Not If I Can Help It

by Carolyn Mackler

  A few minutes later, she holds up the brush triumphantly in her hand. “It’s out!”

  I reach up to my hair. My scalp is sore but otherwise everything feels normal.

  Sandhya smiles at me. “You, my dear, have beautiful hair. We had to at least try to save it.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “Really.”

  Sandhya drapes a towel over my shoulders and instructs me to lean my head over the sink so she can rinse out the conditioner. When she’s done she wraps my hair in a fresh white towel, pats my shoulders, and says, “Let’s tell the guys the good news and get you some dry pajamas.”

  I reach up to make sure the towel is twisted tight around my head and then follow Sandhya into the living room.

  “You got it out!” Dad says, standing up from the couch and hugging us both. Joshua must have gone home and Benji is in his bedroom.

  “Go change into new pajamas,” Sandhya says, handing the brush to my dad, “and I’ll meet you in your room to dry your hair.”

  I nod at her. She’s in total mom mode right now, and I’m actually okay with it.

  I go into my Girl Cave and change into my striped pajamas. I’ve had them since I was eight and they’re way too short but so soft and comfortable. A few minutes later, Sandhya comes in and glances around my room. I can see her eyes lingering on the golden retriever poster by the door and the dog picture that Ruby drew for me a few weeks ago.

  “Your room is so cozy,” she says, reaching for the towel on my head. “It’s totally you.”

  “Thanks.” I tug at the bracelets on my wrist. “Are you going to tell Ruby about the hairbrush getting stuck?”

  Sandhya shakes her head. “Not if you don’t want me to.” She finishes rubbing my wet hair and then drapes the towel over her arm. “I realize your dad and me being together and then getting engaged is a huge shock. It’s a big life change even without the fact that I’m Ruby’s mom. And I know it’s changing you and Ruby’s relationship, like who you are as friends versus who you will be as stepsisters. I realize it’s not easy. Your dad and I are asking a lot of you both, and of Benji, too, and we know it may be rocky sometimes.”

  I nod at Sandhya. She’s putting into words exactly what’s been on my mind. Also, I like how she’s talking to me as an equal, not a little kid who needs to be told that everything will be okay.

  “Believe me,” Sandhya says, “it’s on Ruby’s mind too.”

  “But she always says she’s so happy about it. Like it’s one hundred percent wonderful that you guys are getting married. I’m sorry for not being totally happy … it’s just …” I try to think of a way to finish my thought but nothing is coming to me.

  “Ruby’s excited,” Sandhya says, “but that doesn’t mean she’s not also nervous. She’s got some things she’s really worried about.”

  I watch Sandhya, wondering if she’s going to say anything else about Ruby, but she just tells me she’s going to make my dessert, so I should meet her in the kitchen in a few minutes. As she walks out of my room, I blurt out, “I’m sorry I made you leave dinner to come here.”

  Sandhya pauses in the doorway. “Oh, Willa. Of course we came. As soon as your dad saw the text, we paid and jumped in a car.”

  I smile at her, realizing that I’m okay with the we business. Actually, I kind of like it.

  On Monday morning, I’m building with Sophie when there’s a knock at the door and Mr. Torres steps into the hallway. As soon as we’re alone, Sophie leans across the LEGO-filled table, opens her eyes wide, and whispers, “I hate kindergarten. I cry every day before school but my mom makes me come.”

  I stare at her little face, unsure what to say. She barely talks and now this. I glance around the office at the posters to see if she’s reciting a caption, even though I would bet all my LEGOs that Mr. Torres doesn’t have a poster that announces, I cry every day before school but my mom makes me come. My eyes pause on a poster of an ocean with a quote that says, IN ORDER TO DISCOVER NEW LANDS, ONE MUST BE WILLING TO LOSE SIGHT OF THE SHORE FOR A VERY LONG TIME. I stare at the choppy gray waves, at those words, but then I remember that Sophie is waiting for me to respond.

  I realize I can go two ways. I can tell Sophie what adults have said to me over the years, that it’ll be okay, that it’s probably not as bad as I think, that this, too, shall pass. Or I could tell her the truth.

  “I hated kindergarten, too,” I say. “It was horrible. Kids were so mean.”

  As Sophie watches me closely, I think about how even though kindergarten was bad, elementary school slowly got better. It helped a lot to meet Ruby. We’re getting excited about fifth-grade graduation in a few weeks. Since Ruby doesn’t wear dresses, she suggested we get matching shirts and pants, but I quickly shook my head. The only pants I wear are leggings and a certain stretchy-style pair of jeans. But even with those it has to be a special brand with loose elastic and good seams. I didn’t tell Ruby all this. I just said I was planning to wear a dress but maybe we could do matching colors.

  “I can’t guarantee it’ll get better by the time you’re in fifth grade,” I say to Sophie, “but it did for me and I bet it will for you too.”

  “How old are you?” Sophie asks.

  “Eleven.”

  “I wish I were eleven. I’m five but they call me a baby. Some kids even try to carry me around. It’s not my fault I’m small. It’s not my fault my birthday is in December. A lot of people in my class are already six.”

  “You’re definitely not a baby,” I tell her. “But it’s still not kind of them to call you one.”

  Sophie smiles shyly and then goes back to not talking for the rest of the session.

  That afternoon, after school lets out, I go to the basement to fill my water bottle. The water in the fountain down there is the coldest and tastes the best. I was planning to hide out at the pharmacy like I usually do before my appointment with Maureen, but then I see Ruby walking out of the basement bathroom and heading over to join the other afterschool kids. They’re lined up along the walls, their backpacks flung at their feet, eating snacks before their activities start.

  I wave at Ruby. I’m about to walk toward the stairs leading to the lobby, but then I notice her shoulders are curved in and she’s frowning.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  She squints her eyes and bites at her bottom lip. Ruby only makes this face when she’s really upset.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  Ruby sits down around the corner from the noisy pack of afterschool kids and tosses her bag next to her. I glance at the afterschool coaches to see if they’re going to tell me I’m supposed to be dismissed already, but they don’t seem to notice me. I slide down next to Ruby and hug my backpack against my chest.

  “I guess I’m upset about graduation,” Ruby says, unzipping her soccer bag and then zipping it up again. “A lot of kids were talking about it just now and I got nervous. I hate being onstage. Also my dad offered to fly in from Michigan, but I said it’d probably make me more nervous to have him here. But now I feel bad that he’s not coming. He doesn’t come to a lot of my stuff. That’s kind of the way he is.”

  Ruby rarely talks about her dad. I had no idea that he doesn’t come to her things, and also I didn’t know she was nervous about graduation. I’m trying to figure out the right thing to say when an afterschool coach walks over with the snack basket. It reminds me of a flight attendant on a plane. Ruby reaches in and fishes out a pack of shortbread cookies.

  “Want a snack?” the woman asks me. I see her in the halls sometimes and I think her name is Lila. “It’s fine if you take something.”

  I reach in and pick out a chocolate–peanut butter KIND bar. Benji is going to be so jealous when I tell him.

  “My mom says that graduation will be okay,” Ruby says, unwrapping her cookies. “She says that my dad and I can celebrate in Michigan this summer. And she says that stage fright is normal, lots of people have it. But what if I have to pee in the middle of graduation?” Ru
by giggles and then covers her mouth with her hand. “If you can believe it, I have to pee even more when I’m nervous.”

  I nibble on my KIND bar. “Your mom is really nice,” I say. I’m thinking about how she got the brush out of my hair and didn’t make me feel bad for getting it stuck. Also, when she said good-bye the other night, she gave me a hug and said she was proud of me.

  “She is,” Ruby says. I feel her glancing curiously at me, almost like she knows more.

  “Did she tell you?” I ask.

  “Tell me what?”

  “About last week? When they had to leave their dinner early and come over to my apartment. Did she tell you about that?”

  “Willa,” Ruby says, crumpling the wrapper in her hand. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  I exhale slowly. “It’s really embarrassing.”

  Ruby unzips her soccer bag and digs around, fishing out a spiral notebook and a pencil. “Here,” she says, turning to a fresh sheet of paper. “Write it down. Sometimes things are too embarrassing to say out loud.”

  I nod, clenching the KIND bar between my teeth and balancing the notebook on my knees, and then I write: I got a hairbrush stuck in my hair and your mom helped get it out. It was really bad.

  “Oh,” Ruby says, glancing at what I wrote. “No big deal.My mom is the queen of hair crises. My whole class got lice in second grade. She offered to work on all the kids. She went over to about ten people’s houses and helped comb out lice.”

  “Gross!” I say, instinctively itching at my scalp.

  Ruby itches her hair too. “I know.”

  “But also really nice.”

  “I know,” Ruby says. Then she pauses before adding, “Did your dad tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  Ruby shakes her head and presses her lips together, and so I pass the notebook and pencil over to her. After a moment, I watch her write: I got lost in a crowd and started crying really hard, and your dad found me.

  “When?” I ask. My dad said that he and Sandhya and Ruby went to the High Line last weekend, which is an elevated train track that the city turned into a park, but he didn’t say anything about Ruby getting lost. “You mean at the High Line?”

  Ruby nods and then writes down, It’s lucky your dad is tall. He saw me in the crowd and then I saw him waving. I didn’t have my phone. I thought I was lost forever.

  I reach over and hug Ruby’s shoulder, pulling her in. “My dad is very tall,” I say.

  “I know,” she says. “He’s also really understanding. He said it was no big deal that I was crying.”

  “Ruby!” the afterschool coach Lila shouts down the hall. “Almost ready for soccer? We’re heading to the yard in two minutes.”

  “Okay,” Ruby calls back to her. And then, to me, she says, “I have an idea.”

  “What?”

  Ruby tears the page of the notebook and folds it in half lengthwise, rubbing along the crease. Then she carefully rips the paper in half, handing one side to me.

  “You keep half of my secret,” Ruby says as she tucks her piece into the small pocket in her bag, “I’ll keep half of yours.”

  “Just like how our parents kept our secrets?”

  Ruby nods. “To remember.”

  “To remember,” I agree, nodding. I slide my piece of paper into the cover of my Tintin book because I know I won’t lose it there.

  Ruby hops up to join the afterschool kids. I take a sip of cold water and then walk out of school and over to my appointment with Maureen.

  On Thursday afternoon, Sandhya takes me shopping for my fifth-grade graduation dress. She and Dad planned the outing. They even looped Mom into the text chain so she could suggest brands with soft fabrics that have worked for me in the past. I have to admit I liked seeing Mom and Sandhya texting and sending links for clothing sites back and forth. It made me feel like they’re going to get along and maybe even become friends someday. I know that sounds strange but it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever.

  While Sandhya and I are shopping, Benji is staying home with Joshua and my dad is picking Ruby up from afterschool. For dinner my dad is taking Benji and Ruby to Shake Shack for cheeseburgers and then back to our apartment to do homework. It’s a plan that I never would have dreamed up two months ago, but since Sandhya got the brush out of my hair, I’ve been feeling better about her. Also, I like the thought of my dad being the one to find Ruby when she was lost in a crowd. As soon as I got home from Maureen’s on Monday, I took my torn half of the paper out of the Tintin book and put it in the drawer of my bedside table. I’ve taken it out a few times and looked at it, and it always makes me feel good that we have each other’s secrets and our parents do too.

  I’m actually excited for our excursion today. After dress shopping, Sandhya is taking me to a vegan fast-food restaurant that she read about. I looked up the menu and they have vegan nachos. And I’ll never say no to nachos!

  At four, Sandhya meets me at my apartment and we take the subway downtown. On the train, she tells me how she planned a walking route that passes a bunch of clothing stores and ends up at Green Place, the vegan restaurant. But the crazy thing is, at the first store, the third dress I try on is perfect. It’s red with purple polka dots. No terrible sleeves that tickle the inside of my arms. Just wide straps that rest on my shoulders and a swirly skirt that puffs out without being itchy.

  “I can’t believe it,” I tell Sandhya as I come out of the dressing room and twirl in a circle.

  I really can’t believe it. Usually shopping involves trying on twenty things with no luck and eventually going home and ordering clothes online and then sending those back because they’re terrible too.

  “It’s comfortable?” Sandhya asks, rubbing the skirt’s fabric between her fingers and thumb. I notice a diamond ring on her finger that I’m guessing is an engagement ring from my dad. “It feels soft.”

  “It’s really comfortable,” I tell her.

  I’m glad we’re just saying comfortable instead of her asking me specific questions about seams and too-tight squeezes versus just-right squeezes. I know Mom and Dad filled her in on how seams and I don’t get along, but it’s not like I want to start discussing my sensory stuff with her.

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding. “It’s great. I love it.”

  “And it’s the right colors,” Sandhya says. “Red and purple.”

  I grin. “Exactly.”

  Those are the colors that Ruby and I decided on. Red for Ruby, of course, and I picked purple. I like how purple is one of the regular colors but also it’s unique. On the rainbow it’s not even called purple, but it’s a mix of indigo and violet. Also Benji told me that for centuries purple has been associated with royalty and power, which sounds fine by me.

  “I bought a red blouse for Ruby,” Sandhya says. “Now we need to find purple pants and we’ll be all set.”

  I change back into my shorts and T-shirt, and then we go to the register to pay for the dress. I can see the saleswoman studying us like she’s trying to determine if we’re mother and daughter and, if so, how a petite Indian woman and a tall curly-haired white girl are related. I think about how Ruby hates when people say, Where are your parents from? like they’re never content with her saying Michigan, like the fact that she doesn’t have white skin makes people question her heritage. If anyone ever asks if Sandhya is my mom I’ll simply say yes and let them be confused.

  Sandhya carries the shopping bag as we meander down Fifth Avenue, looking in store windows. We pass a pet store. Sandhya takes a picture of some plaid doggie beds and we text it to my dad. I point out a candy shop that’s famous for their selection of gummies—gummy worms, gummy bears, even gummy dogs!

  “We should bring Ruby,” I tell her.

  “Definitely,” Sandhya says. “Before she gets her braces on.”

  When we get to the vegan restaurant, it’s crowded even though it’s only five fifteen. We order nachos for me, a Thai salad for Sandhya, and artichoke dip to
share. Sandhya even lets me order ginger lemonade. I decide not to tell her that Dad never says yes to sweet drinks in restaurants.

  As we’re waiting for the food, I go to the bathroom to wash my hands. The walls are covered with pictures of dancing vegetables and they have the loudest hand dryer. It feels amazing on my hands and in my ears too. I hold my fingers under the dryer for a while and then skip happily across the restaurant to join Sandhya at our table.

  We’re midway through eating when Sandhya sips her iced coffee and says, “I know that moving in together this summer is a really big deal. Is there anything you want to talk about as we’re getting ready for the move?”

  I nibble on the edge of a tortilla chip. “Like what?”

  “Anything, I suppose. Like, do you always use a certain water glass? Or do you need complete silence to fall asleep? Maybe it sounds random, but sometimes those little things can be the most important on a day-to-day basis.”

  I eat another chip. “I don’t want to be rude,” I finally say, “but I don’t like fancy soaps. The ones that smell like perfume.”

  “Like the ones in my apartment?”

  “They’re really nice,” I say quickly. I don’t want to offend her. But I’m also remembering how Maureen pointed out that people with Sensory Processing Disorder often have a hard time with strong smells. “I just think in my apartment—” I stop abruptly. “I mean, in our apartment …”

  I trail off. I’m trying to think about how to describe the way scents make me feel. It’s a horrible combination of itching down my spine and buzzing in my brain but I have no idea how to put that into words.

  “I guess it’s just the way I am,” I finally offer.