Promise Me Something

by Sara Kocek

  I stared at Mom’s old textbooks, trying to think of something to say. Then I wrote, Isn’t he a little stupid if he’s a year behind in math?

  Whatever, Madison typed. He’s like twenty on a scale of one to ten.

  Apparently that’s all the math you need in life, Abby wrote.

  I have to go. I stared hard at the screen, fighting back tears, wishing I went to school with my best friends and wishing I could talk to Abby by herself.

  Why? Abby asked. Does your dad need your help?

  Yeah, I lied, I have to go help him up the stairs.

  She and Madison sent more pictures of sad puppies and we agreed to have a sleepover the next weekend with all four of us, even though high school was turning Leah into a slut, or so Madison said. I signed off and closed my eyes. Relaxed my jaw. Thought about the color turquoise.

  Who is this?

  I saved your life. Remember?

  Not you again.

  Aren’t you going to thank me?

  The answer is still no.

  How old are you?

  Why do you want to know?

  Just curious.

  16, but I could be lying.

  It’s OK if you are.

  Do you still want to talk?

  2.

  I could have—should have—done more to shake Olive off. She was like one of those prickly thistles you pick up on your clothes while hiking, and by the end of September she had attached herself to me with a degree of persistence I found both annoying and admirable. No one had ever tried so hard to be my friend.

  The point of no return came during History one morning when Mr. Murphy assigned us a project on ancient Mongolia to be completed in groups of two. Instantly, before he’d even finished his sentence, I felt a tap on my shoulder and knew it was Olive.

  Ignoring it, I scanned the room, hoping to make eye contact with someone else. It’s not that I wasn’t grateful for Olive’s friendship—she seemed interested in my stories about middle school, and eating lunch with her was less lonely than sitting at the homework table. I even snorted on my milk one day listening to her impersonation of Ms. Mahoney reciting Shakespeare. But none of it changed the fact that she was rude and pushy and wore pleated skirts from the ’90s.

  This was my chance to meet someone new. But no one was looking at me. The room began to buzz as the popular girls claimed each other. With no other choice, I turned around, expecting Olive to ask me if I wanted to be her partner. But she didn’t. She just cocked her head to the side and waited, as though I were the one who tapped her.

  “Want to work together?” I asked finally. It was either that or raise my hand to tell the whole class I needed a partner. Olive wasn’t that bad.

  She smiled. “Sure.”

  “Groups of two,” called Mr. Murphy as the buzz in the room evolved into chitchat. Lennie King, a popular Asian girl, was showing somebody her double-jointed thumb, while Timothy Ferguson, a skinny boy wearing ear buds, sang to himself, “Keep your ey-eyes open, keep your ey-eyes open.”

  “Gaga!” barked Mr. Murphy. “Put away the iPod before I throw it out the window.”

  Tim turned pink and shoved the ear buds into his pocket.

  “Listen up.” Mr. Murphy surveyed the room with beady eyes. He had the short, stocky build of a drill sergeant and perpetually tan forearms. “I don’t want any flashy business. You’re putting together a PowerPoint presentation, not a song and dance. I don’t want to see any fairy wings, especially if your name is Timothy Ferguson.”

  A few people laughed as Tim gave a nervous grin and flapped his arms like wings. Behind me, Olive tapped her feet on the metal bar below my seat, where my books sat.

  “Here’s the list of acceptable topics,” Mr. Murphy finished, passing a short stack of paper down each aisle. “You have until Friday to pick one. Questions?”

  While a few people raised their hands, Olive began scribbling notes. I could hear the faint scratch of her mechanical pencil as she applied pressure to the page. So far she hadn’t spoken a single word in class all year, and I wondered if anybody else in school even knew her name. Then I realized a handful of people must have known her in elementary and middle school.

  When he’d answered all the questions, Mr. Murphy turned on the overhead projector and began his lesson on ancient Chinese warfare. I settled into my chair, felt the brush of a knee across my lower back, and straightened up.

  At lunch, Olive was waiting for me with her arms crossed over her chest and her chin jutting out. She scrunched her eyes and made her voice gruff. “Okay, listen up. I don’t want any flashy business. This is lunch. We have spinach to eat. I don’t want to see any fairy wings—”

  I laughed and sat down across from her. Olive was definitely weird, but she could be sort of funny. Maybe our project wasn’t totally doomed.

  “This is not a song and dance,” she continued. “Spinach is serious stuff.”

  “Mr. Murphy is kind of intense,” I said, reaching down to slide my backpack under the seat where no one would trip over it.

  “I know.” Olive frowned, dropping the act. “Poor Tim Ferguson.”

  “Yeah.”

  Her face brightened. “I’m glad you and I are working together though.”

  I gave a halfhearted smile—my best effort.

  Her face fell. “Is something wrong?”

  “Of course not,” I lied.

  She sighed. “Look, I know it seems like forever ago, but I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot on the day we met. I don’t think you’re aloof. I’m sorry I said that.”

  I didn’t answer. I had a lot of reasons for finding Olive strange, and her insulting me within five seconds of introducing herself was only one of them.

  “I think I probably scared you off,” she went on, looking down at her tray. “With my honesty and everything. I do that to people—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, wishing she’d change the subject. Anyone else would have, but Olive had no awkward radar whatsoever.

  “Well, I take it back. You’re just private. That’s what I think now. You keep your thoughts close to you. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  I almost said, Yeah, you should try it.

  But then she surprised me. “Honestly, sometimes I wish I were more like you, Reyna. I probably wouldn’t alienate as many people.” Olive looked down at her blob of creamed spinach and poked it with her fork. “I wish certain things didn’t come out of my mouth.”

  For a moment, I saw a glimmer of a girl I actually wanted to be friends with. But then she shook her head and snapped back to her normal self. “In the end, though, I think it’s better to be completely honest about what I’m thinking. You can always trust me that way.”

  “True,” I said. On the plus side, it was nice to know she would never lie to me. Whereas I told a hundred lies every day—lies like I feel fine and I don’t mind.

  “Anyway, for our history project, how about we do feudalism?” she asked, reaching into her backpack to pull out the list of suggested topics. “It’s so interesting.”

  I stared at her. Feudalism?

  “I’m kidding!” She laughed. “It’s called sarcasm, Reyna.”

  “OK, I thought you seriously wanted to do our project on feudalism.” When I smiled this time, it was real.

  “How about Genghis Khan?” She scanned the list of topics. “He was the vicious military guy who conquered half of China.”

  “Sure.”

  “Good.” Olive grinned. “I’m excited. You want to come over to my house today to start the research?”

  “I can’t.” I swallowed my mouthful. “I have to get home to my dad.”

  She looked disappointed. “Why? Does he have you on a leash?”

  I sighed. There was no point in holding back the truth. “He has four broken bones,” I said. “And I have to take care of him because I’m the only one—my mom died when I was seven.”

  “Shit.” Olive put her plastic fork down on
her tray. “Really?”

  I looked out the window. “Please don’t swear.” Swearing was one of the things that reminded me of Mom—how she used to slap Dad on the knuckles anytime he did it.

  “Well, I’m sorry for bringing it up.” She took a swig of milk. “But you know something? I used to wish my mom would die.”

  She was watching me with a totally blasé expression like she’d just told me it was raining outside. I almost said, Olive, this is one of those times when you might want to keep your thoughts to yourself, but she beat me to it.

  “Sorry—I guess that’s inappropriate,” she said. “Or insensitive or whatever.”

  I wondered if rudeness was something Olive had been born with, like a bad heart or webbed feet. If she didn’t seem so clueless, I probably would have gotten up and walked away.

  “I guess I wanted people to feel sorry for me,” she went on. “I thought that if she died, they’d love me more.”

  “Look, I don’t want to talk about it,” I told her, rolling the napkin on my tray into a ball. “Can we change the subject?”

  “Don’t be offended,” she said. “I know it doesn’t work like that. One time in seventh grade my mom was late to pick me up from school, so I started thinking she got into a car accident. I walked all the way to the police station and told the cops, and you know what they did? They didn’t comfort me. They just said, ‘OK, kid, sit over there.’”

  I waited for her to finish the story, but she just sat there mashing her fork into the curved surface of a tater tot. “My point is, life’s a bitch,” she said at last. “My mom wasn’t in a car accident. She was getting a pedicure.”

  That was it—I’d reached my limit. Rising to my feet, I grabbed my backpack and said, “I have to go.”

  Olive’s eyes widened. “What’s wrong?”

  “I told you. I don’t want to talk about my mom.”

  She looked shocked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Was that story supposed to make me feel better?” I picked up my tray of spinach and potatoes. “Am I supposed to be happy your mom was getting a pedicure?”

  “No!” she said. “But at least I’m being honest with you. I bet everybody else just says, ‘Oh what a shame. I’m sorry for your loss.’”

  It was true. That was exactly what most people said. It was called manners.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” she said again. “Please don’t go. You’re the only person in this school who needs a friend as much as I do.”

  I wanted to say, Olive, you have a weird idea of friendship. But I couldn’t deny it. She was right.

  “Fine.” I sat down slowly and poked at the food on my tray. Olive and I might have less in common than a bird and a fish, but we were both alone.

  Suddenly she put her hands on the table, leaned forward, and lowered her voice. “Don’t look now, but your boyfriend’s right behind you.” She jerked her head to the left, and I turned around to see Levi, the cute boy in flip-flops, walking toward me with a brown bag lunch. The world shifted. “Hey, Reyna,” he said, bobbing his head at me. “What’s up?”

  “Not much.” I scooted slightly on the bench in case he wanted to sit down at our table. But he didn’t. He seemed to feel like standing up and swinging a key chain around his thumb.

  “So,” he said. “A little bird told me you guys have Mr. Murphy for History.”

  “We do,” said Olive, her eyes narrowing. “Why?”

  “I’m thinking of switching into his class,” said Levi. “My schedule got all messed up when I quit band. What do you think? Is he good?”

  “He’s nice,” I said.

  Olive made a face. “You think everyone’s nice, Reyna.” She turned to Levi. “Mr. Murphy is a chauvinistic wannabe football coach who doesn’t know the difference between who and whom.”

  “Cool,” said Levi, meeting my eye. “I’ll probably switch in, then. Thanks.” Without even looking at Olive, he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

  “What does he mean, cool?” Olive gaped. “I was trying to dissuade him. I don’t want him distracting you from our project.”

  I shrugged, watching the back of his head as he moved through the crowd.

  “No way is he joining our group,” she said. “No way. No how.”

  She didn’t have anything to worry about. When Levi showed up in History the next day, the first thing Mr. Murphy did was pair him with John Quincy, the only other guy in class without a partner. I couldn’t see Olive’s face behind me when it happened, but I felt her feet tapping gently against the back legs of my chair.

  “Don’t think you can slack off just because you’re new,” Mr. Murphy told Levi, shoving a stack of handouts at him. “You’ll have a makeup test this Friday on the material you missed.”

  Levi’s mouth dropped open. “All of the material?”

  Mr. Murphy gave him an evil smile. “Yes, all of it. Unless you’d prefer to wear this for the rest of the period.” He stepped over to his desk, slid open a drawer, and pulled out a giant purple Dr. Seuss hat with the word Sissy embroidered on the rim.

  Everyone laughed.

  Mr. Murphy looked extremely satisfied with himself. “A gift from one of my old students,” he told us. “Step out of line and you wear the hat. Capiche?”

  Levi nodded and took the seat diagonally in front of me to my left. It was one of the only open seats in the room, and for that I felt fortunate—I’d be the one staring at him from behind; not the other way around. Mr. Murphy had barely begun to write on the blackboard when I felt a jab in the middle of my back. I whipped around and saw Olive wearing a poker face, staring straight ahead at the blackboard. I almost turned back around, but then I noticed her hand hovering awkwardly near the back of my chair. She was holding out a note, so I grabbed it and unfolded it.

  Pay attention! it said in tiny, neat handwriting. If your grades start slipping because you’re besotted, you’re not going to make a very good partner.

  I didn’t write back. Who used the word besotted anyway?

  Lucy came back that night. She parked on the street in front of our house and rang the doorbell as though she didn’t own her own copy of the key. When I answered the door, I was expecting a deliveryman with our Chinese food. Lucy’s face startled me.

  “May I come in?” she asked, so tall and willowy that she had to bend her neck to look average height. I could see right away that something was wrong with her face. Her cheeks were puffy and red from crying.

  “Are you OK?” I asked, stepping aside to let her pass. Her “weekend trip” to Michigan had turned into a two-week fiasco, and now that she was back, I wasn’t sure what to think. Dad had called her twice yesterday and gotten no response. I was relieved to see she was alive but the sight of her also made me sick.

  “I’ve been better.” She gestured at her red eyes and gave me a nervous smile. “Where’s Ethan?”

  “Getting ready to eat,” I said, trying not to breathe in her smell. The perfume reminded me of the day of Dad’s accident.

  “Thanks.” As she swept past me down the hall, I wondered for the millionth time what on earth possessed my father to keep dating the woman who had crashed his car and nearly killed him. Was he a masochist? It just didn’t seem right to me. Especially not after what had happened to Mom.

  But tonight, after two weeks apart from Lucy, his face broke out in a grin when she walked into the kitchen. “There you are!” he said, knocking his chair as he stood to embrace her. He had to balance on the foot that wasn’t in the cast. “Where have you been?”

  “Sit.” She crossed the room in two long strides and helped him back into his chair. “You’ll break your other ankle.”

  “We thought you’d be back yesterday,” said Dad. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  “I’m so sorry, Ethan. ” Lucy had bags under her eyes, and her short, feathery haircut was ruffled, like she hadn’t taken a shower in days. “I wanted to call you and fill you in, but I just couldn’t find
a free moment.”

  “Is everything OK?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” She sat down on one of the other kitchen chairs and ran her manicured fingernails through her hair. “Right before I was supposed to drive to the airport, my mother had an episode.”

  “Episode?” I pulled out a chair and sat down.

  Lucy glanced at me, then at Dad.

  “Reyna…” Dad looked apologetic. “Could you give us a few minutes alone?”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but at the look on Lucy’s face, I changed my mind. She pressed her lips together, apparently reliving some terrible memory. So I stood up, gathered my sweatshirt off the kitchen table, and walked out of the room. Then I stopped in the hallway just around the corner and listened.

  “Was it the epilepsy again?” asked Dad.

  I couldn’t hear what Lucy said, but I heard a chair scrape against the floor and imagined Dad leaning over to rub her shoulders. It was just like him to offer her a hug, even though he was the one who needed comfort. After all, she walked away from the accident without a scratch. Dad was the one who got pummeled.

  Leaning closer toward the kitchen, I tried to hear what had happened to her mom, but I couldn’t make out the words. All I could hear were a few phrases: “Epileptic seizure,” “emergency room,” “insurance policy.”

  Then Dad said in just above a whisper, “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  I leaned my forehead against the wall. I hated when Dad swore. Mom would never have tolerated it. It made me feel like he’d forgotten her.

  “I know this is a horrible thing to say”—Lucy’s voice was quivering—“but between taking care of you and taking care of my mom, I just need a few more days to take care of myself.”

  “I understand,” said Dad.