Becca stared straight ahead, paralyzed with fear. Meanwhile, Connor walked away, laughing.
When he got back to his own table, some of his friends high-fived him. Not Blake, but he was right there. He didn’t stop Connor or anything. He didn’t even tell his friends to stop laughing, that it wasn’t funny. Because it wasn’t—not in any sense. All you had to do was look at Becca to know how unfunny it was. None of those guys saw her, but I sure did. I watched the entire thing. Becca looked disgusted, then alarmed, and then so sad that she had to bite back tears. It was horrible.
My mom says it’s good to be observant and sensitive. She says I don’t miss a thing. But sometimes I wish I would miss certain things. It’s not so fun noticing everything. Not in middle school. Not when some of the stuff I witness is simply horrible and soul crushing.
This is what I can’t stop imagining: Connor pretend-singing at me at the top of his lungs in front of the entire cafeteria.
He is so mean.
Why is Blake friends with him, anyway?
Pretty soon I realize that someone is knocking on the bathroom door. “Pixie, are you okay?” Sophie calls.
I consider ignoring her, but even I realize how ridiculous that would be. I am not invisible. I just wish I were. “Yeah, I’ll be out in a minute,” I yell back to her.
I splash some water on my face to cover up my tears. I stare at myself in the mirror. There’s a little brown stain on the collar of my shirt. I must’ve dripped my ice cream and not even realized it.
I wonder if Blake noticed that. Probably he was too far away to see, unless he has really great eyesight.
Knowing Blake, he probably does have excellent eyesight.
Sophie knocks again. “Please tell me you’re okay and you haven’t fallen into the toilet.”
I look at myself in the mirror, blink a few times, and run my fingers through my hair.
Then I open the door. “I haven’t fallen into the toilet,” I say.
“Phew,” she replies. “I was beginning to worry you’d gotten flushed like a dead goldfish.”
I have to smile at that one. “How would that have worked? I think it’s kind of impossible to flush yourself.”
“Not if the toilet was gigantic.”
I open the door a little wider and show her the toilet. It’s regular size, of course.
“Well, I don’t know. I’ve never been to the bathroom here before,” she says, and then asks, “So, why did you run off like that?”
“Um, I really had to pee,” I say.
Sophie gives me this look like she doesn’t believe me.
“Okay, I had to pee and I happened to notice that someone in the window was watching me.”
“We were all watching you because you sounded amazing. Even those moms and nannies looked up from their phones to check you out because you were so awesome. One of them even took a picture. It’s probably on her Instagram account now.”
The idea of my image on Instagram is scary enough, but I can only deal with one crisis at a time. “I mean someone was watching me from the outside. At the regular mall,” I say, gesturing toward the front of the store.
“So what?” asks Sophie, totally not getting it.
“Someone from school. Like, a boy who I didn’t want to see me like that.”
“Who?” asks Sophie.
“This guy named Blake,” I say.
“Oh, you mean the Blake you have a big crush on?” Sophie asks.
“I don’t have a big crush on Blake,” I say. “I never said anything about … Why would you say that?”
“Lola told me, but don’t be mad at her. She didn’t mean it in a mean, gossipy way. She was just saying…”
“Oh,” I reply. “Well, yeah, I used to like him, but I don’t anymore. It’s kind of a long story. But I’m still embarrassed that he saw me singing. What must he have thought?”
“He probably thought you were an awesome singer,” says Sophie. “That’s what I was thinking and that’s what those ten kids were thinking.”
“Right,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“No, seriously,” Sophie says.
As I step out of the bathroom my dad makes his way to the back room and says, “You girls were amazing.”
He holds up his hand and we each give him a high five. It’s hard to not smile, seeing my dad like this, beaming with his post-performance glow.
“That was fun,” I tell him, and I’m not lying.
“What an awesome class. Everyone got picked up on time. There were no potty accidents and no tears. Sophie, you certainly got to witness us in rare and perfect circumstances. Or maybe you’re good luck. Maybe you should start coming to every music class.”
My dad is so happy, I decide not to tell him about the kid with the wet spot on his jeans.
“Glad I could help,” Sophie says, all smiles.
“So are we,” my dad agrees. “Can I give you girls a ride home?”
“Sure,” says Sophie.
“Actually, why don’t you come for dinner, Sophie?” my dad asks.
Sophie looks at me. “Is that okay with you, Pixie?”
“Of course. I’d love it.”
“Okay, let me text my dad to let him know,” she says as she pulls her phone out of her bag.
A few minutes later, as we’re cleaning up the instruments and putting away the wigs, she checks her phone. “He says, ‘That’s great. Make sure to thank them and don’t chew with your mouth open.’ That last part was a joke. I have excellent table manners.”
“We’ll see about that,” my dad says, after he turns off the vacuum and unplugs it and wraps the cord around the base.
Sophie giggles. “Now there’s so much pressure.”
“Are we ready?” I ask.
My dad glances around the room. “Sure, everything looks great. Let’s go!”
Back at the house, Sophie and I sit in the living room and do our homework while my dad cooks spaghetti. It’s nice to have someone else in the house. I feel like it’s been just me and my dad for too long. Of course, I still have this weird ache—I still miss my mom. And I feel almost bad for my dad, having to do everything on his own.
“So what’s the deal with Blake?” Sophie asks me. “Do you want to go out with him? Because now seems like the perfect opportunity.”
“Are you kidding? I’m totally mortified. There’s no way I can face him at school,” I say.
Sophie shakes her head. “No, you’ve got it all wrong. You’re a rock star, Pixie. You should walk right up to him and offer him your autograph.”
“Yeah, right,” I say. “We’ve never even had a real conversation. We don’t even say hi to each other in the halls.”
“Well, change that,” says Sophie. “Now you have lots to talk about. You can ask him what he thought of your show, for instance.”
I shake my head. “There’s no way.”
“Then just be bold and ask him if he wants to hang out sometime,” Sophie says. “What have you got to lose?”
“Everything,” I say.
“What do you mean, everything?” asks Sophie.
“Um, how about my dignity? I can’t just go up and speak to Blake. Nothing is that easy because boy stuff is too confusing. It’s like, first when you’re little every kid is basically the same, or at least they are all simply kids. But then at some point boys become a different species and you’re supposed to hate them, and then suddenly it seems like overnight you’re supposed to like them again, but differently than before.”
Sophie grins. “That’s a good way of putting it.”
“What about you?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” asks Sophie.
“Do you like anyone?”
Sophie shakes her head. “I’m too new,” she says. “I feel like I’m still getting to know people.”
“Well, have you ever had a boyfriend?”
“Nope,” says Sophie, shaking her head as she nibbles on the eraser at the top of her pencil. “But I’v
e kissed a boy.”
“You have?” I ask, truly shocked. “What was it like?”
She lowers her voice. “It was fast and weird and kind of embarrassing because there were so many people around. We were playing Spin the Bottle.”
“Wow, I can’t believe you actually played that.”
“It was only one time, at my cousin Stacey’s. She’s a year older than me. It was last year in New York. The boy was named Clay and he was cute. He had long hair and he wore an itchy blue sweater. He asked for my number and I gave it to him, but he never called.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sophie shrugs. “It’s okay. I mean, I don’t know what I would’ve done if he had called. We lived pretty far apart. Plus, I don’t even know his last name. And does a Spin the Bottle kiss even count?”
“Of course it counts,” I tell her.
“Yeah, I was pretty sure,” she agrees.
We both go back to our homework. I divide a couple of fractions, and it takes longer than I want it to because Mr. Azhar makes us write out every single step, which is super-annoying.
“Mind if I ask you something?” Sophie says, and then asks me anyway before I even have time to answer her. “Are your parents divorced or just separated?”
“Neither,” I say, looking up quickly. “My mom is in Fresno right now because my grandma is sick.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” says Sophie. “What’s wrong?”
“She has Alzheimer’s, which means her brain is really messed up. She doesn’t even know who she is anymore. Or who my mom is.”
“I’m so sorry,” says Sophie. “That’s really horrible.”
“It’s sad,” I say, lifting my shoulders to my ears in a slow shrug. “But mostly I just miss having my mom here. My grandma and I hardly knew each other. I only met her once, actually.”
“Really?” asks Sophie. “How come?”
I glance toward the kitchen, worried that my dad can hear us. Except the radio is blaring and he’s singing along to an old Bob Dylan song, so it’s probably safe to talk.
“It’s kind of weird, but my mom and her mom weren’t even speaking. They haven’t in a lot of years.”
“Why are your mom and grandma fighting?”
“It’s not even that they’re fighting. It’s more complicated than that because they never got along in the first place—ever. That’s what my mom tells me, anyway.”
“You mean from when she was a baby?” asks Sophie, eyes wide.
“Well, maybe not for that long. But basically my mom says that she and her parents had different ideas about life, and what she could do. What she should do. They wanted her to go to a local college and get married and have kids and stay in their small town forever because that’s what they did. And my mom always wanted to travel, except then she got a scholarship to Fresno State, a full ride for cheerleading. Fresno is where she’s from.”
“And what, your mom didn’t take it?” asks Sophie.
“She did take the scholarship, even though she wasn’t happy about it. And she went to college to try it, but she said her heart wasn’t in it. And then as soon as she got there she realized she was there for the wrong reasons. To make other people happy. And then one day, in the winter during her freshman year, the Ice Capades came to town and she was blown away by the beauty of it all, so as soon as the show was over she tracked down the manager and insisted that they audition her. She was always a big dancer and into gymnastics and stuff and she knew how to skate pretty well. Dancing on ice wasn’t really her thing, but they must’ve seen she had potential because they offered her a job and she took it without even telling her parents.”
“And her parents were that mad that they never spoke to her again?” Sophie asks.
“Well, the job was in Tokyo.”
“In Japan?” asks Sophie.
“Yup. And it all happened really fast. When she got the job they told her, ‘If you accept we need you on a plane tomorrow and you can only bring one suitcase.’ My mom said that decision changed the course of her life forever. She didn’t even bother packing up her dorm room or saying goodbye. She told people after it was too late to change her mind. She signed a contract and packed her one bag and got on the plane and her parents freaked out. They thought it was a phase. They said, ‘Well, we don’t support this, so we’re not going to talk to you. We’re sure you’ll come crawling back to us when you need help.’”
“And she never did?”
“Nope.” I shake my head. “She never needed help.”
“So they never spoke?” asks Sophie.
“My mom said they tried a few times, but they would always fight about stuff. There’s more to it, but my mom says I’m too young to understand. She promised she’d tell me when I get older, and I guess I’m still not old enough. I don’t know. It’s a big mystery.” I shrug. “I did get to meet my grandma once. After my grandpa died, we all went back for the funeral and my mom was hoping she could patch things up with her mom, but too much time had passed. They must’ve gotten into some huge fight because we had to leave really suddenly, and that’s the last my mom saw her, until this summer when she got the call.”
I suddenly stop talking because I see my dad standing in the room looking at me. He’s got a dish towel draped over one shoulder. I wonder how much he heard. It’s a story I know well. My mom only told me once but it’s something I’ve never forgotten. And maybe it’s something I’m not supposed to share. They never said it was a secret, or anything … but I feel weird, having revealed everything. Like he caught me doing something I wasn’t supposed to do.
“Hi, Dad,” I say, flashing him a guilty smile.
He grins back, and I can tell by his kind eyes that everything is okay. He’s not mad. “Dinner’s ready,” he says softly.
“Okay, thanks,” I say. Sophie and I head into the dining room and sit down with my dad. He asks us what’s new, and Sophie tells him about the election. He’s impressed, I can tell. After dinner, she texts her dad, who comes to pick her up.
“Mom will sort everything out soon,” my dad tells me, once we’re alone and doing the dishes. “I know you miss her. I miss her, too.”
I give my dad a hug, because as angry as I am, I feel sorry for him.
Then I head upstairs because I don’t know what to say.
Lying in bed that night, I think about how my mom ran away from home when she was eighteen. How it was so easy for her to give up everything she knew.
My one visit to Fresno happened four years ago, after my mom’s dad died. Going to a funeral for someone you never met is still sad, but it’s also weird and boring. And what really struck me was the size of my grandparents’ house. It was gigantic. My mom spent so many years telling me how small her life was up in Fresno, and I had the impression that the house she grew up in was literally tiny. But it wasn’t. It was like a mansion. Maybe it was an actual mansion. I don’t know. Compared to the house we live in, which has three small bedrooms, it would be. My grandparents’ house had so many rooms and hallways that I kept getting lost. There was a giant swimming pool in the backyard. My mom had never mentioned that. But it looked like no one had used it in ages because the water was green and murky and covered in algae.
My mom seemed different there, harder, somehow. She had this strange expression on her face, her jaw clenched for the entire visit.
“I didn’t know you had a pool,” I remember saying.
But she didn’t hear. She was looking down at her phone and not paying any attention to me or my dad.
“Can I go upstairs?” I’d asked, and since she didn’t answer, I decided to explore.
I made my way up the curved staircase and went into the first room I saw. It must’ve belonged to my grandparents because there was a giant bed and opposite, a picture of my mom from when she was a kid. She was wearing a red V-neck sweater and her bangs were hair-sprayed up and her eye shadow was blue.
The next room I went into was filled with trophies for cheerleadin
g and gymnastics and volleyball.
There were pictures torn out of magazines and pinned to a wall. People I didn’t recognize, for the most part, but I assume they must’ve been famous when my mom was a teenager.
Pretty soon after, my mom joined me. “It’s like a museum in here, huh?” she asked.
“They kept it just like you had it?” I asked.
My mom nodded. “They did, and I couldn’t wait to escape this place. I still can’t. Are you ready?”
I thought we were going out to dinner, but instead we drove all the way back to Beachwood that night. My mom hadn’t been home in almost twenty years and she only stayed for three hours.
And that’s the thing that scares me so much. My mom was so different from her parents that when she grew up, she had to leave. And she hardly ever spoke to them again. It seems like it was so easy for her. Leaving her town, shedding her skin, becoming someone else, and building a whole new exciting life. She never looked back, never went back until she had to.
We are so different, too. What if my mom decides, one day, that she doesn’t need me as a daughter, that I’m too different?
Maybe she’ll up and leave again.
Or maybe she already has.
17
At school the next day I do my best to avoid Blake, which isn’t easy. Beachwood Middle School isn’t that big. Usually our paths cross at least twice a day, lately even more so.
I get through the morning okay. But then during history I have to pee, so I take the hall pass and am on my way to the bathroom when I hear a familiar voice in the hallway. Panicked, I peek around the corner, carefully, and just as I feared, I spy Blake talking to Connor.
Yikes! I immediately worry that Blake is telling Connor all about my performance at the mall, but then I realize, no. Blake is not that type of guy. I need to chill out.
Blake’s back is to me and Connor is not even paying attention to anything other than the magazine he’s looking at. It has to do with skating, I assume. Connor is way into skating. He even built a skate ramp at his house. That’s what I heard, anyway, but I can’t confirm it because I have never seen Connor’s house, and actually I don’t even know where he lives.
We Are Party People Page 9