“All sorts of craziness, Ari.” She deep-sighs. “They want to move Bubbie to a rehabilitation facility. We think she can get the help she needs at home. There are all sorts of forms that need to be dealt with.” The phone rings again. “I’ll try and explain later.”
I run upstairs to check email and am so thrilled to see a group email chain from the camp girls.
Hey loves. I know we texted this morning but I just miss you guys soooooo much. How are things? How many days are we down to? I need to be back at camp PRETTY MUCH YESTERDAY. And now it’s winter and wahhhh . . . I just miss you. Xoxoxoxo AlKal
Hiiiii. Same same same. Sleepover soon? Maybe over Feb break? Love forever, Zoe
Yes! Sleepover! I cannot wait for this. LOVE YOU ALL BEYOND WORDS, Hana
Sorry I am replying so late. Feeling miserable with Bubbie in hospital. Ugh. They just moved here. And why do I hate my school friends? I mean, I don’t hate them. But they just annoy me so much. Please help. Not Kaylan, though. Actually, for the first time in forever I feel like we are tight and things are great between us. Can’t wait for the sleepover. Smooooooooches! Ari
Ariiiiiiiii. We LOVE you and we’re here 4 u 100% 24-7! NEVER FORGET THAT. Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxooxoxoxox Al Kal
In a world full of chaos, at least there’s Camp Silver and my girls and countdowns to summer and a February break sleepover to look forward to.
9
KAYLAN
EVERY DAY, I PLAN TO tell Ari about the vacation with Cami’s family, and every day, I chicken out. I just don’t know how she’s going to react to it. There’s so much other stuff to talk about, anyway.
Especially with Bubbie being sick, it feels kind of crazy to talk about a luxury vacation. And it’s probably, most definitely, not what Ari needs to hear right now.
Plus if she responded so weirdly to a hibachi dinner, how is she going to respond to a whole vacation?
I hit the button to call Ari and it goes straight to voicemail.
“Hey, Ari, it’s me. I was going to text this but it feels like too much to type and I am feeling very lazy right now. I talked to Mrs. Etisof and want to update you. Also, at the hibachi place they had the coolest thing—all different varieties of fruit water. It was like the most delicious thing I’ve ever had. Okay. So much to share. Call me back. Love ya. Bye.”
I hit the end button on the phone, and wonder if she’ll call me back or just text back that she’s tired and I’ll fill her in in the morning.
“Hey.” I answer the phone three seconds later when I see that it’s Ari calling.
“Hey, how was hibachi?” she asks me.
“It was good. Their fruit-infused waters were insane. Really, really good.”
“I don’t know what you mean. What is fruit-infused water?”
“Like water with fruit in it!”
“Just floating in the cup?” Ari asks. “I’m so confused.”
“No. I mean, sort of. But not like whole pieces. Just sort of infused in the flavor. Strawberry mango! In the water!” I yelp.
“Wow. I’ve never heard anyone get this excited about water before.” Ari laughs. “But yum!”
“Does making fruity water count as cooking?” I ask.
“No, I don’t think so.” Ari giggles.
“Ooh! Brainstorm,” I shout. “What do you think about adding it to the list?”
“Um. Sure.” Her words come out slurred and it sounds like she’s holding a pen cap in her mouth. “I’m adding it to the draft.”
“Fab!” I pick at my peeling nail polish. “Also, Mrs. Etisof said she can walk your parents through everything. She’s going to call them.”
“Oh. Great.” Her voice sounds normal again. “I’ll show you the rough draft of the list tomorrow, okay?”
“Awesome, yeah.” I pull back my covers and go under them, suddenly feeling chilly. “Ooh, imagine our water varieties are so good we convince the cafeteria staff to have them? Like a healthy alternative to fruit juice?”
“Genius, Kay!” Ari shouts. “What if they’re so good we end up having a company and it becomes a new kind of bottled water, but bottles made from recycled plastic?”
I sit up on my bed, my heart fluttering with energy. “Start a business needs to be on our next list. But this ties into persuasion, too! Persuade the cafeteria staff and the administration to add this to the menu at lunch!”
“Woo!” Ari yells. “Fire! Fire! We are on fire!” She makes up a silly song, and then I join in.
“We are on fire,” I sing back, and stand up and do some kind of a solo kick line. “I’m out of breath from singing and dancing on my bed, by the way.”
She replies. “Same, and I still didn’t finish studying for my math test. I better go.”
“Nighty-night, Ari my love.”
“Nighty-night, Kay.”
I fall back on my bed, about to burst from all of our genius ideas, but my glowy feeling fades a little when I realize I still didn’t tell Ari about the Cami trip. I’m not sure if I forgot about it, or if I chickened out again.
Maybe a little of both.
My mom knocks on the door at ten o’clock and I think it’s because she wants to make sure I’m asleep. So I pretend to be asleep even though I feel my eyeballs pounding around a little bit under my eyelids.
“Kay, are you awake?” she whispers.
I still pretend to be asleep but I’m not sure why. It would be okay for me to be awake lying in my bed. But somehow I’m keeping up with this pretending to be asleep thing. It’s like the kind of thing that once you start it, you really need to lean in and follow through entirely, the whole way.
She sits on the edge of my bed and starts stroking my hair and then she leans down and rests her head on my chest. “I love you so much,” she whispers. “You’re growing up so fast. And you’re leaving for the summer. And I just don’t know where the time has gone.”
She starts to cry a little and now it’s really weird and awkward that she thinks I’m asleep but I’m not asleep and she’s crying and I feel terrible that she’s crying. And I can never let on that I know this happened or that I wasn’t actually asleep.
“It seems like just yesterday you were a toddler and now you’re a teenager.” She sobs. “I really don’t know how it’s even possible.”
I start to pray that she stops talking, and that she leaves the room, because I’m not sure how much more of this pretending I can do. It’s actually much harder to pretend to be asleep than people realize. I feel like my eyeballs are moving all over the place under my eyelids. And I’m forcing myself to stay still.
She sighs and kisses me on the forehead. “I love you so much, my Kaylan doll. Please don’t grow up too fast. You already have.”
She gets up, finally, and leaves my room, closing the door softly behind her.
After that, I’m really awake, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep no matter what I try.
I get out of bed and grab my laptop and type out a quick email to my dad.
Dear Dad,
I want to talk to you about my summer plans. Remember the comedy camp thing I told you about last summer when we were on our trip? And you said follow your dreams. Anyway, I’m following them now. ☺ Let me know when you’re around to chat.
Love, Kaylan
My heart pounds after I hit send. It’s there, out in the open. This thing is happening. I mean, I think it’s happening. My dad can’t say no, or veto this.
At least I don’t think he can.
10
ARI
IT’S EARLY IN THE MORNING and Kaylan’s on her way over for our beach-themed sleepover. We planned to get an early start so we could finish and polish the list. We’ll turn my room into a beach tonight—complete with a fake sand floor, my heat turned all the way up, and our fave bikinis from this past summer.
While I wait for her to arrive, I straighten up my room and flip through my camp photo album and check my email.
A few minutes later, I hear
the screechiness of the front door and then Kaylan pounding up the stairs.
“Hey,” she says, all out of breath. “It’s frigid out there. I ran over but I’m seriously freezing. So excited to feel like I’m at a beach tonight! Woo!”
“Woo,” I say back, trying to sound enthusiastic. “Check this out. I found it online. It’s a mat that looks like sand! We can put it on my floor!”
“Whoa, Ar.” Kaylan claps. “Imagine if we become sleepover consultants and we plan sleepovers for people? Like as a job when we’re older. We can start training now with Gemma and her friends.”
“Okay, so now we have a fruit water business idea, and we’re becoming sleepover consultants. We’re on the verge of becoming full-on entrepreneurs.” I laugh. “Would people really pay us for the sleepover thing, though? I think everyone likes to come up with their own ideas.”
“Just think about it,” Kaylan instructs.
She hangs up her coat on one of the hooks on the back of my door and flops forward onto my bed. “Do you feel like this list process is different because we’re older or because it’s a winter list?”
I curl up on my beanbag chair, pulling a throw blanket over me. “A winter list. We’re slower. Your body moves differently in colder temps.”
“Yeah, true,” Kaylan replies. “It may be like the coldest winter on record, but like no snow. That’s what I heard, anyway.”
“Yuck. That sounds awful.”
She nods. “You’re never going to believe this.”
“What?” My throat tightens, expecting to hear bad news.
“So Cami’s family invited me to go away with them for February break to Turks and Caicos. Kinda last minute, I know. Apparently they got some crazy deal. But they’re billionaires so maybe they just say that.” She raises her eyebrows, like waiting for me to respond. “I found out last week but then I had to ask my mom. And I was kind of nervous to tell you!”
“Nervous? Why?”
“Because, like, I’m going away without you. With Cami.” She moves farther back on my bed, leaning against all my throw pillows. “So what do you think?”
I hate to hear she was nervous to tell me something. It shouldn’t be that way.
“How long is the trip?” I ask.
Going away with someone else’s family is a big thing. A huge thing, really. An experience reserved for special friends, VIPs. This trip could be that line in the sand. The situation that divides the before Ari and Kaylan with the after Ari and Kaylan.
“A week.” She sighs. “It sounds so awesome. And it’ll be freezing here.”
“Your parents said yes?”
Kaylan pauses. “My mom did. I didn’t ask my dad. Actually, Ryan said something about my dad visiting then, but I haven’t heard anything, so I don’t know if it’s true.”
I shrug. “Well, sounds like it’ll be a great trip.” I get up and fold the blanket. “Wait, what happened with the comedy thing? Your parents said yes to that, too? You never told me that either! Why are you keeping so many secrets?” I fake some anger, but maybe a little of it is truthful.
Kaylan rubs her eyes, the way she always does when she’s overwhelmed. “My mom said yes, but she said I had to discuss that one with my dad. He has to help pay for it! And he hasn’t emailed me back yet!”
I scrunch up one cheek. “That’s weird. Right?”
Kaylan nods. “Yeah. Who knows? He’s always on trips with his girlfriend now.”
“Listen, I know you’re going on vacay with her, but don’t bring Cami into the list, please.” I shake my head, almost feeling like I’m about to cry but not even sure what’s causing it. It feels like some kind of imbalance where all my feelings are filling up a beach bucket and they’re about to spill over. Like I’m having so many feelings all at the same time and they don’t know where to go or what to do.
“Ar, for real? Like I’d ask her to do the stuff?” Kaylan scoffs. “No. But, like, we did say they could add some items. Remember?”
“Yeah. But that’s different,” I reply. “A whole group thing. I mean, like, don’t actually do the list with her on the trip.”
Kaylan rolls her eyes. “Obv not.” She hops up from the bed and hugs me. “I think we’ve switched roles, by the way. You’re like the old anxious version of me, and I’m the old, chill version of you.”
“Like an awkward Freaky Friday kind of thing.” I bulge out my eyes. “Spooooky.”
We laugh about that for a few seconds, and then walk downstairs to get a snack, still cracking up about how we’ve pretty much switched roles.
We walk past the den and see my parents wearing bathrobes, watching some kind of news show, looking at their phones and reading the newspaper all at the same time. Their glasses are perched on the edge of their noses.
“Oh, is that Kaylan?” my dad asks.
“It is,” she says, all cheery and high-pitched.
“Well, I have to thank you, and your neighbor Mrs. Etisof. She was very helpful to us in terms of lining up services for my mother at home,” my dad explains in a super adult-sounding way. “Thanks for connecting us.”
Kaylan nods. “No problem. I like to think of myself as a connector.” She bows, all over the top, and my parents and I start laughing.
“And Arianna Simone, I have some good news for you,” my dad says, standing up to face us. “Good news for all of us, actually . . . Bubbie is coming home today!”
“OMG!” I yelp. “This is the best news ever ever ever ever!”
I squeeze Kaylan tight and we dance around in a circle and I’m not sure anyone can understand the complete joy I’m feeling at this moment.
I don’t care about Cami and the vacation or that Kaylan was nervous to tell me or anything at all. All I care about is that Bubbie is well enough to leave the hospital. That she’s coming home. That things are going back to normal.
“Can you drive us over to their place later?” Kaylan asks. “We can help her settle in and stuff.”
I laugh that Kaylan asked that before I even got the chance to.
“Um.” My dad smiles. “I’d like to give her a few days to settle in before she starts getting visitors. But that’s a lovely thought!”
I wonder if that applies to me, if I’m really considered a visitor. But I’m okay with waiting to go over there. As long as I know she’s home, and the hospital torture is behind us, I’m fine with pretty much anything.
“Okay, tell us when we can go see her and I’ll be ready that second,” I announce.
I grab Kaylan’s hand and lead her into the kitchen. I exhale a deep, heavy breath I’ve been holding from the minute I found out Bubbie was in the hospital. She’s coming home. It’s happening. I can relax again. “We need snacks. Official list organization starts now.”
“Yes!” Kaylan salutes me like I’m some kind of senior official, and then starts laughing.
I grab a bunch of bags of mini pretzels, a box of graham crackers, a few apples, and some mini carrots, and we head up to my room.
“Your mom is cool with us snacking up here?” Kaylan asks.
“We’ll be neat.” I go over to my desk and take out the notebook where I’ve jotted down the rough draft list.
I sit with my legs crossed on the beanbag chair. “The amazing thing is, all this stuff just kinda came to us. Like based on actual life stuff.” I look over at Kaylan, who appears to be texting and not paying attention. “Kay! Listen!”
She throws her phone across the bed and looks up at me. “I heard everything you just said.”
I nod. “Okay. Well, here it is, our most organic list yet. We just need a good name for it. Look.”
New Ari & Kaylan Friendship List
Learn to ride a unicycle
Start a movement
Figure out how we feel about God
Spend more time with Bubbie and Zeyda
Perfect the art of persuasion, especially with Kaylan’s mom
Train for and run a race
Come up with lots
of fruit-infused water varieties
“OMG!” She grabs my Hula-Hoop off the floor and then jumps up on my bed, hula-hooping. “I’m in love with our list. Brilliant.”
“Ooh! Something just came to me!” I scribble down a note at the bottom of the page. “Let’s up the ante on number one . . . hula-hoop on a unicycle!”
“What?” Kaylan cracks up. “Up the ante? Who are you?”
I giggle. “Ms. Yelsin says it every time she hands out a math worksheet . . . we’re really going to up the ante here. But seriously, look how good you are at hula-hooping!” I shimmy around a little bit, all fired up. “We need to challenge ourselves as much as possible. That’s the overarching theme of this list, I think.”
She shrugs. “Okay. I’m in!”
“Yayyyy,” I sing. “Okay, any more ideas to add?”
Kaylan sits back down and drums her fingers against her forehead. “I need to tell you about my other idea . . . it ties into the persuasion thing. . . .”
I smile. “That seems to be your fave one, I think.”
“Yeah, well, I really want to, like, spruce up my house and add new things. I feel like since my dad left, it’s just the same as it always was, but we need to really make it ours.” She pauses. “I want Mrs. Etisof to paint a mural in my basement. I mean, I didn’t ask her yet. And I didn’t ask my mom, obvs. But that ties into persuasion.” She raises her eyebrows.
“Yeah!” I tap my feet excitedly against my rug. “And maybe she can incorporate some of our doodles from the last list!”
“Oooh, yes!” Kaylan finally stops hula-hooping and runs over to hug me. “Especially that hot dog one. That’s my favorite.”
We look over the list. “Okay, so far we have seven things,” I announce.
“And our friends get to do the polish, the final few items. We’ll pick a day to have them all over and stuff,” Kaylan reminds me of how we talked about that at lunch. “But what should the breakdown be?”
“Right. I think we come up with eight, and then let our friends come up with five. One for each of them.” I do a quick count in my head, making sure I’ve remembered everyone. “It’s still so weird that Sydney moved away out of the blue, isn’t it?”
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