Her hand over mine was very warm. Her fingers were long and thin, and she didn’t have chewed fingernails like I did. I wanted to put my other hand over hers, and her other one over mine, and my bottom one over hers, stacking our hands, changing the game. But I pulled my fist away.
I pointed at the book in her lap. “So is that a dirty book?”
She smiled, just a little. “No.”
“Then why did you take off the paper cover?”
“So I wouldn’t mess it up. All the other girls are passing around Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Have you read that?”
I shook my head. “No, but I want to.”
“Well, I can lend it to you. You’d probably like it. She moves to a new town too.”
“Can I also borrow Small Changes when you’re finished with it?” I asked.
Min grinned, looking into my eyes again. I grinned happily back. We were going to be friends, I knew it. Here I was, sitting with a girl named Min near a mountain called Tamalpais in a state where palm trees grew all over the place. Everything was new, and for the first time since we had moved I was excited, even about coming back to school the next day. I remembered Eleanor and Mary, wondering if I was being disloyal. I’d written each of them every week since we had cried saying goodbye, but I’d only gotten one letter from Eleanor. I imagined them going to Mary’s house to play together after their first day of school. Missing them made me want this new friend even more.
The school bell rang. The rest of the class lined up outside and started coming back into the room, still talking and laughing. Min jumped down off the bench, taking her book. I watched her, wanting to talk with her about everything. I wanted to make pretend ID cards with her and play “Mission: Impossible.” Her black hair was almost as long as mine. She walked to her desk and stuffed the book in her backpack. She didn’t speak to anybody else. Seeing that, I felt sorry for her, and I also felt glad. Her calmness amazed me. When she sat down, I remembered the games I had watched the other kids playing at the beginning of recess. I looked outside the big windows. Near the playground area, two boys kicked a red gym ball back and forth between them.
CHAPTER 4
Laura
Winter 1976
“BAND-AID SLOWED YOU IN HISTORY. I bet you’ll get a grape.”
The note had fallen to the bottom of my locker between my sneakers. It was written in green fountain pen ink on a torn-off piece of lined notebook paper and had been folded several times into a small, thick square. Every time I found one, which was at least once a day, was like discovering a pastel-colored Easter egg or a chocolate bunny wrapped in foil, hidden in the grass. Except these prizes were meant for me alone. The notes were from Min, written in our code. Getting a note from her and writing back felt like having a second, separate friend that no one else knew about. We had most of our classes together, ate lunch together, hung out in front of the school together waiting for her mom to pick her up (except for the afternoons I stayed late for basketball practice), and talked on the phone almost every night. Even so, when I found a note from Min in my locker, I was as thrilled as if it had been a boy who had written me.
“Band-Aid” was our code word for Nick, a boy in our seventh-grade class we both had started to like in the fall. Of all the guys, we mentioned him the most (Nick: cut: Band-Aid). “Slow” meant “watch” (watch: time: slow). A “grape” was a date (fig was too obvious). We had words for kissing, boys, having a crush, all the bases, individual boys and teachers we thought were cute, various body parts, even three different positions of intercourse. It was Min’s idea to include the positions, but we hardly ever used those words.
It was my idea to make up the code. The year before, a kid I never liked anyway had intercepted a note I was passing to Min during geography. It said, “Don’t look now but Mrs. Garibaldi’s cleavage is showing.” For the whole rest of the day, he and his friends kept following me and Min around, calling, “Cleavage!” I could have died. I kept wishing for a huge earthquake so the building would fall down and we wouldn’t have to go to school anymore. I tried pretending I didn’t hear them, which was what Jamie and Claudia did sometimes when I wanted them to play with me. It wasn’t helping to get rid of those boys. Min got so sick of them that she turned around in the hall and shouted, “Shut up, you morons!” They found that really hysterical.
After that, there was no way I was going to get caught saying or writing anything the other kids could tease me for. Especially since Min and I had started to have a lot to say about the guys at school. Min didn’t seem to care who knew what we were talking about. But she got into it, thinking up translations that were easy to remember. We stopped passing notes during classes.
At my locker, I unzipped my plastic pencil case. I slipped Min’s note next to several others beside my collection of colored pens. Then I rummaged in my backpack for my small notepad, ripped out a page, and took out my purple, light green, and pink pens. Alternating colors for each letter, I wrote, “And finally eat dessert? I doubt it. Only in my oasis.” “Dessert” meant a kiss (kiss: chocolate: dessert). “Oasis” stood for fantasy (fantasy: mirage: oasis). At the bottom in orange ink I drew a big smiley face with one raised eyebrow, our version of a lewd expression. Then I folded up the note into a paper airplane, walked down the hall, and squeezed it between the slats of Min’s locker.
It was lunch period. Even with staggered hours, the cafeteria was crowded with yelling kids. The boys usually sat in large groups eating food from each other’s tray, making fun of each other, and looking around to see if anyone was watching. The girls sat two or four together, whispering about makeup and movie stars and pretending not to notice the boys. In the food line, I pushed my tray along the metal bars and filled it with chicken potpie, succotash, milk, and an ice cream sandwich, my favorite dessert. Then I headed toward a table by one of the windows where Min was already eating. She was reading, her book open on the table beside her tray. In the middle of the din in that room she looked totally peaceful, like she was at home by herself and nobody was sitting next to her jostling her elbow. I envied the way she shut out the world, content with the one inside her head or on the page she was reading. My brother Jamie said I was a follower. He said I wanted too much from other people, and I depended on them more than I should. I knew I hoped for a lot, but I didn’t see how that made me too trusting. I thought I was the opposite.
Min had saved the seat across from her with her sweater. “Hi,” I said, putting down my tray. I handed the sweater back and slid into the empty chair. Next to us, some eighth-grade girls complained about a math test they’d just gotten back. Min grinned at me and closed her book.
I moved my fork around in the succotash, dividing the mushy lima beans from the sweet corn. Min pushed her lunch tray away from her. She gathered her long black hair in both hands behind her head like a ponytail and then let it fall. She folded her forearms against the edge of the table. Today she was wearing pearl earrings. I liked the white glow of them against her skin. The summer before, I had asked my mother if I could get my ears pierced. She had told me that I would be deforming myself, that only gypsies and Africans pierced their bodies. She said those holes would be there forever, even if I decided I didn’t want them anymore. I had seen pictures in Life magazine of African women whose ear lobes hung to their shoulders with holes in them you could put your hand through. Did my mother think that was what I meant? I tried again. I told her five girls in my class had had their ears pierced in the last year, and Min had had hers pierced when she was seven. My mother said Min was spoiled. Her parents gave her everything she wanted because she probably would have starved to death in China or whatever country she came from if they hadn’t adopted her. I started to tell my mother that Min wasn’t spoiled, but as soon as I opened my mouth she yelled at me for not listening to her the first time: I could not have pierced ears. I turned away, my throat aching and my eyes watering, and stomped down the hall to my room. I didn’t care anymore about pierci
ng my ears. My mother was mean and unfair. And she didn’t know anything about Min.
I broke the crust of the potpie with my fork and let the steam escape. “Do you know about Diana’s party?” Min asked. I stared at her. She looked gleeful, almost triumphant. I was the one always listening in on conversations, trying to find out about everything that happened at the school. Min hardly ever heard about anything that I didn’t already know. I hadn’t thought she cared.
“What party?” I asked. In the clamor of the cafeteria I had to raise my voice to be heard.
“Diana’s parents are going away for Friday night and leaving her and her older sister alone in the house. So she’s having a party, and the whole class is invited.” I’d been to some birthday parties, but neither of us had ever been asked to the smaller make-out parties that I heard about sometimes in the girls’ bathroom. Mostly they played “Spin the Bottle” and “Two Minutes in the Closet.” If the whole class was invited, then it would be more of a dance, but with no grown-ups around. I hoped there would still be “Spin the Bottle.” Min leaned forward against her crossed forearms like she was trying to hold in her excitement. “I bet Band-Aid will be there.” She lowered her voice. “He likes you, Laura, I can tell.”
Privately, I thought so too. I had felt Nick’s gaze on me earlier that morning in history class, and at other times too. We had even begun to talk to each other, when Min wasn’t around, in the afternoons after basketball practice. He was on the boys’ JV team. So while I was running around one half of the gym learning to dribble and pass and shoot with the girls, Nick was doing the same thing at the other end with the boys. I’d heard he was their best player. Sometimes, afterwards, I’d see him hanging out with a bunch of his friends, usually skateboarding around the almost-empty parking lot beside the gym. We’d started walking home together for the four blocks before I turned off toward my house. After a while I figured out that he was waiting for me. My fantasies about him were starting to come true.
I hadn’t told Min any of this. For one thing, I was afraid of jinxing it. Mostly I didn’t really believe anything would ever happen between Nick and me. He was too cool, too popular, too good-looking to want me to be his girlfriend. Every girl in the class had a crush on him. And I really liked him. But I didn’t know what to say to him. When I was around him I forgot all the advice my mother was always giving Claudia and me about how to get a guy, except “Play hard to get.” I thought he could see how much I wished he would ask me out, and that was sure to scare him away. The problem was, I wanted him to more than like me. I wanted him to love me, heart and soul.
“Do you think so?” I asked, taking a bite of chicken potpie. It was still too hot. I opened my mouth, breathing the hot air out while waving cool air inside. Min handed me my carton of milk, and I drank half of it. “I don’t know,” I said after swallowing. “He seems to like Caroline a lot. He’s always talking to her before homeroom.”
Min thought about this. “That’s true. But wouldn’t it be great if he did like you? God, those blue eyes . . .”
We were silent, remembering his blue eyes. At night in my bed I imagined Nick standing with his arms around me, his blond hair slightly tousled, his beautiful blue eyes brimming with love as he brought his face close to mine to kiss me for the first time. His lips would be gentle and soft. He would tell me how much he cherished me, like the David Cassidy song I listened to on my record player all the time. He would say he wanted to be with me forever. Lying alone in the dark, I could feel the safety of his arms embracing me. I could feel my own heart filling with love and the happiness of being loved. Sometimes I wanted that so much I couldn’t keep from crying. The ache inside made me even lonelier, my tears trickling down onto the sheets as I lay curled on my side clutching my pillow.
“Get one for me!” a girl’s voice nearby called out, startling me. I swallowed, my throat raw. Min had closed her eyes. I couldn’t look at her dreamy face. I knew I should tell her Nick and I walked partway home together, but I was scared she would feel left out. And that would mess up everything. I wanted to keep the little piece of him I already had.
I studied the other kids eating their lunches. I went from one to the next, trying to imagine their surprise seeing me in the school halls holding hands with Nick. The pleasure of it made me smile.
Then I saw Nick’s face. He was looking right at me. In the middle of the cafeteria, surrounded by all the other girls, he was watching me with his electric blue gaze. When our eyes met he smiled, a big, open grin. I couldn’t believe how cute he was. I wished I was sitting with him, his arm around me, his lips against my hair like a couple in a movie. I immediately looked away. My heart was going a million miles a minute.
I glanced at Min. She was still in her fantasy world, her eyes shut, her mouth partly open. I could still feel how the side of his body would press against mine because we were sitting so close. I shivered, getting goosebumps. Under the table I ground the sole of my shoe into the top of Min’s sneaker. She opened her eyes, surprised.
“I’m going to ask my mom if I can spend Friday night at your house. I’m not going to even mention the party.”
“Okay.” Min drank some of my milk from the carton.
“Let’s go,” I said. I started to stack our plates, sliding my tray under hers. I wanted to look at Nick again. “I can barely think in here.”
“You haven’t eaten your ice cream sandwich.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, reaching for it.
“Come on,” I answered, pushing back my chair. I knew Nick was still watching me. I had to get out of that room as fast as possible. I carried our trays over to the kitchen and shoved them through the window opening. I headed toward the exit, the whole time trying not to turn my head in his direction. Min was waiting for me in the hall.
She had tied her sweater around her waist and stuck her book inside it, like a sword. She tore the paper wrapping from the top half of the ice cream sandwich.
I stared at her, panicking. “You’re not allowed to take food out of the cafeteria.”
“Band-Aid slowed you leaving,” she said casually, as if reporting something as uninteresting as the weather. Then she closed her teeth over the chocolate wafer and the creamy, cold vanilla filling. My mouth watered. My stomach was still too jittery to eat.
Besides the code, there was another secret side to my friendship with Min. It had started about six weeks before, when Min was staying overnight at my house. We were talking, as usual, about boys. We lay on our sides, watching each other across the space between the beds. Her face was silvery from the street light outside the window. We had just discovered we both had a crush on our art teacher, Mr. Ketchum. We called him Ketchup. All the kids did. Min immediately came up with the code name “after-dinner mint” (ketchup: condiment: after-dinner mint).
“You know what it is?” Min asked. “That makes him sexy?”
I had no idea. Mr. Ketchum was almost bald, and he was old, probably in his forties. There was nothing at all cute about him.
Min said, “It’s his bulge.”
“Ewww!” I yelped, then remembered my parents downstairs and clapped my hand over my mouth. The last time Min and I had made too much noise, because we couldn’t stop laughing, my father had stormed up the stairs and into the room to remind us that they had guests over and would we pipe down and go to sleep. After he left, Min, furious, said in a not-very-quiet voice that we could hear them laughing downstairs just as easily and wasn’t she a guest too?
“His bulge,” Min repeated, drawing it out to tease me, so that the word itself grew and strained at the seams. Now I was giggling (quietly), trying to picture Mr. Ketchum with his round, shiny head, his short legs, and the bulge in his jeans. Min was right. It was definitely there, like it was inviting us to touch, even push against it. I didn’t think about what was actually inside his pants. I didn’t want to ruin the shivery feeling I was having. I liked the hint of what lay und
erneath his denim jeans without having to worry about the gross and nauseating object itself.
“It’s very . . . prominent, isn’t it?” I asked, and we both burst into giggles.
Min pulled her pillow from beneath her head and hugged it. “Sometimes,” Min confided, “I watch to see if it moves.”
“What, like a mouse trying to get out?” This set us off again. I covered my mouth with both hands, trying to keep quiet.
“No, no,” Min answered, catching her breath. “Like a hopping frog.”
“Ribbit,” I croaked in my deepest voice, which sounded more like a hiccup and sent us off into another round of giggles.
Then Min sat up and pushed down her covers. Her sudden movement spooked me. She got up from her bed. I thought she had to go to the bathroom, but she stood above me in her long nightgown. “Move over,” she whispered. I did, and she got into my bed with me, pulling the blankets up to our necks. I was still giddy, no longer laughing but feeling tingly. Now her face was in shadow. Our knees bumped together, and I could feel Min’s foot touching mine. It was nice having her right next to me, not halfway across the room.
She asked, “What would you do if Ketchup wanted you to touch him there?” Her voice was low and hypnotizing. I felt her hand touching the thick cotton of my nightgown over my pubic area, where I had started to sprout a lot of curly hair. Min’s favorite game that we played at sleepovers was asking these questions, but she had never cuddled up like this before. We just asked and answered from our separate beds. What would you do if Johnnie put his arm around you? Would you let Nick French you? Would you let Matthew feel you up? We had to tell the truth. Mostly I said I wouldn’t, and Min said she would. I wondered if she would in real life. I wanted to have a boyfriend and I wanted to kiss him, but that was different from letting a boy do whatever he wanted without knowing how much he liked me. Min’s hand moved gently, stroking downward over my slight mound of flesh, like she was petting the animal she had discovered there. I liked the simple, soothing motion. I wanted her to do it over my whole body.
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