That's What Friends Do

by Cathleen Barnhart

  She takes a deep breath and tries to smile, but it doesn’t stick. “I was twelve too. The boys were strangers. I’d gone to the Y with my best friend, Amy, and we had a wonderful time swimming. We were getting ready to go home, getting out of our suits, and four boys came into the area where we were changing. I was wearing a one-piece and I had it half off. The boys blocked the doorway, watching us. When we tried to get past them, to get away, they let us, but one grabbed me as I passed, touched me”—she hesitates, then grimaces and says quietly, like the words are hard for her to get out—“between my legs.”

  “Oh,” I say, stunned.

  She pushes the hair back from her face and takes another deep breath. “We didn’t tell anyone. For years I felt like it was my fault, because I was changing in the wrong place, or because I didn’t yell at the boy and stand up for myself. I felt like . . . like maybe I deserved it, somehow.”

  She stops talking, and I’m not sure what to say.

  She takes both my hands in hers. “What happened to you. None of it was your fault. You didn’t cause any of it.”

  “I didn’t know what to do,” I say. “How to make them stop. But I didn’t say no.”

  “You didn’t say yes either.”

  “I felt so scared.”

  “I know,” my mother says. And the amazing thing is, I think she really does.

  Saturday, March 7

  DAVID

  Pop probably started telling me how to Be a Man before I could say “man.” There’s a lot of crap you have to do to Be a Man: own your mistakes, face your problems, treat girls with respect, clean up your own messes, play fair, follow the rules. Sometimes I want to remind Pop that I’m not a man, I’m a twelve-year-old boy, because Being a Man really stinks.

  Being a Man is why I end up in the lobby of Memorial Hospital, holding a gift bag with a Yankees fleece blanket in it, asking for Luke Sullivan’s room number. Pop wanted me to bring a plant, which would be a totally lame thing for any boy to bring to another boy, and also would not be something Luke Sullivan would want, so I suggested a new Nintendo DS game, which made Pop’s face turn purple because he immediately thought I was just trying to get around the electronics ban, which I kind of was. Mom had the idea for the Yankees blanket, which I immediately agreed to, mostly because it made Pop’s face get less purple. He doesn’t look good purple.

  Mom and Pop both wanted to go with me to Luke’s room, but on that I put my foot down: I would go alone.

  Except you can’t go alone to a patient’s room if you’re a minor, even if the patient is a minor, and even if you’re the minor who kind of saved the minor patient’s life, so Pop agrees to escort me upstairs and then wait in the hall.

  We ride the elevator without talking, and then Pop asks the nurse which way to Luke’s room, and waits outside while I go in. Luke’s dad is sitting next to his bed, and Luke’s looking out the window. When I walk in, Mr. Sullivan gets up and holds out his hand, and we shake, but Luke keeps staring out the window.

  “David,” Mr. Sullivan says. “Great to see you. Super nice of you to stop by. How about your dad and I go grab a cup of coffee and leave you two guys alone?”

  “Thanks,” I say, watching Luke, who’s still staring out the window.

  After Luke’s dad leaves, I hold out the bag with the Yankees blanket and say, “I brought you something. A get-well gift.” Luke doesn’t say anything, or even look at me, so I keep talking. “It’s from the store, of course. They’re a really popular item this year. Made of polar fleece, so they’re pretty warm, plus they have this year’s lineup printed around the edge. So they’re kind of like a collector’s item because next year there will be a different lineup.”

  Luke still won’t look at me, and I wonder if he’s embarrassed about the way I was hugging him in the tunnel, because I kind of am, but the EMT guys told me that it was the exact right thing to do, because I was sharing my body warmth with Luke, and that I maybe saved his life, plus the doctors told the Sullivans that Luke probably wouldn’t remember most of what happened in the tunnel, and Mrs. Sullivan told my mom, who told me.

  But since he’s still not looking at me, and not talking to me, and I’ve run out of dumb things to say about the stupid Yankees blanket, I rush on and say the hard thing that I need to:

  “I’m sorry about everything. Making up stuff about you and Sammie, and that stupid prank in the stairwell. I was jealous, if you want to know the whole truth. Jealous about you and Sammie, because when you both weren’t in the cafeteria I thought you guys were, like, together. When I finally figured out you were with Dr. Ginzburg at lunch . . . well, duh.”

  I set the gift bag down on the end of Luke’s bed and turn to leave.

  “You knew where to find me,” Luke says quietly. “You told me I was your friend. In the tunnel.”

  I turn back, and he’s looking at me. I nod, and for a moment I want to be the hero of this story. But trying to be the hero is kind of what got me into trouble in the first place, so I say, “Allie saw you in our backyard, and she told me. I guessed that you’d come in to get a coat and boots from the garage, after you ran out of school. Then I found your wet stuff behind my mom’s sock bin. That’s how I figured out where you’d gone.”

  “Thanks,” he says, and I’m not really sure whether he’s thanking me for finding his socks or for telling him he was my friend or for all of it.

  But I nod again and say, “No problem. Sammie’s really the one who saved you though. She heard me calling for help.”

  Luke winces. “Sammie,” he says quietly. He closes his eyes, and for a moment I worry that maybe he’s passed out again like in the Fort. But then he opens them, slowly, not looking at me, and says, “She heard you.”

  “Yeah. That was some dumb luck,” I say. “Crazy dumb luck.”

  Luke nods again.

  I’m not sure whether I should leave or sit down and start talking about basketball scores, so I stand there awkwardly for a long time, neither of us saying anything.

  Then Luke says, “They don’t think they’re going to have to amputate any of my toes.”

  “Great!” I say.

  “They won’t know for certain for a couple of weeks, but the doctor said he’s pretty confident.”

  “Good news,” I say, sitting down in the chair next to Luke’s bed.

  “I have blisters all over my feet, and two of my toenails are black, but none of the blisters had blood in them, so that’s good.”

  “Cool,” I say.

  “Wanna see?”

  “Sure,” I say, even though I think regular toes are pretty gross-looking, let alone black, blistered ones.

  “You can’t see much anyway, though. They’re all wrapped up.” Luke pulls back the covers and reveals two mummy feet, encased in mounds of gauze. “I won’t be able to really walk on them for a couple of weeks.”

  “Wow,” I say. “That sucks.”

  Just then, a nurse walks into the room. “Okay,” she says to me, “let’s let Luke get some rest now.”

  “All right,” I say, and I get up to leave. “Good news about the toes, though.”

  “Yeah,” Luke says, and one side of his mouth turns up into an almost smile. “Good news.”

  At the door, I stop, and turn around. “I could come by again, if you want.”

  “That would be great,” Luke says. “Maybe even bring some board games? Like—what was that one we played New Year’s Eve?”

  “Blokus.”

  “Yeah. Blokus. Bring that one.”

  “You got it.”

  Friday, April 17

  SAMMIE

  The best thing about girls’ softball are the cheers. Okay, maybe not the best thing, actually. But the cheers are really awesome. Because they’re not just a bunch of words strung together; they’re elaborate, and sometimes even choreographed. The cheers mean that all the time, even when you’re in the dugout, and you know you’re not going to get up to bat this inning, you’re still part of the team. You
have a job to do.

  I stand on the pitcher’s mound, gripping the ball in my right hand, and listen as Savanna, our co-captain, sings from the dugout, “Twenty is her number!” and all the girls repeat, “Twenty is her number!”

  “Sammie is her name!” Savanna calls.

  “Sammie is her name!” the girls repeat.

  I’m concentrating on the plate and the batter and Haley’s catcher’s glove, but as I wind up and release the ball, I hear Savanna call, “She’s one of the reasons—” and my teammates jump in and finish the sentence: “We’re gonna win this game.”

  My pitch is sucked right into Haley’s glove. The batter doesn’t even move, and the umpire calls, “Strike!”

  I didn’t plan on being a pitcher. When I showed up for the first official tryout, I was just hoping Coach Wright wouldn’t tell me to go back to the baseball team. But both of the girls who pitched last year had moved up to the high school team this year, so Coach tried everyone out. She said I was a natural. She said it was good I’d never pitched in Little League because that would have made it harder for me to switch to underhand. My body would have had to unlearn the feel of baseball pitching first. The stance, and the way you move your arm, and even how you step and when you release the ball—it’s all different in softball.

  I pitch a second strike. On my third pitch, the batter tries to swing because she knows she has to, but she’s too late. She doesn’t trust herself.

  “Stee-rike three!” the umpire calls.

  In the dugout, Savanna has started the cheer over, this time for Haley: “Twelve is her number!”

  I look over to the stand of bleachers where the parents sit. Dad’s on his feet, clapping and pumping his fist. If he thought he could get away with it, he’d join Savanna’s cheer. But the ump keeps the parents on a really short leash.

  David’s next to Dad, standing and clapping too, but less excitedly. He told me that, since he’s not playing baseball anymore, and has gone public with his art club membership, he figured he might as well go all out for King of the Nerds title. So he decided to become the middle school girls’ softball team mascot. He calls himself Snerboy, which I don’t really understand. He doesn’t come to the away games, but if we’re playing at home, I know he’ll be in the stands. When he sees me looking his way, he gives a big wave.

  Next to David, Mom is sitting, but she’s clapping too. I never asked her to come to my games, and she never asked me if I wanted her to. She just started showing up. She usually doesn’t last the whole game—someone’s house needs to be shown, or there are client calls she has to make—but I kind of like it that she comes, even for part of the time.

  The next batter is up at bat. In the dugout, Savanna’s starting a new cheer, and everyone’s participating, doing their part to send energy and good vibes out to the field. I look at Haley, squatting behind home plate, and she gives a small nod. The batter taps her bat on the plate, then lifts it up over her shoulder. The sun is shining down on all of us, and for a moment, as I set my shoulders and take a deep breath in, I wish I could freeze time. Just stay here, with everything bright and perfect.

  But I can’t. So I wind up and let the ball go.

  Saturday, April 18

  DAVID

  “There’s a shipment of baseball caps to unpack,” Pop says. “We need to get those out on the floor pronto!” He pats an empty rack right near the front of the store.

  I smile and nod because the really awesome thing is that Pop is not speaking to me.

  “Sure, Mr. Fischer,” Luke says.

  Who would have guessed. Luke, in possession of all of his toes, and star catcher for the E. C. Adams Middle School baseball team, is also the newest L. H. Fischer Sporting Goods employee. Of course, Pop pays him, which is a better deal than I ever got. And being that Luke is only thirteen, Pop has to keep it off the books, and pays him in cash, which is not entirely legal, and is a new side of Pop that I kind of like.

  What am I doing? Well, I’m technically working at the store too—I’m at the register, and ready to ring up any eager customer who wants to buy a new aluminum baseball bat, or a pair of running shorts, or a tennis racket. But it’s two o’clock on the first warm spring Saturday and the store is almost empty, so my services are mostly not needed.

  So I’m working on my latest comic book, which I’m calling When We Were Friends. It’s about me and Sammie, disguised as a cat and dog. I’ve given them names: Chester the dog and Goldie the cat.

  I’m using a lot of symbolism, so that no one will know it’s me and Sammie, except me and Sammie. Like I’m telling the story of how we first met as being at a dog park, and Goldie knows more about the rules of the dog park than Chester does. She knows how to roll over and how to catch a Frisbee and how to play tug-of-war with another dog. The other dogs and their owners don’t even realize that Goldie’s a cat because she’s so good at all the dog tricks.

  Pop strolls over and takes a look at my drawing, chuckling at Goldie’s fake dog nose.

  Luke hauls the box of baseball caps to the rack where Pop wants them displayed, opens the box, and starts slapping prices on the tags and hanging the caps on the rack.

  “Coach D’s got us doing a mandatory practice tomorrow at the batting cages,” Luke tells me. “He’s really cheesed off about the loss to Briarcliff. Says we all need batting practice.”

  “Bummer,” I say.

  “It’s okay. Better than Hebrew school.” He grins.

  “Yeah,” I say. “But pretty much everything except a rectal exam would be better than Hebrew school.”

  Luke laughs.

  The truth is, I miss baseball a little. Like on a scale of one to ten, I miss baseball a two. I miss being part of a team, and I miss the way it made me fit in. But honestly, mostly what I miss is being on the team with Sammie, and Sammie’s not on the baseball team either, so the team I miss isn’t the team that’s playing now. It’s the team in my memories. The team that used to be.

  But sometimes you can’t go back to what was. Sometimes you can only go forward, with who you really are right out there for everyone to see. So Sammie’s playing softball, and I’m the official girls’ softball cheering section at home games. I show her my comics and she gives me great feedback, and we talk on the bus about whether we’d rather be forced to breathe in Mr. Pachelo’s fart smells all day or eat horse meat for every school lunch.

  But she’s best friends with Haley now, and I have Luke and Arnold and Sean. I hang out with the same group of guys at lunch, and they kind of tease me about my comics and kind of don’t understand why I’m not playing baseball, but mostly they’re okay with it.

  I look down at the drawing in front of me, and for just a flash I feel a little bit sad, but then I get back to drawing because it’s a story I want to tell, even if I don’t always look so good in it. Because it’s the truth about when we were friends.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you first to my amazing agent, Saba Sulaiman: Your enthusiastic embrace of Sammie and David, and your certainty that you could find the right editor and house for my manuscript, were beautiful, shining gifts. And you did connect me with the best editor ever in Courtney Stevenson. Courtney, your gentle, thoughtful questions and suggestions have made my characters truer and this book infinitely better; working with you has been a joyous, exciting adventure. Let me also offer a humble and stunned thank you to the entire HarperCollins team; I had no idea you were all there, until you were: Catherine San Juan, Vanessa Nuttry, Shona McCarthy, Emma Meyer and the entire marketing team, Kristopher Kam, and Andrea Pappenheimer and the amazing sales team. Thank you also to copy editor Jessica White, and to my sensitivity reader, who wants to remain anonymous.

  Thank you to my fellow writer’s group writers. Some of you read chapters; some of you read larger sections, and some of you read the entire manuscript, more than once even. All of you gave of your hearts, your honesty, and your writerly wisdom: Jennifer Lang, Karen Gershowitz, Liz Burk, Aileen Hewitt,
Werner Hengst (of blessed memory), Paul Phillips, Cynthia Ehrenkrantz, and Jean Halperin; and Gerry Hawkins, Ian Berger, Dan Shapiro, Helen Chayefsky, Julie Coraggio, Kimberly Marcus, and Cindy McCraw Dircks. Cindy, thank you is not enough; I owe you flowers and chocolate and maybe even a puppy. Your persistent insistence that my story was ready for the world is the reason I sent it out. What luck I met you at that New York SCBWI conference.

  I have relied upon the love and enthusiastic support of my beautiful extended family. To my sisters Amanda, Clara, and Jodie: being with you, your spouses, and your delicious kids is nothing less than magic; it lights me up. Amanda, thank you for talking me down from several ledges; you may be younger, but you are so, so much wiser.

  Thank you, Aviva, for the chocolate mousses, front porch evenings, more Shabbat dinners than I can count, and, most important, your steady friendship.

  My children, Eli, Noah, and Maggie: Thank you for not telling me I was strange when I gave up a paying job to sit at home and write, for sometimes even seeming a little bit proud of me, and for allowing me to snatch colorful bits of your lives and weave them into the tapestry of my writing.

  Peter: Thank you somehow seems like the wrong thing to say to you. I had no idea, when we met in the hall of our apartment building in Park Slope, how deep and total and vital a love could become. I am grateful for you every day, always.

  About the Author

  Photo by Erica Berger

  CATHLEEN BARNHART wrote her first book when she was seven. It was called “Aunt Ant,” and it received rave reviews from her teacher, Mrs. Mills. She’s been writing ever since, with detours into waitressing, working on Wall Street (epic fail), getting married, raising three children, and teaching middle school English and social studies. She holds a BA in creative writing from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. That’s What Friends Do is her first published novel.