Happily Ever Emma

by Sally Warner

  I wish she still liked me.

  “Look, Emma,” Mom says, sighing. “I don’t expect you to be perfect. But when you mess up, you have to say you’re sorry—and then do what you can to make things right. You can’t just hide your head in the sand.”

  “Like an ostrich,” I say sadly, and incorrectly, because nature scientists say that ostriches don’t really do this at all. But I wish I had a pile of sand handy right this very minute. I could start a new tradition for in-trouble eight-year-olds who happen to live in Oak Glen, California.

  Scientists could come study me.

  “Like an ostrich,” Mom agrees. “Because that’s just silly, Emma. Also it’s not very brave.”

  Not very brave. That’s just a nice way of saying I was a coward.

  “Well, you were going out with Dennis Engelman for six whole months,” I blurt out, angry and ashamed at the same time. “You told adorable Shayna, and she’s a total stranger, but you never told me. And I’m a relative. So that wasn’t very brave, either.”

  Mom blushes. “I suppose you’re right, in a way. But I wasn’t sure Dennis and I were going to keep seeing each other after you and I moved to Oak Glen last summer,” she tells me. “We did, though.”

  “Well, obviously,” I say with a sniff.

  “That’s quite enough back talk, young lady,” my mom tells me, in charge of things once more. “Now, march into your room and start writing those two letters. And then come show them to me, and I’ll tuck you in.”

  “And give me a kiss good night?” I ask, my voice so soft that I’m surprised she can even hear it.

  But she does. “Of course, Emma,” Mom says, pulling me to her for a hug. Her new dress is very silky. And she’s wearing perfume.

  “We can start over fresh tomorrow morning,” my mom promises me. “Tonight, even.” “I’m sorry, Mommy,” I say, nestling my face against her brand-new dress, being careful not to get any tear marks or drool marks on it.

  “I know, Emma. Now, scoot.”

  And so I scoot.

  9

  Our Date With Dennis

  “Would you like a breadstick, Emma?” Dennis Engelman asks.

  It is Friday night, and I am all dressed up and sitting next to my mother—across from Dennis Engelman—in that fancy Italian restaurant in Escondido, California. Yes, he and my mom got together on the phone and decided that this was the best way to “handle things.” That’s how grownups put it, like there’s a handle on top of every problem.

  Hah!

  This is my worst nightmare come true. On top of that, it could ruin Italian food for me forever. I’ll be scarred for life. No more spaghetti and meatballs. No ravioli. No pizza.

  “I guess,” I mumble.

  “Emma . . .” my mother warns.

  “I mean yes, thank you,” I tell him, grabbing the nearest breadstick, because there’s no point in starving, is there? “Please pass the butter,” I say gloomily.

  My mom fiddles with the fake holly wreath around our table’s glowing red candle and exchanges a look with Dennis Engelman that I cannot interpret, then she scoots over a dish filled with foil-wrapped pats of butter. I take three, just in case.

  This is what I wish all butter looked like, all the time! Because who wants even the possibility of other people’s crumbs on their own private food? Besides, butter is prettier this way, all shiny and dressed up.

  I unwrap two of my three pats and start piling butter on my breadstick in a long, skinny mountain ridge while Mom and Dennis Engelman watch, silent.

  Dennis Engelman is tall, Annie Pat will be happy to learn, and even though he wears glasses he is medium-handsome, which I have to admit is just about right for a man. Because what lady wants to go out with someone who looks better than she does? Not that Mom looks bad or anything. She looks beautiful, and she is wearing her almost-new, silky-soft, pale-pink dress again.

  I am wearing my best dress, which is dark green and has long sleeves. Its skirt is so smooth that I keep starting to slide off the dark-red leather seat, so far off that my nose is practically sitting on the table. I can barely eat my breadstick. But it’s fun pretending that I’m a Christmas leprechaun.

  “Don’t slouch, Emma,” my mom murmurs, and so I hoist myself back up.

  “Okay, but Mr. Engelman dropped his napkin again,” I announce to everyone at our table. All three of us.

  See, Dennis Engelman’s dark pants are also kind of smooth, and whenever he leans forward to pass us something, his cloth napkin skids to the floor. He and I are sitting across from each other on the booth’s outside seats, so I notice these things.

  “Oops,” I add, truly surprised, because while noticing Dennis Engelman’s napkin and trying to hold both the very tall menu and my butter knife at the same time, I have accidentally spilled my glass of ice water all over the tablecloth. I just barely rescue my breadstick, which suddenly looks like a tiny canoe carrying a load of butter down the Amazon. Or up the Amazon, I can never remember which.

  “Emma,” Mom scolds gently—about the napkin comment, I am sure, and not the spilled water. Dennis Engelman actually blushes a little, then he scoops up his napkin from the restaurant’s carpet, which is decorated with crazy orange swirls—probably to hide the spaghetti sauce people have spilled. I bet you could eat down there for a week. He signals for the waiter.

  So far, so bad, I think, hiding a mean little smile. Our date with Dennis is going just perfectly! Except the edges of my sleeves are wet, which I hate.

  Our waiter appears with a stack of clean napkins. He snaps one open and hands it to Dennis Engelman, then he layers the rest on the spilled water, sopping it up. “There you go, miss,” he says, winking at me. “It could happen to anyone. Are you ready to place your order?” he asks the three of us.

  “Yes,” my mother says, sounding as if she wants to get this dinner disaster over with as soon as possible. “I’ll have your manicotti special, please.”

  “And you, Emma?” Dennis Engelman asks, putting me before him—even though I have been kind of mean to him.

  Mom smiles, because she likes good manners.

  “I’ll have your lobster,” I tell the waiter, copying the way my mom said it. “I mean I’ll have two lobsters,” I correct myself, feeling inspired—because lobster is the most expensive food on the menu. This will teach Dennis Engelman a lesson about inviting a kid out to dinner when she doesn’t want to go.

  Real lobsters in the ocean are very interesting, by the way. They shed their shells a bunch of times before they start to look like themselves. But I think live lobsters in supermarket tanks just look sad, all stacked up on top of each other with rubber bands snapped tight around their poor little claws. That’s just wrong.

  People should not eat lobsters unless they catch them themselves

  with their bare hands, with no rubber bands on the lobsters, so it’s a fair fight. That’s what I think.

  Although tonight, I’m making an expensive exception.

  Mom practically snorts, she is so annoyed with me. “Don’t be ridiculous, Emma—you’ve never tasted lobster before in your life,” she says, whisking my menu away from me. “She’ll have spaghetti and meatballs,” she tells our waiter. “The child’s portion.”

  Dennis Engelman looks as though he’s about to say something, but then he seems to think twice, and he keeps his mouth shut—which is a smart thing for him to do, under the circumstances.

  I guess he knows my mother better than I thought.

  Mom and Dennis Engelman get soup and salad with their dinner and I don’t, but I don’t even care. The soup has weird-looking beans in it, and at the very top of their salads is that pale hairy lettuce that thinks it’s so great, but it’s not. It’s just bitter and scary.

  I snag a fourth pat of butter and load up another breadstick.

  After about a hundred hours, the waiter shows up with our dinners: two manicottis, which look like skinny burritos, and one spaghetti and meatballs. “Would you like chees
e with that, miss?” the waiter asks me.

  “Yes, please,” I say with actual enthusiasm, because cheese is my second-favorite food group—after chocolate. Anthony and I have that in common, I guess. So the waiter starts grating small golden pieces from a napkin-wrapped hunk of cheese he is holding, which is something I have never seen before. I watch the cheese pile up in a fluffy little mountain on my meatballs. It’s getting higher and higher.

  And higher.

  And higher.

  “Say when,” the waiter murmurs, but I don’t say a word. I feel as though I have been hypnotized by that mountain of cheese.

  Also, I want to see if he’ll cover my entire plate, if I don’t tell him not to.

  My mom and Dennis Engelman have been gazing into each other’s eyes, which Annie Pat would just love, but suddenly Mom sees what is going on. “That’ll be fine, thanks,” she says to the waiter, then she gives me a look.

  We pick up our forks. I start poking around in the cheese for my very first meatball. I can’t help it, but my mouth is watering like crazy.

  And I don’t know how it happens, exactly—but the second my fork touches it, one of my meatballs goes flying out from under the cheese and hits my mom right on the chest.

  Bo-o-o-i-i-ng!

  And it slides down the front of her almost-new, silky-soft, pale-pink dress, leaving a bright orange spaghetti sauce trail behind it.

  I cannot even catch my breath, this is so bad.

  “Oh,” Mom says, stunned, and Dennis Engelman’s glasses shine with sympathy.

  “It’s okay, Maggie,” he says softly. “It’s okay, Emma.”

  He’s trying to make us both feel better!

  What a crazy time to start liking him. A little bit, anyway.

  “Acqua frizzante,” the flustered waiter says, appearing out of nowhere with a bottle of bubble-water and a clean napkin. He soaks the napkin, then leans over me and starts dabbing at my mom. Dennis Engelman looks as though he wants to

  say something to the guy about touching her, but he can’t figure out what. “Let’s just leave it,” Mom says to the waiter, taking the napkin away. “I’ll bring the dress in to the cleaner in the morning. Everything’s fine, just fine.” She even manages a smile.

  But everything’s not fine, because like I said before, my mom hasn’t bought a new dress in a long, long time. And I ruined it.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, staring down at my blurry plate. “It was an accident.”

  My mother reaches over and gives me a one-armed hug. “I know it was, sweetie,” she tells me. “And it’s just a dress. There’s no real harm done. Want me to cut up those noodles for you?” she asks, just to prove there are no hard feelings.

  I nod, because I don’t know how to twirl yet.

  “Well!” Mom says, looking up at Dennis Engelman while she cuts. “I’ll bet you haven’t ever had this much excitement on a dinner date before.”

  “I was just thinking that myself,” Dennis Engelman says, matching her smile.

  And he shares one with me, too.

  10

  Do-Over

  “Guess what?” Mom asks me the next morning, Saturday, as I am spooning cereal into my sleepy mouth while watching cartoons on TV. I am eating fast so my cereal won’t get soggy, which I hate.

  “What?” I mumble, trying not to dribble any milk.

  “There’s a call for you,” she says, holding out her shiny and complicated new cell phone, which she bought because she gave up on finding the old one.

  Annie Pat Masterson is the most likely person to call me on a Saturday morning, but how would she know my mom’s cell number? I swallow my bite of cereal, press Mute on the TV remote, and take mom’s very small new phone in my hand. I don’t know the buttons yet, so I hope I don’t accidentally cut off whoever it is on the other end.

  My cereal is practically falling apart in the bowl, I notice gloomily. “Hello?” I say.

  “Hi, Emma,” a man’s voice—not my dad’s—says, sounding cheerful. “It’s me, Dennis. Dennis Engelman. Your mom’s friend?” he adds, making it a question.

  Like I don’t remember him! “Hello,” I say again. “And thank-you-for-the-very-nice-time-last-night,” I add, just in case my mom is eavesdropping. “How may I assist you?” I add politely.

  This sounds just right, I think, pleased. It sounds official, but not overly friendly, like I’m some waggy-tailed dog.

  Dennis Engelman laughs. “I thought we might have a do-over, Emma,” he says. “That’s how you may assist me.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask, suspicious, because if he thinks I’m going through one more Ordeal by Meatball disguised as a fancy dinner, he’s got another think coming.

  “‘Do-over’ means that we take another stab at having some fun together, and getting to know each other a little better,” he explains.

  Okay. Now, in my opinion, I think “taking a stab” at anything sounds pretty violent, kind of like how a serial killer might talk. Think about it, Mom.

  But she says he’s okay.

  “You’d get to choose this time, Emma,” Dennis Engelman continues, like he’s coaxing me. “Some really fun place to have lunch today for you, me, and your mom—and maybe even a friend, if you’d like. My treat. Anywhere at all, Emma. And maybe a movie afterward?”

  “Any place for lunch? And any movie?” I ask, not really believing it, because one, movies are expensive, even in the afternoon, and two, it is just about impossible to get a grown-up to take you to something you really want to see.

  Which, in this case, is a new movie about a beautiful girl my age who lives near a crystal castle, and she discovers that she is really the princess of all the elves and fairies in the realm. Cynthia Harbison told me all about it last week at school. It’s called Silla’s Crystal Kingdom, and it’s in 3-D, and it costs extra for the glasses—which I think Dennis Engleman will have to wear on top of his other glasses, if we actually go. I guess that will move him down a notch from medium handsome to just sort of handsome, but I don’t think my mom will mind.

  “So, what do you say?” Dennis Engelman asks patiently.

  “I say sure,” I tell him shyly. “If it’s okay with my mom, I mean. And okay with Annie Pat’s mom, too, but she’ll probably say yes, because they have a new baby over there. So she says yes to everything.”

  “Good. Where would you like to go for lunch?” he asks. “Maybe I can make a reservation.”

  “Well, there’s this one place,” I say, daring to dream. “I haven’t actually been there, not personally, but I don’t think it’s really a reservation kind of place, because it wasn’t planned for grown-ups. It’s for desserts, mainly, and birthday parties, and it’s got silver balloons, and sparkles, and everything. But this girl I know told me they have regular food, too. Oh, and they even have a giant golden birdcage with a table inside,” I add, excited, trying to remember all the stuff Cynthia was bragging about. “It’s called Galore!,” I add. “It’s pink, and it’s across from the Oak Glen post office. But you wouldn’t know where that is,” I add, remembering suddenly that he lives in some other town.

  “I’ll look it up,” he tells me. “You call your friend, and your mom and I will work out all the details. Bye, Emma. See you later.”

  “Bye,” I say, hoping I can figure out a way to turn off Mom’s new phone before Dennis Engelman changes his mind. I press End, and hope that’s it, which it is.

  Wow, I think, this is kind of like bribery.

  But it’s working.

  It is almost six thirty at night by the time Mom and I unlock the front door and stumble inside. My stomach is full of my chili dog and the hot fudge sundae with a cherry on top—eaten inside that golden cage!—and my brain is full of beautiful crystal castles and billowing white movie clouds and really cute fairies and elves.

  Annie Pat liked the movie too, and she loved the 3-D glasses.

  “My ears,” Mom says, plopping her purse onto a living room chair and flinging hers
elf on the sofa. “They’re still ringing with all those songs. But in a good way,” she adds quickly, smiling at me.

  “I know,” I tell her happily. “Weren’t they cute? And wasn’t Silla adorable, with her silky golden hair falling down to the back of her knees?”

  “Adorable,” Mom agrees.

  “I’m gonna grow out my hair,” I say, snuggling in next to my mom for a cuddle.

  “Down to the back of your knees?” she asks, giving me a squeeze. “We can barely get the brush through it now, honey. Not that I don’t love your hair just the way it is.”

  “Tangled up,” I say, sighing.

  “Some things just seem to have a way of getting tangled up,” my mother replies, and I suddenly get the feeling that she’s not talking about hair anymore. She’s probably talking in Mom-code about her and my dad, or maybe about Dennis Engelman and me. Or even about divorce.

  “Yeah,” I agree quietly. “And sometimes you can’t use conditioner on the tangles.”

  “But you can straighten them out just the same,” Mom says. “Given time.”

  “I guess,” I say, giving up on the code. “Annie Pat thinks Dennis Engelman is handsome,” I tell her after a quiet moment or two. My head is curled against her chest, so I’m not looking at her. It’s easier to talk that way.

  “Really?” Mom says, sounding happy. “And what about you, Emma? Do you like him?”

  “He’s okay,” I mumble. “He knows how to have fun, in an expensive kind of way. Not that I’m complaining.”

  “I’m glad you had a good time, darling,” my mother says.

  “Mom?” I ask after another quiet moment, when the only sound has been the furnace thumping on, and the clock on the mantel chiming seven, because it’s always twelve minutes early.

  “Mmm?” my mother says, sounding drowsy.

  “Does Daddy know about Dennis Engelman?”

  She’s awake again. I can feel it.