Get Real

by Betty Hicks

  Then I go looking for Dad.

  He’s in his study, elbows propped on his desk. Papers piled everywhere. Cigarette butts stacked up in tiny, disposable aluminum ashtrays, looking like a bunch of tiny toxic pyramids. Dad smokes like he’s got a death wish.

  From the den, I hear “Heat index … Doppler radar … Bermuda high … evening storms … variable clouds,” accompanied by obnoxious music. Mom’s home, too.

  Denver’s curled up next to her on the sofa, clutching a blanket. How come he never sat still on my shift?

  I suck in a deep breath.

  Who do I talk to about this? Mom or Dad? I let the air back out of my lungs slowly, thinking.

  Dad looks super-involved in the papers he’s hunched over. Mom is in weather land.

  I stand in the hall between them both and blurt, “Can I go to Greensboro tomorrow to visit Jil?”

  Dad doesn’t hear me, but Mom raises herself up on one elbow, stares at me in disbelief, and says, “Can you what?”

  She turns down the TV.

  “I know I said I’d keep Denver all summer,” I explain quickly, rushing into the room. “And I will. But Jil wants me to come see her tomorrow. Just for the day. There’s this very cool all-day thing at the university there, kind of a day camp for eighth graders to explore painting, acting, science, you name it, and there’s a special class for piano, tomorrow only, and Jil knew I would love it, so I asked Michelle if she could babysit Denver tomorrow, and she said yes, and I can take a bus that leaves at 9:30 and be back by 7:00 tomorrow night.” I desperately suck in a reload of air, then add, “Doesn’t that sound cool?”

  It’s not as if I’m a goody-goody kid who has never told her parents something that wasn’t true before, but I’m not exactly a professional liar, either. And now that all those lies have spewed out of my mouth like poison, I feel sick.

  Mom sits up and says, “Dez. Come here.” She pats the sofa seat beside her.

  When I ease down beside her, she looks at me in a way that can only be labeled disappointment.

  “You’ve kept Denver for only two days.” She takes my hand and strokes it like it’s a naughty puppy. “I didn’t expect you to make it all summer, but honestly, Dez, I thought you’d last longer than a couple of days.”

  “I’m not quitting!” I exclaim. “It’s just for one day. Honest. I can do this. And I’m not letting you down. I got Michelle. She’s great. She—”

  “Dez,” says Mom. “You’re not taking a bus to Greensboro—”

  I jerk my hand away. “But Mom.”

  “Let me finish. I have a job to quote tomorrow—for a company that’s based in Greensboro. I’ll drop you off at Jil’s mother’s house, and pick you up when I’m finished.”

  I throw my arms around her. “Mom! Thank you! That is so—”

  She pushes me back gently and says, “But we won’t need for Michelle to babysit. I’ll just drop Denver at day care.”

  “You can’t,” I protest. “Remember? You cancelled. You lost his place for the summer. They—”

  Denver uncurls himself out from under his blanket and chants, “I want Dez-care—”

  “Dez,” says Mom, guiltily avoiding eye contact. “We … uh.” She clears her throat. “We never cancelled. Your dad and I … we talked about it, sweetheart. We knew you’d get tired of keeping Denver. And this whole piano thing,” she sighs as she reaches for the TV clicker, touching her finger to the volume control. “When push came to shove, we knew it wouldn’t last.”

  If I’d been cracked in the head with a baseball bat, it would have hurt less.

  They never cancelled Denver’s day care! They didn’t believe I could do it! Not for a week. Not for a minute.

  When push comes to shove? What does that mean? Why does she talk in those ancient little sayings of hers that never make any sense? Okay. I’ll push. I’ll shove. Both of them. Over a cliff. And then I’ll stand at the top and look down and shout Latin verbs, epic poetry, sink or swim, all’s well that ends well, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, rise and shine, get your ducks in a row, there’s no place like home—”

  Sobbing, I run from the room.

  Mom follows me. “Honey,” she calls after me. “For crying out loud, Dez. Get a grip on yourself!”

  I want to hit her.

  “What’s going on?” Dad asks from out of his office coma.

  Mom, right on my heels, takes a swerving detour into his office, where I can hear the hum of parent voices as I dash up the stairs to my room. Mom, no doubt explaining how I wasn’t bright-eyed and bushy-tailed enough to seize the bull by the horns. Dad, probably fighting off his disillusionment in me and consoling her with some lame Shakespearean quote—“Much ado about nothing”?

  Well, I know Shakespeare, too, you know. “‘A plague on both your houses!’” I shout down the steps.

  I march into my room and slam the door.

  * * *

  You know how things always seem better the next day—after you’ve slept on your problems? Well, it’s morning now, and I swear, I’m even madder. As a matter of fact, it would be fine with me to live in another city for a month. Why not? My parents know nothing about me.

  I’m also ten times more worried about Jil. She’s still not answering, so I leave her a message to take a cab and meet me outside, in front of Elliott Hall, the building where the UNCG bookstore is. I looked up the university campus on the Internet and got directions. Then I talked Mom into dropping me there instead of Jane’s house.

  “It’s quicker to take me straight to Elliott Hall,” I explain. “That’s where the Arts and Science Camp meets. Next to the bookstore. Jil’s meeting me there.”

  I say this so convincingly that I almost believe it myself.

  What if Jil isn’t there? Do I call the Lewises and tell them Jil has run away from Jane’s? Do I phone the police and report a missing person? Or do I just hang out all day in the university bookstore, pretending I’m a student, waiting for Mom to come back?

  All the way to Greensboro, Mom tries to make me feel better. “Every cloud has a silver lining. Besides, you’re too young to spend your entire summer watching a three-year-old.”

  Too young is supposed to make me feel better?

  “It’s not healthy,” she continues.

  I’d like to tell her that she is two grapes short of a fruit salad, and that a house divided will not stand, but instead, I just keep my mouth shut. What’s the point? I can’t tell her about Jil, and she so doesn’t understand a thing about me, anyway.

  With the help of my navigating instructions, she turns the car onto the street that runs in front of Elliott Hall. But cars can’t go all the way up to the entrance because there’s a huge grassy area that stretches for almost a block in front of it.

  “You can let me off here,” I say.

  “Where’s Jil?” She cranes her neck, trying to pick her out of all the people milling around the front of the building.

  “Inside,” I lie.

  “I don’t want to leave you here until I see her.”

  “Mom!” I exclaim. “I’m not Denver. I’ll be fourteen soon. I can find her.”

  Mom reaches into the backseat for her purse. Since she’s meeting clients in an office today, she has on real clothes and is carrying a pocketbook instead of her ugly, worn-out, zippered fanny pack.

  “Here.” She dumps a handful of quarters into my palm. “If Jil’s not there, call me on my cell phone. I’ll come right back for you.”

  “Fine.”

  “And Dez, honey. Enjoy your piano camp. You know I want you to have fun. If you’re still interested when school starts, maybe we can work something out. Maybe—”

  “I gotta go, Mom.”

  “We love you. You know that.”

  I point to my watch. “I’m going to be late.”

  “Do you have the money I gave you for the day? Not the change for the pay phone, but the—”

  I pat the back pocket of my Capri pants. “I got it,
Mom.”

  “Don’t forget, always put your best foot forward.”

  “Right.” I punch my thumb up in the air.

  Finally, Mom pulls away. I follow the pedestrian walk to Elliott Hall, a big new building with gigantic square columns. Lots of kids who act like they know what they’re doing are strolling in every direction. Some are even my age. Maybe there really is an eighth-grade summer Arts and Science Camp.

  I get closer to the big glass entrance doors. The doors where I told Jil to meet me. Outside.

  I turn, and spot Mom’s green Subaru Forester, covered in swamp mud, still creeping down the road, trying not to turn until I give her a sign. The driver of the silver minivan behind her is honking his horn. I point to a person who could be Jil, but isn’t, and wave enthusiastically at Mom.

  The dark green Subaru seems to visibly perk up, happy now, and scoots around the corner.

  I turn back to the tall glass doors.

  Jil isn’t here.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The University of North Carolina at Greensboro is a public university. It was chartered in 1891. The campus covers two hundred acres. The student–faculty ratio is fourteen to one. Approximately fifteen thousand students from forty-six states and ninety countries. In the last hour and ten minutes, I have personally watched half of them walk by.

  There are more women than men. The men’s soccer team did super last year and Jackson Library has more books than a beach has sand. There’s a campus rock that, by tradition, serves as a giant message board, and cannot be repainted more often than every twenty-four hours. Today, it’s painted red and says, COMEDY SHOW at 8:00, something about a party, and FREE ICE CREAM AT YUM YUM’S.

  Is there anything else you’d like to know about the place where I’ve been sitting—hot, sweaty, and worried out of my mind—ever since Mom dropped me here forever ago?

  During that time, I’ve learned tons about this school, because I’ve read every sign and brochure in sight. I can also tell you a lot about my feet. Why? Because I’m trying to choose the best one.

  My mother, the cliché queen, told me to put my best foot forward, so I’m bored enough to wonder, which foot is best? I’m wearing sandals, so it should be easy to tell, but it’s not.

  My right foot is slightly bigger. Is bigger better? My mom says good things come in small packages. The second toe on my left foot is slightly crooked, but the cuticle on the third toe of my right foot is out of control. I figure it’s a tie.

  Where is Jil?

  I finger the loose change in my pocket and wonder, do I call Mom, Dad, the Lewises, or the police?

  Eeny, meeny, miny, mo.

  “Surprise!” Jil, with her arms thrown wide, leaps out from around the corner of the building.

  I have never been so happy to see anyone in my whole life. “Jil!” I screech, leaping up and running to hug her. “How are you? Where have you been? Where’s Jane? Where’d you spend the night? I have been soooo worried!”

  Jil grins. She looks a little ratty. Less than perfect. Her cute blond hair is kind of tangled, but now that I know she hasn’t been kidnapped or murdered, my fear morphs directly into rage.

  “What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy? You’ve made me be a liar, a cheat, a fraud, and a … a … I don’t know what else. I could kill you! You owe me. Big-time.”

  “Whoa.” Jil pushes me back. Holding me at arm’s length, a smile practically splits her face. “I’m so glad you’re here!” She barely gets the words out before her face contorts into a twisted mess, and tears stream down her cheeks.

  We hug each other like survivors of a bomb scare.

  And then she shrugs me off.

  “Dez,” she says. “This is so cool. You just wait. We’re going to have a blast. We’re free! Just think! No parents! You’re going to love it!”

  I think, if I’m going to love it, why were you sobbing two seconds ago? But I leave it alone. For now.

  “I’ve got the whole day figured out. Just think, thanks to you, here we are on a college campus. Brilliant! I bet there’s a place close by that does body piercing. Navel?” Jil weaves her body back and forth like an exotic dancer and points to her belly button. “Eyebrow?” She twists the corner above her right eye like some sinister villain would tweak an ultrathin mustache.

  I sit down on the front steps of the building and roll my eyes. That dumb idea doesn’t even deserve an answer.

  “But first”—she plops down next to me and continues, as though I’d just said, Yes, please, stick a needle in my face—“we need to check into a hotel room. I called and made us a reservation. Then we can take bubble baths and order room service. How does eggs Benedict sound?”

  “Jil,” I say. “One night of freedom has made you delusional. We’re too young to rent a room.” The other reason, which I don’t say, is that Mom is picking me up at four o’clock. I’d better wait until later to tell her that.

  “You’re six feet tall,” she says. “You can easily pass for eighteen.”

  My head jerks up. Is that why she wants me here? To get her a room? “I’m five-eight, and I’m thirteen,” I say flatly.

  “You’ll be fourteen in two weeks. You can try. Okay? The hotel is only a few blocks from here. We can walk. Please. I need to sleep in a bed.”

  I check out the tangled hair again. “Where did you spend last night?”

  Jil stretches out her legs and stares at her feet for a long time. Picking the best one to put forward? I doubt it. Finally, she says, “Target.”

  “Target!” I shriek.

  “Yeah. It’s near Mom’s house. They stay open twenty-four hours.”

  “You cruised the deodorant and pots-and-pans aisles of Target all night, and nobody noticed you were just a tiny bit out of place?”

  “Well, yeah, they did notice. So, around one A.M., when one of the clerks started watching me funny, I left, then sneaked back into the bathroom and didn’t come out.”

  I stare at Jil. She’s done some weird stuff, but this beats them all. “You slept on a toilet?”

  “No. I sat on a toilet. Sleep wasn’t an option.” She leans her body into mine, cozy, like we’re both in on the same joke. “That’s why I was late. I’ve been on campus for hours. Practically since dawn. Waiting on a sofa in one of the lounges, but I sort of fell asleep.”

  “Jil.” I flop my arm over her shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

  She slides two feet away and, through clenched teeth, says, “No way.”

  The next thing I know, I’m letting her push me up in front of a reservation clerk at the Sheraton. I stand up as straight as I can and chirp, “Hi! I’m Destiny Carter, and I’d like to check into my room, please.”

  A young woman with sophisticated pulled-back hair looks up at me and smiles. “Do you have a reservation?” she asks pleasantly.

  “Yes, ma’am. I do. It’s under my name, Destiny Carter.”

  Jil elbows me in the ribs.

  I know. I elbow her back. I shouldn’t have said “ma’am.”

  The clerk types something into her computer. Then, with her face still directed at the keyboard, she says, “May I see some identification, please.”

  I shoot Jil a look that says See? I told you so, and turn to walk away. She grabs my arm and holds me in place. “She lost her purse,” Jil explains. “Can you believe it? Do you know how much trouble it is to get all your credit cards replaced, your license reissued?”

  The clerk looks up, and says, sweetly, professionally, “I’m sorry, ladies, but we can’t rent rooms to minors.”

  “She’s not—”

  I jerk Jil away from the counter and out of the building before she can say another word.

  “We can try someplace else,” she calls after me as I stomp down the street. “Hey! Wait up. I know! We can tell the clerk at the next place that there’s a camera crew coming from CBS to film a reality show. You know, a show all about kids and what kinds of goofy stuff they’d do if they could stay in a hotel with
out their parents.”

  I whirl around to tell her that she is certifiably insane, only to see that she is covering her mouth to keep from bursting out laughing.

  I start giggling. We lean on each other and laugh until I think I may wet my pants.

  “Let’s get a tantoo,” says Jil when we finally calm down.

  “I don’t want a tattoo.”

  “Not a tattoo. A tantoo. You go to a tanning salon, to get a suntan, but you pick out a sticker that will cover part of your skin so you’re left with a white patch that’s shaped like a skull or a butterfly or something.”

  How does she know this stuff?

  The next thing I know, I’ve ridden in a broken-down taxicab to a strip mall and I’m stretched out under a row of tanning lights. The tanning contraption is a long, clear plastic dome with a sort of cotlike bed under it, covered with a clean white sheet. I feel like the dead Snow White, except that I’m wearing tiny little plastic goggles to protect my eyes, and I’m naked. On my left butt cheek is a sticker shaped like a daisy.

  Jil’s in the next booth, so we talk through the walls.

  “Whoa! This is so weird.”

  “Tingly.”

  “What if the timer doesn’t shut this thing off?”

  “We’ll charbroil.”

  “Jil?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t you feel like the seven dwarves should be lined up around this thing?”

  A hysterical whoop of laughter slices through our shared wall.

  “I see Prince Charming,” cries Jil.

  “I see dead people,” I answer. This is so much fun.

  We go to Southern Lights for lunch—Jil’s four-star recommendation. It’s full of adults, talking loud and eating gourmet salads and sandwiches. I watch two stylish women at the next table, animating their conversation with exaggerated hand movements, acting like best friends, laughing.

  That’s me and Jil, I think, when we’re fifty. The thought gives me a warm, happy feeling. Halfway through lunch, we sneak into the bathroom to look at our tantoos. The five-pointed star on Jil’s left breast is showing up better than my butt-flower.

  When the bill comes, I pull out the money that Mom gave me, but Jil won’t let me pay. “It’s the least I can do,” says Jil.