At the same time, I stood up, shoved the chair back with my legs—and right into the person trying to squeeze behind me. The chair jolted; I fell forward. I held onto the glass, but a mouthful of water went down my throat. Ice chips landed on my nose and water droplets hit my eyes. I coughed, gasped, and swallowed a cold sliver.
“Is that for me?” Pamela’s chirpy voice cut through the restaurant.
“Hey, don’t—” I tried to take a breath and inhaled more water.
Through blurry eyes I saw Abigail standing in the same place. Pamela folded her arms and cocked her hip to the side.
“How about sharing?” Pamela reached forward and plucked the cupcake—wrapper and all—off Abigail’s open hand and held it over her head.
Abigail reached for it, but she was not tall enough. She stepped back, bent her knees, jumped forward, and missed. She landed on her feet and staggered to the side. With all the things she carried, there was no way she could have gotten close enough.
“Hey, give it back, Pamela. Abigail isn’t bothering you.” Mindy went out the door ahead of me.
We were now the center of attention. Many people in the restaurant, who at first had been amused, leaned in to get a better look and frowned with disapproval. Passers-by outside turned and stared.
Pamela either ignored Mindy or did not hear her, but she had the same evil smile on her face that I had seen before.
Abigail crouched and jumped.
It was pathetic. She got two inches off the ground, landed in the same place, and backpedaled; this time ending up farther away than when she started.
“Leave her alone, Pamela,” I said, as I went out the entrance. I tried to grab her forearm, but my fingertips barely skimmed her. I knew she was thin as a rail, but I had never seen her move so fast.
I reached out again—and that’s when I got the shock of my life. I thought she would twist her arm away. Instead, she grabbed my wrist, jerked me toward her, let go, and before I could back away, punched me in the solar plexus. It knocked the wind out of me. I tried to take a breath but there was no air.
She grabbed the front of my sweater, yanked me toward her, elbowed me in the ribs, and shouldered me aside. She did all this with one hand and with the other hand, held the cupcake off to the side.
“Mind your own business, Olivia dear.” She looked down at me, where I lay sprawled over the hedges.
Then she turned back to Abigail. “Oops!” She pretended to trip, stepped closer to Abigail—who looked like she was in shock—and lifted her hand over the lip of the tuba.
“Oh, no!” she wailed. “Look what Olivia made me do!”
She tilted her hand and dropped the cupcake into the tuba. “I was trying to give it back to you,” she said. “It’s Olivia’s fault.”
I gasped. My mouth hung open, my chest hurt, my breath came in short gasps. I could not believe what she had done, to Abigail and to me.
“Do you think we can get it out?” Pamela opened her eyes wide. “We can’t leave it in that nice tuba.”
She gritted her teeth and grabbed the tuba. She gave it a quick jerk, but the harness was still around Abigail and it pulled them closer together.
“Get away from me.” Pamela snarled.
She grabbed the harness straps and flung Abigail sideways. The tuba came off, and so did strands of Abigail’s hair. Her beanie and glasses fell to the ground. The rest of her hair stuck out along the side of her head or in wide loops pulled loose from her French braid. The scab over her eyebrow was torn off and blood welled from the pale scar tissue. The hair that had been yanked out was now wrapped around the tuba keys.
“Stop!” Mindy yelled. She put her arms out but did not know who or what to grab.
For all her talk about not caring what Pamela said or did, I doubt if Mindy had ever seen her like this. She was afraid to get near her.
The cupcake did not slide all the way down into the tuba. It stuck to the side, held in place by a blob of whipped cream and strawberry glaze. Pamela gave the tuba a downward jerk.
“I know we can do this,” she grunted. She gave it another downward jerk. The cupcake slid an inch farther.
“Will you stop!” I yelled, my chest still hurting. I pushed myself up, grabbed at the tuba, missed, and backed off. No way did I want to get punched again.
The surface of the tuba was slippery and awkward. There was no place to grab it except for the keys, and Pamela’s fingers were wrapped around those. I kept my body concave to stay out of reach. She aimed a sidekick at my stomach. Her foot grazed me.
“Come on, Pamela!” Mindy tried to grab Pamela. She had better luck than I did—sort of. She missed Pamela but caught hold of one of the pipes. I moved back in, grabbed the long open end, and this time held on. We were in a three-way tug-of-war, the tuba in the middle.
“On three,” I said. “One, two—”
Mindy and I braced ourselves and pulled as hard as we could.
Pamela let go—and we fell over backwards. I landed in the shrubs. Mindy hit the cement and thumped her head on the bumper of a parked car. I heard a crash, and the sound of metal scraping on concrete.
I was breathing hard. My face felt like it was on fire. I have never been so mad. I would have attacked Pamela, but I had a slight problem. I was still in the bushes—with most of me on one side and my legs hanging over the other side.
If I had been able to get up, I would have slugged her, but I was stuck. Considering how she punched me the first time, she probably would have broken my nose with the heel of her hand.
“If you even try to lay a finger on me,” Pamela taunted as she backed away, “I’ll call the police.” She half skipped, half walked backwards toward a car as it pulled up and double parked.
“Remember, it’s a crime to hit someone,” she said, “assault and battery. My father is a lawyer—as I’m sure you know—and he’s friends with the judge. They’ll lock you up and no driver’s license this year.”
“Come back here!” I yelled, from my place in the bushes. “Mindy! Help!”
“Huh? Oh.” Mindy reached toward me with one hand, and with the other hand rubbed the back of her head.
“Harder!” I said, my legs waving in the air. “Pull harder!”
“I am. You’re really heavy.”
Oh my god, some BFF she is. Weakling.
“It’s all your fault,” Pamela called out, standing at the curb, ready to jump in the waiting car. “I was trying to help. You’re the one who made me do it. You got in the way. I tripped over you.”
The car inched forward. It was Ryan behind the wheel of a new BMW. He grinned at Pamela, leaned over and opened the door.
“See you later,” Pamela said. She plopped into the bucket seat and kissed Ryan on the cheek. His eyes opened wide—I guess he didn’t expect such a friendly welcome—but he recovered fast. He grinned wider and more stupidly and gazed at her. She pulled her seatbelt way out in front of her and across her lap. She buckled it, then turned and flashed her big teeth-only smile at us. She twiddled her fingers good-bye and sank back against the seat. Then she heaved a sigh and stared ahead.
Yeah, right, I thought, I bet you’re tired after that hard-fought bit of nastiness.
Ryan leaned around Pamela and gave us a friendly wave.
Guys are so clueless.
I planted my feet on the ground for leverage—I was still on my butt—and with a hard tug, Mindy pulled me up.
“Thanks,” I said, brushing myself off.
Then I remembered Abigail. She was standing in the same place staring at the ground where the tuba had skidded to a stop. She didn’t even seem to be breathing. If you have ever seen the way someone looks after a bucket of ice water is thrown on them, it’s like shock—pure shock. The body tries to recover but can’t do it fast enough. That was Abigail.
“Let’s get out of the way,” I said.
People were squeezing around us trying to go in or out of the restaurant. Some stared hard at us, some grimaced, and so
me chuckled. A few looked angry like they were thinking of calling the police. Mindy and I stepped aside.
“Come on, Abigail,” I said.
She slowly raised her eyes and looked at me. She must have picked up her glasses while we were scuffling over the tuba and put them back on. They were lopsided and perched on her nose crookedly. Pink splotches discolored her face. Her owl-like eyes were glassy and bigger than ever. I thought she was going to cry.
“We’ll take care of this,” I said in a business-like way. “Don’t worry.”
I was trying to sound normal, but I sounded too normal. What I meant was yes, something happened and it’s bad, but it can be fixed, it’s not the end of the world. The reason for wanting to be cheerier than I felt is because nothing makes you feel worse than someone whose horrified expression says yes, the worst thing you could ever imagine really did happen. Oh my god, how will you ever live through it?
Abigail’s shocked expression gradually wore off. She blinked, turned away, and stooped down to pick up her tuba.
My shoulders sagged. Damn. I hadn’t thought to pick it up and neither had Mindy. The people walking around us went out of their way to avoid it.
I had never been this close to a tuba and I did not know what all the parts were called, but I knew it had valves and they were damaged. They looked like short, crooked fingers missing a digit.
The longest part of the tuba had a dent in it and there were deep gouges on the side. It had always been shiny—glaringly so—but I never gave a thought to how Abigail kept it that way. Big smudgy fingerprints marred its formerly perfect surface, where the three of us had latched on to it and pulled.
An image popped into my mind of Abigail holding a soft cloth, exhaling on her tuba the way people do with their eyeglasses, then taking a small corner of the cloth and busily polishing the already spotless metal; then pausing again to lovingly admire it. How many hours had she spent doing that?
Damn Pamela. Damn me for not moving faster.
Assault and battery or not, if Pamela were here, I would slug her—or do something—grab her hair, swing her around, and throw her in the street. I think of stuff like that when the situation has passed and it’s too late. The truth is I probably wouldn’t do any of it, and if I tried, she would have beat me up. But it was better than thinking of what happened and that we were not able to stop it.
“I’m disowning her.” Mindy wiped her hands together. She winced, stopped, and stared at them. Both of her palms had long red scrapes. Road rash. I know how that stings.
The bushes scratched my legs when I fell. I hadn’t felt it right away but now they were stinging.
I saw more scrapes on Mindy’s elbows.
“She’s not my cousin anymore,” Mindy added.
“I don’t think you can do anything about that.” I winced at the row of blood droplets on Mindy’s hands. It hurt just to look at them.
“Watch me,” she said grimacing. “This stings like heck,” she added. She started to wipe her hands together again, stopped, and instead waved them as if they were hot and she was trying to cool them off. Wiping your hands together makes tiny pieces of gravel dig farther into your skin and you need tweezers to get them out. I know about that, too. I’d fallen off a skateboard and slid on asphalt.
“Are you okay, Abigail?” I looked up and down the sidewalk. “Where is she?”
On Highland Avenue you can see El Porto to the north, and to the south there is a low hill, beyond that the street dips down and out of sight. A few people were still around the restaurant door, but they had lost interest in our scuffle and were chatting among themselves.
“Do you think she went back inside?” Mindy said.
I tried to see through the window but couldn’t because a flash of light reflected at me. It had come from the opposite side of the street and bounced off the window. I looked west where two- and three-story houses and apartments were silhouetted by the setting sun. A bead of gold light gleamed from the rim of the tuba as it disappeared between the narrow streets. It was not harnessed to Abigail. She held it in front of her, her bookbag hanging by her side, her shoulders hunched forward . . . carrying the weight of the world.
Chapter 17. Served
I went home, no longer weighing the question of what I should or should not do, and that meant I had finally reached a decision—and not because my mom had asked me. I would seek Abigail, get to know her, and hopefully it would not be too late. I could even help fix her tuba—or at least offer to.
Since I was still stressing about the next test, I had to study first. There was nothing I could do about Abigail or Pamela right then, so I mentally set them aside, opened my Spanish textbook and thumbed through the pages. When I got to Irregular Past Participles, I used a pencil as a bookmark and placed a pad of notepaper in front of me. Spanish is a subject where if I think I did great it turns out I barely passed, and when I think I did horrible I’m usually right. I studied late into the night and did not turn the light out until after one a.m.
The answer to whether or not my studying had paid off came two days later when Senora Kaufman passed the tests back. She could do it online, but she won’t because she doesn’t want us forwarding anything, so she prints out the results. When she got to mine, she said, “Muy bien, Olivia.”
Mrs. Kaufman—I mean Senora Kaufman—eats rice cakes and when she makes plosive sounds, she always blows out a few crumbs hanging around her teeth.
“Gracias,” I replied, because if you speak English in class, you get extra homework. I took the paper, went back to my seat, and saw a B plus at the top. Not bad.
Spanish was the last class before lunch. When the bell rang, I went to my locker, put my books inside, and got out my bag lunch. Mindy was waiting in the quad where we always sit. Unfortunately, Pamela was there too with a Diet Coke and a few Kale chips. At the sight of her, my stomach twisted into a knot. I know Mindy did not want her there, but since they’re cousins Pamela had already lied to her mom and said Mindy was bullying her. When Mindy’s mom had asked her about it, Mindy had been so shocked she stood rooted with her mouth open. No one wants to tangle with Pamela’s mom. For one thing, she makes flower baskets and gives them to all the teachers. The principal always has a fresh basket in her office; you can see it through the window. And the little plastic sticks, the ones with prongs that hold a gift card? Mindy told me Pamela’s mom puts a picture of Pamela inside.
I refused to talk to Pamela, but I started thinking about how to get back at her. However, Pamela talked so much I could not concentrate on anything horrible enough. She acted as if nothing had happened at the restaurant. Everything was Ryan this, Ryan that, and of course Ryan’s new BMW. Mindy tried to ignore her, too, and made it obvious by rocking back and forth, then side to side, huffing and puffing and heaving big sighs.
“Mindy!” Pamela folded her arms and waited for Mindy to sit still.
“What?” Mindy pretended to be startled.
“Do you need to pee?”
“How rude!” Mindy said, perfectly imitating Pamela who totally missed it. “No. I don’t. If it’s any of your business.”
“Then stop rocking back and forth,” Pamela ordered.
We made a strange trio: Mindy tilting her head from side to side, Pamela tight-lipped and flaring her nostrils, and me taking small bites out of my sandwich and trying to control my temper, when I really wanted to reach over and shove her off the bench.
When I finished, I folded my bag into squares. As part of my conservation effort, I was going to reuse the same brown bag for a week, but after a few days the paper was already soft and fuzzy looking.
“Why are you doing that?” said Pamela.
I was about to crumple the bag—having decided it was too floppy to save—but when she said that I started to fold it into tinier squares. It had the intended effect. Pamela snorted in disgust and pushed away from the table.
It seemed as if she finally had enough of us and was going to leave. That’s w
hen I got the second biggest shock of my life.
With short, halting steps, Abigail was moving closer and closer to us. When I saw what she was holding, my eyes almost fell out of my head. A big cupcake on a white pleated wrapper sat in the palm of her hand. It was covered with glazed strawberries, a blob of whipped cream on top.
I thought she would throw it in Pamela’s face. I didn’t want to get hit with flying strawberries, so I leaned as far back as possible without falling off the bench.
Pamela turned to see what I was looking at and her face turned white. Her nostrils pinched and she leaned the other way so if Abigail threw it, it would miss her and hit Mindy.
“Hi,” Abigail said in a small voice. “I’m sorry,” she added, with a weak smile. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Well, you are,” Pamela said, recovering her composure. She sounded more haughty than usual but at the same time she kept a wary eye on Abigail.
“I—I just know how much you like pastries,” Abigail said. With more tiny, shuffling steps, she moved closer to Pamela. “Would you like this? I wanted to show you there are no—no hard feelings, you know, after the, well, the accident with . . .”
Pamela seemed taken off guard. In front of her stood Abigail timid as a mouse, a peace offering in her hand, her huge eyes not fixed on anything.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing—and hearing. To me, Abigail looked absolutely daft, as if her peace offering meant life or death.
My eyes darted from Abigail to Pamela and back.
I waited for Pamela to tell her to go away—and Abigail to shove the dessert in her face—that’s what I would have done—but Abigail didn’t do that. She waited, as though afraid of Pamela, but more afraid to back down.
Could Abigail really mean it? Seriously?
Even a person as wimpy as her must have some dignity, some temper. An apology from Abigail was the last thing I expected—and it was disconcerting. Coupled with my shock was a feeling of curiosity, and it was quickly turning into distrust. Until now I had never thought of her as devious.
Pamela lifted her chin, the trace of a smile on her lips. She did not like being caught by surprise and wanted to take back control. Either that or her natural suspicion—meaning good sense—did not last long. Her smile grew wider and wider. She waited until Abigail made eye contact and, when she did, she locked eyes with her, reached out slowly, and delicately plucked the cupcake off Abigail’s hand—without saying thank you.
One of Us: The City of Secrets Page 12