want to go to Isabel’s, yes. That sounds fun.”
I turned around to go upstairs and get ready.
“You want to talk about what’s going on?”
“Nothing!”
She probably already knew about Isabel’s party, of course, and that I wasn’t invited. She probably figured out that I blew off Holly as soon as I got a better offer, and thinks I’m a terrible person, a horrible friend. But she’s the one pressuring me to be more social, she’s the one who’s all fit and pretty and her hair doesn’t frizz out and look stupid all the time, so how does she think she makes me feel? Plus, she’s the one who knew I was being dumped and left out, and didn’t tell me. But now I’m supposed to confide every little feeling and event to her? I’m thirteen years old! Can I not have a tiny bit of privacy without her judging me every second? I want to go to a party, is that so terrible? I’m sick of always being the bad guy here too.
* * *
• • •
Mom was making Danny some chocolate pudding, his favorite food, when it was time for me to go, and Danny was lecturing on what types of stories get put in the newspaper as if he knows anything about that, so Dad said he’d drive me. Mom didn’t say anything about me wearing mascara when I said goodbye but I know she noticed, and obviously she knew she hadn’t bought me any. She just went back to stirring the chocolate pudding and listening to Danny on the topic of journalism.
Dad didn’t turn on the radio, so I braced myself for a Talk.
“Niki,” he finally started when we were almost at Isabel’s.
“What?”
“Pick you up at ten?”
“How about ten thirty?” I asked. I didn’t want to seem babyish, leaving before everybody else. Ava hadn’t said what time the party was ending.
“Fine. I’ll be asleep by then, so it’ll probably be Mom,” he said. “Don’t drag it out. You know she has that open house tomorrow.”
“Okay.” I waited. He didn’t say anything else, about being true to my values or making good choices or anything, though I knew I deserved it.
He parked in front of Isabel’s. I waited for it. Come on, Dad, get to it.
“Have fun, sweetheart,” he said.
I don’t know if that was some kind of psychological warfare or reverse psychology or something, but whatever. “Thanks, Dad,” I said quickly. He smiled at me, without showing any teeth.
I gave him a kiss and got out of the car.
There were a lot of steps up to Isabel’s house.
A bunch of adults, mostly Tobins, were sitting on the front porch, which they call the piazza. They watched me come up the steps. Most of them had drinks in plastic cups, and sweaters over their shoulders. A few had cigarettes.
“Hi, Niki,” Isabel’s mom called to me.
“Is that Kathryn’s friend Nicole?” Isabel’s ancient grandmother asked.
“No, Isabel’s friend,” Isabel’s mom answered. “You remember Niki Ames.”
“No, I don’t,” the grandmother said. “Ames?”
She’s met me a hundred times. I said, “Hi.”
She squinted at me. “Who are your parents?”
“The accountant and the real estate lady,” Isabel’s mom answered for me. “Suzi used-to-be-Leeds, now she’s Suzi Ames. You remember her.”
“No, I don’t,” the grandmother said. “How do you know what I remember?”
“You do. She was adorable, dated Jerome-who-died?”
“Oh, her,” Grandma said. “She was adorable.”
“Tell your mom I said hello,” Isabel’s mom told me. “Tell her she should come over and get a bazz on, sometime. I forgive her for being so young and cunning and friends with my sistah. Go around back. They’re all in there making a mess.”
“Thanks,” I said.
As I rounded the corner to the side of the house, I heard Isabel’s mom saying, “Niki’s the one with the brother I told you about, from the paper.”
OMG, it was in the paper that Danny was getting tested???
“Oh, that kid?” one of them asked. “I read that piece!”
“Shhh,” Isabel’s mom whispered. “Nobody wants to hear your opinion, Charles.”
I wanted to, actually.
Also, I wanted to fall into a deep hole and never come back up. This is what Mom was afraid of, I guess, about having Danny tested. Of course everybody on the whole of Snug Island knew about it by now. Maybe nobody in eighth grade had read the paper.
It was in the paper? What is even wrong with people? We should move. Someplace big, where nobody knows us. Boston or New York City or one of those places, where a kid getting some tests done because he’s a quirky duck would not count as breaking news. Is that why Danny was talking about what’s in the paper? Ugh, why didn’t I listen to him? It’s so hard to know when he’s just randomly spewing and when it’s important.
I could hear people inside before I even knocked.
Nobody answered.
If I walked to the ferry and got on, how far could I get from here before anyone found me? Or even looked for me?
I stood with my back to the door, looking down the hill toward the creek that runs behind the Tobins’ house. Their cousins live two houses over, and a few other cousins live in a bunch of the other old houses all around Squall Pond and the creek.
My cousins live outside Philadelphia. Maybe we could move there.
I knocked again.
Mom hates when people ring our bell because it makes Fumble bark like crazy—great watchdog: if someone just barges right in, he runs over tail wagging, tongue lolling like the greeting committee, but if someone rings the bell? They are obviously the ENEMY and we are UNDER ATTACK.
I pushed the door open.
Isabel’s huge, ancient dog, Beast, was lying on the floor in the mudroom. She lifted her head, slightly curious, as I stepped around her and the hundreds of boots and jackets and bags toward the kitchen.
Isabel’s older sisters were arranging carrots around a hummus bowl, arguing about whether anybody would eat carrots when there were chips and When will the pizza get here? How long ago did you call? I don’t know! I wasn’t timing myself, hands off, hands off, you gross pig! Ow, she slapped me! Grow up, wouldja, ya gawmy pissant?
I tried to will Isabel to see m
e, to say hello and seem happy to see me. She was busy opening a jar of salsa and listening to Madeleine, whose voice is quiet; Isabel was bent toward her. Isabel’s hair was back in a messy ponytail. I pulled my hair tie out from my half-up style and redid it as a loose ponytail. Madeleine was going on and on. It seemed like it was a funny story, whatever she was telling, because Isabel was nodding and smiling. The jar of salsa opened and both Madeleine and Isabel laughed at the burping sound it made. I smiled too, but nobody was looking at me.
I kept the smile on my face as I looked around, pretending I was perfectly comfortable, no big deal that nobody had said hello to me other than the dog. Some of Isabel’s brothers have beards practically, all big and wearing flannel shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Two of them were grabbing at the chips and the carrots as they stomped through, getting swatted away by Isabel.
Her aunt came in from the piazza holding a red plastic cup and said, “Here’s the party!” She opened the fridge and stood in front of it with her hands on her hips.
“Can we move Granny’s coffin?” Isabel asked her.
“Can’t you just work around it?”
Isabel sighed. “I guess, but it really freaks some of my friends out.”
“It freaks me out,” Britney announced enthusiastically, bopping into the kitchen from around the corner. “Completely!”
“Why?” asked one of the big brothers. “It’s just a coffin.”
“Because it’s a coffin!” Britney argued.
“It’s my coffin,” Isabel’s granny announced, wandering into the kitchen too, which was a relief, because I honestly was starting to think maybe she was actually dead, and I’d just hallucinated her being on the porch gossiping about my family, when actually she was lying in a coffin we were about to have a party around and not to be a baby but YIKES.
I’ve always felt a little immature and twitchy at Isabel’s house, but it had been a while and this time, it was way worse. There was so much going on, so many people talking so fast, so much noise. And it suddenly hit me that maybe Isabel didn’t know Ava had invited me, that nobody wanted me there except Ava. And where was Ava? Maybe she was running late, or not coming, and everybody would think I just showed up randomly. I felt like I might get run over by one of the big brothers or laughed at by everybody or even just asked, nicely, why I was there. Please don’t let that happen. Maybe I could slip out before anybody fully registered my presence? Why did I not remember that every time I went to Isabel’s house in elementary school I felt like I had to go hide in a corner, and at that point there wasn’t a coffin.
There’s a coffin???
The smaller of the two huge Isabel brothers grabbed Granny’s hands and swung her around in a dance move. She smiled up at him and twirled under his arm. “Granny, we almost lost you this summer,” he said.
“Nah, I’m still clingin’ to the riggin’,” she responded. “Oooo, chips.” She grabbed a Dorito out of the bag.
“Granny, we gave you last rites,” Isabel said.
“That’s true,” said Granny. “The priest came over, such a cute priest he is too.”
Isabel’s sister Kallista laughed. “Look at Granny, trying to corrupt another priest!”
“I can’t help it if they find me irresistible,” Granny said.
“The coffin is still right there in the living room, Granny,” Kallista said. “You have to admit, it was kind of touch and go for a month there.”
“Oh, just a dite, don’t make a circus. Isn’t it beautiful?” Granny asked. “Have you seen my coffin?” She fixed me with her pale blue eyes, almost accusing me. I was still holding my fleece. Everybody else looked at me too.
I shook my head. “Uh, no, not yet.”
“Oh, hi, Niki!” Isabel said. “Rhys is here. He’ll be happy to see you. Hey, Rhys!”
“She loves showing that coffin off to her friends,” the taller brother said to me.
“And to my friends,” Isabel said. “Niki, put your fleece down and come on in!”
Is it bad that I was relieved Isabel was clearly referring to me as her friend?
“It’s beautiful, a beautiful coffin,” Granny said, fixing me with her blue eyes. She swallowed the Dorito and grabbed a few more. “Mahogany. With the carvings. Hand carved. A beautiful cross and rosary. You have to look.”
“Okay,” I promised.
“Labor Day weekend, when all the cousins came from off island, there were twenty-five of us in the house,” Isabel said. “We almost used the coffin as a bed that weekend.”
“I was totally down,” Isabel’s adorable little brother Zane said, passing us on his way to the refrigerator. “I’m down for tonight, too. It’s wicked soft, way sweeter than the cot I ended up on.”
“Hi, Zane,” I said to him. He’s in Danny’s grade, a cool kid, probably mean to Danny. He lifted his pointy chin in greeting back. Suddenly I was noticing chins.
“It is lovely,” Granny said. “All satiny inside. I offered . . .”
“You can’t sleep in your own coffin, Granny,” Isabel told her.
“Whose should I sleep in?” Granny asked.
“Better Granny than somebody else sleeping in it,” the bigger brother said. “With his stinky feet.”
“Hey!” Zane objected. “My feet smell like roses!”
“Close the fridge, ya gawmy freak,” the skinny brother told him.
“Soon I will sleep in it,” Granny said. “For eternity. May as well get comfortable.”
“Granny!” Isabel objected.
Granny shrugged. “Don’t be spleeny. It’s true.”
“Who let these pissants in?” the biggest brother yelled from the mudroom. We turned in the direction of his voice to see Milo and Robby, and Chase.
“It’s a party,” Granny said, clapping her hands. “Would you boys like to see my coffin? It’s beautiful.”
“Um . . .” Milo said, and shot an alarmed look at me.
I nodded, eyes wide like, Yes, an actual coffin. He smiled.
“We’re going down cellah, Granny,” Isabel told her, and kissed her cheek. “Try not to die yet, okay?”
“Doing my best,” Granny said.
“Good job so far,” Isabel said, grabbing the chips.
Britney took the carrots and hummus. “Niki, can you get that jug of soda?”
“Sure,” I said, happy to have something to do with my hands, happy to be included.
Rhys was standing near the cellar door. “Hi, Rhys,” I said.
He looked at his feet.
“Hi, Rhys,” Milo echoed.
“Hi,” Rhys muttered to us as we passed him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the coffin, off center in the living room, diagonal to the big sagging couch.
In fairness, it did look very beautiful.
33
I SAT ON a big green chair. Isabel’s basement has a Ping-Pong table and an air hockey, so people were playing those. Milo was playing air hockey against Robby. I had nobody to talk to. I was trying to just smile, fit in. They were all laughing and getting along and I was just sitting there, regretting everything, when Ava ran down the stairs and posed at the bottom.
“I’m here! The party can start!”
“Thank goodness!” Britney yelled, and ran over to whisper something into Ava’s ear. Ava laughed and flipped her hair off her shoulder.
I was so swamped with jealousy, I could feel it radiating off me in near-visible waves. Like heat. The attention Ava was giving Britney was cooking me from the inside, for sure, but more than that, it was how relaxed and fully herself Ava looked, leaning over the banister to listen to Britney. I couldn’t even feel happy for her, is how bad a best friend I am: I wanted to punch Britney, and maybe Ava, too, right in their perfect post-braces teeth, for being so easy with each other. See me, I thought at Ava. Look at me like that.
Maybe coming was a terrible idea, I was thinking. I could be cutting up catalogs with an X-Acto knife and doing something to a ramekin, whatever that is. Instead of being ignored, forced to watch my best friend look so happy with somebody else.
As I was about to try to escape out the sliding glass door, Ava yelled, “Niki!”
She dashed over and flopped into the chair with me.
“Oh,” I said, making room for her in the chair, which was crammed full of me, relief, and delight.
“You’re good, no worries,” Ava said, and gave me a quick squeezy hug. “You came! I’m so glad!”
No words. Just appreciation. Everything was okay in the world.
Ava popped right back up, saying, “Come on!”
Kallista was bringing a stack of pizza boxes down. I followed Ava over to the Ping-Pong table, where she was telling Chase and Bradley they had to take a break from their fierce game so we could eat. I caught the ball Chase had served, just before it hit Isabel’s head.
“Nice catch,” Chase said.
“Thanks!” I flipped the ball at him, all casual, as if catching a ball was just a normal thing for me, not something to brag about to everybody like honestly I wanted to because Did you see that catch, holy crow, did I catch that? Me?! MVP of Ping-Pong!
“Saved my face,” Isabel said.
“Worth saving,” Bradley said.
Everybody went awwww and both Isabel and Bradley blushed.
“What?” Bradley said. “I just meant . . .”
“We know what you meant, doofus,” Chase said, and shoved Bradley toward Isabel. He stumbled forward but didn’t crash into her, and then touched her arm lightly. She looked at him.
I thought she was going to say something funny, as usual, but instead she closed her eyes and leaned toward him, and then they kissed.
Right there in front of us.
They just kissed.
Not for just a second, either. Like, they had time to put their arms around each other and still keep kissing.
Is this a thing that is happening, like, that we do? That we’re supposed to do? I thought we weren’t, well, up to that. Not to be a baby about it but WHAT? Potentially more impossible to imagine doing that than stealing nail polish.
