by Denise Vega
“The one involved in the Puppet Caper?”
I nodded.
“Her, too.”
I snorted. “You don’t know Serena Worthington.”
It turned out, neither did I. While I was heading to the custodian’s closet to store the sandwich board on Thursday, she came up to me and said, “Oh, all right. Enough already. Take that stupid thing off before I die of embarrassment.”
“You?”
“Yes,” Serena said, wrinkling her nose as if she really couldn’t believe she was saying it. “I’m the holdout. People know that everyone has forgiven you except me so they’ll know you’re still wearing it because of me. I’m getting all these looks like I’m some kind of torture lady or something. So just take it off, will you?”
“Jilly hasn’t forgiven me either,” I said.
“She hasn’t?” I could see Serena’s mind working with this information. After she processed it, she smiled. “Good. Then I’m not last. Take it off. And don’t leave it out where people can see it.” She waved it away like an annoying fly.
“But I need to wear it for Jilly tomorrow.”
Serena frowned. “Well, then put something on it that says I told you to take it off. People need to know that.”
I knew this was as good as I was going to get with Serena.
“Okay,” I said. “I will.”
“I hope Jilly hurries up. The sooner people forget about it, the better.”
“Definitely,” I said. I pulled out a permanent marker and wrote “Serena told me to take this off” next to her name. Then I slipped it into the janitor’s closet before turning back toward my locker.
“So, I’ll see you at the Intranet Club, right?” Serena crossed her arms and tapped her foot.
I stared at her.
“Right?” she said again.
“Right,” I said, barely able to get the word out. Disbelief can, indeed, render one speechless.
chapter 30
Home Page Advantage
When I got home from school that afternoon, there was a message from Mark asking me to meet him at the Y to shoot baskets.
I was surprised my heart didn’t do any fancy gymnastics when I heard his voice. I guessed all the excitement had cleared all of my emotions out of me.
The gym was pretty packed when I arrived. Mark stood at a far basket, shooting free throws. I walked around the perimeter of the court, dodging wayward balls along the way. He passed the ball to me when I got close and we played a couple of games of one-on-one. I won both this time.
“Meet me on the soccer field,” I said, leaning over and putting my hands on my knees to catch my breath. “The torture will continue.”
He laughed and faked like he was throwing the ball at my face. I ducked. We shot a bunch of free throws, then headed for the vending machines in the hall. After snagging some Gatorades, we sat on the floor near the gym, gulping quickly as athletic footwear shuffled by.
“So, things seem to be turning out okay.” Mark didn’t look at me when he said it, just took another long drink.
“Yeah. I got lucky I guess.” I didn’t say I still had another semester to go. I might jinx it.
“You said some nice stuff. And you meant it.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Thanks for the letter. You know. The one you mailed to me. And the stuff you said on the Intranet.”
“The letter to the student body?”
“Yeah. That stuff.”
My stomach clutched. I hoped he wasn’t going to bring up the stuff I wrote about him in my blog.
“So, that other stuff you wrote in that thing. Your online journal or whatever.”
Shoot. He was.
“What about it?” I took a drink, hoping he didn’t notice how shaky my hand was.
“Did you mean it all?”
“What?”
“The stuff you said.”
“About what?”
“Gee, Erin. Do I have to just say it?” His face was bright red and he wiped his sweaty forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt.
“Yes, because I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I knew exactly what he was talking about, but I was enjoying his discomfort. I had had way more pain about this than he did.
“That stuff about you liking me. You know. More than a friend.” He let out a big breath, as if he’d just told a secret he’d been holding inside for years.
“Did I mean it?” I asked. He nodded. “Yeah. I did. When I wrote it.” His face fell a little. “You mean you don’t anymore.”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“Oh. Well, that’s good.”
“It is?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” Boy, were we master conversationalists or what? Actually we were. As long as the topic didn’t involve anything deep like. I decided to take the plunge into enemy territory. “I’m sorry about Jilly.”
Mark shrugged. “I think we both stopped liking each other at the same time. It’s just weird being around her now.” He glanced at me and took another swig of Gatorade. “You were kind of right about her, Erin. She does talk a lot about herself.”
I smiled. “She’s got a good heart underneath all that gabbing.”
“I guess.” Mark turned to look down the hall. “I’m glad we’re friends.”
“Me, too.”
We were quiet for several moments, the only sound the squeak-squeak of shoes and the echoing smack-smack of basketballs on the court down the hall.
“And I’m glad you decided to come back to I-Club,” Mark said. “It wasn’t the same without you.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Mark said. “I had no one to tease, no puppet strings to pull.”
I smacked him and we both laughed.
“You still owe me a soccer goal contest,” I said. “I get to pick the field.”
“Right,” Mark said, and we knocked fists to seal the deal. “Thanks for coming down.”
“Anytime,” I said.
“You mean it?”
“Definitely.” He’d cut his bangs so both eyes stared back at me, his lips curled up in a nice smile. He definitely wanted to see more of me. Funny, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see more of him. Or more precisely, how I wanted to see him.
Wow. Miracles do happen. Right in the YMCA.
chapter 31
Defrosts and Hot Tamales
If only miracles could happen at the bus stop, too. I stood there Friday morning, wondering how I would look going to the Senior Prom wearing a sandwich board. Why had I come up with this stupid idea anyway? Sure, three of the four had accepted my apology, but the one that mattered most, the one I really wanted to forgive me, hardly even glanced my way.
The kids at the bus stop didn’t even blink when I came up — I guess I was looking normal in this thing. I adjusted the straps and bounced from foot to foot to keep warm, waiting for the bus.
“I hear you’re having trouble picking out what to wear.”
I knew that voice. I’d been longing to hear that voice for weeks.
I sneaked a peek. Jilly wasn’t looking at me. She was looking down the street, in the direction the bus came from. I saw her breath curl out of her mouth in the frosty air.
“Pardon me?” I asked politely. Perhaps I had imagined it. Perhaps I wanted so desperately for her to talk to me that I had made up her voice inside my head.
“The all-black underneath is very goth and rather chic, but the sandwich board has got to go,” Jilly said, still looking down the street. “It clashes with the ensemble.”
“You think so?”
Jilly turned to look at me. “I think you should take it off,” she said. “It’s just a suggestion, though. You can decide for yourself what you want to do.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
I pulled the sandwich board over my head, setting it up between us. We stood looking at each other, an awkward silence wrapping around us. We’d never had a fight like this before. We weren’t sure what to do.
Finally, Jilly took something out of her pocket. “Look how much is left inside.” Jilly was holding a half-bitten cherry Tootsie Pop. The entire Tootsie was still there, a round brown dome rising out of the red candy crater.
“How did you do that?” I asked. I’d never seen anyone eat the candy and leave the Tootsie center.
“It wasn’t easy,” Jilly said, and broke into a grin.
“That’s a lot of Tootsie Roll,” I said, swallowing hard. Tears stung my eyes and I blinked quickly.
Jilly nodded, still staring at it. “Now what I don’t get,” she said, “is how long it will last if two people share it.”
“There’s always another one,” I said, pulling two out of my back pocket.
Jilly smiled. “Thanks for what you said in your Intranet letter.” She unwrapped one of the Tootsie Pops I handed her and sucked on it. “We do have a lot to talk about.”
I took a breath. “When you walked out of my room that night, I went crazy.” I spoke softly, as if my words might send her away again. “It was like watching a part of myself walk out. I was so sad and mad I couldn’t stand it.”
Jilly nodded, taking the Tootsie Pop out of her mouth. “I know what you mean. When I read that last entry you wrote, I went crazy, too. I thought it was the meanest, nastiest, most horrible thing anyone had ever done.”
I looked down. “I know,” I began. “I’m —”
“You had your turn.” She raised her hand to shut me up.
I shut up.
“Some people have teased me about the muzzle and some have felt sorry for me for the things you said on that last page. I kept focusing on that last page, how hateful it was.” She paused. “But then I read all the other pages again. And I kept hearing that guy at the bus stop saying that stuff about kissing your pillow and stuff.”
She paused and I looked away. It was humiliating to have everyone know I practiced kissing my pillow, even if there were other girls who did the same thing.
“And how much you liked Mark and how you never told me. I can’t believe how much you never told me.” She stopped talking and blinked rapidly. “But I never really gave you a chance, did I? Never really thought about your life, separate from mine.” She sighed. “You were right. I do think about myself a lot.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything.
“You could say ‘No, you don’t,’” Jilly said, smiling.
“I could,” I said. “But —”
“But you won’t because you agree with me,” Jilly said. “I know.” We stood in silence for a few moments. I shifted my feet and shrugged my shoulders, enjoying how light they felt without the sandwich board. I breathed in the cold January air, letting it fill my lungs as I waited for her to say more.
“If I didn’t talk about myself,” Jilly asked softly, “who would?” Her question surprised me. I stepped closer to make sure I heard what she said next.
“Sometimes I feel like no one would care about what I was doing if I didn’t talk about it.”
I stared at her. “What do you mean?” I said. “I would. I do. I’ll talk about you.”
“Yeah, but would you say anything good?”
We laughed nervously and then because it was funny.
“You know, Jilly,” I said. “Sometimes you do talk too much about yourself. Sometimes it’s more about you than it is me. And sometimes I get tired of it. But I never get tired of you. You’re my friend. I never tried to tell you what I wanted, so how would you know? Most of the time I didn’t know myself.”
Jilly nodded. “I know. I just can’t get over how dense I was. How I didn’t see how you felt about Mark.”
I took a deep breath. “Would it have made a difference if I had told you?”
“Honestly, Erin? I don’t know. This has really made me think about a lot of things and I don’t know what I would have done.” She bit her lip. “It’s strange to think about because we’ve never liked the same boy …” She paused. “Have we?”
I nodded.
Jilly sighed. “Boy, do we have a lot to talk about.” She took off the wrapper from one of the new Tootsie Pops. “And I thought about how I stood in your room and tried to make you pick between two friends.” She took another lick. “I shouldn’t have done that.” She stuck the Pop in her mouth, then pulled it out. “Remember when we hid behind the Martins’ house and watched Mr. and Mrs. Martin skinny-dip?”
I looked up. What did that have to do with anything?
“And when you were the only one who would come to my birthday party after I had chicken pox, even though I wasn’t contagious anymore?”
I nodded.
“And when you brought me two maps of my classes for Molly Brown Middle School so I wouldn’t look like the new girl, even though you had been humiliated by Serena Poopendena?”
I smiled. She’d never used that nickname before.
“Only a real friend would do all that.” Jilly looked away, and I knew she had tears in her eyes. But it was kind of hard to tell, since I had them in my eyes, too.
She shook her head. “Okay, enough serious stuff. We need to come up with a signal so when I start talking too much about myself, you give me the signal and I’ll know to shut up and focus on someone else for a change.”
“A signal? Really?”
“Sure. And check this out.” She lifted her pant leg. Not a bruise in sight.
“No more monsters?”
Jilly shook her head. “I put a pillow against the frame.” She smiled and jabbed her Tootsie at me. “Put that in your blog.”
I laughed. Jilly laughed. We laughed and laughed until we could hardly breathe. As the bus came around the corner, Jilly helped me slide the sandwich board off the sidewalk and behind a bush. I’d deal with it after school.
“What a crazy semester, huh?” Jilly said. “How can so much happen so fast?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I can’t believe I got through it.” I couldn’t help smiling. I had gotten through it. I really had.
“Yes, you did,” Jilly said. Her voice held admiration and it made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t used to that. “I know you think I’m this really great person and all, Erin, but I’m not. I could never have survived what you did. Never.”
We climbed on the bus and found a seat near the front. “First of all, you never would have done the things I did,” I told her. “But if you went insane for a day and actually did do them, you would have been fine.”
Jilly shook your head. “You’ve got something that I don’t have.”
“Stupidity?”
Jilly laughed, then shook her head. “I do stuff because you’re there or another one of my friends is there. But you do stuff on your own.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. I was finding out that silence can be a pretty good thing sometimes. As I settled my backpack at my feet, Jilly got up and sat down in the seat behind me.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving a seat for Rosie,” Jilly said.
“Really?”
“Sure,” she said. “I want to hear about some of these hot tamales you two talk about.”
I smiled and leaned back as the bus lurched forward. A few stops later, Rosie got on and sat with Jilly. As they talked, I glanced out the window, watching the houses and trees pass by, flat clouds streaked above them across the pale blue sky. I felt as if I could slip right through the glass and float up to them, my heart was so light.
I listened to their murmuring behind me, wondering how long it would be before Jilly leaned forward to say something about Bus Boy. My guess was ten Mississippis.
Sighing deeply, I closed my eyes. I didn’t know if the three of us could be friends, or how the rest of the year would turn out, but somehow it didn’t matter. Whatever happened, things would be okay. I would be okay.
“Erin?”
I grinned. Nine Mississippis. I was only off by one.
Monday, June 9
&
nbsp; Yes, I’m back to writing in my blog. You didn’t think I could stay away forever, did you? But I have taken extra precautions against this disc falling into the wrong hands. I’ve passworded every file and have signs everywhere to remind me. I’m also going to try not to talk about anyone else but me.
I had a rockin’ 13th birthday party in April. It was a big surprise party at the rec center. Jilly and Mom planned the whole thing…I had absolutely NO idea, which, of course, Jilly loved. Everyone was there—even Serena. She gave me a great present, but I didn’t know it at 1st. When I opened it I was kind of mad because it was the Pinocchio DVD. But when I opened the case, it was the Erin Brockovich movie. She’d only put it in the Pinocchio cover to freak me out. Mark gave me passes to the Y, Tyler gave me some computer games, and Rosie gave me movie tickets and some tamales — real Mexican ones, not the boys and not the candy. They’re awesome. Jilly gave me a necklace and a general gift certificate to the mall…good for any store so I can choose for myself.
I’d like to say the rest of the school year was quiet and good and nothing big happened. But if I did, I’d be lying. I made the MBMS basketball team and tripped over my feet twice going for layups during a playoff game. A picture of me sprawled out on the court facedown made the home page of the Intranet, thanks to Steve who claimed it was only a joke, it wasn’t supposed to get published. I asked him why he had taken the picture in the 1st place, but I had to laugh. I did look pretty funny.
I didn’t try out for the spring play (there were no vegetables in this 1, but there was something that sounded suspiciously like a piece of fruit), but I did offer to create some computer images that projected on the wall behind the actors during some of the scenes. Unfortunately, there was a bad connection and the circuit blew, and the whole theater went dark right when Jilly was going to do this really important scene. When the lights finally came back on, half the audience was in the bathroom and someone missed their cue, showering the stage with cotton balls B4 the snowstorm was supposed to hit. Jilly handled herself like a pro, saying her lines as if there weren’t cotton balls stuck all over her head and several dozen attached to the sequins on the front of her dress.