Courage for Beginners

by Karen Harrington

  chapter 34

  Here is a girl noticing that she’s been noticed.

  It is the next day and it unfortunately has a lot in common with yesterday.

  Laura won’t stop insulting my haircut even though I told her that was a one-day deal. So now it is a marbles-under-the-sheets day for her.

  Mama didn’t say anything about my new style, but that’s mainly because she stayed holed up in her room all afternoon and night and completed all her parenting duties by shouting from her bed.

  “Hey, stop fighting and finish your homework. Hey, would someone unload the dishwasher? Hey, would someone bring in the mail?”

  Hey, we’ll get right to it.

  So I got to school another day with no parental comments on my coiffure, which is French for “hairdo.”

  But things are looking up in the hallways of Beatty Middle School.

  Rama Khan, Girl with Sap Lake Green Scarf, attacks my shoulder and pulls me out of the crowd on my way to the cafeteria. “Top secret information. Wayne overheard a conversation in the boys’ bathroom.”

  “Alert the media. I hear girls talking in the bathroom all the time. Why do girls talk between the stalls anyway? That’s weird.”

  “It involved Anibal Gomez and the henchmen. Anibal is ignoring you on purpose.”

  Here is a girl musing that the activity of ignoring is almost never an accident.

  “Well.”

  “Mysti, the henchmen are forcing him to do it in exchange for friendship and cool status. They’re even all performing together in the talent show.”

  “They have talent?”

  “Who knows. And don’t make a joke. This is serious.”

  Maybe it is the crisp fall air that gives me the edge. Maybe it is my new hairdo from Yvonne at Supercuts. Maybe I can trust Rama Khan.

  “I’ve known this all along, Dr. Khan.”

  “What?”

  I’ve probably read a thousand and one books in my life. So I know this is the part of the story where someone like moi is supposed to take a deep breath that shows my profound relief that the truth is finally, finally going to come out. I’ve always thought those stories were fake. I’ve never once taken the deep breath of relief in front of another human being.

  “I might as well tell you,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Anibal told me he was going to ignore me at the beginning of the school year until he achieved hipster status and got Sandy Showalter’s attention. Specifically, her phone number and a complimentary exchange of friendly texts.” I realize how truly pathetic it sounds, which is why I’ve never told her before. Rama has come to a dead stop, hand on her hip, mouth open. Man, the sharpness of her look could slice a bagel.

  “You agreed to this?”

  “I was really just doing him a favor.” Double pathetic.

  “Mysti, you really are weird because—”

  “Because even a sixth grader can see the problems of this situation? Tell me something I don’t know. It’s about to be over, anyway. The fall social was our deadline. Then it stops. You can get to know Anibal better then. Hey, look, it’s Wacky Cake day!”

  “Don’t make a joke, Mysti. You always make a joke.”

  Of course I do. Joking is like having a superhero deflector shield for those times when you feel like a turtle without its shell. Has she forgotten how Wayne Kovok educated us on the life expectancy of turtles without shells? Maybe she wasn’t listening that day. Seventh graders need deflectors like turtles need shells.

  “Come on, Mysti.”

  Rama Khan is not amused and can really get past my shield with her tone of voice. That is the real and true reason I like her. She’s not mushy. I will make her a bracelet today.

  “On the walk home, I’ll tell you everything. And bonus! I’ll also say I agree with you that I’m pathetic, okay?”

  “Will you also agree to be in the talent show?”

  Now it is my turn to stop on a dime.

  “Talent show? You need your head examined. You weren’t here last year so I’ll cut you some slack, but I am never doing that again.”

  “My mother wants me to enter and play the violin.”

  “Well, enter, then.”

  We sit down at the Loser Island and try to make eye contact with Wayne. But he’s in a trance.

  Those ribbons. Those blue-and-white ribbons.

  They have shiny power that cannot be explained.

  There is the entire cheer squad, bouncing their way through the lunch line. Looking every bit filled with spirit. They are together, minus one. Minus Sandy Showalter. I am now just as obsessed with spotting her in the lunchroom as Anibal Gomez is, and don’t like this about myself one bit.

  I whisper to Rama, “Let’s mess with Wayne.”

  “Look, I have hummus in my lunch,” Rama announces.

  “Oh, PB and J for me,” I say to her.

  Still nothing from Wayne of the “Did you know” questions. You would think he’d have some fact at the ready about hummus.

  “Did you know that girls love iambic pentameter?” I say. Wayne hates poetry.

  “I don’t get iambic pentameter,” Wayne snaps. “I wasn’t supposed to understand poetry!” He slams his book, which is ironically titled Understanding Poetry.

  And then the universe messes with us.

  There she is. Sandy Showalter. And she is next to an older version of Sandy Showalter. You know how you can look at a woman and know she was probably pretty once but now her beauty is all faded? That’s how this woman looks. A little faded.

  “What about over here?” older Sandy Showalter says, and I see she’s pointing a shiny red-painted fingernail toward the Loser Island.

  “Um, we can sit where I usually sit,” Sandy offers.

  But Sandy’s too late. The woman has staked out a seat on the Island.

  “Hello, everyone,” older Sandy says. “How’s everyone today? Are you all friends with my daughter, Sandy?” Sandy’s mom smiles and it wakes up all her faded beauty. A good smile will do that.

  “This is Mysti and that’s Wayne,” Sandy says to her mother. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name?”

  “Rama,” Rama says.

  Wayne and I have a “See who can turn redder” contest and he wins by a mile. He picks up Understanding Poetry and tries to understand, only the book is upside down. He’ll probably just think it’s stupid poetry messing with him.

  “Hi, Sandy,” I say. “Hi, Sandy’s mom.”

  “Mysti made this supercool project for Texas History,” Sandy says. “The entrance to the Louvre Museum.”

  “I didn’t know there was a Louvre in Texas,” Sandy’s mom replies.

  “Mysti, I would love to have one of those. Maybe you could show me how. I’m totally into Paris.”

  I pinch off tiny bites of my PB and J and wonder why she is talking to me like I’m normal. This is slightly challenging to think about when someone with a Naples Yellow scarf is kicking you under the table.

  “Sure, Sandy, that would be fun.”

  “Let’s exchange numbers,” she says.

  Kick.

  And I say, “Sure.”

  We exchange numbers. I have Sandy Showalter’s number. Can the exchange of friendly texts be far away? No.

  “Sandy tells me there’s a social coming up,” Sandy’s mom says.

  “Mom, don’t embarrass me!” Sandy has perfected the art of the eye roll like no one I’ve seen.

  It comes to me that I’m grateful for Mama’s lack of driving. We can file this chapter under “Mama embarrassing me at school—Events that will never happen to Mysti Murphy.”

  Sandy eats her salad. Her fingernails are painted blue and white. There are tiny bear-paw prints made of glitter on her thumbs. I catch Wayne stealing glances at her fingernails. Everyone is silent except Sandy’s mom.

  Sandy’s mom is what Dad would call a chatterbox. She has lots of information to share about Sandy and it just ping-pongs all over the Island. We learn things like, Sandy is a great
dancer, has a little brother who just broke his arm, and they have to go to Costco this weekend to look at fake Christmas trees.

  We eat in slow motion, except for Wayne. He is now almost catatonic. Old and young Showalters leave the table, Sandy giving one last wave and toss of her ribbons.

  “They’re gone now, Wayne. You can breathe.”

  He grabs his lunch bag and book and takes off.

  “I’d say that was interesting,” Rama says. “But be wary. You know how those people are.”

  “Rama, being wary is exhausting.”

  “Don’t forget—after school you’re telling me your whole pathetic story and admitting that I’m a superior form of friend.”

  “I didn’t sign on for all that.”

  “It’s going to happen. Trust me. You will see.”

  After school, we walk home and I do tell her everything. I try to stick with the facts. I tell her that Anibal and I still text and talk on the phone. I tell her that he expressed concern about Dad. I make him sound human. Make him sound the opposite of how he’s acting, which takes some verbal gymnastics on my part. I have to use the words sensitive and caring, words that don’t come out easily. I leave out how I’m afraid of how much he’s really changed, in ways I can’t even describe to myself. I leave out how she is right about one thing. She is probably a superior form of friend. I don’t tell her that because it will increase the size of her already-confident head so much she’ll have to let out her scarf.

  “So you see, Rama,” I conclude, “Anibal is not one hundred percent jerk. This situation is not unlike an iceberg.” This is me, trying to outsmart the girl with two career plans by using a Wayne Kovok factoid I picked up two days ago.

  “An iceberg?”

  “About eighty-eight percent of your typical iceberg lurks below the water. So we only really see a fraction of it on the surface. You’ve only seen a fraction of Anibal Gomez.”

  There. I don’t know much, but this worked out nicely.

  “Good try using a Wayne fact. I already heard him say that.”

  “Well, it works. What’s underneath a person is what really matters.”

  “Except that I don’t think Anibal Gomez is deep. He is one hundred percent surface.”

  Of course, Rama has a point. But in a very few short minutes I will be texting Anibal, and then in a day, Anibal and Rama will have lunch together and the iceberg situation will melt.

  chapter 35

  Here is a girl on the receiving end of truths she doesn’t want to acknowledge.

  Done!

  Huh?

  Lunch.

  I saw. So?

  So?

  So!!!!

  I have SS number.

  So!

  I’m just one text away from winning!

  Whatever.

  Eat lunch w/me now? Meet my friend Rama?

  No way, loser!

  ?? why not??

  Never going to happen.

  I turn off my phone. I feel sick. I don’t even respond to the Sandy Showalter victory text waiting there for me. I sort of feel like I just collided with an iceberg. My first instinct is to call Rama. But I don’t. I don’t want her to put words to my hurt. She wouldn’t be mean about it, I know, but those words would still cut.

  chapter 36

  Here is a girl who hopes no one witnessed how she crashed into her front door because she was reading and not looking.

  Once upon a time, Anibal Gomez was treated horribly by two fifth-grade boys. They constantly called him a loser. They were twins, these boys. The Snyder twins. They had a reputation for acting like they were the only ones in the world. The only ones on the playground. Anything and everything was theirs for the taking. If you were in their way, too bad. If they didn’t like what you were wearing, too bad. If they noticed you made a bad grade on your test, too bad. They’d shout all these things at the top of their lungs.

  Get out of my way!

  Who dresses you?

  Man, you’re dumb.

  And they liked to call people losers.

  Anibal Gomez was tormented by the Snyder twins. They stole his books. Ripped his papers. Started calling him Cannonball Nomez. They wrote loser on his locker. And it was then that he said to me, Mysti, I will never call someone a loser, not even if it’s factually correct, like if they lost a game or something.

  Thankfully, the Snyder twins went off to some other middle school and did not bring their bombastic words to Beatty Middle School.

  That was then.

  This is now.

  Proof that people change. Right there in black and white. Calling me a loser.

  I crash into our front door. I know better than to read texts while walking, but this is different. I rub the sore spot on my forehead, then unlock our front door. Larry runs up to me, tail all awag.

  But the rest of the house is quiet.

  Too quiet.

  Laura isn’t home yet because she somehow wrangled an after-school playdate with Rebecca. Another sign that Mama is less interested in us. For all I know, she sent Laura to the store.

  I tiptoe down the hallway and peek into Mama’s room.

  “Mama?”

  The sheets are a tangled mess. No shower water running. No Mama on the patio painting. No sign of Mama in the kitchen except a precisely folded dish towel.

  “Mama?”

  My heart races and I sink into worry. There aren’t really more surprising things than an agoraphobic mother who’s gone missing.

  Here is a girl in a story where there’s a shocking plot twist: The mother who never leaves the house has left.

  “Mama? Are you here?”

  I go to the backyard. Surely she is out picking vegetables.

  “Mama?”

  I look in closets. Nothing.

  I go to the garage, where maybe she’s alphabetizing the deep freeze.

  “Mama?”

  My heart pounds. I feel queasy. I really need my dad right now. A wave of missing him washes over me.

  “In here, honey.”

  Mama is seated in the driver’s seat of the green Toyota.

  Wait, Mama is seated in the driver’s seat of the green Toyota?

  “Mama?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was looking for you.”

  “Well, I’m here.”

  “Why?”

  “Just thinking.”

  She opens the car door. “Do you have homework?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to make dinner.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean? I always make dinner.”

  “No, not really, Mama. Not lately.”

  “I guess I haven’t done a lot of things lately.”

  I could unfurl my brain and let her know all the things she hasn’t done. The list is long.

  Here is a girl practicing quiet restraint.

  “Well, go and do your homework. Next time you go to the store, get chicken, okay? And fresh spinach, please.”

  “Sure.” I walk to my room fast.

  I do my stupid math homework and then go out the front door and just sit. You would think Mama would say something, good or bad, about my haircut. Anything at all. But there is nothing. Mama is consistently inconsistent lately so what did I expect? A cake?

  But it’s not her fault that Anibal is the Mayor of Disappointment Town. He is the true villain of my life story.

  So I sit on our cold porch until Laura gets home because I really don’t want to be inside. Not even to get the dreaded orange coat, which I could really use right now. The wind is picking up and it chills me to the bone and makes me miss my scarf of long hair. My stomach twists and I try to shake it off and focus on good things, like how Sandy Showalter has my number and is also a fan of the French. And how Rama is really turning on her RamaKhan powers and being a friend who is encouraging me to be wary.

  “What are you doing out here?” Laura asks as she hops up the steps.

  That kid still has a lot of ho
p in her. I wish that didn’t go away when you were twelve.

  “Thinking.”

  “Do you want to think by yourself or do you want companionship?”

  “You can stay, it’s fine.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Mama. She’s making dinner.”

  “Hoo-ray! I’m sick of macaroni, no offense.”

  Later, all three of us sit at the table and eat tuna fish with macaroni and cheese again. (Ingredients brought to you by Mysti Murphy, thank you very little.)

  We wash the dishes together while Laura folds clothes. And Mama touches my hair, just a big chunk of it that frames my face. Her hand leaves a clump of sparkly soap bubbles on the ends.

  “I like this,” Mama says. “Very chic.”

  “I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

  “I notice everything, Mysti. That’s the problem.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  It never occurred to me that noticing could lead to a problem like the topic we never speak of. It makes me want to go dig out a pamphlet in Mama’s nightstand and see what’s in there about fear and noticing.

  She stares out the kitchen window. “I’m just too sensitive, I guess. That’s what your father would say.”

  “No, he would say, Melly, get over this already, you’ve got to overcome this or you’ll plant fear in your daughters.”

  Mama drops the plate she was rinsing. It clatters to the bottom of the sink. Well, I’ve done it now. I wanted someone to feel as bad as I do. I guess I got my stupid wish.

  “You know what, I have a headache. Finish this up and go to bed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I, too, have a headache. The kind I get when I’m determined not to cry.

  After you’ve upset a person and they walk away, you can still feel the cloud of upset in the room. Like a bad smell, it takes some time to fade away. That’s how it is for me now.

  Here is a girl unable to make the kitchen completely clean.