by Wendy Mass
I follow her gaze to the last woman in the row, the shortest and stockiest. Although she’s currently facing away from me, dropping a tiny scoop of tuna onto a kid’s plate, I gasp with recognition. As I whirl around to tell them I know her from the Reservoir, my book bag swings behind me, knocking a seventh grade girl’s food completely off her tray and sending it clattering to the floor. She stands there, staring down at the floor, the soda she had just grabbed from the shelf now dangling from her hand.
“Omigod, I’m so sorry,” I say, bending down to help her pick things up. There’s nothing to be done about the sloppy joe, though. It’s a huge mess of ground beef, chunks of what I hope are onion but could be anything, and red sauce. A lot of red sauce.
“Don’t worry,” Leo says, hurrying over and placing a few layers of napkins on top of the mess. “Happens all the time.” I look up to see that the lunch lady is already replacing the girl’s sandwich. I hope the sauce on the side of her shoe won’t stain. By the time I collect myself enough to look for the short, white-haired woman, she’s gone.
“Where is she?” I ask, looking in all directions. “Where’d she go?”
“Must be her lunch break,” Amanda says with a shrug. She points at the food counter. “It’s your turn.”
After seeing the sloppy joe in all its glory on the floor, I point to a turkey sandwich. The woman plops it onto my plate along with some mashed potatoes. I follow Amanda and Leo down the line, sliding my tray along like they do. “Did you guys ever notice anything strange about that lunch lady? The one you pointed out to me?”
“Strange like what?” Leo asks, pulling a hot pretzel out of the case.
I take a pretzel, too. “Like if she has a strange birthmark on her cheek? Kind of looks like a duck?”
“I never noticed anything like that,” Amanda says, grabbing some milk. “Have you, Leo?”
Their eyes meet for a split second before Leo shakes his head. “Nope.”
“I’m sure I know her,” I mumble as I hand over my five dollars to the cashier. She hands me back two.
“Enjoy your lunch,” Leo says, as he and Amanda head off in the other direction.
But all I can think is, You won’t get what you want, until you see what you need. What is it I need to see? And will I know it when I see it?
Chapter Seven
After school, Annabelle, Sari, and I had planned to scope out the trailers to see if we could find which one has Jake Harrison’s name on it. But to my surprise, Mom is waiting for me behind the row of buses, leaning against the door of her car, texting. From a distance, my mom doesn’t look that much different from a teenager, but still, it’s embarrassing. I tell Annabelle and Sari to go without me, then hurry over to her, assessing the situation as I go. The fact that she’s standing outside her car means she doesn’t have Sawyer. If something were wrong, she’d be frantically yelling into the phone, not casually texting. So why is she here?
I dig out my house key (now attached to a really cool silver key chain with the number “12” on it from Sari) and wave it in the air. “Did you forget I’m allowed to walk home on my own?”
She presses a few more buttons on her phone, then slips it into her pocket. “No, I didn’t forget. I thought I’d swing by and take you on an errand with me while Sawyer’s on a playdate.”
“An errand?” I repeat, staring longingly after Annabelle and Sari, who I can see have already dodged the security guard posted at the end of the parking lot.
“C’mon,” she says, opening the passenger door for me. “You’ll like this one.”
As we maneuver around the buses, Mom asks, “So, what did you buy for lunch today?”
I tick things off on my fingers. “Turkey sandwich, mashed potatoes, juice, and a hot pretzel.” Now, had she asked what I ate for lunch instead of what I bought, I would have been forced to admit that all I ate was the hot pretzel.
“Those sound like good choices.”
“Actually … they didn’t taste very good.” I wait for her to say she’ll go back to making my lunch, but she doesn’t. As we turn onto Main Street, my phone vibrates. It had been going off all day, which was very distracting. I answer it, tell them they have the wrong number, and hang up. “Mom, you have to let me turn off my phone during the day. The pizza people call, like, every five minutes. It almost got taken away this morning.”
“I’ll think about it,” she says. I’ve just put it away when a buzz alerts me to a new text. That could only mean one thing.
Why do I miss all the fun things? I stare out the window glumly until Mom makes a left into the bank parking lot. I perk up. The errand I’m supposedly going to like is at the bank? Is she going to give me the money for my bunny? Seems unlikely, but why else would we be here?
She leads me inside and surprises me further by telling the bank clerk we need to access our safe-deposit box. I didn’t even know we had a safe-deposit box. What else don’t I know about my parents’ secret lives? This is all very mysterious. The clerk asks if my mom has her key, and she says yes. Then he grabs a huge set of keys hanging off a round wire chain and motions for us to follow him. I had hoped we’d be going into the vault, because that’s how it always is in the movies, but we pass right by the huge gold-colored door with the wheel on the outside. He unlocks a door at the end of a short hallway, and we follow him inside. This is a little more what I had expected to see. Rows and rows of boxes along the wall that look like the boxes at the post office in town, except these each have two keyholes. As the guy begins flipping through the keys on his chain, my phone vibrates loud enough to be heard. Mom glances at me and says, “Boy, that really does go off a lot, doesn’t it?”
I nod vigorously.
“Must be a pain.”
Again with the vigorous nodding.
The guy holds up the key that matches my mom’s box number and says, “Ready?” They both stick their keys in the holes and turn them at the exact same time. The door springs open and Mom slides out a narrow metal box. The guy directs us over to an area in the back with private booths, and tells us to hit the buzzer by the door when we’re ready to leave.
My curiosity is at an all-time high. Gold bars? Fake passports? Stacks of hundred dollar bills tied together with twine? The booth has a small table with a velvet pad covering half of it, and a curtain that Mom pulls shut behind us. We sit on the small bench and I don’t take my eyes off the box as Mom flips open the lid. At first all I see are papers with words like Deed, Homeowners Insurance, Last Will and Testament. Mom quickly lifts these out and places them to the side. Underneath are a few silk pouches of different sizes. Not as exciting as my initial guesses, but still intriguing. “What are those?” I ask.
She takes out the largest one and empties it onto the velvet pad. My eyes widen as jewelry of all sizes and shapes tumbles out. Necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings with stones of various colors and shapes, some the size of grapes! The only jewelry I’ve ever seen Mom wear is her wedding ring, dainty little earrings, and maybe a bracelet or two if she and Dad are going out.
I can’t help reaching out to touch the pile. “What is all this? Did you rob a jewelry store?”
She laughs. “Nothing that sinister. I inherited this from your grandmother and great-grandmother. You’ll inherit it from me one day.”
I grab her arm. “You’re dying? Is that why you brought me here?”
She laughs. “I’m not dying, I promise!”
When I calm down enough, I pick through the different pieces. Everything is so … big. “How come you never wear any of this?”
“It’s not really my style,” she says, scooping it up and putting it back in the pouch. “Tastes were different back then.”
“It’s really cool and everything, but why did you want to show it to me?”
She reaches for one of the smaller pouches, a deep red rose–colored one. “This is what I want to show you. Actually,” she says, placing the pouch in my hand, “I want to give it to you. It’s from yo
ur grandmother. For when you turned twelve.”
My eyes instantly sting with tears, and I’m not a big crier. I only have a few memories of my mother’s mom, who died when I was four. Grandma was still really young when it happened, and I remember Mom cried for weeks. It probably didn’t help that I couldn’t understand and kept asking where Grandma was.
I bounce the small pouch a bit in my hand. It feels so light, almost like it’s empty. After seeing the pile of jewelry from the other pouch, I’m a little nervous about opening it. What if I don’t like it? I wouldn’t want to make Mom feel bad. I slowly pull open the drawstring and turn the bag over onto the velvet pad like I’d seen her do. Out fall two delicate gold earrings, each with a circle of tiny diamonds surrounding a deep green stone.
“Those are emeralds,” Mom says as I pick one up for a closer look. “They’ll bring out the green of your eyes.”
“They’re beautiful,” I say in a hushed tone. “They’re really for me?”
“Yup. Do you remember them?”
I look up at her in surprise. “Should I?”
“Probably not, but you actually picked them out.”
“I did?”
“When you were three. You came with me to pick out a birthday gift for Grandma, and these are what you chose.”
I spin the earring so the stones glint in the light. “Wow, I had good taste at three!”
“How about on Saturday we go get your ears pierced? That way you’ll be able to wear them to Natalie’s party in a few weeks, if you want.”
I turn and give my Mom a big hug, something I haven’t spontaneously done in I don’t remember how long.
“Hey, don’t thank me, thank Grandma.”
I rest the pouch on my lap for the whole ride home, and then run up to the bathroom to hold the earrings up to my ears. They’ll show off my eyes a lot better without my glasses. Once I get my contact lenses and my ears pierced and Annabelle and I go to the makeup store, people might stop mistaking me for Boy Rory. And if they don’t, that may say more about him than me!
Since I’m only on Day Two of my IM ban, I try to stay off the computer so I’m not tempted. I debate going downstairs to say hi to Dad when he comes home from work. Mom told me he had to wear a slipper to work today due to the swelling in his foot, so he probably isn’t in the mood to see me. Instead I busy myself by cleaning my room, which, even though I boxed up most of its contents, has somehow managed to get messy again. I pick up my FINALLY chart and admire it. I’ve already worked my way through a lot of the Small (but still Very Important and Worthwhile) Things, and some of the Big Things, too, with more to follow in the next few days. Exciting! When I try to lean it back against the wall, it flops over, revealing the phone chart I had made while all hyped up on caffeine. I read it over, proud of the thorough job I did. Then my eyes light upon the following line: Parental control over which phone numbers I can accept calls from. My eyes widen. Is that the phone I wound up with? I had been so thrilled just to hear my parents say I could get one of the choices, that I had completely forgotten which special features went with which phone. Plus I’d hoped they’d never want to use that option, so I must have blocked it from my mind. I grab my phone and hold it up to the chart, reading the make and model number. Yup! It’s the same one!
I throw open my bottom desk drawer and pull out the phone manual, which I’d tossed in there without even glancing at. Clutching it to my chest, I run downstairs. My parents and Sawyer are in the family room watching Elmo’s Potty Time on DVD. Personally I think my parents are wasting their time. The kid is just not interested.
“Guess what?” I announce, standing directly in front of the TV.
“RORY!” they all shout.
“Okay, okay.” I scoot out of the way before Sawyer can miss the all-important lesson on where toilet paper comes from. “But this is important,” I insist, holding up my phone. “Did you know that you can fix it so only you and my friends can call me and none of those pizza calls get through?”
“Yes,” they reply.
When I can close my jaw, I ask, “You knew that?”
“Sure we knew it,” Dad says. “You told us in your presentation.”
My arms fall to my sides. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s your phone,” Mom says with a shrug. “Your phone, your responsibility, remember?”
I open my mouth, sputter for a few seconds, and shut it again. I’m tempted to say never mind, but I’m really tired of explaining why I will not be there in thirty minutes or less with their pizza. “Here,” I say, placing the phone and the manual on the couch next to them. “You know Annabelle’s and Sari’s numbers.”
I start to storm out of the room in what I hope is frustrated defiance, when Dad calls out, “Are you sure those are the only ones you want to get through? No one else from school?” I hear Mom give him a curt “Shh!” and he calls, “Never mind.” But of course it’s too late. He has effectively reminded me I have very few close friends. But Mom doesn’t need to protect me from this fact. It really doesn’t bother me that much. After all, I’ll soon have my bunny. And they don’t call a rabbit a girl’s best friend for nothing. Or wait, maybe that’s a diamond. Well, I have those, now, too!
Later, while I’m brushing my teeth, Mom hands me a piece of paper. I wipe my mouth and hold it up. It’s an announcement for the Red Cross babysitting class.
“I looked it up online and printed it out,” she says, then points to the bottom of it. “The next class in town is on Saturday, and then there isn’t another one for two months.”
“Can you take me on Saturday, then?”
“Okay, I’ll give them a call and sign you up. We’ll do the ear piercing the following week.” She takes the flyer and closes the bathroom door behind her.
It’s so hard to figure Mom out. Sometimes she can be so nice to me, and sometimes she makes everything harder.
I’m pretty sure the principal’s promise to the parents that the movie wouldn’t disrupt our classroom activities was a bold-faced lie. Besides all the technical equipment like the lights, sound boards, camera stands, and power cords, the film crew needs to “modify” a few things around the school. So all week we’ve had to watch out for fresh paint, piles of wooden planks, sheets of metal, toolboxes, various assorted “props” like fake posters advertising fake school dances, and cardboard cutouts of the actors that will supposedly be used as stand-ins to test the lighting and camera angles.
Actually, the cardboard cutouts are pretty cool. Someone drew a heart on the one for Jake. My money’s on Sari. The only bad thing about them is that now we know that Jake’s real life on-again off-again girlfriend, Madison Waters, is going to be in the movie, too. We’ve decided to hold an emergency meeting about it at lunch. Having learned that my history class is too far from the cafeteria to get me there in time to meet Annabelle or Sari on line, I’ve taken to giving one of them my lunch money in the morning and having them choose for me. Some days have been better than others. One day I ate only potato chips because I couldn’t make it through the crunchy pasta. Today it’s Frankfurter Friday, and I figure it’s hard to mess up a hot dog.
The conversation is already in full swing when I arrive.
“I heard they’re pre-engaged,” Sari shrieks, eyes blazing. “At fourteen! She wears a little gold promise ring!”
Annabelle drops her fork and it clatters on the table. “Are you serious?”
“No way!” I pull my tray toward me.
Sari nods, and slumps in her seat in despair. We stare at our food and contemplate this announcement. Then I shrug and bite into my hot dog. If Jake Harrison and Madison Waters have found true love together, then good for them.
After a few chews I reach for my juice and guzzle half of it. Turns out you can mess up a hot dog. Fortunately I have a hot pretzel to turn to. Annabelle and Sari spend the rest of the period deciding if we should still try to sneak into Jake’s trailer next week or not, and decide we should. Right befor
e the bell rings, Annabelle and I make plans to meet at the babysitting class tomorrow. Sari can’t go because she won’t be twelve till next month and that’s the minimum age for the class. Plus she’s not really the babysitting type. I’m not sure Annabelle is, either, but she’ll do anything to escape a house of five boys (with their assorted friends, girlfriends, and teammates) on the weekends.
Annabelle’s mom picks me up at noon and drives us to the Willow Falls Community Center, where the class is being held. It starts at 12:30 and goes till 5:00. That’s a lot of stuff to learn! If my mom had driven us, she would have insisted on coming in and escorting us to the right room. Annabelle’s mom just waves, tells us to have fun and learn a lot, and drives off to the mall. Apparently she doesn’t want to be home with all those boys, either.
The main room of the community center is slowly filling with senior citizens, who, by the look of the square tables, stacks of cards, and plastic poker chips being set up, are settling in for some serious betting. Signs direct us to follow the long hallway till the end. On our way, we pass a bunch of small rooms. The first one is a day care center, surprisingly full of little kids for a Saturday. Next to that, an aerobics class is in full swing, which might explain the full day care center. Competing with the disco beat is this low chanting sound coming from a room across the hall. We exchange a look and rush over to peek. David Goldberg, a kid in my math class, is standing up behind a little wooden podium, reading in what I quickly identify as Hebrew.
“Practicing for his Bar Mitzvah,” I whisper to Annabelle. “I heard him talking about it in class.” He’s not too bad, even though his voice cracks on every third word. Annabelle wants to stay and listen, but I say, “Hey, what’s the first rule of being a good babysitter?”
“Bring candy to bribe the kids into being good?”
“No! It’s to be prompt so you don’t hold up the parents who are trying to leave. So we should be prompt for the class, too.”