It started at the tail end of dinner. Right as we were finishing up our last bits of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and carrots, the phone rang. And when Mom picked up, no one was there.
“That’s weird,” she said, sitting back down.
Almost immediately, the phone rang again, and this time I picked it up. Somebody—a girl—said something in Spanish or maybe Italian or maybe just gibberish. I wasn’t sure I recognized the voice. I hung up. Then I asked to be excused.
Mom came to my room again a while later, after the phone rang downstairs for the last time. From my bed, I had heard her picking it up a bunch of times, answering with increasing bite, before giving up and calling out, “I’m unplugging it!”
I knew it had to be Alyssa.
“Anything you want to talk about?” Mom asked, sitting on the foot of my bed.
“Not really.” I pictured the red spot that had immediately formed on Alyssa’s face where the ball had hit.
Mom was looking around my room, and it was like she couldn’t figure out what was different. She cleared some wrinkles in the bedspread with a flat palm. “Any idea who’s calling?”
I couldn’t make myself lie and I felt like I might start to cry.
So I told her.
About everything that had been going on since Alyssa had moved to the block.
How she made fun of my clothes, my room.
What she’d said about my freckles and to Peter.
About the Ouija board and the money and the peep show.
How mean she was.
How Taylor didn’t seem to care and said I was suffocating her.
How I felt like I was suffocating.
Then I told her about the ball I threw at Alyssa’s hideous face.
“Oh, Julia.” Her sigh sounded like disappointment.
And if it was true that I’d let her down, then I was really done for.
So I lost it.
Full-on sobbing meltdown.
Mom went to get me tissues. I tried to clean up, but she pulled me into a hug and even though I didn’t want her to hug me, I wanted to be hugged.
“They’re not worth it, honey,” she said, pulling back after a minute. “People who make you this upset, who say things like that? They’re not real friends.”
“But Taylor’s my best friend!”
She looked a little crazed then, in her eyes, and it scared me a little. Like I’d made a big mistake bringing her into this. “Is she?”
“Of course she is.” I wiped my nose.
She huffed and seemed to literally bite her tongue. “Is this how best friends treat each other?”
I didn’t want to hear anything she was saying. Taylor had to be my best friend. Because if not her, then who? Wendy? No way. Apart from that time when I stashed her photo in a drawer, I hadn’t really thought about her since school let out. Didn’t that mean something? That I didn’t miss her? It had to.
“Why doesn’t she like me?” I asked. “Alyssa, I mean.”
Mom shook her head. “You can’t do anything about whether people like you or not. Except the obvious things, like not being mean or intentionally hurting someone.”
It sounded like a question. “I’m not! I didn’t!”
“Okay then,” she said.
“But what am I going to do?”
“You’re going to think about the fact that maybe you don’t like her.” She stood and went to my mirror, pushed her hair behind her ears and studied herself. “Maybe you don’t even really like Taylor all that much either.”
“Of course I do!” I shouted.
But I wasn’t so sure anymore, not after the way she’d been siding with Alyssa so much. Thinking back on how things used to be, it was hard to believe that Taylor was still the same person I’d had sleepovers with over winter break, and told all my secrets, like how I once tried to practice kissing using my own hand. It wasn’t that simple, though. “They live on our street.”
She nodded. “And I don’t really like Mrs. Chamberlain, but we still live on the same street and are civil and don’t pretend we’re anything more than neighbors. I’m not really friends with Taylor’s mom, either. I mean I help her out with Taylor when she has work stuff and she’s helped me, too, but it’s not like we talk about important things.”
It was true that Mom really didn’t like Mrs. Chamberlain, who was also saying weird things about our house or yard, like “I see you’re going for the wild look with the lawn!” It was also true that Mom and Taylor’s mother never really spoke for more than a few minutes. It was always just about us girls, or stuff happening on the block.
“Why aren’t you friends with Taylor’s mom?”
She looked caught out in her reflection in the mirror. “We just don’t have a lot in common.” She untucked her hair from her ears and turned back to me. “When you start school again it won’t matter as much as it does now.”
“But summer’s another five weeks!”
“Well, you’ll have camp starting next week.” She seemed ready to be done with this conversation; I felt the same. “This week, why don’t you have Wendy over?”
I would not invite Wendy over if I could avoid it. “Maybe.”
We went downstairs, and I helped her clean up dinner. When we were done, she walked over to the phone and plugged it back in. It started ringing before she’d even let go of the wire.
“That’s it,” she snapped. “I’ve had it.”
She opened and closed a few kitchen drawers. She pulled something out of the back of the junk drawer—a whistle I’d gotten in a birthday goodie bag a few years ago—and propped it by her lips. Picking up the phone mid-ring, she blew that whistle so hard—it was louder than that whole party had been—that her face turned red. I covered my ears.
“What on earth?” Dad said from the other room.
“Come on.” Mom unplugged the phone again, grabbed her car keys off the hook on the wall, and called out to Dad. “We’re going out for dessert. You want to come?”
I could hear baseball coming from the TV in the den.
Dad said, “Nah, I’m good.”
“Leave the phone unplugged.” Mom headed for the door. “We’ll be back in an hour.”
We drove down to Joe’s Ices—lemon for Mom, strawberry-lime for me—and looked out at the bay. You could see the city skyline—all twinkling and exciting and terrifying—and a bunch of boats on their way to who knows where. I thought about all the creatures beneath the water’s surface and wondered whether or not the fish and sharks down there were doing any better than I was at slogging through life.
“I had this friend when I was about your age . . . ,” Mom said, as we sat at a picnic table with our ices.
“Mom,” I said. “Please don’t.”
She looked at me and I thought for sure she was just going to tell her story anyway, but she just smiled and ran a hand over my hair. “You know I love you, right?”
“Of course.” I looked away.
When fireworks started to light the sky, we grabbed the quilt we kept in the car and moved to the little beach, watching as colors and shapes appeared and then burned out.
Mom drove us home with the windows down and the radio blaring a song about a place where the streets have no name. She sang along, her hands so tight on the wheel that I thought it must hurt. The song was still playing when I got out of the car in front of our house, but Mom showed no signs of turning off the engine. She stayed there in the driver’s seat, perfectly still, until the last note. I waited for her on the porch.
When I couldn’t sleep because of a phantom phone ringing in my ear, I got up and stood in my PJs in the middle of my room, playing Russia with an imaginary ball. I made it all the way through sixies—pretending to throw under my arm, pretending to catch in front, six times— before getting back into bed.
Now I prayed for the end of the world to be swift and to happen while I slept, so that I’d never have to leave the house again.
I dreamt that baby
cicadas had nested in my hair and that Mom had to spend hours upon hours combing them out.
10.
Mom told me over breakfast that I had to apologize to Alyssa for throwing the ball at her. “You must be joking.”
“Afraid not.” She took her dish of toast crumbs to the trash and brushed them off.
“Even after the phone ringing torture of last night?” My cereal was already too soggy, inedible. Then when I saw the newspaper on the table—with a big headline that read SWARMS! and a picture of hundreds of huge flying bugs—I lost my appetite completely.
Those holes Peter had shown me. He’d said it was just a matter of days.
Mom turned and leaned against the counter. “Other people’s bad behavior isn’t an excuse for your own.”
“But I’m not sorry,” I said. Then she launched into a whole speech about how violence is never the answer, but I was stealing glimpses at those bugs and at the article, about millions of newly hatched insects just south of us.
“This is non-negotiable,” she concluded. “I’ll come with you if you want.”
“And bring brownies?”
“Yeah,” she said dryly. “As it turns out I’m not going to be doing that.”
I dumped my cereal and knew this was a standoff I’d never win. “I’ll go. Alone.”
I got dressed and rang Alyssa’s doorbell, and when she answered I knew 100 percent from the smug look on her face that she was the one who’d made the calls. She held an ice pack up to her face and I wanted to say, Oh, gimme a break!
An ice pack! A day later!
“Mom!” she called out.
I stiffened. I hadn’t been expecting that. I heard footsteps behind her and quickly said, “I came to say I’m sorry.”
Just so there was no confusion.
Her mom appeared. “This is her?”
I repeated, “I came to apologize.”
“Well, isn’t that big of you, Julie?” said Alyssa’s mom.
I made myself smile. “Juli-ah.”
Then I just waited for what was going to happen next and started to wish that my mom had come with me.
“Go on, Lyss.” The mom elbowed her.
Alyssa said, “Apology accepted.”
“Great,” her mom said. “And I assume nothing like this will happen again or I’ll have to speak with your mother. Now why don’t you two go play?”
Everything froze.
That’s it? I wanted to scream.
She nudged Alyssa out the door. When Alyssa took away the ice pack and handed it to her mom, the bruise on her cheekbone made me feel actually sorry for a minute. Then Alyssa said, “You’re just mad because we’re better at Russia than you are.”
My fingertips burned. “What?”
It was ridiculous. I wasn’t interested in their game. That didn’t mean they were better at it than me. “I could totally beat you at Russia.”
She stood. “Is that a challenge?”
I shrugged like I owned it. “I guess it is.”
“Well, come on.” She went to a basket on the porch that had a few balls in it and grabbed two.
I said, “Not now.”
“Why not now?”
“We need a referee or something. Someone to make sure neither of us takes any shortcuts.”
She didn’t look convinced, didn’t want to give up her obvious advantage. Her game. Her balls. Her turf. Her day and hour.
“It’s only fair,” I said.
“Okay.” She thought for a minute. “Saturday afternoon. That’s all the time you get.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
She said, “We’ll ask Taylor.”
“No way,” I said. “Peter.”
“Your boyfriend? Nu-uh. Andrew.”
“Fine.”
“What time?”
“I don’t know. I’ll text you.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
“Of course you don’t. Let’s say noon.” Then, for a second, Alyssa studied me with what look liked genuine curiosity. “What were you and Peter doing in the woods anyway?”
“Watching End of Daze.” I felt bold—not only that I’d done it but that I was telling someone. “I’m not allowed at home so we’ve been sneaking off to watch, but you guys interrupted, so we’ve only seen the first episode.”
“Fascinating.” She crossed her arms.
“Did you watch episode two?” I felt my heart start to pump faster.
“Yeah.”
“Who was on the other end of the phone? The mom’s phone?”
“A man. He hung up. Mack thinks she must have been having an affair or something.”
“Oh, jeez,” I said.
Alyssa still had a ball in her hand and tossed it back into the basket. “I think Archer is going to die this week.”
“No way. They wouldn’t do that.”
But Alyssa looked pretty confident.
“Do you think it could really happen?” I asked. “The end of the world?”
“Eventually, duh,” Alyssa said, unconcerned. “I’m going in the pool.”
I got up to leave and followed Alyssa’s gaze over to Taylor’s house, where I noticed the empty driveway. I remembered that Taylor had mentioned a doctor’s appointment and got an idea: I could hang out with Alyssa all morning without Taylor. Maybe we’d gotten off on the wrong foot. Maybe without Taylor there we’d find some common ground. I was fascinating! She’d said so!
I said, all casual-like, “You want company?”
Alyssa stood there with a blank look on her face, and after what felt like a really, really, really long time, she said, “I guess.”
“Okay.” I worked hard not to look too excited. This was a totally awesome turn of events. “I’ll be right back.”
I bolted across the street to change into my suit.
“Where’s the fire?” Mom said from her seat at the kitchen table.
“We’re going swimming.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and Alyssa.”
Mom sipped her coffee, typed a few things on her laptop. “She apologized? For the funny business with the phone?”
I nodded but not really. “Everything’s fine again.”
“I’m not sure it was ever fine to begin with,” she said. “But I’m proud of you for apologizing.”
“We can’t even be sure it was her,” I said. “It could have been anyone.”
She gave me that look. The look that always went right through me, like when I was caught in a lie or trying to make an excuse not to do something around the house that I really knew I should do. “What?” I said.
“You really don’t want me to answer that question.” She clicked around, typed some more.
“Can I go?”
“I guess so.” She typed some more. “But I want you home for lunch.”
I checked the clock. Time was going too fast and Taylor would probably be home soon. “Mom, that’s like an hour and a half from now.”
“Indeed, it is.”
There was no point in arguing. I’d only be wasting time.
I changed into my suit and ran back across the street and rang Alyssa’s bell, but nobody answered. I heard a shriek from out back so I walked around the house and to the pool.
“Look who’s back,” the mom said. Her skin was shiny in the sun and her bleached hair looked almost yellow. She was sitting in a lounge chair holding a metallic sheet that was aiming more of the sun’s rays at her face. The grass seed on the lawn hadn’t really taken and the whole place looked thirsty.
Alyssa was in the pool and climbed up onto an inflatable tube and splashed me. It was cold, but I jumped right in.
Alyssa was laughing when I surfaced. “You seriously still hold your nose?”
I hadn’t even realized I had. “Not all the time.” It sounded so lame, and then we had nothing else to say, and I wondered why she let me come over if she was going to keep on being mean to me.
With her floating around in the tube, it
was hard to know what I was supposed to do, so I just swam around. Her mother said, “Well, this is all too exciting for my blood,” and disappeared inside.
After a little more swimming I said, “Want to play Russia? Only for, you know, practice.”
“I guess.” Alyssa paddled over to the steps and got out of the tube and pool without getting herself wet again.
We were both up to sevensies—I was starting to hate all that bouncing—when Alyssa said, “Do you wear a bra?”
I froze. “No.”
She studied me. “I guess you don’t really need one like I do.” She threw her ball way high. “Taylor’s mom is taking her shopping for one after the doctor’s.”
How had Taylor not told me about that? After we’d spent the entire last year waiting and hoping for our bodies to start changing?
The ball smacked back into Alyssa’s hand.
We went up to her room after a while and she plopped down in her hot pink ALYSSA chair, leaving me nowhere to sit but her bed, which was Queen size and covered in a silky black-and-pink jungle-patterned spread with a deep pink border. Her huge stuffed giraffe was in a far corner and didn’t seem babyish after all, but more like some designer’s touch to perfect the cool safari theme. Her walls didn’t have any posters or pictures, just a set of big letters—also pink—that spelled out her name.
“What should we do?” I asked, thinking, She sure does like her name.
“I don’t know. Want to spy on my neighbors?”
“No!”
“It’s nothing to get all scaredy-cat about.”
“I just don’t want to.”
“All right, fine,” she said. “What do you want to do? Play with dolls or something?”
So. Mean.
“Let’s watch TV,” I said, noticing the flat screen on the wall above her dresser.
“All right.” She tossed me the remote like she was already too bored for words. “Knock yourself out.” She flipped through a few pages of a magazine. “Beating you at Russia is going to be like taking candy from a baby.”
More flipping.
Flip, like in slow motion.
The Battle of Darcy Lane Page 5