by Linda Urban
Dialogue
Me and Emma sit in the corner of the lunchroom to practice for the Spelling Showdown.
"Dialogue," I say.
"Dialogue?" asks Emma. "Can you use it in a sentence?"
"Our dialogue was interrupted by a handsome stranger before you had a chance to wish me a happy birthday," I say.
"Dialogue," says Emma. "Die-a-log."
"Dialogue," I repeat.
"D ... I ... A..."
"Hey." It is Colton Shell.
"Hey," says Emma. She's got her head cocked to one side so she can look up at Colton through her eyelashes. This is her "I'm so pretty" look. I remember her practicing it in the mirror back when we were best friends.
I wonder if I'm supposed to look at him through my eyelashes, too, but now it would probably look stupid, me and Emma tilting our heads exactly the same way. Like I'm copying her. Like I'm taking girl lessons or something. Which I could probably use.
"You doing spelling?" asks Colton.
"Yeah. We 're doing spelling," says Emma.
Maybe I should try tilting my head in the other direction. I could still peek at him through my eyelashes, but I wouldn't look exactly like Emma. Not exactly.
"I hate spelling," says Colton.
"Yeah. I hate it, too," says Emma. "It's dumb."
"Yeah," says Colton. "It's dumb."
Maybe I should just tilt a little bit. Not as far over as Emma. Not like a puppy dog or anything. Just a little.
"Your neck okay?" Colton asks me.
I nod.
"Well, happy birthday," says Colton, and he hands me a yellow envelope. "It's a card."
"Thank you," I say.
"Okay," says Colton. And then he walks back to his table.
Emma Dent gasps, and grabs my hands. "He totally likes you so much. Did you see the way he blushed? And how he said happy birthday? He's sooooooooo cute. You are soooooooo lucky. You know, Lily Parker likes Colton, too, but she just decided that she liked him yesterday and he already liked you except that she wasn't really sure that he did and she thought that maybe it was just a rumor because she was so sure that Colton would like her over you any day, but he doesn't. He likes you. Aren't you going to open your card? I can't wait to see what it says!"
I can. I can wait a long time. At least until after lunch. At least until Emma Dent is not leaning over my shoulder memorizing every word so she can tell Lily Parker and everyone else. I tuck the card into my spelling book.
"We've got to practice," I remind her. "Dialogue."
"Yeah. Whatever," says Emma. "Dialogue."
The Kitchen Is Closed
I play "Forever in Blue Jeans" and I play "Forever in Blue Jeans" and I play "Forever in Blue Jeans."
And I keep playing because there is nothing else to do. Dad and Wheeler are in the kitchen and they say I can't go in there, not even for a Vernors, not even to pass through to get to the bathroom, not even to ask Wheeler why he wasn't in school today.
I can't go in the kitchen because Dad and Wheeler are finishing my birthday cake, which I know is really more of a wedding cake because Dad has to make one for Patty Cake, Patty Cake: Make Some Cash, so instead of a pudding-in-the-middle cake from a box like we usually have, I'm getting a three-tiered birthday cake with a gazebo on top.
Which is way better than a pudding cake from a box.
Or a grocery-store cake in the shape of a shoe.
The Words
The Perfectone Hits of the Seventies songbook has notes and instructions like crescendo (get louder) and pianissimo (play very softly), but it doesn't have the lyrics to the hits. It is pretty easy to figure out where Neil Diamond would sing the "forever in blue jeans" part, just by how the melody goes, but I don't know the rest of the words.
So when I play I sing,
"LA dee da
da-DA-dee-DA-dee DA-da
LA dee da
LA da-DA-da-DA-da-da
LA dee da
da LA da dee da
Forever in blue jeans."
Like that.
"Your cake is almost ready," Dad calls from the kitchen. "Just a few more minutes."
I flip the Rock Beat #3 switch.
I count.
oneandtwoandthreeandfourand
Bum
Bum
Bum
Bum go the pedals.
It's kind of sad that there are no words.
oneandtwoandthreeandfourand
Bum
Bum
Bum
Bum
"Birthday cake
A cake-y cake that Dad and
Wheeler make
The finest birthday cake in
His-to-ry
For this prodigy
Forever in blue jeans."
Bum
Bum
Bum
Bum
"Mom will cry.
She'll hear me play and she will
Nearly die.
They all will beg and they will Plead with me
To play Carnegie
Forever in blue jeans"
The phone rings just as I'm getting to the part that Hits of the Seventies calls the bridge. This is where Miss Person has me flip on the oboe and bassoon switches to make this part of the song sound serious.
I sing the bridge while Dad answers the phone.
"I'm gonna win
I'm gonna win a big fat shiny trophy or two. My mom and dad will be glad. They'll say 'Horowitz who?'"
Bum
Bum
Bum
Bum
"Honey?" calls Dad. "You can come in now."
My cake is beautiful.
The bottom tier is covered with pink and orange and yellow roses. There are leaves around the sides, too, silvery green, and vines winding up the fat columns that hold up the other tiers.
"We didn't have real columns," says Wheeler. "So your dad frosted some toilet paper tubes."
The second tier has a pond. It is silvery and there's a little wooden bridge over it and trees and flowers and a bench where a tiny cake person might sit to fish or read a frosting newspaper.
But best of all is the third tier. Instead of a gazebo and a plastic bride and groom on top, there's a grand piano.
"I made it out of Mars pan," says Wheeler. "Marzipan," says Dad.
"The keyboard is kind of lumpy, and one of the legs is too short," says Wheeler. "You can eat it if you want."
But when I tell him I don't want to, that I want to keep it, he smiles. Now I know why Wheeler didn't come to school. He was here all day. Making me a piano for my birthday.
"It's perfect," I tell him.
"It's crooked."
"It's a crooked kind of perfect," I say.
"So," says Dad. "Who wants the first piece of cake?"
"Shouldn't we wait for Mom before we cut it?" I ask.
"Well," says Dad. "Well. No. That was your mom on the phone. There's a work crisis. A ledger emergency. She's going to have to stay late and..."
"And?" I ask, but I know. Mom is going to have to work all weekend, too. Which means...
"Well," says Dad.
"She can't go to the Perform-O-Rama," I say.
"Well," says Dad. "Well. No."
What Dad Says
Who needs a Perform-O-Rama anyway?
Who needs it?
Really?
The competition?
The pressure?
Who needs judges telling you you're talented?
You know you're talented.
I know you're talented.
Wheeler knows you're talented.
I know what we'll do. We'll have our own Perform-O-Rama here! Right here. We'll dress up fancy and have candles and we'll put Vernors in champagne glasses. We could have hors d'oeuvres and I could print up programs. I learned how to print programs in Party Smarty.
You'd like that, wouldn't you?
Programs?
And Vernors?
Just the three of us?
Who needs anything more?
What I Say
I do.
And Then
I slam my chair into the table so hard that the tiers of my birthday cake wobble, which is what is going to happen if you don't have real columns and you balance the whole thing on stupid frosted toilet paper tubes because you're too much of a freak to get in the stupid car and drive to a baking supply place and get real columns like a regular person.
Which you wouldn't have to do anyway if you could just go to a real baking class at a real baking school, which is what normal people do because they aren't all weirded out by the idea that there might be real live human beings sitting next to them and a real teacher and maybe even a graduation ceremony where a real person might hand you a real rolled-up diploma instead of having you tear your suitable-for-framing diploma out of the back of a book.
And what good is a stupid framed diploma to anybody anyway if after you learn how to scuba or fly or plan parties or bake you never go out in the world and scuba or fly or party or bake for anybody, anyway?
And that's what I say. Then I say, "What good is working hard and learning to play the stupid Perfectone D-60 if nobody ever hears me?"
And Dad says, "I hear you."
And I say, "That doesn't count."
Directions
I am hiding in my room, listening to one of Mom's Horowitz CDs. Loud.
Someone knocks on the door.
"Go away," I yell.
It's Wheeler. "I've got cake, Goober," he says.
I let him in.
"It's Zsa Zsa," I say.
Then we eat cake.
And when we finish, Wheeler goes out to the kitchen and gets us each another piece and we eat that, too.
Wheeler turns off my CD player. "He's gonna take you," he says.
"He'll try, but he won't be able to. He'll get nervous and we'll get lost and then we'll end up back here." My voice cracks and Wheeler thinks I'm choking on cake so he goes and gets us each a glass of milk.
Which we drink.
"I was mean," I say. "It's not his fault. He can't do this."
"He can do it," says Wheeler.
"He can't. It's like he physically can't. It's like..." I try to think of something that Wheeler can't do so he'll understand. "It's like if you wanted to burp upside down. But you can't. Your body just won't let you. That's what it's like for him."
"He'll do it," says Wheeler.
We sit there for a while, pushing cake crumbs around our plates.
"You were pretty mad out there," Wheeler says.
"You were pretty mad yesterday," I say.
"Was not."
"You punched a bird."
"A fake bird," he says. He shoves his hands in his jacket pockets.
"I thought you might not come back here ever," I say.
"You should have known I wouldn't miss your birthday, Goober."
"I should have known you wouldn't miss cake." Wheeler laughs and for a second I feel like everything is okay, and then we hear Dad in the kitchen talking to himself.
"I-94 to Huron Avenue exit. Take a left. Seven miles north past the Birch Valley Mall. Right at Bixby. Left at Erie."
And then he says those words again.
And again.
And again.
They are the directions to the Perform-O-Rama.
Planning for the Worst
Wheeler stands up.
"Come on," he says, but I don't move.
"Come on," he says again and he grabs my hands and pulls me up and out of my bedroom and into the kitchen and onto a kitchen chair. He sits next to me.
Dad sits next to Wheeler. He has the Perform-O-Rama info sheet in his hands and keeps rolling it up in a tube and then flattening it out on the table and rolling it up and flattening it out again.
"Where 's your cell?" Wheeler asks, and Dad gives him the cell phone.
"And your Yellow Pages?" Dad gets him the Yellow Pages.
Wheeler pushes up his jean jacket sleeves. "Okay," he says. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"We could get lost," Dad says.
Wheeler punches in the phone number for Marty's Eastside Wreck and Tow. "Marty's is now speed dial number one," he says.
"There could be bad weather," Dad says.
Wheeler looks up the number for the National Weather Service. "Speed dial number two."
"A crazy truck driver could try to run us off the road," says Dad.
"State Police, speed dial number three."
"We could run out of gas or get a flat or..."
"Got that covered with Marty," says Wheeler. "What else?"
"We could run late and the hotel could give away our reservations," says Dad.
"Birch Valley Hotel, number four."
"I could run out of cash."
"Michigan Independent Bank, number five."
"We ... we could get really hungry?" says Dad.
This is ridiculous, I think. "Or monkeys could descend from the sky."
Wheeler pages through the phone book. "Bust-A-Burger, speed dial number six. Detroit Zoo, number seven," he says.
Dad laughs. "You think the zoo handles flying monkeys?"
"I'll add the Humane Society, just in case," says Wheeler. "That's number eight."
"Tsunami," I say.
"Arnold's Rent-A-Lifeguard, number nine."
"Alien invasion," says Dad.
"Squash-Um Pest Control, number ten."
"We could forget which speed dial is which," I say.
"Just remember number eleven. That's me. I'll remember the rest," says Wheeler.
Thump
Thump.
Thump.
Thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump.
Dad is hauling a giant wheelie suitcase up from the basement. I remind him that he only has to pack for one night.
Thump.
"You never know what you're going to need," says Dad.
I roll my eyes but Dad doesn't see because he is already halfway down the hall, his suitcase wheels clicking over the linoleum.
"I have to go," says Wheeler.
I nod.
"He's going to do it," says Wheeler. I nod again.
"So what's the matter with you?"
"My mom can't go," I say.
"Big deal," says Wheeler.
"It is a big deal!" I say. "She was supposed to go. She was supposed to hear me play!"
"She 's heard you play," says Wheeler. "A couple of times, at least."
"She missed my birthday," I say. "My eleventh birthday! How many birthdays has your mom missed?"
"All but the first one," he says.
And even though he smiles his lopsided smile and tells me, "Good luck, Goober" and "Remember number eleven," I feel like Wheeler Diggs has punched me in the stomach.
My Card
It is dark.
I am in bed.
It is dark and I am in bed trying not to think about Wheeler's motherless birthdays.
I can hear Dad in his room repeating the directions to the Perform-O-Rama while he packs his suitcase. "I-94 ... Birch Valley Mall ... Erie..."
And then I hear the rumble of the garage door and Mom's Saturn chugging into the garage and the garage door closing again.
Clink. Mom's keys on hook.
Creeeeeeeaaaaak. Closet door open.
Scrape. Coat hanger.
Another creak. Closet door closed.
Mom's heels thud on the linoleum. Thud thud thud.
She is walking into the kitchen.
She is looking at my cake, I bet.
Now she is going to come to my room and wish me a happy birthday and try to make up with me by giving me some lame present. Which I will not accept.
Here she is, thudding down the hallway.
Past my door.
Down the hall to her own room, where I hear her tell my dad that he can finish packing in the morning and she has had a hard day and can't they just turn off the lights already?
And then everything is quiet.
No "Happy birthday, honey."
No lame present.
Not even a card.
A card. Wait. I got a card today.
I flip on the lights and look for my spelling book—there it is. Colton Shell's yellow envelope.
I remember how he gave it to me. "It's a card," he said.
It was kind of nice how he said that. Thoughtful. Like he didn't want me to think that maybe it was something else. Something unimportant, like, well, I don't know. But anyway, he wanted me to know it was a card. Which is sweet.
And probably he also said it because Emma Dent was right there and he wanted to send me the signal not to open it in front of her. He wanted me to know it was a card and it was special and he had written something personal in it for my eyes only and he thought that if I didn't know it was a card, I might open up the envelope right there just to find out what was inside and then that nosy, buggy little gossip Emma Dent would have seen his deep private thoughts about his feelings for me.
The envelope is sealed, so I shove my finger in the little space at the top and that tears the envelope a bit, but I know Colton doesn't mind. He understands things like this. Colton Shell understands.
On the front of the card is a fat hippopotamus. The hippo is holding a piece of birthday cake in one hand and a giant fork in the other. It is wearing clogs.
This is what the card says:
Hip-hippo-ray for you today!
Let's cheer and cheer again!
We'll have a hippo-lot-o'-fun
Because today you're ten!
Except Colton has scribbled out the word ten and written in the number eleven and added a bunch more exclamation points. Like this: 11!!!!!!!!!!
And then he signed it. Colton.
Not Love, Colton.
Or Happy birthday, Colton.
Or Best wishes, Colton.
Just Colton. And a couple more exclamation points.