Goodbye Stranger

by Rebecca Stead

  “Can I owe you?”

  “I guess, but I’m writing it down. Is Mom home?”

  Jamie took the banana. “Do you think I’d pay you a dollar to get me a banana if Mom were here to do it for free?” He felt underneath the couch and came up with a book, which he started to read.

  Bridge turned to Emily. “What do you feel like doing?”

  Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe just watch TV?”

  “Any chance you guys could take this somewhere else?” Jamie pointed to his book. “Studying here.”

  “Jamie! This is the living room, not your private domain.”

  “I know. But I’m low on juice.”

  Bridge rolled her eyes. “Let’s go to my room.”

  —

  “So,” Bridge said, landing cross-legged on her bed. “How’re you doing?” She patted the space next to her.

  “At this moment?” Em sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t even know. Did I tell you Patrick called my cell at one-thirty in the morning? He said after I texted him about the whole David Marcel thing, he felt so bad he couldn’t sleep.”

  “But, Em, how did David Marcel get the picture in the first place?”

  “I told you. Patrick says someone grabbed his phone.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Em picked at the bedspread. “Did you know he’s joining Banana Splits? We talked on the phone for almost an hour. Turns out his parents broke up last year too. Weird, right?”

  “Wait. You don’t hate him? At all?”

  “I knew you’d say that. Now I’m double pathetic, right? He ruins my life and I’m still crushing on him.”

  Bridge was quiet.

  “This is where you’re supposed to tell me my life isn’t ruined.”

  “Oh, sorry! Your life—”

  “Kidding,” Em said. “You know what? I actually like Patrick more now, in a way. He’s like—a person now. His parents’ divorce was way worse than mine. You should hear the things they say about each other. When I told him how mine are really good friends and still go out to dinner and stuff, he didn’t believe me.”

  “So are you going to keep kissing him?”

  Em laughed. “Well, not over the phone! Duh.” She stretched out on the bed. “I don’t know. We only kissed a few times. And last night was the first time we really talked, you know?”

  It was still a little unreal that Em had kissed anyone. It was as if she’d been to the moon. But here she was, still Em.

  Bridge bounced off the bed and sat in her desk chair, hunching forward to face Emily. “Em, I don’t trust him. If he didn’t send your picture to David, who did?”

  “I told you, someone grabbed his phone! I know it sounds stupid, but I believe him. I just do.” Emily gave her a big smile. “Things are different now. It’s like the whole picture thing happened to two other people.”

  “Two other people? Emily, it happened to you. Not to him. He doesn’t have to walk around knowing that half the school has seen—”

  “But I don’t mind,” Em said quickly. “I mean, I do and I don’t.”

  Bridge stared. “What are you talking about? You’ve been crying for two days.”

  “Yeah.” Now Em started picking at the cuticle on her thumb. “But—don’t think I’m stupid or anything, but I still like that picture. I never showed you which one I picked—it’s the one where I’m looking to the side? And I used a filter—you can’t see much, really. But I look good. Like you said.”

  “Are you saying you’re happy this happened?”

  Em picked her head up. “Are you insane? I’m just saying that I still like the picture. Noelle Park posted about ten pictures of herself in the Bahamas last Christmas. That little bikini, and no one said anything but how amazing she looked! What’s wrong with looking amazing? I’m not ashamed of it.”

  Bridge chose her words carefully. “So why did you care? When Patrick—or whoever, this mystery person—sent the picture around? If you like it?”

  Em shook her head. “Well, it was supposed to be just for him, you know? That’s one thing. But the bad part wasn’t that everyone was looking at the picture. I mean, it was weird and not great. But the bad part was that it felt like they were making fun of my feeling good about the picture. Of me liking myself. Does that even make sense?”

  Bridge wanted to kill Patrick and David Marcel. Or at least utterly and completely humiliate them.

  “You’re not saying anything,” Em said.

  “I’m just getting angry,” Bridge said. “All over again.”

  “Don’t bother. Let’s talk about something else.” Em snapped her fingers and made an I’ve-got-a-great-idea face. “I know! You and Sherm.”

  “Are friends,” Bridge said.

  Em smiled. “More than friends, maybe?”

  “Did you hear music?” Bridge asked, swiveling to face Em. “When you kissed Patrick?”

  “Music,” Em repeated.

  “Yeah, my mom says that love is like music. One day you just—hear it.”

  “Whoa. First of all, I never said I loved Patrick. But I think I know what she means. I don’t think she means actual music, Bridge. She means that you know it when you feel it. Like music—you know it when you hear it.”

  “Okay, so love is also like a hamburger? You know it when you taste it?”

  Em laughed. “A hamburger is more deliberate. You have to make it, or ask for it…. Music just kind of breaks over you.”

  “She also says hearing the music is different from wanting to dance. And knowing who you want to dance with—that’s different from hearing the music.”

  Em flopped back on the bed and laughed into Bridge’s pillow.

  “What?” Bridge said. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Em said. “I just love your mom.”

  “Yeah, she’s a nut.”

  “But you like Sherm, don’t you, Bridge? It’s kind of obvious.”

  Was it obvious? Bridge thought about the way she looked for him at school now. The cafeteria used to just be the cafeteria. Now it was the cafeteria and Sherm might be in it. And English wasn’t English anymore. Now English was definitely seeing Sherm. But she didn’t want to meet him behind the science lab.

  “How did you know you liked Patrick?”

  Em smiled. “How did I know? I think about him all the time.”

  “But you guys don’t spend any time together. Maybe what you like is some fake idea of who he is.”

  “I just told you, it’s different now. We talk to each other.”

  “Once. You talked once.”

  “For an hour! And stop changing the subject.” Em sat up and crossed her legs. “Tell me two things you know about Sherm. Two things you know for sure.”

  “He’s nice.”

  Em shook her head. “Lame. Two real things.”

  “Fine. One: he smells a little like bread.”

  At least, his shirt smelled like bread. What did that mean? That she’d smelled his shirt?

  “Okay,” Em said. “What else?”

  “He misses his grandfather, who used to live with him.”

  “Aw, his grandpa died?”

  “No. He left Sherm’s grandmother. Moved out over the summer.”

  “Really? Wow. The curse of the nine thousand things.”

  “I guess.”

  “Anyway,” Em said. “You like Sherm. Definitely.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “I don’t want to kiss him or anything,” Bridge said quickly.

  “No?”

  Bridge shook her head.

  “Hmm,” Em said. “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “I think you just need more time. Put a pin in it.”

  Bridge wondered if you ever found your dance partner before you heard the music.

  —

  That night, Bridge woke with a shudder and a frantic intake of air. Rising from the dark of the mummy drea
m, she threw her arms wide, drew her knees up, and kicked her covers halfway down the bed. Not far enough. She kicked and kicked until everything was on the floor.

  “I’m here,” her mother said quietly. She stood near but knew not to try to hug Bridge or touch her right away. What Bridge needed was space. Once the dream receded—the feeling of paralysis, the suffocating closeness of it—her body relaxed, and her mom came closer.

  “You’re okay,” her mom said, brushing Bridge’s hair back from her forehead and letting her fingers run lightly along Bridge’s scalp. It was something she’d started doing when Bridge was in the hospital, because the rest of Bridge’s body was in some sort of cast or sling. “You’re okay,” her mom said again, soothingly.

  But Bridge was already asleep.

  SHERM

  December 2

  Dear Nonno Gio,

  I’m pretty sure she hates me now. And most of the guys are mad too. They all know I told Mr. Ramos about the picture going around. But Patrick actually texted me to say what I did was cool. He said he didn’t have the guts! Which just goes to show.

  Actually I have no idea what it goes to show.

  Sherm

  P.S. Two months and twelve days till your birthday.

  VALENTINE’S DAY

  Gina lives only a mile from your high school, and sometimes she walks. Back in the fall, when you were first getting to know her, you saw her coming down the block with Marco Saks, talking.

  “You know Marco Saks?” you asked Gina.

  She nodded. “Oh yeah—since we were two. Our families rent a house together every summer for a month. We kind of grew up together.”

  “You grew up with Marco Saks? The sophomore lusted after by ninety percent of the girls at school?” Or whatever percentage of them had decent vision and a male-oriented libido. Because Marco Saks is beautiful. There’s no other word for what Marco Saks is.

  She smiled. “I know. Everyone’s in love with him. But he’s an only child, like me, and now he’s like my big brother. Actually, I like to call him my little brother.” She laughed. “It annoys the hell out of him.”

  Gina is tall.

  —

  It wasn’t even a month later that, in her bedroom, Gina whispered, “Can I trust you? Because I can’t hold this in anymore and I think you’re the nicest person I’ve met in at least five years. I think I can trust you. Am I right?”

  No one had ever talked to you like that before, but you don’t dwell on it now—you don’t think about how good it made you feel to have another person say “I like you. I trust you.” None of Vinny’s games.

  “Of course you can trust me,” you said.

  “I can, right?” She looked into your eyes, her color rising fast behind the dark freckles that sprinkled her nose and cheeks, even in October. Then she said, “I’m in love with him.”

  You didn’t get it. “Who?”

  She covered her face with her hands and whispered into them. “Marco.”

  “Whoa. Really? But you said he’s like—”

  She nodded. “We were babies together! His parents are my godparents.”

  “Does he know how you feel?”

  “No! He has no idea. And I can’t tell him—it would wreck everything. I don’t even understand how it happened. But it’s been almost two years.”

  “Two years?”

  “Yes!” Gina smiled. “Two years. And it feels so good to have someone I can tell. Most of the girls at my middle school were such bitches.”

  —

  A vaguely familiar kid with sunglasses and a smirk on his face is hovering near the cash register. Adrienne looks up and groans. “Not again.”

  “Hey, beautiful.”

  “Don’t call me beautiful, kid.”

  “I’m sixteen.”

  “Sixteen going on twelve.”

  His confidence is unshaken. “Can I get a smoothie?”

  You remember now: he’s Alex, from middle school. He was a year ahead of you, and you’re pretty sure he’s still a friend of Bridge’s brother.

  Adrienne puts a hand on her hip. “What kind of smoothie?”

  He smiles. “You pick something out for me.”

  She pats her shoulders. “Me pick?”

  Alex nods.

  Adrienne turns her back on him and walks over to the smoothie blender. You watch Alex read the back of her T-shirt. He shakes his head, smiling as if she’s adorable. He’s so arrogant. You never understood why Jamie liked him.

  Then you catch yourself having that thought and laugh.

  “Hey,” Alex says, noticing you.

  “Hey,” you say back.

  “I forget your name,” he says.

  “That’s okay,” you tell him. “Is school out already?”

  He gives you a funny look. “No, I have a free period.”

  Adrienne comes back, holding what looks like a glass of frothy milk with brown and green stuff floating in it.

  “That’s—a smoothie?” Alex says.

  She nods. “You told me to pick the ingredients.”

  “Is this because of the other night with Jamie?”

  “Don’t you want to know what’s in it?”

  “Okay. What’s in it?”

  “Milk. And I threw a whole-wheat spinach-feta wrap in there.” She holds it out. “It’s healthy! Five fifty, please.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  She glares. “You asked me to pick the ingredients. Did you or didn’t you?”

  He pays.

  When he’s gone, Adrienne looks at you. “Annoying guy,” she says.

  “What did he mean? When he said ‘Is this because of the other night with Jamie?’ ”

  “Not much of a story,” she says. “Jamie is kind of sweet. But he needs to find some new friends.”

  “Yeah.”

  Adrienne picks at what’s left of her banana-chocolate-chip muffin. “Whatever it is that’s bugging you,” she says, “it’s about a guy, right?”

  “No. It’s not about a guy. And nothing happened to me.”

  “Something happened to you,” she says. “Or someone happened to you.”

  No, you think. I happened to someone.

  COOL

  Bridge was four blocks from school when she saw Sherm standing on the corner ahead of her. Just standing there.

  “Hey,” she said when she reached him.

  “Hey,” Sherm said. “I saw you coming, so I waited.”

  “Thanks.”

  After two blocks of what Jamie would definitely call awkward silence, Bridge said, “Em isn’t mad, you know. She’s sorry she threw that stuff at you. She feels bad.”

  Sherm nodded. “What about you? Are you still mad?”

  “Me? I’m not mad. I was upset for a second that you didn’t tell me you were going to tell Mr. Ramos. But I get it. You didn’t know for sure that I even knew about the picture.”

  This would have been a good time to say that she had actually helped Em take the picture. But she didn’t want to admit that to Sherm, or even think about it.

  “Remember your riddle?” Sherm said. “The two brothers and the two doors?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I had to pick a door. You know? If I hadn’t said anything, that picture would be everywhere by now.”

  “I can’t believe Patrick didn’t get suspended,” Bridge said.

  “He says he didn’t send it.”

  “I know. Someone ‘grabbed his phone.’ ”

  “And sent it to David Marcel,” Sherm finished.

  “David Marcel got it first?”

  “Yeah, and he sent it to at least ten guys right away.”

  “Seriously? Why didn’t he get suspended?”

  Sherm looked surprised. “He did get suspended. You didn’t know?”

  “No. You’re sure?”

  “Oh, I’m sure. I’m sure David Marcel got suspended because he hates me now. And so do a lot of his friends.”

  Sherm had made a sacrifice, real
ly. And then Emily had thrown half her stuff at his head. Poor Sherm. “Wow,” Bridge told him. “You were looking at two crummy doors.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. But I just picked the one David Marcel wasn’t standing in front of. Not that hard.”

  —

  When they got to school, Sherm said, “So, tomorrow morning, same corner?”

  Bridge hadn’t expected that. “Okay. What time?”

  “Eight?”

  “Sure.”

  “Cool.”

  LITTLE BY LITTLE

  Bridge watched as her mom tried to zip her suitcase. She got stuck on a boot heel at the third corner, unzipped the bag, and laid it open on the floor to rearrange her things.

  “It’s only three days,” she told Bridge, “but you wouldn’t believe the number of events—we’re playing at the rehearsal dinner, the prewedding cocktail hour, the ceremony, and then—get this—there’s a high tea the day after.”

  Her first fancy wedding had been a big success, and now she was getting other jobs. This one was a last-minute fill-in for a famous violinist who’d gone down with the flu.

  “What’s high tea?” Bridge asked.

  “Oh, just a big spread, I think—lots of little sandwiches and pastries. And, you know, tea.”

  “Yum.”

  “Yeah, yum. Though I’ll have my hands full.” Bridge’s mom tilted her head toward the cello case leaning against the closet mirror.

  She knelt and tried to zip the bag again. It still wouldn’t close. She yanked out one of the boots. “Looks like I’ll have to wear these on the plane.”

  Bridge smiled.

  “Sweetie,” her mom said, feeling for the other boot, “we need to talk.”

  Em had warned Bridge. “The moms have been talking,” she said in homeroom. “This is definitely going to come up at home. Feel free to express your shock and disgust at my behavior.”

  “About the thing with Em, you mean?” Bridge said. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything like that.”

  “I just wish she’d talked to her parents about what was going on. You would talk to me, right, Bridge? You’d tell me if you felt that way about someone? If you were thinking of doing something like that?”

  “Sure. I’d tell you.”