“Can’t she just get a rescue dog?” Pauline said. Her friends giggled, and Izzy smiled with them, but she didn’t like making fun of her mother. Even if her fixes weren’t always successful, at least she tried.
“I hope your mom doesn’t decide to have another baby too,” Cookie said. “You’d have to move into a tent in the backyard.” Pauline laughed hysterically.
Since when was Cookie a comedian? And why did she have to bring up the baby thing? Izzy hadn’t even been thinking about it today. Even if her mother did marry Dr. Gustino, which was not likely, they wouldn’t want to have a baby, would they? If they did, Izzy would lose her mother too. Maybe they’d make her go live with her father. She’d be lucky if they let her live in the backyard.
“My mom isn’t having any babies,” Izzy said. “I think she’s too old.”
“No, she’s not,” Cookie said. “Don’t you remember last year when Katie Altshuler’s mother got pregnant? She was, like, forty-five or something.”
“Katie Altshuler’s mother is never not pregnant,” Izzy said. “She’s like the old woman who lived in a shoe…only she’s the middle-aged woman who lives in size ten Uggs.”
Izzy thought that was pretty funny for something she just made up on the spot. Pauline gave a subdued giggle, but Cookie just narrowed her eyes like she usually did when Izzy joked, as if she couldn’t believe Izzy was making such a fool of herself.
Cookie lit a candle that was inside a jar, and the room started to smell as if they’d been baked in a pie. “I have news too,” she said with a sly grin. She picked up a raggedy teddy bear that lived on her pillow and hugged him close.
Izzy figured this was bound to be another story about some boy, and she was not really in the mood for it.
“Tell us!” Pauline could always be counted on to live up to Cookie’s expectations.
“I talked to Micah in study hall last period. He sat at my table, and we whispered for the whole forty minutes!”
“What did you talk about?” Pauline asked.
“Everything. What we did this summer, and who our teachers are this year, and all kinds of stuff. He’s so funny. I could talk to him all day.”
“I thought he liked Aviva?” Izzy said. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the nicest thing to say, but Cookie hadn’t been that nice to her either, saying she might have to sleep in the backyard. Plus Cookie thought Micah was funny, but she never laughed at Izzy’s jokes. And really, all Micah did was talk to Cookie. She shouldn’t get her hopes up.
Cookie glared at her. “Micah and Aviva are just friends. They’re not going together or anything.”
Pauline pursed her lips and tipped her head sideways. “You know, Izzy, sometimes it seems like you say things just to make us mad.”
Us? There was an us that didn’t include Izzy? She knew she ought to keep her mouth shut…but she didn’t. “What do you care, Pauline? Do you have a crush on Micah too?”
Her friends were silent, but they leaned toward each other on the bed until their shoulders touched. The meaning was clear enough. They were a team, and if Izzy kept annoying them, she wouldn’t be a part of that team anymore. Maybe she already wasn’t part of it.
She gave an injured sigh. “Jeez, I’m sorry, okay?” But the way she said it meant almost the opposite. It meant you don’t understand me at all.
“I should go home,” Izzy said. “Oliver went to see a therapist after school today, and he was really scared about it, so I need to talk to him. He trusts me more than anybody else.” That’s what her mother had said, wasn’t it? Something like that. She licked the icing from her fingers and slid off the bed.
At the mention of Oliver, the grim looks on her friends’ faces transformed into sad masks.
“I feel so bad for him,” Cookie said, sighing. “Will you give him a hug from me?”
Oliver didn’t even like Izzy to hug him, but she didn’t tell Cookie that. “Sure. He likes you guys.” It wasn’t a lie, but Izzy was aware she’d only said it to make her friends less mad at her.
“We like him too!” Pauline said. “Tell Oliver if he ever wants to talk to us about anything—”
Izzy tried to make her eyes look as soft and mushy as her friends’ did. “He usually just talks to me. But I’ll tell him what you said.”
Cookie and Pauline started to giggle again before Izzy even closed the bedroom door, so they missed it when she waved a fond good-bye over her shoulder.
“Izzy said I don’t have to tell you about it!” Oliver was standing in a corner of the kitchen, his eyes darting from side to side like a trapped squirrel.
Izzy came in quietly and leaned against the wall, reminding herself not to let her mother see her limp.
“Of course you don’t have to tell me, Oliver,” her mother said. “It’s completely confidential between you and Cassie. I just wondered how it went. Whether you feel comfortable with her. If you think talking to her will be helpful.” She had the freezer door open and was rummaging around inside. “Ah, here they are. Do you want an ice pop?”
Oliver looked skeptical, as if she might be offering him the treat in return for his testimony. “I guess so.” He took the one she handed him.
“Can I have one too?” Izzy asked. No one had to know she’d already had two cupcakes this afternoon.
“Hi, Izzy.” Her mother dug into the box and pulled out another pop for her.
“Let’s take them on the front porch, Oliver,” Izzy said.
“That’s a good idea,” her mother said, “but I want to talk to you for a minute first, Izzy. Alone.”
Now what?
Oliver ran out of the kitchen while he had a chance.
“Your dad called me this morning.” Izzy’s mother let that sink in, and then said, “You didn’t tell me their big news.”
God, was that all anybody was going to want to talk about now? Izzy sighed. “So, they’re having a baby. Big deal. He called just to tell you that? I thought he never called you.”
“We don’t communicate often, but your dad was concerned about your reaction to Emily’s pregnancy. He said you were rude to him, and to Emily too. He was pretty sure you were upset.”
“Well, I’m not. I mean, I’m sorry if they thought that. It just surprised me, is all.” Izzy turned her back to her mother and unwrapped the ice pop over the sink.
“Honey, I know this is hard. But I think it’s worth starting out on the right foot with the new baby.”
Didn’t Ellen have a bit about always starting on the right foot? What’s wrong with the left foot? Or was that a different comedian?
“I know there have been a lot of changes the last few years, and you haven’t been very happy with them. Izzy, are you listening to me? Your father wants to work this out with you—”
Izzy whirled around. “Well, then, maybe he should talk to me himself instead of telling you how awful I am!”
Her mother’s mouth curved downward. “Nobody said you were awful. And you’re right. He should talk to you himself. I’ll tell him—”
“I don’t want him to talk to me because you tell him to!”
Her mother slumped into a kitchen chair. “Izzy, your father isn’t always the most…What I mean is, he’s not good at…Oh, I don’t know. I obviously couldn’t communicate with the man myself, or we wouldn’t be divorced. But you aren’t divorced from him, and I think you need to figure out how to talk to him about this.”
Izzy let her ice pop drip into the sink. “They probably just want me to be a babysitter.”
“I don’t think that’s true, Izzy. I think, in the long run, it’ll be very nice for you to have a brother.”
Why did everybody think that? It wasn’t true. She had enough problems already without adding in a brother. “Can I go outside now?” she asked. “This thing is melting all over.”
Her mother’s smile looked limp, but she nodded. “Go ahead.”
Out on the porch, Izzy sat in the swing, figuring Oliver would climb up next to her like he usually
did. But he was sitting in a wicker chair and didn’t move.
“So, was school any better today?” she asked.
He crunched the ice between his teeth before he answered. “Not really. But at least I was expecting it today.”
“Liam again?”
He nodded. “And a few others. Not everybody’s mean. The quiet kids sometimes smile at me when they think nobody’s looking.”
How could she get him to tell her about his therapy? He’d balked at talking to her mother about it, so she’d have to sneak up on the subject.
“Did you walk home after school?”
“No.” He said it like she was being really stupid.
“Oh, that’s right. Today was the day you went to see Cassie Clayton.”
Oliver slurped his ice pop as if licking it was his job. He didn’t look at Izzy.
“I liked Cassie when I used to go talk to her,” Izzy said, even though that wasn’t entirely true. She’d liked Cassie at first, but once she realized that Cassie couldn’t help her change things back to the way they used to be, she’d lost interest in the sessions. Besides, talking about her dad moving away had made her miss him more, not less. Finally she’d refused to go, and her mother hadn’t insisted.
Izzy waited a few minutes for Oliver to tell her what he thought of Cassie, but he just kept working away at the ice pop. She was about ready to give up and go inside, when he spoke again.
“What did you talk about with her when you went?”
“Who? Cassie, you mean?” Izzy tried her best not to sound too delighted.
“Yeah.”
“You know, about the divorce and Dad moving away and all.”
“Did your dad move to Boston right away?”
Izzy nodded. “At first I didn’t mind too much because it seemed better than listening to him and Mom arguing all the time. I figured I’d go to Boston a lot, and I thought it might be fun to be sort of a city kid. But then that didn’t happen. Dad started this whole new life, and it seemed like he didn’t want me around much. That’s what I was supposed to talk to Cassie about.”
“Did she make you feel better about it?”
“Sort of. A little. Well…not really.”
Oliver had stopped eating his ice pop and was letting it drip on his pants. “So why did you keep going?”
“At first I didn’t even know how mad I was at my dad. The more I talked about it, the more I could admit it.”
“How does that help you? Just because you know you’re mad at him doesn’t make you feel any better about it, does it?”
No. Which is why she’d stopped going. Not only did she not feel better, but being so mad at her father made her miserable. It was easier to ignore him, like he ignored her. Still, she didn’t want to discourage Oliver, whose situation was even more awful than hers. “Maybe it’s not about feeling better. Maybe it’s about understanding it better.”
“But what if understanding it just makes you feel worse?”
“Mom says sometimes you have to feel worse before you can feel better.”
Oliver frowned. “Do you feel better now?”
Izzy shifted uncomfortably in the swing. How come they were talking about her instead of him? “Not really…but it’s possible I quit going to Cassie too soon. Mom said I wasn’t finished yet.”
“How do you know when you’re finished?” Oliver’s pants were getting wet and sticky with drips. He stuck the remains of the ice pop in his mouth, crunching it noisily.
She shrugged. “I guess you stop being so mad.”
“I don’t see why I even have to go, then. I’m not mad at anybody.”
“You’re sad, though.”
Oliver dropped the wooden stick on the porch floor, and his jaw tightened. “I wouldn’t be sad if I could go back home to Wilton and be with my regular friends instead of being with all these new kids. In my old school nobody is as mean to me as Liam.”
Izzy remembered seeing some of Oliver’s friends at Aunt Felicia’s funeral in Wilton, a small town in New York. One or two of them had come up and spoken to him in weird, trembly voices, but most of them had just stood next to their parents and looked terrified for the fifteen minutes they were at the funeral home. Izzy was pretty sure Oliver would have had to deal with some stupid behavior from his old friends too, if he’d stuck around Wilton much longer. Izzy knew from experience that when something bad happened to you, your friends got scared, as if they could catch your problems.
They heard the whir of the skateboard before they saw Ben, but it was obvious who was approaching, and Oliver leaped to his feet, clearly relieved to abandon his conversation with Izzy.
Ben jumped off the skateboard at the bottom of the porch steps. He flipped the board up and caught it, then walked up to them, his backpack stuffed full, a long piece of wood under one arm.
“Hey!” Oliver said, grinning. “What’s that for?”
“I’m gonna fix your dad’s door,” Ben said. He leaned the plywood against the porch wall and patted his backpack. “I stopped at home and got some tools.”
“You know how to do stuff like that?” Oliver asked.
“Sure. My uncle Steve taught me. He can do anything with his hands.”
“Cool!” Oliver looked excited.
“You can’t just start hammering around on our house, you know,” Izzy said. “You’re not a carpenter!”
Ben snorted. “You’re kidding, right? This house is falling apart. I couldn’t make it look any worse than it already does.”
“Can I watch you?” Oliver begged. “Can I help?”
“Sure. Come on.” Oliver held the door open while Ben maneuvered the wood, the skateboard, and his backpack inside.
Even though her hands were sticky from the ice pop and she wanted badly to go inside and rinse them off, Izzy stayed on the front porch swing for another half hour, staring gloomily at her too-tight shoes, some of the silver already scuffed off the toes. She didn’t want to hear, even accidentally, Oliver idolizing Ben Gustino.
After school the next day, Izzy lay on her bed in front of the fan, watching old Saturday Night Live clips on YouTube. How did you get to be as funny as Gilda Radner or Julia Louis-Dreyfus or Tina Fey? Or, in the newer shows, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones? Sometimes she practiced a few jokes in front of the mirror, but who was she practicing for? Before long, her dad would be laughing hysterically at some baby who couldn’t do anything but roll over.
Later, when she went down the hall to brush her teeth and get ready for bed, Izzy noticed that the doorknob on Uncle Henderson’s door was gone. Ben must have removed it when he patched the door and rehung it on the new hinges. As Izzy passed the staircase, she could hear the echo of loud laughter from downstairs.
“Good night, sweetie,” her mother called out from her bedroom. She was propped up in bed with her laptop on her knees.
“Who’s laughing?” Izzy asked. “That’s not Oliver, is it?” Her cousin seldom even smiled these days, much less gave in to the kind of hilarity she was listening to now.
“Ben and Oliver are watching a movie in the basement. Oliver adores Ben.”
Izzy frowned. “How much longer is Ben going to be here? It’s already been two whole days.”
“Michael called about an hour ago. He’s having a hard time finding a companion to take care of his mother after she leaves the hospital. He’s looking at assisted-living facilities now too. I told him not to worry. Ben’s doing fine here.”
“No, he’s not.”
“Are you kidding? Oliver thinks he’s the best thing since grilled cheese sandwiches. To tell you the truth, I’ll be sorry to see Ben leave. He fixed that leaky faucet in the kitchen in ten minutes. It’s like having a live-in handyman.”
Another burst of laughter shot up from the lower level. Izzy bit her lip. “Mom, it’s almost ten o’clock. Shouldn’t Oliver be in bed?”
Her mother’s eyes had wandered back to the computer again. “Oh, is it that late? I hate to break up the party. T
hey’re having so much fun.”
“I’ll do it,” Izzy said. “It won’t be so much fun in the morning when Oliver can’t get up for school.”
Her mother gave a little chuckle, but nodded. “You’re right, honey. Why don’t you go down and tell him it’s time for bed.”
It was so dark in the basement, Izzy could barely see to walk down the stairs. The only light came from Ben’s computer screen. As she came closer, she could see the two boys stretched out on the futon, side by side, Oliver convulsed with laughter.
“What are you watching?” Izzy asked.
They hadn’t heard her coming, and Oliver jumped. “Jeez, Izzy, you scared me!”
“Sorry. Mom told me to tell you it’s time for bed.”
“Nooo!” Oliver screeched. “We’re watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It’s the funniest movie ever!”
“What? You told me last week Miss Congeniality was the funniest movie you ever saw.”
Oliver looked a little guilty. “I just said that because you like it so much.”
“Can’t believe you never saw Monty Python before, dude.” Ben paused the movie. “We can finish it up tomorrow after school.”
“Okay.” Oliver looked resigned, but then, with a terrible British accent, he said, “I fart in your general direction.”
And then both boys recited simultaneously, “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!” Ben laughed, and Oliver rolled off the side of the futon onto the floor, howling hysterically.
It sounded like a really dumb movie to Izzy, but what boys thought was funny was often a mystery to her.
As Oliver ran up the stairs, he called out, “See you tomorrow, Ben!”
“Good night, Captain Hook!” Ben yelled back.
Izzy watched her cousin go, then looked back at Ben, who’d turned onto his back and was staring up at the pipes in the unfinished ceiling. She pulled on a strand of her hair until it reached the corner of her mouth, where she could suck on it. “I guess you didn’t think you’d be here this long, huh?”
“Nothing surprises me,” Ben said. “I could’ve told you it would take my dad forever to figure out what to do in St. Louis. He’s not good with the hard stuff.”
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