The Truth According to Blue

by Eve Yohalem

  “Whale poop.” Dad grinned.

  Maybe not.

  “The stuff hardens into rock, and it’s worth a fortune,” he said. “They use it to make perfume. Pop Pop found a big hunk and sold it for over a thousand dollars.”

  Jules rolled her eyes. I groaned.

  “Dad,” I said through gritted teeth. “That’s not treasure.”

  Dad lobbed his empty beer can at the recycling bin. He missed. “A thousand dollars was a lot of money in 1975, Belly. Heck, it’s a lot of money now.”

  “You know what I mean,” I said.

  “Blue.” Dad had stopped kidding around. “Pop Pop was a dreamer. His father told him those old family stories just like he told you, and he believed them. When he didn’t find anything in Gardiner’s Bay, he came up with another theory and then another one after that. Trust me, there was never any ship of gold. The sad truth is Pop Pop wasted his life looking for something that wasn’t there.” Dad got up and put the beer can in the bin. “So forget all your dreams of fame and glory. Whatever Fitzgibbons finds, it’s got nothing to do with our family.”

  That’s what you think.

  As far as Dad was concerned, the case was closed. He went back to the mail. “Bill, bill, junk, bra catalog—” He waved the catalog in the air.

  “Dad!”

  “Oh, here’s one for you, Belly. Looks like a letter from Nora.”

  He handed me a square yellow envelope with pictures on it. As in, instead of the words “Camp Footlights,” Nora had drawn a stage with its curtains open in the return address box. And my first name was a blue square she’d colored in crayon. She’d written my street address in regular numbers and words so the letter would actually get to me.

  Jules looked over my shoulder at the envelope. “Your friend writes with crayons? How old is she?”

  I pressed the front of the letter to my chest. “Nora’s very creative.”

  Jules scowled. “She sounds fun.” She took her phone out of her back pocket and started texting. “I have to go home now.”

  Is it possible Jules was jealous of Nora?

  “I think you’d really like each other,” I said, holding out the envelope so Jules could appreciate the unique zaniness of my best friend. “Maybe we could all hang out when she gets home from camp.”

  “Maybe,” Jules said, scowling a little less.

  I wanted to rip open the envelope right that very second, but I didn’t want to read the letter in front of Jules or Dad. For the whole half an hour it took for Anna’s personal trainer to pick up Jules, I could practically hear it screaming, Read me! READ me! READ. ME. Read! Read! Read! Now! Now! Now!

  At last Otis and I were upstairs in my room on my bed, just the two of us.

  Blue!

  Camp is great. Greater than great! Even though I’m exhausted from being in tech all week for Into the Woods (I’m the baker’s wife!) and in chorus for Beauty and the Beast at the same time. Last week I was rehearsing Beauty and crewing for Les Mis on the fly floor, which was possibly—no, definitely—the most terrifying experience of my entire life. But fun. Funner than fun. People here are incredibly talented. The two leads in Kate are from LaGuardia and Ellington! The TD for Rosie thinks he rules the world, but the MD is like a musical fairy godmother, so life is good. Except I miss you like crazy!

  How’s Otis? What’s happening with the hunt?? And Jules the evil dog-hater??? WRITE SOON!

  Love and xoxoxoxoxoxo,

  Nora

  P.S. True Fact: The original B&B story is based on a real boy who was covered in hair and got kidnapped and given to King Henry II of France as a present!

  P.P.S. I’m SO sorry it took me this long to write. Please don’t hate me! As punishment I will blanket my face with the fluffy cloud kittens from your anniversary card, even though I’m allergic.

  I let the letter float to the floor. “True Fact, Otis,” I whispered. “Nora wrote me a letter all about her life at camp, and I don’t understand half of what she said.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  True Fact: The problem with being a girl my age is when it comes to dressing up, you have two choices: kindergartner or beauty queen.

  I’d prayed for appendicitis, scanned the skies for a freak tornado, and, when those didn’t pan out, considered hiding under the house with the rabid raccoons. Instead, my worst nightmare came true, and here I was: in Dad’s truck with Otis and my parents arriving at the CJDF gala.

  I had on an aqua sleeveless dress with white piping that was shaped like a tent. At least it didn’t have ruffles or ducks. But it did have a tiny hole that I cut so I could thread the tube to my pump through it and hide my pump in one of the pockets.

  “I look eight years old,” I muttered.

  “You don’t look a day younger than eleven,” Mom said.

  Dad looked even more miserable and uncomfortable than me in his jacket and tie. Probably because it was about eighty-five degrees outside at six o’clock.

  Otis, who loves a party, was totally psyched. He sat next to me in the back seat, straight and tall, with his fur neatly brushed—very Noble King Otis—but the tip of his tail was wagging. He carried my diabetes kit in a pouch on his service vest.

  Mom—cool and comfortable in a long flowy silky dress—was also psyched. Last year’s party raised $600,000. We’d already blown past that this year, and the party hadn’t even started yet. She had a list of more potential donor names inked on her palm, which she’d written in Sharpie so they wouldn’t sweat off. Knowing Mom, we wouldn’t go home until she’d wrangled a check out of every one of those people.

  A quarter mile from Jules’s house, local police directed traffic to the valet line. A young woman in a black dress with super-high heels, a body mic, and an iPad leaned into the driver’s window and checked us in.

  “Okay, gang. Let’s go cure diabetes,” Dad said.

  He gave his keys to one of the valet parkers, and then we piled onto a shuttle. By “shuttle” I mean a chauffeur-driven golf cart with a cooler of champagne.

  The shuttle took us to the house, where a gigantic white party tent filled the middle of the front yard. Over to one side, a reggae band played chill tunes for a few hundred guests. Waiters with fruit tower hats wobbled around with silver trays of mini burgers the size of postage stamps. Security guards patrolled the grounds on Segways.

  Nora would have had plenty to say about this scene. But would I have understood any of it? Back home I kept rereading her letter. I went online and found out LaGuardia and Ellington are arts high schools; an MD is a musical director and a TD is a technical director; and I’m pretty sure the B&B story is actually just Beauty and the Beast.

  I never used to have to look up any of Nora’s words. But now I might need a dictionary if I ever wanted to talk to her again.

  As soon as we got off the shuttle, cameras started flashing: Ladies and Gentlemen: Diabetes Girl! A CJDF person sent over a makeup artist, who descended on Mom with a giant powder brush while her assistant went after Otis with a comb. After she finished with Mom, the makeup lady attacked me. She didn’t go for Dad, though.

  “It’s because I’m gorgeous just the way I am,” Dad said.

  “It’s because you’re a man, so no one cares how you look,” Mom said, rolling her eyes. “A thirteen-year-old girl needs makeup, but a middle-aged man takes a shower and he’s distinguished.”

  “No one’s ever called me distinguished before.” Dad kissed Mom on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  “Broens!”

  Ed and Anna, along with a video crew, floated across the grass. The photographers abandoned us to snap them. Ed had on a linen suit with no tie and flip-flops. Anna was wearing a long shimmery skirt and a man’s white ribbed tank top, with a gardenia in her carefully messed-up hair as her only accessory.

  You know how cartoon characters will smile really big and a little bolt of light will bounce off their teeth with a ping sound? Turns out that happens to some people in real life, too.

&nbs
p; After photo ops, introductions, air-kisses, and paw shakes, Ed said, “So, Blue, how’s the guest of honor?”

  Miserable. “Great,” I said.

  “What do you think of the fruit theme?” Anna asked.

  “Very low on the glycemic index,” I said.

  Mom gently stepped on my toes.

  “No, really,” I said. “It’s incredible. Everything’s incredible. Thank you so much, Mr. Buttersby. This is definitely our biggest and best event ever.”

  “Call me Ed, and you know how glad I am to help. Hey, listen, let’s get out of this heat before we all melt. The CJDF folks are waiting for us.”

  I figured that meant we were going inside the house, but no. Ed led us to the party tent. Which was air-conditioned.

  About ten years into a discussion of timelines, proceeds, and head counts, Jules finally showed up. She had on a slinky white dress with a hole over part of her rib cage. She looked like a stranger from a magazine with her dark eyeliner and her hair pulled back, and also like she’d grown five inches, which was probably because of her gold platform sandals.

  “Julie Jules, you look amazing!” Anna leaned over to kiss Jules on both cheeks. “Mmmm. You smell delicious. What perfume are you wearing? Jo Malone?”

  “Whale poop.” Jules grabbed my arm. “C’mon, Blue, let’s go mingle.”

  We made our escape.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  True Fact: Public mortification isn’t the worst thing that can happen at a party.

  As soon as we got out of the tent, Otis headbutted me and high-fived. No surprise. Being nervous always makes my blood sugar high. I tested and took insulin behind a seven-foot neon banana while Jules snagged some kiwi on a skewer from a waiter with pineapples stacked on his head. We tried to disappear anonymously into the hordes, but it was impossible. Not with my face plastered on the invitations like one of those baby seals you can save for fifty cents a day. I could feel people’s silent questions—She looks so healthy. How can she have diabetes?—and dumb suggestions—Have you tried eating paleo?

  But not everybody was silent. From behind us, a man’s voice said, “I’ve been looking for you, girls.”

  Jules and I turned around slowly, like two humans in a zombie movie who just heard a noise coming from inside the house. I tightened my grip on Otis’s leash.

  Fitz.

  “One of my crew saw you back on the water today.”

  Actually, we’d been on the water the last two days, but Jules and I weren’t about to tell that to Fitz.

  “What part of ‘stay away’ did you not understand?” Fitz leaned in so only we could hear him. “Don’t make me escalate this. You’ll regret it.”

  I lost the power to breathe, let alone talk.

  Fitz leaned back and shark-smiled. “Oh, and thanks for that great idea you gave me, Jules. It’s happening. All because of you.”

  He grabbed a microscopic crab cake from a waiter dressed like a raspberry, tossed it in his mouth, and walked away without saying good-bye.

  “Jules—” I started.

  Jules swatted the air, like Fitz was an annoying gnat she could brush away. “Forget him. He’s just trying to scare us.”

  “Well, he succeeded! And what did he mean about the ‘great idea’ you gave him?”

  “Who knows? It’s probably just some lie to scare us because he likes to torture children. Nothing’s changed. We keep looking unless somebody makes us stop, remember?”

  I let out a slow breath. “You’re right. He’s just a bully.” A big, powerful, billionaire bully.

  Jules took Otis’s leash from me. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  The three of us hid under a big weeping willow tree in a corner of the property away from the party. Inside the droopy branches, it felt like a secret fort. Jules and I sat next to the trunk, and Otis stayed near the perimeter so he could keep watch and sneak nibbles of leaves at the same time.

  “How’s your mom?” I asked.

  Jules shrugged. “I haven’t talked to her in a few days. But I’m actually thinking maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe it means she’s busy.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “If she’s busy she must be feeling better.”

  “Maybe.” Jules pulled out hunks of grass like the ground was a dead chicken that needed plucking. “I hate this party.”

  “I hate my dress,” I said, picking at a section of piping that was unraveling.

  “I hate my dress,” she said.

  “Really? I think you look incredible.”

  “It feels like everybody’s staring at me.” Jules wrapped her arms around her waist like she was trying to cover herself up.

  “Yeah, because you look incredible,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes and attacked the grass again.

  “Jules, what do you want? I mean, really?” I said.

  “What do you mean, what do I want?”

  “What do you wish for most when you wish on birthday candles and eyelashes?”

  Already Jules had plucked an impressive pile. “According to Anna, I should wish that when I’m done growing, my thigh-to-calf ratio is somewhere between one point four and one point five to one,” she said.

  “Seriously? Is that a thing?” What did those numbers even mean?

  “It’s a really important thing. Any bigger and your thighs are too fat.”

  “Says who?” I looked down at my legs. Were they too fat? What was too fat, anyway?

  “Says Anna the super-starlet and every magazine you’ve ever seen.” Jules rolled her eyes again. “Which obviously means it has to be true.”

  I thought about girls and women I knew and tried to remember what their thighs looked like and whether the people with smaller thighs were happier than the people with bigger thighs.

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” I said.

  “Yes, it is,” Jules agreed. “But just because it’s ridiculous doesn’t mean that people don’t believe it.”

  “But you don’t have to believe it,” I said. “Jules, there’s got to be something else you really want other than a good leg ratio.”

  She stopped plucking. “Fine. I just want one thing in my life to be about me and not about my dad.”

  “You mean the way there are five hundred people all here for the Ed Buttersby Saves Diabetes Girl show who don’t even know our names?” I said.

  We both laughed.

  “Yeah,” Jules said. “Something like that.”

  The alarm on my phone went off.

  “We have to go,” I said. “It’s time for the speeches.”

  I got up and brushed the back of my dress. I could feel my thighs through the material. Was that fat or just skin? Ugh. I hated that Jules put that question in my head, and I decided to 100 percent refuse to care.

  “Do you mind if I stay here?” Jules said. “I know you’ve got your speech, but my dad told me he’s got some big announcement, and I don’t want to hear it.”

  I signaled Otis to come so I could put his leash back on. “It’s probably just something to do with the fundraiser,” I said. “Like a donation.” I really needed Jules there for moral support. Plus, I wanted someone to look at who wasn’t my parents or a stranger or a celebrity. Or Fitz.

  “I don’t think so,” Jules said. “There was something about the way he said it. I’m worried…”

  “About what?” I said.

  Jules didn’t answer right away. She stayed on the ground, digging the heel of her sandal into the soft earth. Finally she said, “I’m worried maybe he’s going to announce his engagement or something.”

  My hand froze on Otis’s collar. “Haven’t they only been dating for a few months?”

  “Yeah, but that would be totally like him. Stealing the spotlight at a party for dying children—no offense—”

  I shrugged.

  “—to tell the world he’s in love.”

  That would be totally like Ed. And awful for Jules. “I get it,” I sa
id. “And I’m really sorry to ask. But… I don’t think I can get through this speech if you’re not there.”

  Which was true. And Jules looked as surprised as I was to hear me say it. Somewhere in the craziness of the last three weeks, we had become friends.

  Jules stopped digging and plucking. “Really?” she said.

  I nodded.

  She stood up and took Otis’s leash from my hand. “Okay, team, let’s get this over with.”

  We got to the tent just as Ed was saying the words “brave,” “overcome,” and “shadow of death.”

  “That’s your cue,” Jules said, shoving me toward the stage.

  I staggered a few steps, and the piece of paper with my speech on it went flying out of my hand and landed next to table nine. And then a man who was sitting at table nine stepped on it. I’d just gotten down on my hands and knees to pry it from under his shoe when I heard, “Sag Harbor’s very own hero, Blue Broen!”

  If only my head hadn’t been under a dining table. If only I hadn’t tried to stand up too soon. If only that table had been loaded with balloons instead of dishes and glasses for ten people.

  For the record, not everything fell over. Just maybe about half of everything. And not the table itself. Just the stuff on it. Also, there was no food yet, just drinks. Lots of drinks.

  Turns out half a table-load of crystal and china all crashing at the same time makes a really really loud noise.

  Really loud.

  Otis sprang into action, woofing a chesty danger bark: Get back! Something bad is happening and I need to protect Blue! He broke away from Jules and stood over me while I inched out from under the table, licking and sniffing me, checking for injuries. People were calling my name, but Otis wasn’t letting anyone near me. He gave me his back to lean on to help me get up. My head throbbed where I bonked it, but I was basically okay.

  Table nine was another story. Red wine splattered the party guests like Nightmare on Lily Pond Lane. Waiters with strawberry headdresses swarmed the scene with brooms and hand towels.

  Jules was still standing at the edge of the tent. Bent over and laughing her head off.