An image of Amy surrounded by machines and hoses, and with tubes sticking out of her mouth and arms, caused Erin to recoil. She couldn’t face spending the day around kids who looked imperfect. Yet there was no way she could tell that to David, “I—I don’t know. June’s a long way off We still have the play to get through.”
“Speaking of the play, are you really going to make me meet you at the theater Monday morning at seven to practice our dance moves?”
“Absolutely.”
David groaned and dropped his forehead dramatically against the table. “I can barely walk that time of the day, much less dance. Are you always such a slave driver?”
Erin recalled how Amy always groaned about getting up early. “I’m going to college to study dance theory, so I need to spend a lot of time practicing if I’m going to be good. Don’t you practice so you can get better?”
“I practice,” David said, his blue eyes holding hers. “But I never forget that it’s supposed to be fun.”
“And you think I do?”
“I think you need to loosen up and not take things so seriously.”
“Life is serious,” she countered. “And it can sometimes be too short.”
“That’s the point.” David took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. “If it is short, shouldn’t you have some good times along the way? Shouldn’t you give everything you can to the people you meet?”
Erin pulled away, because a tightness was beginning to crawl up her back into the base of her skull. “I have to be at my mom’s store soon. We’d better go.”
David studied her so openly that Erin began to squirm. At last he said, “We clowns make people laugh and forget about their problems. The strange part is that whenever we do, we forget about our own problems. So, I’m going to see to it that you lighten up and let yourself go if it takes the rest of the school year.”
“You do that,” Erin said, standing because of the tightness that was inching slowly into her temples. David didn’t understand, and she could never describe to him what it was like to have someone close to you die; to have a family of four suddenly become a family of three, and to feel like a sole survivor—a leftover that parents fight about.
“Are you going to Spring Fling?” Shara lay on Erin’s bedroom floor tossing raisins into the air and trying to catch them in her mouth.
“When is it?” Erin asked.
“After spring break because Easter comes so late. You missed it last year, and since we’re seniors, this’ll be our last opportunity to go.”
“I missed it because that was the day my folks had decided to donate Amy’s organs to medical science, and I couldn’t hack the idea.”
A hundred unspoken things passed between the two girls, but Erin couldn’t bring herself to discuss any of them. Her fight with Travis after he’d taken Cindy Pitzer to the big formal dance stood out most vividly in Erin’s mind.
Shara cleared her throat. “Well I think you should come this year.”
“Who are you going with?”
“I’ve already asked Seth. Why don’t you ask David so we can double?”
“David!”
Shara sat up. “Why not? You two are getting along better. I can tell by the way you act toward him at play practices.”
“ ‘Getting along better’ doesn’t mean I want to date the guy.”
“For crying out loud, you’re not gonna marry him. It’s just a dance, and we could have a lot of fun double-dating. Don’t be a party pooper.”
Erin stretched, grabbed her toes, and bent to touch her forehead to her knees. It was true that ever since last Saturday she had been friendlier to David—in spite of the fact that he’d stuffed a toy snake into her duffel bag, and when she’d unzipped it, the snake had sprung out and almost given her heart failure. Yet he’d also stuck a rosebud under the windshield wiper on her car. There was no predicting what David was going to do.
“I don’t know, Shara. I don’t want to encourage him. It’s just another month until the play, and then I won’t see him anymore.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way. You could date him until you go off to college.”
If my parents let me go off to college, Erin thought. She and her mother had had another fight about it the other day when Erin couldn’t work because of a headache. “I don’t want to start anything with David.”
“One dance,” Shara pleaded. “We can go shopping for new dresses, then on the night of the dance make them take us to dinner—we can even stay out all night. Come on, it’s our last big blowout before graduation.”
Erin felt herself wavering. While David wasn’t her ideal choice for a lasting memory of high school prom night, it might be the last time she got to do something like that with Shara. They were best friends, and they had gone to the Fling as sophomores and had had a blast. Yet so much had happened to her since that carefree sophomore year Erin wondered if she’d ever feel that way again. “I’ll think about it,” she told Shara.
“Good.” Her friends face broke into a smile. “Then all we have to get through is the play and finals. After that”—Shara snapped her fingers—“we’re off to college and the real world.”
Erin agreed with a smile she didn’t feel. Didn’t Shara understand that Erin already had been thrust into the “real world” the day Amy died and the doctors harvested her organs for transplantation? “Do you want to her my newest tape?” Erin asked, changing the subject.
“I would, but I gotta go. I told Mom I’d clean my room today. She threatened to ground me if I don’t.”
Erin surveyed her bedroom. Everything was in order. She wondered why she was so fastidiously neat when most of her friends weren’t. “I’ve been gone so much, I haven’t been around to mess it up,” she said, feeling as if she should defend her tidiness.
“You’re the perfect daughter, Erin,” Shara said. “My mother would kill to have me as organized as you. But I never will be. I’m messy, and I don’t care.”
After Shara had gone, Erin traced a path around her room, absently studying her belongings. The dance posters, the paraphernalia that she’d collected through the years, had once meant so much to her. Now she wasn’t so sure. When had it changed? When had it stopped being important and started being just a bunch of old stuff?
The phone on her bureau rang, startling her. She grabbed the receiver.
“Erin?” The girl’s voice on the other end sounded quiet and breathy.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s me, Beth Clark. Oh, Erin, could you meet me at the mall? If I don’t get out of my house, I’m gonna go nuts.”
Chapter Nine
Erin met Beth at the food court in the mall, where they bought Cokes and sat in cold metal chairs under pink-striped umbrellas. Beth looked thinner to Erin, and there were dark circles under her eyes. “Thanks for coming,” Beth said.
“No problem. What’s up? You sounded desperate.”
“I am desperate. I don’t think I can stand it for one more day in my house.”
Shocked, Erin asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It looks like my moms kidney is failing.”
“The transplant?”
“Yes,” Beth said miserably.
“What happens if it does?”
“They have to find another donor.”
“Gee, Beth, I’m really sorry.”
Beth groped in her purse for a tissue. “It’s horrible living in my house. We’re all so scared, and I’m trying to keep it all together. I cut school three days last week just to get housework done and take care of Mom.”
“What about your dad?”
A tear trickled from the corner of Beth’s eye. “Dad left.”
Erin stared, openmouthed. “Left?”
“He said he couldn’t take the pressure anymore, and he packed up his things and took off about a month ago.”
“Maybe he’ll be back—”
“I don’t think so. He hasn’t even called to check on us. Not once i
n four weeks. My parents haven’t gotten along for a while, you know. I guess this was just too much for Dad to handle.”
Beth’s situation made Erin feel as if lead weights had been hung on her heart. “Isn’t there someone you could tell?”
“What am I supposed to tell? That I can’t hack it? Do you know what Social Services does when it thinks kids are being neglected?”
“Social Services?”
“You know. The department for child welfare.”
Erin nodded, pretending she understood. She only knew about welfare and such things through newspaper articles and TV news stories. Suddenly she wished she’d paid more attention to them. “What do they do?”
“They can come in and take us away from Mom and put us in foster homes, that’s what. That would kill my mom. And it would be all my fault because I couldn’t keep things together.”
“But that’s not fair. It’s not your fault.”
Beth slumped in her chair. “I’m thinking of dropping out of school.”
“But you’re only got a few months left till you graduate!”
“I’m barely scraping by now. My grades stink. and they’re not going to get any better until my mom’s well. At least if I drop out and stay home, I’ll be there for my brother and sisters.”
“But there must be some other way. What does your mom say?”
“Oh, Erin, she’s much too sick to even realize what’s going on. She goes for dialysis every other day again—I can’t dump this on her!”
“You gotta tell someone, Beth.”
“I’m telling you.”
“But I can’t do anything to help.”
“That’s not true. Just telling you about it has made me feel better. I swear, I thought I was going to explode if I didn’t get it out.”
Erin wasn’t sure she wanted Beth’s burden. Beth might feel better now, but Erin was suddenly down in the pits. “I—I still think you should talk to somebody who can help you figure out what to do.” For a moment Erin considered telling Beth about her own therapy, but she lacked the courage.
“I’ll be okay,” Beth said. She grasped Erin’s arm. “You won’t blab about this will you? You won’t tell anyone and get me in trouble?”
“I don’t have anybody to tell.” She surprised herself with her confession. There was a time that she might have taken it to her parents, but now with so much tension in her own house, she couldn’t talk to them anymore. She felt helpless. “How much time have you got before you have to be home?” she asked.
“An hour, tops.”
Erin hauled Beth to her feet. “Then let’s make the most of it. Well do some shopping.”
“Oh, I can’t.” Beth avoided Erin’s eyes, making Erin realize that she probably didn’t have any money for shopping.
“Urn—I’m going to our spring dance—its sort of like a prom—and I haven’t had a chance to go shopping for a dress yet. Maybe you could help me pick something out.”
Beth gave her a grateful look. “I really don’t want to go home yet. Moms resting, and I don’t have to start supper for an hour. It would be fun to look at prom dresses—even though I won’t be going to one.”
In the department store Erin tried on several styles of dresses, and before long even she was caught up in the fun, despite her little white lie. She certainly hadn’t decided to go to Spring Fling. Still, Beth seemed lost in the fantasy, and Erin was glad to help her forget her problems for even a little while.
Erin honestly hadn’t meant to buy anything, but when she tried on a strapless dress in ice blue, Beth exclaimed, “That’s gorgeous!”
The dress set off her eyes and ivory complexion like nothing else she’d owned. Before she knew it, Erin had bought it. “The guy you’re going with will drool when he sees you in it,” Beth said as they left the store.
The guy she was going with was the Invisible Man, Erin thought. “I really appreciate your helping me find something.”
“It was fun for me too. I wish I …” her sentence trailed. “I’m glad I called you, Erin. Thanks for listening to me.”
“I want you to keep calling me. Anytime. Please.”
Beth agreed. “Just remember your promise to keep it a secret.”
“I won’t say a word. Don’t forget, my plays next month. Please try to come.”
Beth left, and Erin stood in the mall while people surged around her. Someone bumped her, and she spun, feeling like a leaf in a current of water with no control.
“What do you mean you bought a prom dress?” Shara stood in the center of the theaters dressing room with her hands on her hips. “I thought we were going shopping together.”
Erin hadn’t meant to upset Shara. She simply mentioned the dress in the course of conversation, hoping to brighten the mood after the rotten rehearsal they’d just had.
“And besides, when did you decide to go to the dance? When we talked the other day, you acted like it was the drudgery of the year.”
“Shara, don’t make such a big deal about it. Beth called me—you remember her—anyway, she was down in the dumps, so we met at the mall and started shopping just for firn.”
“But you know how much I wanted to shop for dresses with you. Geez, Erin, that was a lousy thing to do.”
“I bought a dress, Shara. Its not a federal offense, you know.”
“Well excuse me for feeling like a reject!” Shara picked up her things and breezed out of the room.
“Terrific,” Erin muttered, and chased after her. In the narrow hall she collided with David, who had already collided with Shara.
“What’s the rush?” he asked.
“I have to go shopping for a dress,” Shara said.
“Maybe I have one you could borrow,” David said, grinning.
“I doubt it,” Shara said. “We’re not even the same size.”
“I have a very nice wardrobe,” David countered, tossing his arms around both their shoulders and tucking each under an arm. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I’ll pass,” Shara said.
“I already have a dress,” Erin added, holding Shara’s eyes with her own. “But I’m glad I ran into you because I do want to ask you something.”
He bowed from the waist. “From your lips to heaven’s ears.”
“Briarwoods having a big dance, and Shara’s asked Seth, and we thought it would be fun to double, so I’d like to know if you want to come with me.” Her palms had gone clammy, and she could hardly believe what she was saying.
David blinked and then broke out into his dazzling smile. “Aw right!” Impulsively he caught her in a bear hug, lifting her off the ground.
“Save it for the dance numbers,” Erin said, exasperated and flustered. Why did he have to act like such a kid?
Shara looked confused. “I’ll call you later, Erin. I’m going to go tell Seth.”
Alone with David, Erin felt timid. She hadn’t meant to ask him; it had just happened. “I’ll—um—get all the details to you tomorrow at rehearsal.”
“Is this my day or what?”
“It’s just a dance.”
“But it’s with you. A princess going with a frog.”
Erin rolled her eyes. “Knock it off.”
“You got a new dress?”
“Yes.”
“What color?”
“Light blue.”
David looked thoughtful. “I’ve got just the frock to match it,” he said, and sauntered off.
A moment later his comment hit her. David Devlin was just crazy enough to show up in a dress, Erin thought. “David, wait! You’re not going to embarrass me, are you?”
David turned innocent blue eyes on her. “You mean like wearing my clown makeup to the dance? Or is it something else you had in mind?”
“Let’s just leave it for now,” she told him. Wearing clown makeup to Spring Fling was something that Amy might have done. A terrible sense of melancholy stole over her as Beth’s problems, the fight with Shara, and the memor
y of Amy bombarded her.
David caught his hand behind her neck and pulled her close. The teasing had gone out of his eyes. “I really want to go to the dance with you, Erin. Even clowns have their serious side.”
That night her headache was the worst one she’d had in weeks. The medication didn’t help, and it was nearly dawn before she fell into an exhausted sleep. Erin was in a stupor when her alarm sounded, so she told her mother to let her sleep in till noon, then she’d go to her afternoon classes.
The sunlight was streaming in her bedroom window when Mrs. Bennett barged in and shook Erin’s shoulder. “Wake up, Erin. You have some explaining to do.”
Erin opened her eyes and tried to focus. All she saw was her mothers grieved, tearful expression. “What’s wrong?” Erin sat up slowly.
“Dr. Richardson just called. She said you’ve missed your last two appointments. What’s going on? Why have you been lying to me?”
Chapter Ten
Swamped with guilt, Erin pulled the covers tighter as if to hide from her mother’s wounded expression. “I didn’t lie.”
“You said you were going to therapy, then didn’t go. What do you call it?”
“I got tied up with play practice and schoolwork and all. I just missed a couple of times.”
“But you must understand the importance of this therapy in solving the mystery of your headaches,” Mrs. Bennett admonished, twisting a wadded tissue as she spoke. “I want you to be well again, Erin. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you too.”
By now Erin was starting to get angry—she hated the guilt trips her mother kept sending her on. She tossed off the covers and jumped to her feet, but the medication made her woozy, and she swayed.
Her mother reached out to steady her. “Just look at you—you’re so groggy you can hardly stand up. Don’t you realize that therapy is your only hope for getting rid of your headaches forever?”
“And don’t you realize that sitting in that office all by myself and having somebody dig around inside my head stinks?”
“Of course it’s tough, honey. But you have so much ahead of you—college, career, family—everything. Why, someday you’ll have kids of your own, and then you’ll understand how I feel.”
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