The Girl with More Than One Heart

by Geringer Bass, Laura;

  I knew I would have to face Mom, but I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t go home yet. The ping of a message came in. Maybe it was Peter. “Listen, Mom, I have to hang up now,” I said.

  “What? Where are you going? Don’t hang up on me, Briana, I’m warning you . . .”

  “I’ll call you later,” I promised. “I’ll be home . . . when I’m home.”

  “Not acceptable,” said Mom.

  “I’m thirteen, Mom,” I tried. “Other parents trust their kids.”

  “I trust you,” said Mom. “I trust you with responsibilities. Like picking your brother up after school.”

  “I can’t hang out with Aaron today,” I said. “I need to be with my friends.”

  “Who are your friends?” asked Mom.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why doesn’t Tina call here anymore?”

  “I’m sick of Tina. She’s not my friend.”

  “And Reena?”

  “I’m sick of her, too.”

  “It’s not normal for a girl’s only friend to be a boy at your age,” said Mom. Normal? Was Mom going to lecture me about normal?

  “Do you have friends?” I asked. “Why doesn’t Aunt Joanna call anymore?”

  Mom didn’t answer. I pictured her green eye bright and cold, her brown eye pinpoint black. I should apologize. I wasn’t sorry.

  “Daisy’s a girl,” I said.

  “Why haven’t you brought her over?” asked Mom.

  “I like her house,” I said. “Aaron’s not there for one thing.”

  “And for another?” asked Mom. Her voice had turned thick and dark. In a moment, she would start to cry.

  “Tell Aaron g’night. Bye, Mom,” I said. I hung up and checked my messages. There was one from Neil. None from Peter.

  Where r u? I texted Peter. It took just a second to get an answer.

  Home.

  I waited.

  Where r u? Wanna come over? Peter texted. I closed my eyes and pictured my options:

  A) Stay at Grandpa Ben’s.

  B) Go home to face Mom.

  C) Go to Peter’s to face Peter.

  D) None of the above.

  I scrolled down and read Neil’s message: Come to Daisy’s? Watching Buffy. We have a surprise for u.

  I started to answer: Sorry, I have to . . . then stopped and pressed delete. I didn’t have to do anything. Mom was minding Aaron. Peter didn’t really want to see me. He’d rather be with Sarah M. He was probably getting ready for Reena’s party, putting on his Pugs Not Drugs T-shirt a size too small.

  I texted Mom: Going to Daisy’s. I hesitated. Mom always ended her texts with Love U. Reluctantly, I added it. No, I decided. Telling Mom where I was going was enough of a peace offering. I deleted the Love U and pressed SEND.

  Be home by 9, came the response. Then there it was, in a bright sky-blue bubble all its own, descending and hanging like a hot-air balloon. My mother’s Love U.

  SWEET BUTTER

  “I forgot to pick up Aaron today,” I reported as soon as we settled in Daisy’s living room. Neil was slouched into the cushions, his superthin legs and orange sneakers sticking out. “I cut Bergman and P.E. to go to my grand-father’s house. I fell asleep there,” I said.

  “Awesome,” said Daisy. “I cut last period once or twice with Al,” she added modestly.

  “Did you get caught?” Neil asked.

  “Yeah, once. They called my dad, but he was a badass when he was a kid, so he didn’t ground me.”

  “That’s what I want to be from now on.” I giggled. “A badass.”

  “You?” said Daisy. She laughed.

  “Maybe you can give me lessons,” I said.

  “I’m the real badass around here, only I’m so bad nobody knows it,” said Neil. “What should we watch?”

  “Anything but the one with no music when Buffy’s mom dies,” said Daisy.

  “My mom is so mad at me,” I moaned. I turned red. What a stupid thing to say to Daisy when her mom was dead and couldn’t be mad at her anymore. There was an awkward silence. Neil studied his sneakers. He picked at the laces.

  “I brought over this movie,” I offered. “My grandpa rented it. He’s always ordering stuff from Netflix he thinks I’ll like. He fell asleep, so we never got to watch it.”

  “What’s it about?” asked Neil. I looked at Daisy.

  “Girl power,” I said.

  “Oh great,” said Neil.

  “It’s about a thirteen-year-old Mongolian girl who’s the best eagle hunter in her tribe. Actually, she’s the only girl in the world who eagle hunts, and she’s better at it than all the men.”

  “She hunts eagles?”

  “No, she hunts with eagles. She trained her own eagle. It comes when she calls.”

  “Okay,” said Neil, “I guess I’m in if you guys want to watch it.”

  “I’d like to go to Mongolia someday,” said Daisy. “They have sand dunes there that sing. They call them the Singing Sands.”

  “I’ve heard of that,” said Neil. “In the Gobi, right? I saw it on YouTube.”

  After the eagle girl won the contest and beat out all the men who thought she couldn’t do it, Neil paused the movie. Now the girl would have to prove to the men that she could do more than win a contest. She’d have to eagle hunt in the middle of winter in the snowy Altai Mountains.

  “Why did you pause it?” I asked. “It’s getting to the exciting part. Don’t you wish you were born in a place like that?”

  “No,” said Neil. “Too cold.”

  “But the eagle girl is so sure of what she wants to do. Her dad’s an eagle hunter. So is she. It’s all mapped out.”

  “She doesn’t have much of a choice, though, does she?” said Neil. “She could either stay at home and make soup for the eagle hunters or she could be one. She couldn’t stay at home and write. Like you. Or stay at home and draw pictures. Like Daisy.”

  “My dad is an artist and I’m an artist. I’m not so different from the eagle hunter,” said Daisy.

  “You’re lucky,” I said.

  “I want to be a computer programmer like my mom. Or maybe run my own tech company,” said Neil.

  “You’re lucky, too,” I said. “I hate you both. I’m just a loser. I’m so depressed.”

  “You’re not a loser. You’re a writer,” said Daisy.

  Neil had a cool mom who knew all about computers. Daisy had a cool dad, an artist like her. Peter had no dad. And his mom wasn’t cool. I belonged with Peter. I thought the movie would keep my mind off Peter, but it made me miss him more.

  Be your own, said my Dad heart . . .

  I’m sitting in Dad’s lap. Before Aaron. He’s telling me the story of Peter and the Wolf. Music fills the room. We’re listening.

  Prokofiev, says Dad.

  I concentrate so hard I can hardly breathe.

  There’s Peter’s theme, says Dad. There’s the Wolf’s. Hear them?

  Yes, I say. There’s Peter’s. There’s the Wolf’s.

  Where’s mine?

  “Let’s go up to your room,” Neil was saying to Daisy. “It’s time for the surprise.”

  Daisy looked at me. I nodded. “Okay,” said Daisy.

  Neil led the way to Daisy’s room and stood beside the covered easel, shifting from foot to foot. He looked nervous. Daisy looked nervous, too. They had planned this together, something to distract me from Peter going to Reena’s party with Sarah M.

  “Ready?” Neil asked. Daisy nodded.

  “Briana?”

  I knew what it was they had planned. I didn’t know if I was ready. “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Here goes,” said Neil.

  He tugged on the red cloth that draped what I guessed was Daisy’s portrait of Dad in his hat. The covering dropped to the floor.

  I knew it would be Dad, but I gasped anyway. It was Dad! Then again, it wasn’t at all. I stepped back and stood there, staring.

  The head was five feet tall like Daisy had said it would
be, and every part of it was alive the way a rock in the forest covered with moss is alive. Or a giant redwood. Or marsh grass.

  With a million squiggly strokes of her pen, Daisy had hidden secrets in Dad’s tangled hair and bushy mustache and beard. She had drawn a god, part human, part stone or tree or pond. Daisy handed me a magnifying glass. “If you use this, you’ll see more,” she said.

  Squinting through the glass, I made out plants and flowers in the maze of lines, hints of butterflies, bees, moths, leaping frogs—yes, there they were, the frogs!— and lizards, or were they darting fish? A cracked pair of lips looked like a dry island in a streambed. Dad’s large nose rose like a mountain into shifting clouds of shadow.

  Dad’s face was the whole wide world. It was a thousand of Mom’s green-eye miracles put together. Daisy had never met Dad. She had met Mom only once, at the funeral. Yet here she was, showing me Dad’s face through Mom’s green eye.

  Find her, said my Dad heart.

  I lowered the glass and took another step back. The landscape blurred. Dad’s eyes were kind and sad and worried. There was no hat.

  “Do you like it?” asked Daisy.

  I didn’t know what to say. It was too much like Dad and not enough like him at the same time. Like my Dad heart was Dad’s voice but not Dad’s voice at all.

  “It’s . . . it’s . . .”

  “I wanted to surprise you,” said Daisy.

  “You did, you did surprise me,” I stammered.

  “It’s genius,” said Neil. “Isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Group hug,” said Neil. I hesitated, but Daisy and Neil pulled me in, and suddenly, there I was, in Daisy’s Sweet Butter room, in a buttery circle of love that smelled of movie popcorn with the Dad head, a benevolent god, looking on.

  GROUNDED

  I got home from Daisy’s at 9:25, almost a half hour past curfew. Mom had been texting Where r u? since 9:02. She was sitting at the kitchen table, snacking on macarons. I reached for a green one, pistachio. Mom shook her head and pulled the box away.

  “You don’t deserve any treats,” she said, as if I were a little girl. “You’re late.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said, pulling back my hand. She glared at me. I moved toward my room. She stood up and blocked me.

  “Why did you just leave school like that? It’s not like you,” said Mom.

  Why? Because Tina is a rat. Because Peter doesn’t love me. Because Mr. Woodman has faith in me and I’ll probably disappoint him when Mom doesn’t let me off on Thursdays. Because I wanted things to be the way they were before Dad died, before Aaron was born. That’s why.

  “I said I was sorry.” I squeezed past Mom and walked stiffly toward my room. Mom followed close on my heels.

  “You’re grounded, young lady,” she said.

  I turned to face her. “For how long?”

  “Until I say you’re not.”

  “If I’m grounded, I can’t take Aaron to therapy.”

  “I’ll take him next week,” said Mom.

  “After next week, when I’m not grounded anymore, can you still pick Aaron up on Thursdays and take him to therapy? Please?”

  “I didn’t say you were grounded for a week. I haven’t decided how long yet. You left school without permission. You didn’t tell anyone where you were going. You made me worry. You hung up on me and hurt my feelings. And on top of that, you’re late.”

  “I know, I know, I won’t do it again, Mom,” I said, tearing up. “You hurt my feelings, too. You said I had no friends. You were mean about Peter.”

  Mom hesitated. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings,” she said. “I didn’t say you had no friends.”

  I considered telling Mom about Reena’s birthday party, about Peter taking Sarah M. About In the Wood.

  “That English teacher of yours, Mr. Woodman, called,” Mom said.

  “What? When?”

  “Today. When I got home with Aaron. He had nice things to say about your writing.” I waited. “Are you keeping secrets from me, Briana?”

  “You have secrets.”

  “What secrets?” she asked.

  “You’re always on the phone now. You don’t tell me anything.”

  She frowned. “I’m looking for a job.”

  “What job?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I haven’t worked in a long time. When I find one, you’ll need to do more around the house.”

  “That isn’t fair. I already do more,” I said. “You don’t even see me. You’re mad about the one day I messed up, but what about all the other days?”

  She nodded. “You’ve been a big help with Aaron, sweetheart. I’m sorry it’s been so hard . . .” Her voice shook. She broke off.

  Find her, said my Dad heart.

  I stood there, watching tears run down Mom’s face. I felt like the oldest, coldest girl in the world. I was truly sorry. Sorry for being late, sorry for cutting school, sorry for forgetting to pick Aaron up, sorry for making Mom worry, sorry for hanging up on her, sorry for making her cry, sorry Dad had died and left me all alone with Mom and Aaron and Grandpa Ben. I knew I should hug her. I just stood there. I wanted her to stop crying. I was tired of watching Mom cry. I wanted to shock her, like she sometimes shocked me out of having the hiccups.

  “Did Aaron’s tantrums kill Dad?” I asked.

  Mom raised her head and wiped her eyes. She did look shocked or maybe just frightened.

  “Of course not,” she said. She blinked and took a step toward me, then stopped.

  Find her, said my Dad heart. Mom? Find Mom?

  I didn’t want Mom. I wanted Dad. Not Bat Dad. Not my Dad heart. Not the dad who came to me in memory and in flashes that felt like more than memory. Not Daisy’s gigantic portrait of a dad god. I wanted my real dad. I needed him back.

  “Dad said that once,” I told her. “He’s killing me with those tantrums.”

  Mom stared and shook her head. “He . . . he said that . . . yes, once or twice,” she stammered. “Not to you. Never to you. Did he?”

  “No, but I heard him say it.”

  “He didn’t mean it,” she told me. “He was just . . . tired. It was a . . . figure of speech.”’

  “That doesn’t mean he didn’t mean it. Today Tina told me to eat my heart out and she meant it.”

  Mom pounced on that. “Tina? Have you girls been quarreling? Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No,” I said, “I don’t. G’night, Mom.”

  Mom gazed at me thoughtfully, still blocking the way to my room.

  “Would you like to see what Aaron gave me when I picked him up today? He wouldn’t let me open it,” she said.

  “Can I see it in the morning?” I asked.

  “Just one second. I promised Aaron I’d show it to you as soon as you got home.”

  She retreated to the kitchen and came back with a long scroll covered in red tissue paper and a million little heart stickers and tied with red ribbons. “It’s way too early for Valentine’s Day,” I said. “It’s not even Hanukkah yet.”

  “Open it,” said Mom.

  I picked at the heart stickers. The ribbons and red tissue fell to the floor like a fussy doll’s dress. It was a painting, Aaron’s first since Didi told him he’d be left back. Balancing on a grassy band of green, a little cow with a pointy udder grazed, lit by an enormous orange sun. The rest was all sky, filled with piles of brooding clouds. Stormy reds, purples, and blues, all blended. “Wow,” I said. “Someday, he may even get tired of blueberry jam on whole wheat.”

  “He said he made it for you,” said Mom.

  “That’s nice,” I said. I yawned and rubbed my eyes. Everyone was making art for me. Daisy. Aaron. “My friend Daisy doesn’t have a mom anymore,” I said. “Her mom died.”

  “I know,” said Mom. She came up close beside me then and put her arm around my shoulders. I shuddered slightly and tears stung my eyes. A sob escaped. I coughed, disguising it.

  Find her, said my Dad h
eart.

  “I’ll think about Thursdays,” said Mom, surprising me.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” warned Mom, but she answered my smile of relief with a weak one of her own. Now was the moment to hug her, but my feet stayed planted on the floor and my arms hung down at my sides.

  “G’night, Mom,” I said again, waiting for her to release me. Mom tightened her grip, squeezing too hard. I didn’t mind. Awkwardly, I put my arm around her and squeezed, too.

  TROUBLE

  “Are you nervous?” I asked Aaron the morning of Parents’ Day. I poured his Cheerios and cut up a banana, sprinkling blueberries into his bowl the way he liked it.

  “Nope,” he said, spooning milk into his mouth. “Where’s Mom? Is she up?”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “My job is to get you out of the house on time. Grandpa’s coming to get Mom.”

  I wondered if Sarah M. would be there with her mom and dad to see Petra the P girl be a statue. If she showed up, would Peter sit with Sarah’s family?

  “Mom’ll come?” asked Aaron.

  “She promised,” I said.

  “Boom, boom!” said Aaron happily, banging his spoon on the table.

  In Didi’s classroom, bright banners hung from the ceiling. Didi had cut stencils out of cardboard, and the kids had used sponges dipped in paint to print designs on cloth. Pygmalion was a love story, so hearts were the most popular design. PEACE, LOVE, WISDOM, read the labels. Hearts were all over the walls, too. I peered at the largest one, expecting to read LOVE.

  HOPE, it said.

  Aaron danced by my side, tugging on my hand to move me along.

  “Hold up, Aaron,” I said, “I want to read what’s written under the hearts.”

  If I were to draw my Dad heart, or if a real artist like Daisy were to draw it, what would I name it? Not Peace, Love, Wisdom, or Hope. Trouble, maybe.

  Families were filing in, settling down cross-legged on cushions scattered on the floor. In the center was a clear space for the stage. “Look!” cried Aaron. “There’s Grandpa!” I waved and made my way toward Grandpa Ben through what had turned into a crowd. He was alone.