My mind flashes ahead twenty years and I picture her on the stage at Madison Square Garden, in front of thousands of people, making everyone laugh. And I’ll be in the front row because I’m a VIP and I’ll think back to this moment. I’ll be able to tell everyone that I always knew Kaylan was funny, and she made me laugh first.
I catch my breath and Kaylan says, “Do you know what I mean, though? I’m serious.”
“I do. Totally. You’re right.” I inch back on the beanbag chair so I’m sitting up straighter. “But Judaism is all about gratitude, though, too. Thanking God for stuff. So we don’t totally take him or her for granted. And you guys, Christians, I mean, do that, too. Saying grace and stuff—that’s all appreciating God. It’s not all take take take.”
She considers it for a minute. “Yeah, I guess.”
“How are there people who don’t believe in God, though?” I ask her. “Do you know any?”
She thinks. “Yeah, I don’t think my brother does. And my dad always told us he was an atheist.”
I laugh again. “We should take a poll at school. It would be interesting. Don’t you think?”
“Yeah, it’s kinda personal,” Kaylan says. “But maybe.”
We stay up really late continuing to debate this, and also entering as many online contests as we can find and searching for dogs on Pet Finder. We fall asleep after one in the morning, still in our clothes, with Kaylan’s laptop between us.
I’m pretty sure those are all signs of a successful working-on-a-list sleepover.
When Kaylan’s alarm goes off at eight the next morning, we’re so asleep it feels like the middle of the night. It takes me a minute to remember why we even set an alarm, and then I remember.
Training!
For the race!
I flop over onto my stomach, hoping to sleep for a few more minutes, but then Kaylan’s phone rings.
It’s Amirah.
“Hiiii,” I answer, groggy, not totally sure I should be answering Kaylan’s phone, but she’s still asleep, so I figure it’s okay.
“Hi, Kaylan?”
“No, it’s Ari.” I laugh. “I slept over last night.”
“Oh, um, okay. I’m running late. I’ll be over in a few. But you guys know it’s kind of rainy, right?”
I close my eyes, trying to sleep and talk at the same time. “Ummm. So we’ll just do a short run and wear raincoats maybe. I think we just want to feel like we started the training.”
“Got it. See you soon.”
Kaylan mumbles “Who was that?” still mostly asleep.
“Amirah. She’s coming soon. We need to get up, Kay.”
“Five more minutes,” she grumbles again.
When Amirah gets here, she does these high-knee warm-ups and jogs in place while we get ready to go outside and start running.
“Is it bad to run on an empty stomach?” I ask them. “Should we have breakfast first?”
Kaylan shakes her head. “It’s fine, we’re not doing that much. Just drink some water and then maybe we’ll walk over to Martin’s after we run. It’s super close to the track at the high school. Mmmm. Bacon, egg, and cheese. How good does that sound?”
I smack her arm. “Kay! You’re making me hungry. Now I really want breakfast first. Should we do Martin’s and then run?”
Amirah laughs, and falls back on Kaylan’s bed. “Girls, come on. For real, people. You two always think about food. Let’s do this training! I’m pumped up! I’m wearing my best running leggings. Let’s do this, people!” She does some fast jumping jacks.
A second later there’s pounding on Kaylan’s door, and Ryan busts in. “What the heck is going on in here? You guys know it’s not even nine a.m., right? You’re so loud!”
“Sorry,” I groan, as Kaylan rolls her eyes.
“Oh, hey,” Amirah says to Ryan, like they sort of know each other in more than a Kaylan’s-dumb-brother kind of way.
“Oh, hey, Amirah. I didn’t realize it was you.” He looks down at his shorts and his dirty socks. “Later.”
We all stare at each other after that, and I’m wondering if something’s going on with Ryan and Amirah. I thought he was still going out with that girl Maura, but maybe not. We don’t exactly spend a lot of time talking about Ryan’s love life, or lack of a love life, I should say. That’s the case most of the time.
“You guys ready? Come on!” Amirah says, running in place again. “I’m fired up! Let’s do this!”
“Do we need raincoats?” I ask. “Is it too rainy to just run in a sweatshirt?”
I look to Amirah since she seems to know what she’s doing here, with her fancy running gear and everything.
“Nah, you’ll be fine, it’s not that bad, just wear your hoodie. You guys are wayyyy overthinking this.” She pauses. “Aren’t we just running a few laps at the high school? Come on, peeps.”
We finally make it outside and Kaylan’s mom drives us over there.
She says, “Please don’t stay out too long, girls. It’s kind of a nasty day. Amirah, your parents are okay with this?”
“They’ve already been out for a jog this morning!” She laughs. “Don’t worry!”
We all giggle after that and soon we’re at the track, running around. I tell myself that it’s not that rainy, even though I have to keep brushing the water out of my eyes. I assure myself that we’ll be done soon. I imagine myself eating the Egg McMartin—oozy eggs and oozy cheese on a flaky roll, and maybe I’ll get a hot chocolate, too.
It’s not that bad, I repeat to myself again and again as I run around the track.
I just need to do this four times. Four times is a mile. That’ll be enough for today and we can hustle over to the warm restaurant and sit in a cozy booth and have that happy-the-hard-part-is-over-and-now-we-rest feeling.
I feel the wind and rain slapping my face as I run. It slows me down a little but I try not to focus on it. As I run, I think about all the things in my life—the Jason thing, how my camp friends are a little disturbed that I ditched Golfy, how Kaylan feels about stuff, Kaylan’s dad, Cami, and Bubbie, too.
But as I run, it all kind of flows together and then melts away. Like the running is literally clearing my mind, letting me have a break from the stress and the worry and, in Kaylan’s language, agita.
I think back to camp and the whole mindfulness thing and this may seem obvious, even though it never occurred to me—but running is a super-easy way to clear your mind, to truly and completely be mindful.
As I run, I can’t really focus on anything except for the actual running. I can’t think about anything else except for the basic movement of one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, and again and again and again.
I look over at Amirah and Kaylan as they run. Kaylan looks to be struggling, slowing down her pace, a little bit like she may cry at some point.
But Amirah glides like some kind of Olympian. Her hijab is around her head and her leggings have this glittery reflector panel along each leg.
I watch Amirah run some more and I try to catch up with her.
I don’t think she really needs to train for this race; she’d probably be all set to run it tomorrow. Maybe she just wanted running buddies. Maybe she just wanted an excuse to hang out with us.
It doesn’t matter—I’m glad she’s here.
I run and run and run some more and soon I’ve completed the four laps. I plop onto one of the picnic tables, not even caring that the bench is wet.
Amirah’s on the side doing some stretch where she pulls her foot up to the back of her thigh and then puts it down. A few minutes later, Kaylan finishes her run. She sits down next to me, and rests her head on my shoulder.
“Holy cannoli,” she says, gasping for air. “That was hard. We basically have to do that run three times for the race?”
I nod. “I think so. But it will be nice and warm out then!”
“You promise?”
I rest my head on her head. “Yes. I promise.”
<
br /> “Race you to Martin’s?” I hop up from the bench and take off.
Kaylan slumps over onto the table, but I know she’ll follow behind me soon enough.
This is all part of the training.
35
KAYLAN
Me: u sure u don’t want 2 invite the girls today
Ari: yes sure
Ari: be over in 10 min
I read over the Laurel Lake packet that just came in the mail—with the packing list and parent handbook and directions to camp—and then I set up the spicy chip on the kitchen table. It’s pretty small and it’s kind of unbelievable that it’s really that hot. Also that Ari and I are literally sharing one chip. That we had to wait this long for one chip to arrive in the mail.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Ryan says. “People have died from eating those.”
“No they haven’t!” I yell, but my agita feelings start to creep in. He may be right; I haven’t researched it that much.
“They have, Kay.” He walks away, and I sit there at the table, trying to quickly search on my phone. I have the yogurt ready and the milk and I have gloves for Ari and me—all the stuff that I’ve heard helps to make the experience a little easier.
A minute later, Ari walks in, slumpy and bored-looking. “I can’t stay long. My parents are annoyed that my room is so messy. I started another donation pile and now everything is everywhere.”
“Oh, sorry,” I mumble, still reading on my phone. “Why are you giving so much away?”
“I just don’t need so much stuff.”
I feel her staring at me.
“Are you ready?” Ari asks, sounding impatient.
I hesitate because we’ve waited so long for this chip to come and it feels so anticlimactic now. It would have been way more fun with the lunch table girls. Now this just feels boring and lame and like something we have to get done. We never wanted our lists to be like that.
I nod. “Sure. Put on the gloves.”
So she does and we each take half a chip between our fingers.
“As soon as you’re done, drink this glass of milk and then eat the yogurt and then we can take these Tums,” I instruct. “Okay?”
“Sure.”
“You ate before this, right?” I ask her. “We can’t eat this chip on an empty stomach!”
“Yes, Kay!” Ari yells. “This chip is turning you back into the old Agita Kaylan, you know that, yes?”
I roll my eyes. I don’t want to tell her that she yanked all the fun out of this in the least Chill Girl Ari way imaginable.
“Ready?” she asks again. “I’ll count to three!”
I nod, pouring two tall glasses of milk. I set out pieces of bread to help absorb the spice. I read somewhere that can help.
“One.” We stare at each other, talking with our eyes. I think we’re both wondering why we agreed to do this. “Two.” We pause again and there’s a longer space between numbers. “Three!”
We take the chip pieces and move them to our lips and Ari takes two nibbles. Her face is the angriest face imaginable but she takes the whole piece of chip in her mouth. I turn away to eat my piece because if I look at her, I won’t be able to do it.
“Oh my God. Oh my God! I’m dying!” Ari screams. “I’m dying!” She pours the whole container of yogurt into her mouth and then the milk. “I need ice! Help!”
But I can’t help her because my mouth is an inferno and she ate all the yogurt. I pull open the freezer and put my whole head in, finding the pint of ice cream, taking the lid off and literally putting my face into it, licking the whole top with my head still in the freezer. Anything to cool my face down.
It hurts deep in my throat, all the way down my esophagus to my stomach.
My whole body is singeing.
“What are you doing?” Ryan yelps. “Ew! That was my ice cream! You guys are so gross.”
Ari throws the empty yogurt container at him and moves over to the sink, literally putting her face under the faucet and drinking like it’s a water fountain.
She stays like that for the next ten minutes while my head is in the freezer.
Finally, things start to calm down.
“Holy mother of pogo sticks,” Ari says. “That was mind-blowingly, insanely the most awful thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.” She pours a few Tums in her mouth, directly from the bottle.
I shake my head, crying, tears dripping from my eyes like a leaky pipe. When will this pain end? Maybe never. Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my life feeling like my entire body is on fire.
“Holy mother of anchovies,” I say, not sure where we’re getting these sayings but kind of enjoying it. “What if this taste never leaves my mouth?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” Ari says. “And I have to go home now. Pray for me.”
“Same,” I reply, pulling Ari into a hug. “We did it, though.”
“We did it,” she says, leaving the kitchen. “Smooches forever.”
I sit at the table and finish the ice cream and drink water, but nothing really helps. My mouth is on fire for the rest of the day.
Loyal to the List.
We may have taken it too far with this one.
After we complete the spicy chip eating, the weeks really start to fly by in that spring is finally here kind of way. Everything feels lighter and more manageable. We shed our heavy coats for hoodies and it gives me the feeling that everything (okay, maybe not everything) is right in the world.
Ari, Amirah, and I train for the race every weekend—either Saturday or Sunday—and every week it’s a little warmer and we run a little farther. Ryan and I usually work on cleaning out the basement on the other weekend day, and Ari and I squeeze in a Bubbie and Zeyda visit, too.
Some days Bubbie seems like she could run for public office and other days she seems like she could sleep for a month and still not feel rested. There’s never really an in-between.
My mom doesn’t say much about my dad’s wedding. Not to us, anyway. But sometimes when she thinks I’m doing my homework in my room, and I’ve left the door open, I hear her on the phone with her friends. She talks super quietly, almost whispering, but I can hear enough to know that she’s hurt.
She’ll say “I just can’t believe it” again and again. It stings.
I don’t want my mom to be hurt.
Sometimes I wonder if I think more about my mom’s feelings than other kids do about theirs. I guess there’s no way to know for sure.
Ryan’s planning to go, and that’s fine with me. He has a different relationship with my dad, and also he’s not going to comedy camp. He’s also kind of a doofus, so there’s that, too.
I can’t worry about what he does.
Be Me. That’s what matters.
And ever since Ari and I had that God talk, I think about God a lot more. I talk to God a lot more, too. And I try to figure out if God is a woman or a man. The more I think about it, the more I think woman.
Only a woman would be able to handle listening to so many people’s problems all at the same time.
I’m down in the basement finishing the final touches of clean-out so Mrs. Etisof can start on the mural next week when my phone rings. I never really turn the ringer on but I knew I wouldn’t feel the vibrations while cleaning.
“OMG, Kay,” Ari says. “Did you check your email?”
“No. I’m cleaning. What’s up?”
“There’s a dog for us. He’s a rescue from Massachusetts and he’s so cute, and hypoallergenic, and he’s only nine months old but already trained so he won’t pee and poop all over. Eeeee.” Ari pauses. “Check your email. I want you to see the pic.”
I put her on speaker so I can click on my email while she’s still on the phone and I look at this picture of this little furry, orangey-haired poodle (I think) that’s just so cute I want to scoop him up right through my phone screen.
“OMG. Cutest ever.”
“Right?” Ari eeeees again.
“Your pare
nts said yes?” I ask her.
“Yes. And get this—they finally agree that it would be good for Bubbie’s health to have a dog around. They checked with one of her doctors, who said that certain dogs have healing powers. We were right!”
“Really?” I yelp. “I love to be right!”
“Yes. We’re getting a dog! We’re getting a dog!” she sings again and again.
“When?” I ask.
“We’re driving to get the dog next weekend. I can’t even believe it. My parents said spring and it’s definitely, finally spring and this is happening!”
I sit down on the dresser and lean against the wall. “But a name! We still don’t have a name! That was the main thing on the list for this. Well, convincing your parents, too, obv. But we need a name!”
“Yes, I am so excited. Brainstorm sesh after training tomorrow, K?”
“K. Sounds fab. Okay, back to cleaning for me.” I pause, debating about asking her something. “Am I the first person you told about this news?”
Ari laughs. “Um, yeah. Why?”
“Just checking.” I smile, even though I’m down here alone and no one can see me.
Something occurred to me the other day.
We all have a first person: the girl or woman or boy or man or whomever we contact when we want to share a funny story, or tell someone good news, or express a particular kind of sadness.
I want to be Ari’s first person because she’s mine.
I want her to always be my first person and I want to always be hers.
Even though friendships change all the time (and they really, really do) I hope we can always be each other’s first person.
Maybe someone’s first person is also their unicorn.
I’m not sure.
She laughs. “You’re so weird, Kay. But I love you so much.”
“Right back atcha.”
At the same time, we start to recite the words we saw on this print in an art gallery by this artist named Brian Andreas, the summer before fifth grade.
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