Speed of Life

by Carol Weston

“Got it!” Alexa set the ball, and the hitter spiked it to the other side, unreturnable.

  “Got it!” Alexa took charge on defense, and the coach nodded in approval.

  “Got it!” Alexa tipped the ball right over a blocker’s outstretched hands.

  Eventually, the whistle blew for the final point. Byram Hills won, and at the net there was handshaking and high-fiving and bouncing ponytails.

  Kate stood up. “Ouch. My back.”

  “You all right?” I asked and told her I could show her a few yoga stretches I’d learned at HSG.

  She thanked me, and we walked over to congratulate Alexa.

  “You played great,” I said.

  Alexa eyed me dismissively.

  “Really great,” I repeated.

  She made a face. “You have no idea.” She was right that I was no expert, but couldn’t she ever cut me some slack?

  Kate drove Alexa and me home. It was hard to fake a civil conversation, and I sat in the back, sorry I’d even tried to show support. For all I knew, Alexa was mad that I’d infiltrated her last refuge.

  “Seventeen!” Kate suddenly chimed. “Alexa, in two days, it’s your birthday!”

  Alexa said nothing.

  “We can go out,” Kate added. “Shall I make a reservation at the Moderne Barn? Or North? Or Truck? Wherever you want.”

  Alexa stayed quiet. Was she imagining the horror of being trapped as a foursome from appetizers till flaming cake? “I made plans with my friends,” she announced, digging out her cell and texting furiously.

  Kate sighed and turned on the radio, so I took out my phone and started texting too. I wrote a group text to Kiki and Natalie and Madison: “Miss you guys.” I added a frowny face.

  Natalie replied right away: “Miss you too.” Then she sent a text just to me that said, “It’s not easy starting a new school.”

  “No, it’s not,” I replied, choosing another frowny, and we texted back and forth, both glad, no doubt, that we could admit this honestly.

  • • •

  Alexa and I were brushing our teeth side by side. She was wearing a faded, oversize T-shirt that said Calgary, and I was wearing my creamy pajamas with Siamese cats on them. “Look, tomorrow’s my birthday,” Alexa began, “and I just want to say one thing: 9/11 is a sucky birthday. Even I don’t think of September 11 as my birthday. I think of it as a national day of mourning, same as everyone else. I rarely even have a party because, you know, tacky, tacky.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, and I heard myself answer, “My birthday’s December 21, which is way too close to Christmas. My mom used to give me presents wrapped in pink, then, four days later, presents wrapped in green and red. But even she sort of gave up.” Alexa stayed quiet. “I never felt like I had my own special day because there are so many random parties around Christmas. Last year, I had a Latin midterm on my birthday.”

  “Boo hoo,” Alexa said and spat into the sink. “I win. 9/11 is worse. Instead of a happy birthday, it’s a crappy birthday. Even the flags are at half-mast. The year Dad left, I baked my own cake. Back then, I was into baking. Now I’m not, but Mom still expects me to do it. Oh well, who cares? Doesn’t matter. Brian will bake me an amazing cake this weekend. Maybe two.”

  Alexa snapped off a piece of green floss. “Anyway, and I don’t know why I’m even saying this, but I realize I can act like a jerk sometimes. My birthday sucks, my parents are divorced, and when people meet me, they don’t see me. They see my advice columnist mom, my gay dad, and now my ‘sister,’ the ‘hot new freshman.’ A couple of junior guys are bugging me to introduce you to them.” She spat again.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t even get it. Kiki’s hot. I’m…invisible.”

  “Hot can happen in a hurry, Sofia, and right now, you’re the opposite of invisible. Which works both ways. A few girls think my ‘sister’ acts stuck-up and like she’s God’s gift to the suburbs because her old school is chock-full of celebs.”

  What?! “I’m not stuck-up. And I’m not hot.”

  “And you’re not my sister.” Alexa snorted.

  Our eyes met in the mirror. “I never said I was,” I replied, fighting the urge to go mute.

  “Look, all I’m saying is that I was an only child—not a lonely child. I was fine.”

  “Me too. In Spanish, they don’t even say only child; they say ‘hijo único,’ which is how I felt. When people asked my mom why she didn’t have another kid, she’d say, ‘We got it right the first time.’” Actually, I knew my parents had tried to have another kid, but I still liked Mom’s explanation.

  “Well, my mom never had to explain anything. Gay husband—spoke for itself. I’m lucky I got born.”

  I looked at Alexa’s blue-jean eyes in the mirror. “Happy Almost Birthday.”

  “Thanks.” She opened the medicine cabinet, got out tweezers, and began to pluck her brows. “So do you want to meet some juniors?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But, well, Sam—”

  She cut me off. “Spare me, okay? Just never mind.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled. For a second, it had seemed like we were connecting.

  “Tell you what. I’ll introduce you to two guys who aren’t dicks. And steer clear of Zack. He’s with someone named Zoe anyway, and believe me, Zack and Zoe deserve each other. Here’s some more free advice: if things ever go too fast with any guy, just say you have your period. Totally freaks ’em out.”

  “Good to know.” I tried not to recoil. “Hey, Alexa?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for not hating me.”

  “Who says I don’t hate you?” She put the tweezers down and gave me the tiniest trace of a smile. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been trying to figure out why I don’t hate you. I mean, the Sam thing is like a bad joke, especially since—” She interrupted herself. “But I can’t say I’m brokenhearted. Of course, it’s possible that my heart got petrified when I was a kid. Like, maybe I have a rock instead of a heart?” She glanced at me in the mirror. “Even my name got, you know, usurped. ‘Alexa, play the Lumineers.’ ‘Alexa, play Rihanna.’” She looked at me. “Sorry. I get weird before my birthday. And seventeen is…old.”

  “Number one,” I began, “seventeen is not old. Number two, you have a heart. And number three, I didn’t set out to be a trespasser in your life. I didn’t ask for any of this either.”

  She shrugged. “Well, next time I’m a bitch, take it as a compliment. I’m only bitchy to people I’m comfortable with.”

  “You were bitchy to my dad when you first met him,” I said, surprised to hear myself contradicting her.

  She laughed. “True. But that was different. I was trying to scare him away.”

  “Didn’t work.”

  “No. It didn’t, did it?”

  Pepper leaped into the bathtub, perched himself beneath the faucet, and stared up at me.

  “What is your cat doing?”

  “He wants me to turn it on.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “He thinks he’s a bobcat.” I turned on the faucet, and Pepper batted at the stream of water with his paw, tilted his head, then licked with his quick, pink tongue. Alexa laughed, and Pepper, startled, bolted.

  “A Byram Hills bobcat,” she said. “That’s our mascot.”

  I turned off the tap. “Well, ’night. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  “Aren’t bedbugs a disgusting city thing?”

  “We never had them, thank God. But okay, don’t let the deer ticks bite.”

  “I won’t.” She walked out then turned around. “You neither.”

  I smiled. That was about the nicest thing Alexa had ever said to me.

  • • •

  Right before bed, an idea came to me, so I set my alarm an hour and a half earlier than usual. I couldn’t imagine making Baked Alaska, but
I knew how to make a box cake.

  The next morning, I preheated the oven, combined eggs, vegetable oil, and chocolate cake powder, and poured the batter into two round pans. I let the cakes bake and cool, then iced them with a tub of French vanilla frosting Kate had in the pantry. Ta-da! I spelled out Happy Birthday Alexa with chocolate chips and added seventeen candles and one “to grow on.” Then I woke Dad and Kate.

  Minutes before Alexa’s alarm was set to go off, Dad, Kate, and I stood outside her bedroom. We lit the candles, knocked on her door, and nudged it open while singing.

  Alexa looked shocked, confused, and then—no denying it—pleased.

  “Wow,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “Sweet.”

  October

  I wished I hadn’t seen it. I would have loved not to have seen it. I was finally getting used to my new routine: bus ride, assembly, lunch, classes, rehearsals. My life was beginning to feel normal-ish again. I was no longer the kid whose mom died or the brand-new kid, and that was fine. I didn’t want trauma or drama. If someone asked, “What’s up?” I just wanted to say, “Not much. You?”

  But I did see it. In the wastepaper basket in the downstairs bathroom. I’d thrown away a bottle of Peach Snapple, then fished it out for recycling. And there it was—the pregnancy stick. I’d never seen one up close, but being a high school freshman and a gynecologist’s daughter, I knew what it was. Besides, the white plastic wand had a window with a digital readout, and even from above, I could read the result. The letters spelled one word, and that word was “PREGNANT.”

  I’d figured Alexa was not a virgin. But pregnant?! She didn’t even have a boyfriend, did she? Guy friends, yes, lots! But someone she cared about? Evan maybe. Had Alexa and Evan already done it? How many guys had Alexa been with?

  Two days earlier, Sam and I were on his back porch watching a flock of four wild turkeys pecking at the grass. I asked if he’d ever seen so many wild turkeys, and he said, “Once. A year ago with Alexa.” I should have left it at that, but I took that as an opening and made him tell me more about their relationship. He resisted, I insisted, and he finally said, “Sofia, it all happened really fast.” He said that at a party in Whippoorwill last Halloween, “Alexa had done some shots and…”

  “And what?” I asked.

  “She…Sofia, c’mon, a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

  “Sam, you have to tell me. You have to. Are you saying Alexa, like, date-raped you?” I hoped I was making too much of things. Maybe all they’d done was kiss?

  “No, nothing happened that was against my will,” he admitted. “It was just, she was in a big hurry, and I wasn’t.”

  “Wait. Sam, I don’t understand—” My voice was cracking. “You guys actually… Whoa. You…? Sam, I have to know.”

  He bit his lip.

  “I’m sorry,” I continued, “but it’s just too weird if other people know stuff I don’t know. Starting with Alexa! And you wanted us to be honest.”

  “Sofia, maybe I should’ve said no to Alexa then or maybe I should be lying to you now, but there was one time—”

  Tears were rolling down my face. I didn’t like picturing Sam and Alexa together. “You’re right. I don’t want to know. I wish I didn’t know!”

  “So you’re mad if I don’t tell you and mad if I do?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s not exactly fair, you know,” he said.

  “I know.” It came out like a squeak.

  “Sofia, I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t want us to have secrets.”

  I nodded, and he stroked my hair. “Look, it would be really different with someone who didn’t toss back tequila first. Alexa rushed me, and I’m not going to rush you. But I’m not saying I’m not hopeful.”

  “That’s a double negative,” I mumbled.

  “Well, I’m hopeful-hopeful that someday-someday in the distant-distant future…”

  I pushed him away. It was crazy: I could be angry at him and charmed by him all at the same time. God, I loved him! No, I didn’t! Did I? Love Sam? Wasn’t love way too big a word?

  Thinking about Sam and Alexa and sex and love was making me dizzy. Meanwhile, I was still staring at a stick that was screaming Pregnant. Should I talk to Alexa? Or Kate? She’d stand by her daughter no matter what, wouldn’t she?

  If I spoke to Kate, would that be betraying Alexa?

  If I said nothing, would that be betraying Kate?

  I had an urge to bury the stick deeper and pretend I never saw it. Yet maybe I should confront Alexa. We’d finally started talking, hadn’t we? Where was she anyway? Not home. Was she playing volleyball—pregnant? I considered texting—but no, no way.

  And where was Kate? Oh, right, in the city, addressing parents of teens. She was speaking at Dalton at 8:15 a.m. (“Getting Through the Tricky Years”) and Nightingale at 6:00 p.m. (“Raising Confident Daughters”). That morning, she’d driven to the train station before the rest of us had even gotten up.

  No Alexa. No Kate. Should I call Dad at work? Dad was a pregnancy pro. But that didn’t feel right either.

  I decided to stop thinking about the stupid stick and hunker down with my English homework. We’d finished The Glass Menagerie and were about to start Old School (which was by one of those wolfy authors).

  Tonight’s homework was to write a page defending the daughter or mother in the Tennessee Williams play. Defending? It would have been easier to criticize them! I mean, sure, I could defend Laura, but I wanted to shake her for being too scared to live her life. As for her mother, Amanda Wingfield, she was all denial with a smile.

  Fear. Denial. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I was trying not to think about! I had to do something—so I decided to do what I used to do when I was upset: email Dear Kate. How could I keep her in the dark when she’d treated me with nothing but respect from the start and when she was an expert in, as she put it, the “minefield of adolescence”?

  At Subject, I hesitated. I didn’t want to write “URGENT!!!” because Kate complained that girls always wrote “URGENT!!!” whether their houses were burning down or their crushes were ignoring them. Then again, this situation was serious.

  My fingers took over.

  Subject: Serious

  Dear Kate,

  Alexa and I have been getting along better, and I don’t want to ruin that, so I feel bad saying anything, but I’d feel worse saying nothing. Maybe you already know this, but I just found out. Anyway, here goes: Alexa is pregnant. I don’t know how many months or who the boy is, but I saw the pregnancy test, and I didn’t feel I should keep it to myself. I hope it’s okay to tell you. To tell you the truth, none of this feels okay. But I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be the last to know, especially since you’re Dear Kate.

  Love,

  Sofia

  I wanted to press Send, but would that be responsible or make me a tattletale? Good daughter or bad sister? Maybe I should write something more oblique? I could say, for instance, that Kiki needed advice for her newspaper column. Or that I had an HSG friend who was in trouble…

  I called Kiki. No answer. I sent a text: Call me!!! URGENT!!!

  My cell buzzed: KEEKS. “What? I’m on the subway platform. Talk fast and loud.”

  “Alexa’s pregnant.”

  “Seriously?”

  “She did a home pregnancy test. I saw it!”

  “Hang on. How do you know it’s right?”

  “It’s not a dot or a line or a cross. It’s a word. It says, ‘Pregnant.’” I walked to the bathroom, leaned over, and read it again. “Kiki, she’s pregnant. You want me to send a picture?”

  “No, no. I get the picture without a picture.”

  “So what do I do? I’m alone and I’m going crazy here!”

  “You? How do you think Alexa feels?”

  “I haven’t talked to her yet. I ju
st found the thing.”

  “Well, how do you know it’s not one of her friends?”

  “Because—” How did I know? Maybe Amanda was pregnant! Or Mackenzie? Or Nevada? Maybe Alexa forgot that her mom was going to the city and so she brought a friend over for free advice. No, that didn’t sound like Alexa. “I’m practically positive.”

  “So talk to her!”

  “She’s not here! Neither is Kate. I was thinking of emailing her.”

  “Emailing Kate? Are you insane?!”

  I looked at the open email on my laptop. “She knows a lot and—”

  “Sofia, if Alexa is pregnant and you tell her mom, Alexa will never ever forgive you. Case closed. My mom would disown me. I thought you and Alexa were starting to talk.”

  “We were—are—a little.”

  “So don’t blow it! You called for my advice, and I’m giving it to you. And I’m ‘Ask Kiki’ now. My first column is in the next Halsey Herald.”

  “Congratulations! I mean, that’s really great, but—”

  “No buts. Do not email ‘Dear Kate’ and that’s final—unless Alexa threatens to jump out of that Windmill of Sin.”

  “Keeks!”

  “Just talk to her first. Dear Kate would back me up on this. She doesn’t like when girls squeal. In her last column, this one girl smoked outside school, and this other girl reported her, and the smoker got suspended—but now everyone hates the loudmouth.”

  I heard a distant noise. “Okay, okay, I won’t write an email.” I didn’t confess that I already had.

  “Good, because once you press Send, it’s Sent, and you’re toast.”

  “Okay.” I pressed Delete and could hear the roar of an approaching subway.

  “Gotta go!” Kiki shouted.

  “I just wish Alexa would come home,” I said, a first. But the connection was already lost.

  • • •

  Alexa came home. The front door slammed, and I heard her make a beeline to the bathroom. I tried to figure out what to say.

  Suddenly, she was tromping through the house, barreling up the stairs two at a time, and storming into my room.

  “What is wrong with you?” she shouted. Pepper ran under the bed. “Listen, señorita, don’t even try to pull your sweet, innocent number on me. I’m sick of being the bad girl in this so-called family. At least I’m smart enough to use birth control! And yeah, sorry to yell at you in your time of need, but how the hell could you let this happen? Does my mom know? ’Cause if you don’t wanna wreck your wholesome image, I can drive you to Planned Parenthood, which, I have to say, is an extremely generous offer.”