Graceful

by Wendy Mass

  “Sounds good,” I reply, and we keep walking. We reach the diner, and I can see through the glass windows that a whole bunch of girls from Rory’s grade are sitting in the booths. Rory sees them, too, and slows down before they see us. Just then, both our phones ding with a text.

  “It’s from Tara,” Rory says, reaching for hers first. She begins to read it out loud. “ ‘My mother just drove past you guys on Main Street. She said to take off those ridiculous hats this instant, and that somewhere Angelina is getting a good laugh.’ ”

  Rory looks up from the phone. “You think she’s right?”

  “Tara’s mom knows Angelina better than either one of us does,” I reply. Still, I hesitate before taking it off. What if the voices come back? Ever so slowly, I lift it off my head. Ah, still quiet. I say a silent thank you to Angelina. The hat may look silly, but it did its job. I fold it down until it fits in my pocket.

  Rory crosses her arms. “I’m going to keep mine on just in case Mrs. Brennan is wrong and it will help you somehow. Plus, I’ve been embarrassed way worse than this in my day!”

  “That’s the spirit! Now, go get that cupcake!”

  “I will!” Rory says, chin up, head high. She glances at the booths, takes a deep breath, and steps inside.

  That girl is SPECIAL.

  Dear Julie,

  I’m typing this to you on my phone while I’m sitting on a stranger’s curb around the corner from my house, and then I’ll print it out and mail it tomorrow. My dad asked me the other day why you and I don’t just email each other instead of finding paper / finding a pen that works / finding envelopes / finding stamps / and dropping it in a mailbox, but it wouldn’t feel right. We’re pen pals, I told him, not email pals! And writing real letters is a lost art, anyway, right?

  So right now, me = riding in circles in my neighborhood with my headphones on. I love having my bike back because everything in this new town has been, well, NEW. My clothes, my house, my friends, my boyfriend, my school, my cousin Emily and her family, and even having a semi-normal relationship with my mom is new. I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining, because it’s more than I ever dreamed I’d get in a hundred lifetimes, but THAT’S A LOT OF NEW. My dad told me last night how I’m adjusting so well to life here, and I feel like I am, most of the time, but then other times I just want to get on my bike and ride, ride, ride and shut everything out. I don’t want my friends here to know that I feel like this sometimes. I’m so grateful that you and I are in touch again.

  Hang on, a call from my mom coming in.

  Okay, just had to send a text to Grace and Rory, who for some reason are wearing funny hats in public. I’ve got to admit, life in Willow Falls is never boring. Well, I only have a little while to ride and then I’m going over to my cousin’s house. She’s going to show me how to fence. She says I’d be good at it because I’m so tall. Honestly, I’m not so sure I’m particularly good at anything. I think I just need to keep riding and stop grizzling! (That’s an Australian expression Ray says whenever he hears me complaining!)

  w/b/s

  Your friend Tara, who is in a weird mood

  CONNOR KELLY’S INVENTOR’S JOURNAL

  Type of product: 3-D Glasses for Glasses Wearers

  Inventor: Connor Kelly

  Description of invention-in-progress: So apparently the process of turning a television screen into 3-D is more complicated than I had at first suspected — there’s all this stuff about polarization, and tricking the eye into viewing two slightly different images at once, etc., etc., which I guess explains why no one has done it yet, or done it well. I was ready to throw in the towel (that’s inventor lingo for quit) when my beta tester (and best friend) David Goldberg and I started talking about it over lunch at school. I hadn’t told anyone my idea for the screen yet, but David kept asking if there’s anything he could do to make my life better because he’s practicing this whole “pay it forward” thing, so I explained my problem to him, and he said that he doesn’t really like to go to 3-D movies because it’s uncomfortable to wear the glasses they give you over his real glasses. DING DING DING! That’s the sound of a bell going off in my head. I can invent 3-D glasses for glasses wearers!

  What problem does it solve: This product would solve the problem of eyeglass wearers having to either take off their glasses to fit on the 3-D frames and deal with the decline in their vision, or suffer the discomfort of wearing both pairs at once.

  Who will want or need this product: 3-D moviegoers who wear prescription eyeglasses.

  Materials: 3-D glasses with lenses removed, oversized frames I snagged from my sister

  Steps: Analyze existing 3-D glasses frames, build my own pair complete with working lenses.

  Results: Fingers still crossed at this point!

  Final observations: I’ll tell ya when it’s done!

  Notes: David joined me in the garage, and the last few hours have been very productive. Between the two of us, we were able to come up with six pairs of the kind of 3-D glasses you get in the theatre. Unfortunately, none of the lenses are big enough for the oversized frame I want to set them in. I tried to melt them down so I could make larger ones, but all it did was bubble and blacken. So I borrowed a roll of cellophane from the kitchen, which hopefully Mom won’t miss tonight when she’s putting away leftovers. Then I took out the lenses from Grace’s huge sunglasses (which was easy because they are very cheap glasses and the lenses popped right out). I laid the lenses on the cellophane and traced around them. Then I cut the circles out and tried to color one red and one blue, but it was a mess, so I realized I should color them before I cut them out. So I repeated my first steps, but this time colored one with red marker, and one with blue marker, then cut them out. Then I taped the thin colored pieces of cellophane onto the glasses where the lenses were. This does not look pretty, but I tested it out on a 3-D comic book I have, and it totally worked.

  My beta tester said that the oversized frames allowed the stems (the side parts that go behind your ears) of the new glasses to extend farther past his ears than previous pairs, so they didn’t touch his own glasses. This is good. But then he complained that the bridge of the glasses still rested on his own glasses in an uncomfortable way. So now I am extending the bridge of the glasses so they rest on the nose in front of regular glasses.

  Roger said I could come over tonight to show him my progress. Have to go inside now for a snack. Inventing makes a guy hungry!

  To: Linda@OnlineFamilyTherapy.com

  From: DavidGoldberg@WillowFallsSchool.edu

  Subject: Walk on a Fall Evening

  Hey there, Linda, old buddy, old pal. Just had to write to tell you about something cool that happened today. After an early dinner, I was taking a walk with my dad. (Which, by the way, is a sentence that I never thought I’d ever get to write — but that’s not the cool thing I wanted to tell you.) So anyway, we were turning the corner of our street when a girl on a bike zoomed by. She was going so fast she was almost a blur. I didn’t pay much attention because I was focused on enjoying the walking-with-Dad part, but then he nudged me and said, “Wasn’t that your girlfriend?” And he didn’t say it in a teasing kind of “nudge-nudge you have a girlfriend” way, which is one of the many cool things about him.

  I shielded my eyes with my hand and peered down the street, but the girl was already gone.

  “I’m pretty sure it was Tara,” he said.

  “Wouldn’t she have stopped if she saw us, though?” I asked as a cold chill rose up my spine. (By the way, Linda, I don’t usually say things like a cold chill rose up my spine, but that’s how it felt, and if you can’t be honest with your therapist, then what’s the point of therapy?) Anyway, where was I? Oh, right, so now I’m all worried that maybe Tara’s mad at me for something, and I try to think of what I could have done. Had I been spending too much time with Connor? Or my dad? Had I not helped her settle into town enough? Had I messed this up??

  “Breathe,” Dad said, shaking me. �
��I’m sure she just didn’t see us. She seemed pretty focused.”

  Before I can explain my fears, the girl comes whizzing down the street toward us again. This time she puts on the breaks and slows down enough for us both to recognize each other.

  “Hey,” she says, yanking off her helmet and shaking out her hair. (Did I ever tell you she has really pretty hair? I probably didn’t. She does, though.)

  Dad gave us both pats on our arms and said, “I’ve gotta run. Forgot to feed the dog.”

  “We don’t have a dog,” I reminded him.

  He winked and strode away toward the house. I turned back to Tara, who was pulling out her earbuds. I almost said one of a few corny lines from movies that popped into my head, like “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” or “Funny meeting you here” or “Looks like it’s just you and me, kid.” But she probably didn’t have to sit through as many movies with her mom as I did over the years, and I would’ve sounded weird. So instead, I rambled something dorky about it being a nice night for a ride.

  Then she said, “I’m sorry, but I’m in kind of a weird mood. Probably shouldn’t be around people.”

  “Is it anything to do with me?” I asked, holding my breath a little.

  She shook her head. “Just overwhelmed, I think. I’m trying to ride it out.”

  “You’re sure?” I asked, because I’ve learned that sometimes girls might not tell you things the first time you ask. I know that sounds bad, but it’s kind of true.

  “Positive,” she said.

  There might have been the slightest of hesitations, but I decided to take her at her word. How could she not be overwhelmed in her situation? I needed to step up the boyfriend thing by both being there for her and also giving her space. “Is it working?” I asked. “The biking, I mean?”

  “Maybe a little,” she said.

  “I know something that will help,” I told her. So she walked her bike between us, and I led her right to her cousin’s backyard and into the pool hole where I used to practice for my bar mitzvah. We didn’t take the bike down, obviously. “Everyone should have a place to be alone,” I told her as we looked up at the sky turning pink above us. “This place always calmed me down. Now it’s yours. You know, until your aunt and uncle get around to putting water into it!”

  She looked unsure, but I settled her into a cozy corner and said, “Trust me, a little while down here in the earth listening to music and you’ll feel good as new.”

  She stuck her earbuds back in her ears. “I’m listening to you,” she said, fiddling with the buttons on her phone.

  So I said, “Good. Trust me, the pool hole always works.”

  She shook her head. “No, I mean I’m listening to you.” She points to her ears. “In my head. The recording you made me for my birthday. You’re singing to me.”

  Well, Linda, I gotta tell you. My face got all hot, and my legs felt a little shaky when she said that. Of all the songs in the world, she picked mine to make her feel better. So what happened next, you ask? Well, Linda. That’s rated PG-13, if you know what I mean. Wink-wink. Then Tara only had a few minutes before she had to be inside, so I left her to be on her own, which was really the point in the first place.

  Thanks for listening to my story, Linda. One nice thing about never actually sending you these emails is that I don’t get charged $$. So it’s a win-win!

  Sincerely yours,

  David Goldberg

  I call Tara right after dinner. She picks up on the first ring.

  “I hope someone took a picture of you guys with those hats on,” she says instead of hello.

  I laugh. “Nope, sorry. You’ll have to use your imagination.”

  “Bummer. I was hoping to get you back for that picture you took of us in those Sunshine Kid uniforms.”

  I remember the day I first met Tara and Amanda and Rory when they rang our bell selling cookies. Could that have been only a few months ago? Crazy! “Thanks for the reminder to print that out! Someday you’ll have to tell me the story behind it. But for now, guess what?”

  She sighs. “In this town it could be anything. I give up. Wait, before you tell me, let me put down the sword Emily just gave me. We’re practicing for my first fencing class.”

  I hear some shuffling and a muffled “Ouch,” and “Careful!” and “Sorry!” and then she’s back. “Okay, lay it on me.”

  “Are you free to do something tomorrow morning?” I ask.

  “Amanda’s mom is coming over to help my mom decorate,” she says. “They keep asking me if I like this paint color or that carpet fabric, and I keep saying yes, and then they change it anyway. So, yes, I’d love an excuse not to be home.”

  “Good! Then we have a date at Angelina’s Sweet Repeats and Collectibles at ten o’clock.”

  “We do?”

  “Yup. Angelina said there’s something you need in there.”

  Silence. “You spoke to Angelina?”

  “Yes! Well, sort of. Not exactly. Okay, it was through a postcard.”

  More silence.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  She finally says, “Did I do something wrong, do you know?”

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” I try to assure her. “But it must be really important for her to have mentioned it, right?”

  “I’m not going to sleep tonight,” she says, and I can tell from her breathing that she’s pacing the room. “What if we went there now?”

  I look at the clock in my room. It’s seven already, not usually the time I’d be going out with my friends. It’s a Friday night, though, so it’s not like I have to get up early for school tomorrow. “I guess we could go tonight. But my mom will probably say anything I could do now I could do tomorrow instead.”

  “How about this,” she says. “I’m already at my aunt and uncle’s hanging out with Emily, and your brother is upstairs with my uncle in the lab. What if Connor needed you to drop something over here, and then Ray brought us to the store and offered to take you both home?”

  I consider her idea. “Does Connor need something?”

  “I don’t know; I’ll go ask him. Hang on.”

  I hear shuffling, then muffled voices. A minute later she comes back and says, “Connor would like a Three Musketeers bar.”

  “A Three Musketeers bar?” I repeat.

  “Yes. He says your mom has a bag in the closet for Halloween. He says it’s urgent. Something about how he needs to measure the thickness of the nougat for his invention.”

  Yeah, I’m not buying that for a second, but I let it go. “And Ray said he’d take us?”

  “Actually, he said, ‘No worries, mate.’ ”

  “Okay, I’ll tell my parents Ray’s going to pick me up, so have him swing by in five minutes.”

  “Will do,” she says. “And thanks. I think!”

  It’s easier than I would have thought to convince my parents to let me go off with Ray. They know and trust him from directing the play, and he’s dropped Connor off after work before. Plus his accent would charm anyone.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m unzipping the pouch that I retrieved from my desk drawer and tossing Connor his chocolate bar in the middle of the St. Claires’ living room. I’ve never been in their house before, even though it’s right across the street from David’s, where I’ve been tons. The house is very clean and modern. As I suspected, Connor tears open the candy bar wrapper and begins to chew.

  “So when do I get to see your invention?” I ask him while Tara searches Emily’s room for her shoes. According to her, as neat as the rest of the house is, that’s how messy her cousin’s room is.

  “Roger has it upstairs in his lab,” he says.

  “You call him Roger?” I ask.

  He nods. “We inventors are laid-back dudes. No suits and ties and formal names for us.”

  “So basically you don’t want to show me.”

  “Righto,” he says, and shoves the rest of the candy bar in his mouth. Then he smiles really w
ide so I can see the layer of chocolate coating his teeth. It will likely be many years until Connor gets a girlfriend.

  We have to pass Bailey’s house on the way to the store, and Ray agrees to stop so I can invite her to come. After all her trips to the store with me, if we actually get inside and she’s not with me, I’d feel terrible.

  As Tara and I walk up to the door, I send a message in my head to Bailey’s mom so she’ll let Bailey come out with us. It must have worked because just as we’re about to ring the bell, Bailey runs out in her pj’s and flip-flops. “Be home by nine!” her mom calls out after her.

  On the way into town, I tell them about today’s adventure at the library. They all request a picture of the hats. I groan. “Forget the hats. Focus on the important part.”

  “So you’re supposed to use those metal sticks to somehow find the vortex?” Tara asks. “And then what?”

  Ray parks the car on Main Street and we climb out. “I have no idea,” I admit. “Angelina said something about a gratitude offering. I don’t know what that is, though.”

  We start down the alley. The sun is setting, and a golden glow bounces off the cobblestones. “Once when I was a wee ankle biter,” Ray says, “I visited the outback with my oldies and saw people offering gratitude to their spirit animals. They were sprinkling grass seeds or nuts or rice, then they gave thanks for guidance and protection.”

  “What’s a spirit animal?” Tara asks. I have no idea, either.

  “You pick an animal to protect you, or rather it picks you,” he explains. “It’s supposed to embody your essence or some mumbo jumbo like that. Give you power and strength.”

  “But I don’t have a spirit animal.”

  “You can pick one,” he says. “How about a penguin?”

  “Seriously?”

  “What do you have against penguins?” he asks. “They’re like really big birds in tuxedos. They’re always ready for a fancy dance.”