Speed of Life

by Carol Weston

  He lifted his glass. “A María.”

  We toasted, but tears filled my eyes. “It all happened so fast,” I said, referring both to her death and the scattering of ashes. “I wanted to say good-bye.” I turned to Abuelo and translated. “Quería decir adiós.”

  “You didn’t need to,” Dad said. “Nothing was left unsaid.”

  “I wanted to say,” my voice wobbled, “that I was proud to be her daughter.”

  Dad reached across the table and took my hand. “She knew that.”

  Abuelo nodded. He understood it all.

  A band of singers dressed as medieval troubadours swept by. My mother had often told me about the tuna, student minstrel groups who sang traditional songs for love and money and had once serenaded her in college.

  The troubadours formed a circle around our table. Eight young men in black doublets with capes and bright sashes studded with ribbons and badges were playing guitar, mandolin, tambourine, and lute.

  “¡Clavelitos, clavelitos, clavelitos de mi corazón!” they began.

  I knew that song! It was about flowers. Little carnations of my heart. Mom sometimes sang it when she said good night, her silhouette etched in my doorway.

  The lead singer had dark hair, thick lashes, and a closely trimmed beard. He was handsome, and he knelt on one knee in front of me and sang in a full baritone voice, “¡Clavelitos!” He was looking into my eyes, inviting me to sing along.

  “¡Clavelitos!” I sang back. “¡Colorados igual que el fresón!” Carnations as pink as a strawberry. I could feel myself turning pink, but I was singing! Singing!

  When was the last time I’d sung in public? People at other tables were smiling, and the lead singer looked pleased as I belted out the next verse and the next. I even did one in harmony.

  “Qué bien cantas,” he said.

  “Gracias.” I thanked him, and my eyes burned. Mom would have loved listening to the musicians serenading me, loved hearing me join in, loved pulling up a chair at the famous tavern.

  It almost felt as if she were with us.

  “Si algún día, clavelitos, no logrará poderte traer, no te creas que ya no te quiero, es que no te los pude traer.”

  Had I ever really thought about those odd final lyrics? “If someday I can’t bring you flowers, don’t think it’s because I don’t love you. It’s that I couldn’t bring them to you.”

  Even way back when, the person who wrote the song knew that what mattered wasn’t the flowers; it was the love.

  It had been so hard for me to accept that Mom would never be with me again except “in spirit.” At first, I had thought, In spirit? Small comfort!

  And yet it was a small comfort. Perhaps, in spirit, Mom would always be with me. Nothing could keep her away now—not rush hour or faculty meetings or a stack of quizzes to grade. I didn’t have to say good-bye because in spirit, my mother could be with me every moment, invisible and invincible.

  • • •

  As soon as our plane landed at JFK, I turned on my cell phone. There was a text from Sam. He said I’d been gone too long and would I please get my cute butt back ASAP?

  we just landed i’m on the runway! I typed.

  about time! meet me at the club tmw after im done with work?

  look for the girl in the yellow bikini, I wrote.

  look for the wolf.

  Three gray dots showed that he was still typing, and I waited, my heart beating.

  or listen for him: OWWWooooooo

  Dad caught my smile. “Sam?”

  “Sam,” I confirmed.

  “I don’t have to talk to you about the birds and the bees, do I? You’re way too young.”

  “Daaaad!” I protested, and he dropped the subject. Mom would have persisted.

  Dad phoned Kate from the runway, and I wondered if she had gone ahead and told her daughter I was seeing Sam. Maybe not. After all, she wanted to stay on Alexa’s good side.

  • • •

  It was a blue-sky day, and on my way to Windmill Club, I walked through the parking lot. In New York City, I never paid attention to cars (except to avoid getting hit by them), and it amazed me that Sam had his learner’s permit and was practicing for his road test. His plan was to get a secondhand Jeep. Soon, even I would be taking driver’s ed! How could that be possible?

  “Sofia!” Sam spotted me. “Ho-la!”

  I laughed. “The H is silent.”

  “Ohhh-la!” he said and gave me a kiss. “Want to go swimming?”

  “Sí.”

  “First, taste this.” He handed me a plum with a bite missing. “How good is that? Mother Nature is a genius!”

  “That is good.” I met his eyes. “Race you to the slide?”

  “I’ll win. I ran fifty miles this week. Punch me right here.”

  “I don’t want to punch you,” I said.

  “Go ahead. Unless you’re worried you’ll hurt your hand…”

  I punched his stomach. “Whoa, Sam! You’re ripped.”

  “That’s all I did while you were away. Worked, worked out, and went for runs.”

  We raced to the giant water slide, and I took off my cover-up and climbed the tall ladder. I could feel Sam’s eyes on me, and when I got to the top, I smiled and sailed down. Splash! He was right behind me. Splash! We treaded water, our hair wet, shoulders shining.

  “Race you to the float!” he said. We were there in seconds.

  “Ever play underwater footsie?” I asked.

  “How about underwater grab ass?” He pinched me, and I shrieked and splashed him with both hands. He splashed back, and we kept splashing until the lifeguard blew his whistle.

  • • •

  “Shh! Listen!” I whispered to Sam. We’d shared a quick kiss in the outdoor shower and now were at the top of the windmill. “You hear something?”

  “No.”

  “I heard a noise—or maybe a person? Is this illegal?”

  “Kissing or trespassing?” he teased, but then he heard the creaking too.

  “Um, hello?” I called down, my voice a little shaky. “Hello? Excuse me? We’re up here?”

  “Omigod, I do not believe this!”

  “Alexa?” I recognized her voice.

  “Sofia?! What are you doing here?”

  “Uh…” Did she expect me to spell it out?

  “God, Sofa.” Did she really just call me Sofa? “I show you this place and now I have to make a reservation? You expect me to get in line, take a number?”

  “No…” I began. Sam grasped my hand and looked down at Alexa and the guy standing next to her. Evan was my guess. This morning in the kitchen, her cell rang and it said EVAN. “We can leave,” I offered.

  “We don’t have to leave,” Sam murmured.

  “Yes, you do!” Alexa called up.

  “No, we don’t,” Sam called down surprisingly calmly. Easy for him to say! He didn’t have to live with her! “Alexa, give us a break.”

  “Omigod, Sam, is that you? Give me a break!” she spat back. “I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that you and I—”

  Evan spoke up. “Lex, chill. We’ll come back another time. No big deal.”

  “It is too a big deal,” she said, raising her voice. “It’s not enough that Sofa Bed moves into my house. She has to take over…the windmill too?”

  Sofa Bed? Now my name was Sofa Bed?

  “Relax, Lex,” Evan said. “We can go somewhere else.”

  “Yeah, and she can go straight to hell!”

  They left, and we heard Evan say, “Oh, c’mon. It’s actually kinda funny, isn’t it? The Windmill of Sin!”

  “No, Evan, it is not funny,” Alexa retorted. “It is not remotely funny!”

  September

  Firsts are memorable. First day with braces. First day without. First
kiss. First real kiss. First graduation. First memorial service.

  I knew the first day at my new high school would stay with me, and I tried to ignore the tightness in my stomach.

  On the first day of kindergarten and maybe boarding school, everyone is eager to make friends. But at Byram Hills, there were only a handful of brand-new ninth graders. Most of the other kids had been going to the same schools together for years: Coman Hill, Wampus, Crittenden. I knew I was going to stick out.

  Of course, I was used to life without camouflage. Teachers often cornered me to ask how I was doing. When I went to the nurse’s office, Mrs. Abrahams encouraged me to lie down while shooing other girls back to class with just a Tums or Tylenol. And once, when I had a borderline grade in history, the teacher rounded my A- to an A—a tribute, I suspected, to my mom, her fallen friend.

  I appreciated the support of the community. But I always knew the day would come when I would no longer be marked “handle with care.”

  The first day at Byram Hills High School might be that day.

  • • •

  “Is it too late to change your mind?” Kiki asked on the phone.

  “Yes. School starts in two days. I’m pretty nervous actually.” I’d spent my entire life on the same Upper West Side block, and while I liked the idea of spreading my wings, that didn’t mean I was ready to fly.

  “Nervous is normal. Remember the first day of middle school? We were worried about having more than one teacher. And you were worried about getting lost.”

  “I’m still worried about getting lost.”

  “If you get lost, you’ll have an excuse to talk to random hot guys.”

  “What are you worried about?” I asked.

  “Massive assignments. I’m not exactly the queen of time management. And I hear lunch is crazy short. Wait, you have to pay for lunch now, right?”

  “Pay?”

  “Aisha went to public school before she came to Halsey, and she said she always had to start eating while she was still in line because otherwise she’d run out of time. She said she’d pull up to the lunch lady with her wallet and, like, three crumbs on her plate and an empty milk carton.”

  “I hope that’s an urban myth.”

  “Or suburban one?” Kiki lowered her voice. “I’m also worried about going to school without my Spanish tutor.”

  “I can help you on the teléfono. And you’ll do fine without me.” Just saying this made my throat close up.

  “Remember our middle school uniforms and how Principal Milliman made me do the fingertips test?” That drove Kiki crazy. The longer your arms, the longer your skirt had to be. Kiki complained that she was penalized for having long arms. “Now we can wear whatever we want—except sweatpants or words on our butts. But that means it’ll take forever to get dressed every day! I’ll have to get up at dawn.”

  “I still haven’t decided what to wear. It’s anything goes—even words on your butt. Not that I’m going to show up in shorts that say, ‘Juicy.’”

  “Speaking of, how is Sam?”

  “You are gross, you know that?”

  “Yep. Gross and proud of it! Answer the question.”

  “He’s fine. I met some of the guys on his track team. They started preseason.”

  “Do they all wear short shorts?”

  “One shaves his legs.” I didn’t tell her that Peter, a pole-vaulter, seemed nice, but Jayden, the leg shaver, was obsessed with his “core” and big on making lewd comments about cheerleaders.

  “Don’t let Sam shave his legs!” Kiki said.

  “I won’t! He wouldn’t!”

  “So did you ever talk to Alexa about Sam?”

  “You kidding? Alexa and I barely talk about anything.”

  I told her about Alexa finding us at the windmill, and I must have turned it into a funny story because Kiki couldn’t stop laughing. But it didn’t feel funny to me. It was hard living with a girl who pretended I wasn’t even there—especially since, for so many months, it had felt as if I wasn’t.

  • • •

  I needed advice. Was there some unofficial Byram Hills dress code—an ideal top, right kind of jeans? What about earrings? Hoop, dangly, stud?

  Alexa was in the kitchen, making a peanut butter–banana sandwich, so I asked, “Do you remember your first day of high school?”

  She acted as if I were a mosquito she could hear but couldn’t see. I waited, and she finally said, “Yeah. The principal said, ‘From now on, your grades count,’ which was bad. But a lot of guys got hot over the summer, which was good. For me, though, it was same kids, new building. For you, it’s more complicated. Obviously.”

  I wanted her to say, “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine,” or “Byram Hills is cool. You’ll see.” Something. Anything.

  Instead, she picked up her sandwich and started to walk away. Then she turned and added, “If you have any other questions, just ask your boyfriend.”

  It was the first time Alexa had called Sam my boyfriend. Lately, his name hadn’t been coming up because he hadn’t been coming over. Not that I blamed him. Awkward! We saw each other mostly at the club or his house or…the windmill.

  “Alexa, Sam and I—”

  “Save your stories for someone who gives a crap, okay, Sofa?”

  “Okay,” I said and watched as she headed off to varsity volleyball practice.

  That night at dinner, Dad asked Alexa which she liked better: basketball or volleyball. She acted as though she were doing him a giant favor by answering and said she liked the volleyball uniform better but was more “invested” in basketball.

  “Volleyball is all about team play,” she explained. “As a setter, my job is to make hitters look good, which means I can play a perfect game and barely get noticed. In basketball, as point guard, it’s much easier to stand out. And who doesn’t want to stand out?”

  I thought, I don’t.

  • • •

  “I sent you an email before dinner,” I mumbled to Kate the next day as I stacked plates in the dishwasher.

  “I answered it.” She smiled as she pushed through the swinging door with a bowl of sliced mangoes and blackberries.

  I’d written:

  Dear Kate,

  I hope you don’t think this is dumb because I realize I could ask you directly, but do you have any advice on getting through the first weeks of a new school? On a 1 to 10 scale of nervousness, I’m about a 7. I wish I could be invisible tomorrow.

  I also want to say thank you for everything. I keep wanting to say it in person, but it never comes out, partly because I don’t want to seem like a suck-up in front of Alexa and partly because it’s easier to write stuff than say it. Anyway, thank you for everything!

  Oh, and I don’t think of you as “Dear Kate” or “my father’s girlfriend” anymore. I think of you as my friend, and that feels really good.

  Your fan and friend,

  “Catlover”

  After dinner, I read her reply.

  Dear “Catlover,”

  Thank you for everything too: your email, your sweet presence in our home, and all you’ve done to welcome me into your life. These things go both ways, you know.

  I feel blessed that your dad is a “package deal” and that falling in love with him meant I’d have the privilege of becoming your friend. And I’m your fan too. (I mean that.)

  As for general advice:

  1. Be kind and friendly, and stay open-minded.

  2. Give yourself a few days to figure out which kids you want to get to know and which kids to keep at a distance.

  3. Speak up in class and do the homework. Some teachers decide right away who is or isn’t a good student.

  4. Join activities—yearbook, theater, sports, student council, etc.

  5. When asked about your old school, don’t go on
and on about how great it was.

  6. Have confidence that the qualities that helped you make friends in the past will serve you well again. They will.

  7. Since you’re going from all-girl to coed, don’t be too shy…but don’t be a flirt. ;-)

  8. Stay in touch with old friends. A few will be friends forever. (Like Kiki!)

  Gotta go because I’m making dinner. (Red pepper lasagna! Can you smell it?)

  Oh, and you can talk to me anytime, anywhere, online or in person, okay?

  Your friend and fan,

  Kate

  PS There’s no such thing as an Instant Family, but even Coco and Pepper seem to be moving in the right direction, don’t you think?

  It was good to read her words, and I appreciated the long response.

  But was she right about the cats? Pepper was younger and more playful than Coconut and had taken to hiding around corners. When Old Coco came plodding along, Pepper’s little butt would quiver in anticipation, and he’d leap out and pounce in a surprise attack. Coco would hiss, they’d have a cat spat, and Pepito would scamper off to plot his next ambush. It wasn’t fierce, but they weren’t exactly curling up for catnaps.

  I guess pepper and coconut weren’t a natural mix either.

  Did Kate think Alexa and I were getting along better than we were too?

  • • •

  The night before school started, I heard Alexa on the phone with Amanda. Amanda was a senior, so she was allowed to park her car at school and was offering Alexa a ride. Alexa’s door was closed, but I could hear every word, and I’ll admit, I was taking my time getting a towel from the closet.

  “They help themselves to the towels,” Alexa was saying, “they turn lights on and off, and they eat whatever’s in the fridge. I swear I’m gonna start labeling my yogurt. Or I should just hand the girl a map—she has no concept of boundaries! She puts her hands all over everything. Literally. Even Sam!”

  Amanda must have laughed because Alexa kept going. “My dad used to obsess about deer-proofing the garden. Well, he should have wolf-proofed the house! Gregg keeps rearranging everything. The kitchen drawers? Yesterday, it took me ten minutes to find a spatula. I’m, like, dying here.”