“I forgive you, honey. We all have moments like that. Try harder next time.”
I sighed, feeling exhausted. “You won’t believe what happened at school today.” From then on it was like opening a can of soda. My words poured out. I could always talk to Mom. The fiery rebellion was gone.
After supper we got a call from the church prayer chain. The actual facts: Jared was stable, but he was suffering some momentary amnesia from having struck his head on the hard gym floor. As for his leg, it would be in traction until they operated. Then he’d be in a cast for six weeks or so.
So much for basketball this season, I thought. I was disappointed for him. And I was dying to see him.
“When can I visit him?” I asked Mom while I washed the pans. Carrie was drying, and Mom was putting away the leftovers.
“We’ll have to call the hospital and see about visiting,” Mom said.
Carrie teased, “Maybe his amnesia wiped you out of his memory forever.”
“No chance,” I said, flicking her with soapsuds. “I’m unforgettable.” When the phone rang, Mom answered it. We could tell by Mom’s responses that the call was from Grandma Meredith. Carrie and I looked at each other, then watched Mom anxiously. Her smile faded, and the lines in her forehead deepened as she listened. Finally she said, “I can’t leave the girls, but I wish I could help in some way.” She sat down slowly.
There was a long pause.
Mom leaned her blond head against her hand. When she spoke, it was barely a whisper. “Please tell Jack and the children we’re praying.” Hesitantly, she beeped off the cordless phone.
Carrie and I stood like statues as Mom searched for a tissue in her pocket. Neither of us dared speak.
“Darlings,” Mom began slowly, “Aunt Marla’s not doing well. The docs think she has only a few weeks left….” Her voice broke.
We knew.
Later that evening, when we’d rehashed the news of Aunt Marla’s cancer, Mom and I made a feeble attempt to rehearse my audition piece for the youth choir. Mom made tons of errors, and it was obvious her heart wasn’t in it.
Afterward, I read out loud to Bearie-O in my bed. Having him close reminded me of the special friendship Andie and I had shared all these years. But lately things were so up and down between us. Like a yo-yo, or worse.
I continued reading, but my concentration was messed up. Uncle Jack and my cousins kept creeping into the mystery novel I struggled to read. What would they do if Aunt Marla died? My worries wandered in and out of the story.
Daddy strolled across chapter three. What about a response to the spring break question?
Jared called to me from chapter five. His leg had to be amputated. In chapter six, Andie demanded a major overhaul of our Loyalty Papers.
Halfway through chapter eight, Carrie threatened to whack off her long hair. She was sick of my sarcastic remarks and didn’t want to look like her big sister anymore.
It was close to midnight when all of them finally faded away. And I fell into a restless sleep.
BEST FRIEND, WORST ENEMY
Chapter 9
The next morning I slept till nearly nine o’clock. Mom was relaxing with the paper when I wandered downstairs. “Good morning, Holly-Heart,” she said, glancing up from the sofa. “Ready for breakfast?”
“Definitely.” I was starving as usual. So Mom fixed a platter full of pancakes with scrambled eggs on the side, then sat down with me to chat.
“Can I make snickerdoodle cookies after lunch?” I asked. “Andie’s coming over later. She wants to revise our Loyalty Papers, and I want to make sure she’s in a good mood, you know.”
“Sounds like you’re going to bribe her.” Mom’s eyes twinkled. “Not really.” Quickly, I changed the subject before too many questions were asked. “Where’s Carrie?” I asked, finishing off my last bite of eggs.
“Watching TV,” Mom said. She sipped her peppermint tea, her hands wrapped around the mug to warm them.
“Did Carrie say anything to you about cutting her hair?”
A shocked expression crossed Mom’s face. “No…this is the first I’ve heard of such a thing. Why do you ask?”
“Just checking,” I said, recalling the parade of problems dancing across the pages of my book last night. But the problem I cared about most was Jared Wilkins.
Thankfully, Mom didn’t probe any further about Carrie chopping off her hair. After we finished cleaning up the kitchen—and Mom was safely out of the room—I dashed for the phone and called Andie.
“Hi.” She sounded alert and ready for action.
“Whatcha’ doing?”
“This is so cool, Holly. Listen—I just found out Jared’s parents have agreed to let me bring my keyboard to his hospital room.”
“What for?” I asked but guessed what she was up to.
“The youth choir director wants to audition him at the hospital.”
There was a long silence while I groped for something to say. Andie had one-upped me, and I knew it.
“Sounds…well, interesting,” I said at last. The old green-eyed monster was poking its nose into my business again. “He must really want Jared in the choir.”
“Good tenors are hard to find,” she said.
“What about Jared’s amnesia?”
“It’s simple. He doesn’t remember anything that happened yesterday.”
“Nothing?” I thought about the phone call he’d promised to me. “What about the fall off the tramp?”
“Nope, not even that.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” I asked.
“My mom and his mom talked.”
Real sweet, I thought.
“When are you going to practice the song with him?” I was dying for her to ask me to go along.
“Tomorrow afternoon. He’s supposed to rest during the morning. Which is probably a good idea. He’s in traction, you know.”
Her know-it-all attitude irritated me, but I said, “Still coming over today?”
“Yep. We’ve got major work to do on the Loyalty Papers, remember?”
Of course I remembered, but I secretly hoped she had forgotten. “Are you sure you want to revise them?” I asked.
“Sure do! Got ’em ready?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, giving in. “The Loyalty Papers await. And I’m making snickerdoodles after lunch. Wanna help?”
Andie laughed. “I’ll help by making them disappear.”
“Fabulous,” I said, and we hung up.
But I was worried about revising the Loyalty Papers. Really worried. I felt sure that the restructuring of our original documents—made between friends—might cause another major argument, especially since Andie and I were both crushing on Jared.
Upstairs, I showered, then dressed in my most comfortable jeans and my favorite old T-shirt. Counting the days till my birthday was priority on my morning agenda. In giant numbers I wrote 22 days on the scrap paper stuck to my bulletin board. The day still seemed too far away to plan my big bash.
After lunch I mixed together some flour, cream of tartar, soda, and salt. Then I stirred in soft butter, sugar, and eggs.
Andie arrived just as I began rolling the dough into walnut-sized balls. “Mmm, yum!” she said, eyeing the cookie sheet.
“They’ll be ready to eat in about eight minutes,” I said. “Want some apple juice while we wait?”
“Thanks,” Andie said, watching as I poured the cold juice.
I flicked on the oven light, and we watched the snickerdoodles do their thing—puffing up at first, then flattening out, leaving a crinkled top. After they were done, we let them cool. Then, piling the cookies high on a plate, we headed for my room with plenty of sweet treats to munch on.
Andie plopped down on a corner of my bed. “Ready to revamp the Loyalty Papers?”
I was glad she couldn’t see my scrunched-up face as I sorted through my dresser drawer, searching for the precious papers. Finally I spied them in the legal documents holder Mom had given us
years ago. The folder was a reject from the law firm where she worked as a paralegal.
Overly eager, Andie set the plate of cookies in the middle of the bed and began to shuffle through our papers. As she read, she reached for a snickerdoodle cookie.
I, on the other hand, sat on the opposite side of the bed and nibbled on my cookie, watching her face for any warning signs.
She frowned. I gulped.
“Look here,” she said. “We really missed it on this paragraph.” She pointed to the page, clearing her throat like the principal getting the kids’ attention in assembly. “Page three, paragraph seven.” She paused. “This is really absurd, Holly.”
“What is?” I peered down at the page between us.
“This dumb idea…that one of us has to back away from a boy if the other person likes him, too.”
“Well, we wrote that two years ago, before guys were even a blip on our radar. Maybe we should add something about whoever likes the guy first gets dibs,” I suggested.
“Oh no, you don’t. That’ll never work. Besides, how could we know for sure who liked him first?” She flipped through the next two pages. “Were we so naïve to think we’d never attract the same boy?”
“Well, look at it this way,” I said, trying to remain calm. “Since we’re both so different—in looks, in personality, in the way we think—maybe we were on to something when we wrote that part.”
She stood up, brushing the cookie crumbs onto the floor. “I’m sick of your logic, Holly. Maybe we should talk about this some other time, when you’re thinking clearly.”
“Wait!” I followed her out of the room. “What’s the big deal? Do we really have to do this now? It’s not like either of us can actually date Jared yet.”
She glared at me. “Don’t be dense. Liking the same guy is still a huge problem, and you know it.” She was in the hallway now, heading for the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
“Home—to practice Jared’s audition music. See you, Holly. Thanks for the snickerdoodles.”
A lot of good the snickerdoodles did. Back in my bedroom, I stared glumly at the plate. One lone cookie was left. I picked it up and ate it. Without licking my fingers, I shuffled the pages of our Loyalty Papers. Who cared if they got messy. They were useless now.
At last, I set off for the lower-level family room. There, I joined Carrie for a DVD cartoon, trying to get both Andie and Jared off my mind. But nothing could stop me from thinking about Jared—hurt and possibly alone—in a hospital room.
After the cartoon, I purposely grabbed Mom’s attention by juggling four cookies at a time. When I quit showing off, the kitchen floor was a crumby mess. Goofey licked up the sweet crumbs.
“Something’s really troubling you, Holly,” Mom said, handing over the broom to me. “You’re not yourself.”
“It’s Jared. No…it’s Andie. She and I both like him. And now everything’s a disaster.”
Mom thought a moment. Then she said, “Why can’t the three of you be friends?” She said it so innocently, I thought surely she must be joking.
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Well, enlighten me,” she said, rinsing out a rag for me to wash the spots off the floor.
I got down on the floor, scrubbing up the mess I’d made. “I think Jared wants me to be his girlfriend, and Andie’s totally freaked out about it.” I looked up at her from all fours.
“Wait a minute—be his girlfriend? And how do you see that working when you can’t date?”
“We wouldn’t be dating, Mom.” This was hopeless. “It just means we’d being hanging out together at school and church and, well, you know. Places we’re already going anyway.” I got up and tossed the dirty rag into the sink.
Mom was studying me. Hard. “Hang out, you say?”
“Right.”
“I see,” she said. But of course she didn’t. The days when Mom was a teen were long past.
Later in the afternoon Carrie and I tagged along when Mom went grocery shopping. At the check-out, we bagged the food for her, racing to see who could get the most in each bag.
“Oops, this isn’t working,” Carrie said, bending over to retrieve one of the grocery sacks. Two boxes of microwave popcorn tumbled out.
“Look out!” I cried as two oranges also found their freedom, rolling under the counter.
The clerk announced the grand total, casting a peculiar look and a frown at Mom.
“Big mistake bringing you along,” I told Carrie as I reached around the back of the counter, groping for the oranges.
“Mom! Holly’s being a pain,” Carrie whined.
Mom looked frazzled with stress. “Please go and wait in the car.” She dangled the car keys in my face.
“Send Carrie. This is all her fault.” I glared at my sister.
“I want you to go now,” Mom said again.
“Perfect,” I whispered.
Outside in the cold car, I turned on the ignition. Grandpa Meredith had let me start his car last summer when they came to visit. I’d even backed it in and out of the driveway dozens of times.
Shivering, I stayed seated in the driver’s seat and turned on the heater full blast. The lights of the village began to twinkle on as dusk approached. Mom had no right to send me out here this way. What had I done to deserve such treatment?
Pulling a tablet out of the glove compartment, I began to write:
Dear Daddy. It was time for an answer to his invitation. Way past time.
When I saw Mom and Carrie coming toward the car with the groceries, I scrambled over the front seat and sat in the back, hiding the half-written note in my coat pocket.
Mom doesn’t need to know about this, I thought, feeling sneaky and good about my secret.
The next day was Sunday. Once again, I had trouble concentrating on the sermon. Andie, who was sitting across from us, next to her parents, looked much too confident. Her brunette hair, perfectly in place, framed her round face. Oh, I could just imagine her playing the piano for Jared, their eyes catching snatches of each other’s unspoken adoration. It was unbearable, so I tried my best to block out those kinds of thoughts.
In my Bible, I underlined the pastor’s text with a red pen. Carrie cozied up to Mom in the pew, and I wanted to be somewhere else. Somewhere like the Dressel Hills Hospital, maybe in traction in the same room as Jared.
I knew there was only one reason why Andie hadn’t asked me to go with her to Jared’s audition: She wanted all his attention. Some best friend she’d turned out to be.
Just then Carrie peeked around Mom in the pew and flashed me a less-than-angelic grin. Her missing teeth completed the impish look.
Most of the time I loved Carrie, but sometimes I felt that Mom spoiled her rotten. Getting away from my little sister for a full week during spring break was a fabulous thought. And if I got permission to go to California to visit Daddy, I’d be leaving Andie behind for a while. It seemed, now that I thought of it, there was only one person I would miss at all. Jared.
When we arrived home and sat down to dinner, the food tasted blah. Usually I can’t get enough baked chicken and onions, but Jared was on my mind and in my heart.
Later, after the dishes were stacked in the dishwasher, Mom grabbed a note pad and sat at the table. “Let’s plan your birthday party, Holly-Heart.”
I glanced at the calendar. “It’s still too far away.”
“Oh, but the days are flying by,” she said, clicking the pen. “How many friends do you want to invite?”
I paused to count. “I can think of at least ten.”
Her eyebrows rose high above her eyes. “Well, I was thinking more in terms of seven. Including you, that’s eight. An even number is always nice…for games and things.”
Then I said something I shouldn’t have said. And in a catty sort of way. “Who cares about even numbers?”
Mom sighed. “Maybe we should talk about this later.” She was exasperated with me, and how could I blame her?
I’d given her a tough time on purpose.
“Why don’t we just forget about this birthday? Maybe turning fourteen next year will be better!” I stormed out of the kitchen, certain that Andie was doing her musical thing right now at the hospital with Jared. More than anything, I wanted to be there. Not here.
Upstairs, I curled up in my window seat and wrote the remainder of my letter to Daddy. I tried to imagine what his new life was like. This, after all, was his house. He and Mom had fallen in love with Colorado. They’d moved from Pennsylvania after getting married, making a life together in this skier’s paradise. And what a skier Daddy was! He even gave me skiing lessons, starting when I was five. After a few practice runs, the sport was like breathing. Daddy said I was a natural.
Surely his new life wasn’t half as good as it had been here with us. And what about this new stepson of his? Somewhere out there I had a nine-year-old stepbrother. How weird was that?
A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts. Mom poked her head in the door. “Holly-Heart, Andie’s on the phone.”
My heart skipped a beat. News about Jared! Could it be?
“I’ll get it up here,” I said, coming out of my room and going to the hall phone. Mom wouldn’t allow either of us girls to have a phone in our room. “Hello?”
“Hey, Heartless, still speaking to me?”
“Why shouldn’t I be? You were the one who stormed out of here yesterday.”
“Well…Jared had his audition.”
“How was it?”
“Jared’s voice is as fine as he is.”
“I know that. How’s Jared feeling?”
“Feeling? Well, uh, I know you won’t believe this, but our hands touched today, when no one was watching. Is that what you mean?”
“You are so not telling the truth,” I said.
“Hang on, I’ll get Jared to tell you himself.”
“You’re disgusting, Andie,” I yelled. “And you call yourself my best friend? I’m tearing up the Loyalty Papers. They don’t mean anything to you anymore.”
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