Dear Pen Pal

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  “Oh, right. Well, most women wear skirts, but I guess jeans are okay, too, if you didn’t bring anything else.”

  I look over at Summer. “What are you going to wear?”

  “Nothing special,” she says. “I have this hand-me-down skirt of my sister’s. It’s better than overalls, at least.” She plucks at her denim-covered leg and smiles.

  Suddenly I get a flash of inspiration. I know exactly what I can do for Summer in return for the quilt she gave me. Acting really casual, I stand up and stretch, then wander off like I’m heading down the hall to the bathroom. Instead, I sneak out the back, dash across the lawn, and knock on the door to the ranch house.

  “Megan!” says Mr. Parker, looking surprised to see me. “I thought you gals were at your book club meeting. Is everything all right?”

  “Fine,” I tell him. “Can I use your phone? I need to call my dad, and there’s still no cell phone service.”

  “Sure.”

  I follow him out to the kitchen, coming to an abrupt halt in the doorway. I’d forgotten about Winky’s brothers. Sam and Owen are sitting at the table in the far corner, drinking hot chocolate and playing cards. They grin when they see me in my bathrobe and slippers.

  “Howdy,” they chorus.

  “Uh, hi,” I say, feeling my face go bright red. “Just need to make a phone call.” And make a complete idiot of myself while I’m at it.

  “Don’t mind us!” says Owen.

  The Parkers have one of those old-fashioned wall phones with a long cord. I punch in the number for home, then stretch the cord and the receiver around the doorway into the deserted dining hall.

  “Megan!” My father sounds surprised to hear my voice. “Is everything all right? Your mother called and told me what happened to Gigi.”

  “Everything’s fine, Dad,” I whisper. I want to keep my plan a secret. “But I need you to do me a huge favor.” I explain what I want him to do, and he promises to get right on it first thing in the morning.

  When I go to hang up the phone, I make sure to stick only my head in the kitchen this time. “Thanks, Mr. Parker.”

  “No problem,” he replies. “See you at breakfast.”

  I skim back across the lawn to the bunkhouse and duck through the back door. As I pass the bathroom, I hear voices inside. It’s Jess and Savannah.

  “I’m really, really sorry about Darcy,” Savannah is saying.

  I stop in my tracks. What does Darcy Hawthorne have to do with anything?

  “Honestly, if I’d known you liked him, I wouldn’t have asked him to the dance,” she continues.

  Jess likes Emma’s brother? I lean against the wall, trying to absorb this information.

  “So why didn’t you uninvite him, then, when I asked you to?” Jess replies warily.

  There’s a long pause. “My stupid pride, I guess. And stubbornness. I should have, I know, but I was worried about feeling embarrassed. I messed up, what can I say?”

  It’s quiet for a while again, then Savannah adds, “If it makes you feel any better, Darcy’s not the least bit interested in me. He just came along out of curiosity.”

  Jess mumbles something I can’t hear, but now everything’s starting to make sense. Savannah asked Darcy to the Founder’s Day dance, and that’s what made Jess so mad at her. How come she never said anything about it, though, I wonder? Do Emma and Cassidy know?

  “Actually, I think it’s you he likes,” Savannah goes on. “He kept looking over and watching you dance with that guy you brought, and he asked me a ton of questions about you.”

  “Really?” says Jess.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  Savannah lets out a whoosh of breath. “Would you have believed me?” she asks. “You were barely speaking to me. I know that’s no excuse, but still. Plus, I was jealous of you. I’ve never had anybody like me that way. I don’t even have the kind of girlfriends you do.”

  “What about Peyton Winslow?”

  Savannah snorts, “Peyton only sticks around because it means she gets to go on trips to places like Switzerland and our summer cottage and all that stuff. She’s not like your book club friends.”

  A few seconds tick by, then Savannah continues, “You’re really lucky, Jess. People like you. You’re smart, and funny, and you’re always so nice to everybody all the time. Even that little twerp Kevin Mullins! Plus, you have a great family—your parents and your little brothers are awesome. That weekend I spent at your house was the most fun I had all year at Colonial Academy.”

  “I had fun too,” Jess admits. “Well, until the end anyway.”

  “Look, I’m really, really sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I hope you’ll forgive me one of these days, and I hope that if you come back to Colonial Academy, we can be friends.”

  There’s a burst of laughter from the bunkhouse living room, and I strain to hear Jess’s reply. “Apology accepted,” she says finally, the exact same words I said to Becca last year at Walden Pond.

  I smile. Good for Jess.

  “Pip really misses you, by the way,” she adds.

  “I miss him, too!” says Savannah, her voice brimming with relief and happiness. I hear the two of them coming my way and dart down the hall. I don’t want to be caught eavesdropping.

  The next morning dawns bright and clear. The storm has left Gopher Creek Guest Ranch freshly washed and shining in the sun, and it feels as if all the tensions that had been simmering under the surface have been washed away too. Even my mother doesn’t seem wound up quite so tight, and I notice that she takes not one but two blueberry muffins from the breakfast buffet.

  Today it’s our group’s turn to borrow the ranch van. First we head for Gopher Hole, where we stop by Mrs. Jacobs’s bookstore. Bailey and her mom give us a tour, and then Mrs. Jacobs lets us each pick out a book to take home as a present. I pick one with lots of pictures of Wyoming, so I can show my dad. The mayor’s office is next, where Mrs. Winchester gives us each a key to the city. “They’re kind of small—I just got them at the hardware store—but we’re a small town so maybe that’s okay,” she says.

  Lunch is on Mrs. Williams at the Cup and Saucer Diner. Ellie and Tessa, Summer’s older sisters, have been waitressing all summer to help earn money for school, and when they come to take our orders Mrs. Williams pretends to be a really picky customer. She mimics Senator Sinclair’s Southern accent and blustery manner, which we all think is hilarious but Summer’s sisters don’t seem to find that funny. Maybe they think we’re rubbing their noses in the fact that we’re on vacation and they’re not.

  Our final stop is Laramie, where we get to tour the college campus with Professor Daniels and meet Madison’s dad, and then we do a little shopping in town for souvenirs and stuff. Gigi buys Mom and me both genuine cowboy hats, and we get one for Dad, too, to wear when he’s mowing the lawn. Our ride-on mower is probably the closest my father is ever going to get to being a cowboy.

  Finally, it’s time to head back to the ranch. While everyone else scatters to figure out what they’re going to do for tomorrow night’s talent show, I go straight to the ranch house.

  “This came while you were gone,” Mrs. Parker says, handing me the package I hoped would be waiting for me. “Express delivery.”

  I confide my plan to her, and ask if I can use her sewing machine.

  “Of course you can,” she says. “What a great idea!”

  She sets me up in her little sewing room, and I stay holed up there all afternoon and most of the evening. On Friday morning I even skip the final trail ride. I want Summer’s present to be perfect.

  “Hey, Summer, do you have a minute?” I ask when she and the other riders troop into the dining room for lunch.

  “Sure.”

  I make her close her eyes, and then I lead her upstairs to the sewing room.

  “Where are we going?” she asks.

  “You’ll see.” I turn her so she’s facing her present, which is hanging
on the back of the door. “Okay, you can open your eyes now.”

  “Oh my gosh,” she says, when she spots it. “Is that for me?”

  I nod.

  “Megan, it’s amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

  The square dance skirt is made of the emerald green silk Gigi brought me from Hong Kong. I patterned it after one of Mrs. Parker’s, complete with layers of ruffles and flounces.

  “Try it on,” I urge.

  She ducks into the bathroom and changes quickly, then waltzes back out and stares at herself in the mirror, her eyes shining almost as brightly as my grandmother’s diamond earrings.

  “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned,” she says, hugging me. “Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome,” I tell her, feeling a whole lot better about taking her story quilt home with me.

  After lunch, everybody scatters to practice for Ranch Idol. Since I’m not planning on performing, I take my sketchpad and sit on the porch by the dining hall and draw the ranch instead. I want to remember it when I get back to Concord.

  That night everybody comes over to the bunkhouse to watch a movie, a really terrible version of Daddy-Long-Legs with Fred Astaire. It has almost nothing to do with the book, and the only one who likes it is Gigi, because it’s a musical and because part of it is set in France.

  Saturday we hang out, talking and playing horseshoes all morning while our moms do laundry, and get started on the packing, and a few people drift off for more Ranch Idol practice, including Savannah and Jess, who have something up their sleeve all of a sudden. After lunch, we all go down to the swimming hole for a final dip.

  “I love Wyoming!” Cassidy says, floating on her back and looking up at the sky.

  “Me too,” I echo, and it’s true. This has turned out to be an amazing trip.

  Dinner that night is fancy, with white tablecloths on the tables, and grilled steaks and baked potatoes and lemon meringue pie for dessert. My mother, who never eats white sugar, has a second helping of that, too.

  “Go, Mom!” I tell her when I see her plate, and she grins at me.

  The Parker boys clear away all the tables when we’re done, and then we help them set up the chairs in rows for the Ranch Idol contest. There’s a little platform in front of the fireplace, and a microphone and everything. A guest from Cincinnati kicks things off by playing a polka on his accordion, and then Stanley Kinkaid and Senator Sinclair do a really funny skit called “Who’s on First?” Another ranch guest juggles, and Emma and Bailey put on a scene from the play they’ve been writing, which is set in a graveyard and features a ghost named Deliverance Severance.

  I hadn’t planned on doing anything, but then Summer runs up from the back of the room and hops onstage. “This is a Megan Wong original,” she announces, showing off her new skirt.

  The women in the room all crowd closer to take a look.

  “What a wonderful idea, Megan,” says Mrs. Bergson. “Traditional meets modern.”

  Summer’s mother fingers the embroidery. “This fabric is gorgeous.”

  “It’s vintage,” I tell her. “Gigi brought it for me from Hong Kong.”

  “Pacific Rim is hot this year,” says my grandmother, winking at me.

  “You know, Megan, you could make a fortune selling these in Laramie and Cheyenne,” Professor Daniels tells me. “Seriously—I could put you in touch with a shop or two.”

  “And I bet I could sell them to our ranch guests,” adds Mrs. Parker.

  “I’ll put in an order for one right now,” says the wife of the accordion player from Cincinnati.

  “My granddaughter has talent coming out her fingertips,” Gigi tells her.

  “That’s a coincidence, so does my daughter!” says my mother.

  I stare at her. My mother actually made a joke! She’s actually having fun!

  While everybody’s exclaiming over Summer’s skirt, I run back to the bunkhouse and return with her crazy quilt.

  “Let’s talk about real talent,” I say, holding it up so everyone can see. “Tell everybody the story about your great-great-grandmother’s wedding dress, Summer.”

  She does, and a chorus of happy sighs goes up from the women in the audience when she’s done.

  After our unplanned act, the show continues with Cassidy and Zoe and Mrs. Chadwick showing off their new roping skills. Mrs. Chadwick and Zoe are pretty pathetic, but Cassidy’s not bad at all. She even manages to lasso Sam Parker accidentally, or maybe it was on purpose. Either way, he doesn’t seem to mind.

  Then Jess and Savannah take the stage. I see Mrs. Chadwick and Poppy Sinclair smile at each other, and Mrs. Delaney looks happy too.

  Savannah steps forward to the microphone and explains about the singing group they’re in at school called the MadriGals, and then the two of them start to sing. No instruments or anything, just their voices. I haven’t heard Jess sing since sixth grade, when she was Belle in Walden Middle School’s production of Beauty and the Beast, and she’s even better now than she was then. I can’t understand a word of the medieval song they’ve chosen but I don’t need to. I just listen to the pure sound of their voices floating up to the dining room rafters, the intertwined notes swooping and swirling like the dragonflies on Summer’s emerald silk skirt.

  There’s a hush when they’re done, followed by an explosion of applause.

  “How are they going to top that?” Summer whispers to me as Madison joins them onstage with her electric guitar.

  But they do. Madison kicks things off with a rollicking solo, and then Jess and Savannah join in, belting out a country duet that brings the whole room to their feet, clapping and stomping to the beat.

  The best part of the whole show, though, is the finale. Pete appears wearing a tuxedo and Lefty hops up on stage behind him. He’s wearing a tuxedo, too. Well, sort of. It’s actually one of those little fake tuxedo bib things that parents sometimes stick on their babies to be funny, only on Lefty, it really is funny.

  In this totally serious voice, Pete introduces him as “Lefty the Wonder Rooster,” and describes the dramatic canyon rescue, including a wildly embellished version of the GPS tale. All the time, Lefty just bobs around onstage, cocking his head and looking up at Pete as if he’s hanging on his every word. When he’s done with the tall tale, Pete tells Lefty to sit, which of course he doesn’t, and then walks away and tells him to stay, which he doesn’t either—mostly because there’s a hot dog bun sticking out of Pete’s back pocket. While Lefty is busy hopping up trying to snatch it, Pete pretends to get more and more worked up because he won’t lie down, beg, roll over, or play dead. By this time we’re all falling out of our chairs, and Senator Sinclair is laughing so hard he’s crying. The most hilarious part is right at the end, when Pete runs offstage and Lefty chases him. There’s nothing funnier than watching a chicken run.

  Afterward, everybody gets prizes, including Pete and Lefty, who win a rubber chicken. All the guests love this, and Winky leans over to me and whispers, “They win that thing every week.”

  And then it’s time for the square dance. The men and boys whisk all the chairs away, and Mrs. Parker brings out a bowl of punch while the band gets set up and the rest of us go back to our cabins to change.

  “Wow!” says Owen Parker when I reappear in my turquoise kei pou. “You look really pretty!”

  “Thank you,” I reply.

  He grins. “Beats the heck out of those pajamas you were wearing the other night. May I have the first dance?”

  He takes my hand and swings me out onto the dance floor as the music starts. Over by the windowseat, Zoe Winchester glares at me and grabs for her lip gloss.

  I see Pete make a beeline for Gigi. He’s already got Eva Bergson on one arm, and he extends his other to my grandmother. “Looks like I’ve got myself the two prettiest gals in all of Wyoming,” he says, as Gigi tucks her hand under his elbow and the three of them join us on the dance floor.

  I figured square dancing would be kind of
lame, but it actually turns out to be lot of fun. After Owen, I get asked to dance by his brother and then the son of the accordion player from Cincinnati. None of this probably counts, of course, because the boys make the rounds to all the girls eventually, even Cassidy. She’s been grumbling all week about dances being stupid and that no way is she going to wear a skirt, but she’s wearing one tonight and I saw her earlier dancing with Sam Parker and I didn’t hear any complaints out of her then.

  After a few more dances, I’m out of breath. As I go to get myself some punch, Cassidy’s mom and Chloe do-si-do by me. Chloe is strapped to her mother’s chest in one of those little front-pack things, and she’s kicking her legs and squealing happily. For a brief flash I find myself wishing I wasn’t an only child again. But then I remind myself that no family is perfect.

  I look over at Jess, who’s sitting with her leg propped up next to her mom. She’s probably going back to boarding school this fall, mostly because she wants to make her mom and dad happy. And I look at Cassidy, who’s dancing with her stepfather now but who will always miss her real father, and at Summer, radiant in her new skirt, whose real father moved away. Gigi’s right, we’re all like Summer’s crazy quilt, our families made up of a jumble of people and places and experiences, different, maybe, but all of us stitched together by love. Maybe my quilt is different from everybody else’s but there’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe I won’t ever have the same kind of family that my friends have, but then they won’t have mine.

  They won’t have Gigi, that’s for sure. I look over at my grandmother, who’s more like a grandsister, really, and at my mom, who’s finally having fun. The two of them are talking and laughing like two friends, which maybe they are, finally. At least it’s a beginning, anyway.

  Nope, no family is ever perfect, I think. But maybe mine is okay just the way it is.

  “The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go around, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way.”

  —Daddy-Long-Legs

  Mother-Daughter Book Club Questions