Calli Be Gold

by Michele Weber Hurwitz

  “Now you listen to me, Calli Gold,” she says, pointing at me. “You don’t know how lucky you kids are. I never had any of these privileges growing up. Your dad certainly did, but I didn’t have the chance to ice-skate or take dance classes or play a sport. My parents couldn’t afford any of that.”

  I know what’s coming next. The piano story.

  “I showed some natural talent at the piano when I was your age, but my parents couldn’t pay for lessons.” Her voice cracks. “What might I have been? A concert pianist? A composer? Who knows? I never had the opportunity to find out.”

  She sighs. “All Dad and I want is for our children to realize their full potential. If you have a talent, it shouldn’t stay hidden inside you.”

  “Okay, Mom.” I hang my head, the most thankless child on earth. “I’ll try the improv class.”

  “Great.” She dabs at her nose. “That’s the spirit.”

  I attempt a smile.

  She finishes putting up the Post-its. “I think you’re going to like it. You’re going to have a lot of fun with this, I just know.”

  “Yeah,” I answer weakly.

  “So, tell me about your day,” she says while shuffling through the mail.

  “Well, we started this new program today. We’re going to be peer helpers to one of the second-grade classes.”

  “How nice,” she mumbles as she tears open an envelope.

  I open my mouth, then close it. How can I begin to explain about choosing Noah and how he hid under his desk while all the other peer helpers read books together?

  “So.” She looks up. “Are you hungry?”

  “Not really.” I’d been planning to dig into the bag of jelly beans in the pantry (I only like the reds) but I don’t feel like it anymore. “I think I’ll go upstairs for a while.”

  “Okay,” she replies. “Maybe you’ll tell me more about that new helper program later?”

  I shrug “It was only the first day.”

  I head toward the stairs. Just four classes. I can get through that, can’t I?

  In the upstairs hall, I pass by Alex’s room, with his shiny basketball trophies, then Becca’s, with her medals hanging by their colored ribbons, and walk into my mismatched bedroom. I close the door, shuffle through my underwear drawer until I find the improv brochure, then read the part about bringing out my inner muse. Muse … what did that word mean again? I look it up once more. A Greek goddess … a source of inspiration … Neither of those things sounds very much like me.

  But then, below those meanings, I see another listing. I must have missed it before. Muse: to ponder, consider, or deliberate at length.

  To think.

  I gasp and stare at the dictionary. Maybe this is it. Maybe Mom and Dad are right. I love to think! I was just thinking about thinking when I was walking home!

  Is that what improv is all about, really? Thinking?

  For some reason, I remember that baby chick in the museum, the one huddled in its feathers, the one I wanted to comfort. Why was the chick so reluctant to join the others? Was it missing out on all the fun?

  Am I?

  I examine the improv people in their black turtlenecks, then pull my black shirt off the hanger. “Looks like I’m going to be wearing you,” I say.

  I hold up the shirt and look at myself in the mirror. What if acting really is my talent, my passion … and I’m the scared baby chick, not wanting to try something new and fun?

  I pull the shirt over the one I’m wearing. “I’m a Gold, too,” I say softly. Then I repeat, louder, “I’m a Gold, I’m a Gold, I’m a G …” The last one comes out as a Gulp but I swallow that right back down and put the brochure on my dresser, next to the family picture.

  I take a deep breath. “Okay, muse. Whatever you are, I’m ready.”

  ver the weekend, the sky stays a constant gray, and it never stops raining. Wanda calls in the early afternoon on Sunday and begs me to come over and watch a movie with her and Claire in her basement. I find Mom at her desk in the kitchen and ask if she can drive me to Wanda’s house.

  “I’ve got to get forty pairs of tights labeled,” she says, holding packages of skating tights in one hand and a black Sharpie in the other. “Do me a favor, honey. Ask Dad, okay?”

  “He’s watching that basketball video with Alex.”

  “He can take a break for ten minutes,” she sighs. “I have to get this done by tonight.”

  I find Alex and Dad on the sofa. The video is paused and Dad is talking and gesturing with the remote. “Look at his position there. They’ve got their defensive strategy down. You’re going to need to get around number twelve.”

  Alex nods, plunges his hand into a box of cereal, and takes out a handful. A few pieces of cereal fall on the carpet but he doesn’t notice as he stuffs his mouth.

  “Dad?” I ask. “Can you drive me to Wanda’s?”

  “Sure,” he says. “In a minute. Alex and I are in the middle of this.”

  I sit on the floor and wait. Dad reaches over to muss my hair like he usually does; then he hits the play button. “Alex, do you see that?”

  Alex stands and tosses a lime green rubber ball into the air as if he’s making a shot. “You told me before, Dad. I got it.”

  “Okay,” Dad says, then looks over at me. “Maybe this is a good time for a break. How about if I drive Calli to her friend’s house, then we’ll watch the rest of this?”

  Alex throws the ball in my direction. “Think fast,” he shouts.

  The ball plunks the side of my head. “Hey,” I groan.

  “Alex!” Dad says. “You all right, Calli?”

  I throw the ball back at my brother, but it lands several feet away from him.

  “Looks like you need some work on your passing skills,” Alex says, teasing.

  “C’mon, let’s go,” Dad says to me, jingling his keys.

  I make a face at Alex, then grab my jacket and climb into the backseat of Dad’s car.

  Dad backs out of the garage. “Another big game next week. Alex and I are analyzing a tape of the other team.”

  I watch the raindrops splatter the window. “How did you get a tape of the other team?”

  He grins. “I went over to their practice yesterday and just started taping. It was easy as pie. Everyone probably thought I was someone’s dad.” He lets out a sneaky-sounding laugh. “Little did they know I was a spy.”

  “Are you allowed to do that?”

  “No one said I couldn’t,” he answers innocently. “I can’t think of a better way for Alex to have an edge. Know the other team inside and out. Discover their weaknesses. That’s what the pros do, you know.”

  “Oh.”

  “That way, he can anticipate their moves. His coach isn’t doing stuff like that, getting the dirt on their opponents, so I am.” He pulls into Wanda’s driveway.

  “So,” he says, smiling at me, “you excited for your first improv class?”

  “Yeah, Dad. I am.”

  “That’s my girl,” he says. “I’ll want to hear all about it.”

  I nod.

  He looks out the window. “It’s pouring now. You want an umbrella?”

  “No, I’m okay.”

  “Well, if Mom was here, I know she’d tell you to put on your hood, so I’ll have to step in.” He waggles a finger at me. “Put on your hood, honey,” he says in a higher-pitched voice.

  I laugh, pull up my hood, then run out into the rain. He cracks the window and shouts, “To be, or not to be!” I wave goodbye, then ring Wanda’s doorbell.

  Within a few minutes, Wanda, Claire, and I are snuggled in Wanda’s basement with a bowl of warm, buttery popcorn, a bag of M&M’S, and one of our favorite movies.

  “This is great,” Wanda sighs, pulling a blanket around her. “I’m so happy you could come over. I hate this rain. I can’t wait for it to snow.”

  Claire and I agree.

  “We’ll go sledding,” I say.

  “Of course we will.” Wanda pokes me.
“Like we always do.”

  “Be quiet. I love this part,” Claire says, and we stop talking.

  Wanda picks out three yellow M&M’S when the scene is over, and pops them into her mouth. “The kid in this movie,” she says. “Doesn’t he look like your peer? What’s his name? Noah?”

  With my new worry about the improv class, I’d almost forgotten about Noah. I look at the character she’s talking about—a scrawny, sorry-looking boy with messy hair and a sad expression.

  “You think?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Wanda says. “What’s up with him, anyway, Calli? Is he ADD?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “He does fit some of the characteristics,” Claire says importantly. We both stare at her. Is there anything she doesn’t get?

  “Did you really know him?” Wanda asks.

  “Well, sort of. I mean, I met him, but he didn’t exactly meet me, I guess you could say.”

  “Shhh,” Claire says, pointing to the TV.

  “I don’t think he has any friends,” Wanda whispers. “He’s kind of weird. I hope you can do stuff with him—you know, like all the other peer helpers.”

  “I guess I’ll have to see what happens.” I sit up, wishing that we would get off the subject of Noah. “Let’s watch the movie, okay?”

  Wanda picks out another bunch of M&M’S. Only orange.

  “You’re the weird one,” I whisper to her.

  She laughs. “Everyone’s a little weird.”

  “Will you two be quiet?” Claire snaps, and Wanda says, “Okay, relax.”

  We settle down and turn to the TV. Wanda falls asleep halfway through and I have to wake her up when the movie ends.

  We start to play cards; then Wanda’s mom comes down to the basement. “Calli, your mom is waiting out front. She’s honking the horn pretty loudly.”

  When I run from Wanda’s front door to Mom’s van, the rain is so heavy that my jacket and jeans get soaked. Alex is in the front seat with his headphones on and Mom has a panicky look. She’s wearing her SYNCHRONETTES MOM jacket.

  “Calli,” she shrieks. “Buckle up! I completely lost track of the time, and I forgot you were at Wanda’s!”

  “Why?” I say. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s four-thirty! Becca’s exhibition! It’s at five!” She sounds a little hysterical. “I had to make the extra trip to get you, and now we’re late! We’ll never get a parking space!”

  I reach for the seat belt and she glances back at me. “Oh, look at you, you’re sopping wet. Well, I’m sorry, but there’s absolutely no time for you to change. You’ll just have to air-dry.”

  “Becca’s exhibition is tonight?” I ask.

  “I told you this morning,” Mom shouts, careening backward out of Wanda’s driveway.

  “I guess I didn’t hear you.”

  “It was on the Calendar!”

  “I didn’t look.”

  “Dad’s already there with Becca,” she says.

  Alex is drumming his fingers on the dashboard and mouthing the words to a song.

  The wipers barely keep the rain cleared from the window. A few minutes later, Mom turns into the rink. “The parking lot is jammed. It’s a madhouse, like usual.”

  Before Becca’s skating team begins its competition season, the girls put on a show for their families and friends. All the other skating teams from the rink are in the show too. It’s a big deal. Everyone comes.

  Mom veers into the last space in the far parking lot, then gets out, whips open an umbrella, and puts her arm around me. We run through the rain toward the door of the rink. Alex ambles behind like it’s not even raining. “Find us when you get inside,” Mom calls back.

  At the rink, Mom stops just inside the door, shakes out the umbrella, then closes it. Another Synchronettes mom spots her. “Karen,” the other mom yells. “We’ve got hairpiece trouble! Three of them fell out during warm-ups! If that happens in a competition, we’re dead!”

  The two of them start talking about what they can do to make the skaters’ hairpieces stay in place. Mom is suggesting clips and bobby pins and barrettes, but the other mom keeps insisting they need to use a special type of glue. The doors to the rink open, and Alex walks in, his hair dripping water.

  This is the weirdest thing of the day. Just before the rink doors close, somehow, through the downpour, I catch sight of a very small tree in the parking lot with one single leaf clinging to a skinny branch. The leaf is hanging there, sort of fragile, not another leaf in sight anywhere on the whole tree.

  That leaf makes me think of all those paper bags stuffed with leaves, and then, for some reason, of Noah, and how he dove under his desk and grabbed my ankle when Mrs. Bezner came by. The leaf is holding on to the tree in the same way that Noah was holding on to my ankle.

  He was holding on to me.

  “C’mon, Calli,” Mom says. “They’re saving seats for us.”

  As Mom tugs on my arm, I glance at the lone leaf and realize I was able to make Noah laugh. I remember the sound—jingly and light and clear, but also unsure, like he was out of practice. When he was laughing, he didn’t look so different. He covered his mouth with his hand and threw his head back. His eyes crinkled up into two lines behind his glasses. He looked like a normal kid.

  I decide right then and there that I’m not saying anything to Mrs. Lamont or Mrs. Bezner. I picked Noah, and I’m sticking it out.

  randma Gold and Dad are holding part of a row in the stands with Grandma’s purse and Dad’s shoes used as seat-savers. “People are getting vicious,” Dad reports. “Fifty times, someone tried to take these seats.”

  Grandma gives me one of her lung-crushing hugs. “How are you, Calli-beans?” she says, but doesn’t listen for my reply. “I’m freezing. Can’t they turn the heat on with all these people here?”

  “There are warmers, Mother.” Dad points to the ceiling.

  “They’re not doing very much good,” she snaps. “I should have brought a blanket. Or a comforter!”

  “Becca’s team is on first,” Mom says, consulting the program. Then she scans the rink. “Where’s Alex?”

  “I see him,” I say, and Mom asks, “Where?”

  I point to Alex, who’s leaning against a wall by the skaters’ dressing rooms, with his headphones still on.

  “Oh, fine,” she says. “We don’t really have room for him anyway.”

  I am squeezed between Mom and Grandma Gold. My jeans are still wet and now plastered to my legs, but I don’t say anything. Neither of my parents would hear me anyway, because Becca is about to skate.

  The skaters on Becca’s team are wearing their costumes from last year. They are supposed to look like bikinis, with a piece of skin-colored fabric between the top and bottom. It looks fake. So does their hair, because every skater has the same curly ponytail attached to their real hair. Their makeup is exactly the same too. They look like identical dolls in a row on a store shelf.

  Dad stares straight ahead, focusing only on Becca. As they begin their routine, Grandma Gold hisses loudly, “I think I’ve seen this one before.”

  “You have,” Mom whispers. “The new routine isn’t perfected yet, so they decided to perform the one from last year, but they made a few changes.”

  “All this fuss to see something I’ve already seen?”

  Mom shoots Grandma Gold a look, and she shoots one back. I’m in the middle of a look war. Dad doesn’t notice; he’s just watching Becca.

  The songs for this routine are about surfers and the beach and California girls. It’s supposed to be fun and happy, but I can see Coach Ruthless on the side, aggravated as usual.

  The girls skate in a long line with their arms around each other, then break apart and form three circles. Then the circles magically blend together and the girls are in two lines. Becca is in the middle of the front line.

  As the girls start to skate forward, one skater’s hairpiece flies off, and Mom groans. “Glue,” she mumbles.

  “Look
s like someone let their toy poodle out on the ice.” Grandma Gold gestures to the curly hairpiece.

  “Shhh!” Dad hisses.

  “Everyone else seems to be talking,” Grandma Gold points out. She’s right. People all around me are chatting loudly, and I wonder why they all had to save seats for a show they’re not even watching.

  Becca catches her blade on the ice and stumbles. The girl next to her almost trips and jerks Becca’s arm. Mom gasps, and even Dad breaks his stare for a moment. Mom holds a hand across her heart.

  “She’s fine,” I whisper. “She didn’t fall.”

  Mom nods nervously.

  Becca’s team finishes the routine and takes a bow, and then we have to sit through routines from five other teams. Alex has not moved from his spot against the wall. Finally, it dawns on me why he’s standing there. He’s much closer to the skaters as they go into and out of the dressing rooms. I’m not sure how he can tell what they really look like, though, with all that makeup and fake hair.

  After the exhibition ends, there is a mad rush from the stands, but then everyone waits around for the skaters to come out. As each skater appears, her family screams and runs up to her and starts taking pictures. Then the skaters hug each other. Then their families hug them. Then they take more pictures.

  The rink is so crowded I hardly have an inch of space. Mom is talking to the other skating moms, all of them in their Synchronettes jackets. Grandma Gold informs us she is going to the ladies’ room. “Don’t expect me back soon. I’m sure the line’s out the door.”

  “Where is Becca?” Mom asks.

  I spot her, but she’s not making her way toward us. She’s at the far end of the crowd, near a corner of the rink. “I’ll be right back,” I tell Mom. I weave my way through the knots of people. When I’m just a few feet from Becca, I realize she’s crying. Ruthless is standing next to her, looking even more irritated than usual.

  Becca says something; then I hear Ruthless say, “Look, Gold. One more mistake like that and I’m sending in the alternate. We talked about this. We can’t afford errors. Not if we want to beat the Lady Reds this year.” Ruthless starts to march away, then turns back. “And we will.”