I’m sweating now. I stop looking in the mirror and let my hands feel what they’re supposed to do and finally manage to get into the pillow baby. I throw the white robe on and come out while I’m still putting the blue scarf over my head. The priests and the altar boys and the rest of the cast look relieved. The kid who’s playing Joseph (I just found out his name is Peter, because he’s from one town over, so I don’t know him from school) grabs my hand and drags me out onto the altar because I’m already late.
The lights come up on us. I can’t see a damn (ten Hail Marys) thing. Peter says his first line, and I say my first line, and then the lights come down and Father Joe keeps telling the story of us going to be counted in the census while Peter and I and the kid who’s playing the donkey go down to the next set, which are the inns. They’re in front of the altar, right before the first row of pews.
The kids playing the innkeepers all say they’ve got no room, and I’m walking next to Peter, trying to look holy, when I see Jordan sitting in the front row with his mom and dad. He smiles at me, and I feel so happy he’s looking at me and smiling that I just stand there smiling back at him until Peter kicks me. Peter has to repeat his last line because I’ve gone totally blank.
I actually say, “Uh…” and everyone in the whole church laughs except for Peter.
Then I remember my line and I say, “Oh yeah,” and everyone laughs again and I say what I’m supposed to say with a big grin because I’m not embarrassed. Even if I did mess up, I made Jordan Dolan smile, which is like a thousand times better than getting all the lines right in some dumb Nativity play.
And that’s as far into the play as we go tonight, because the whole Birth of Jesus bit with the angels and the drummer boy doesn’t come until Christmas Eve and that’s still a few days away. And Peter’s relieved because I don’t say anything in the next part. It’s all, “Lo and behold,” from Angel Number One and the Three Wise Men saying what they’ve brought for presents, and the kid who plays the drummer boy does this solo drum bit.
After Mass I go to find my family, and my brother, JP, looks at the pillow baby and says, “That’s disturbing,” which makes Evie and Aurora laugh so hard the three of them have to run outside so they don’t get in trouble. Just before JP leaves with Evie and Aurora, he gives me a hug and whispers, “You looked beautiful up there.” JP is the only person who’s ever told me that.
I feel someone touch my shoulder, and I turn around and there’s Jordan.
“Good job,” he says.
I make a face. “I forgot one third of my lines,” I say back.
“Yeah, but you didn’t get nervous or anything.”
I shrug because I don’t think not getting nervous is enough to make you a good actress.
“Still, with only a two-out-of-three average, I don’t think Carl Sagan would approve of me being an actress,” I say.
He grins, because he knows exactly what I’m talking about even if we haven’t said anything about our destiny in months.
“See you Christmas Eve,” he says, giving me a little wave good-bye.
“We’ll be here,” I say, patting my pillow baby. He shakes his head and goes to his folks.
“Jordan?” I call after him. I take a few steps toward him, and he comes back to meet me halfway. “Sorry about saying no to you in the cafeteria in front of everyone like I did,” I say. “That was really mean of me, and I’m sorry.”
He’s quiet for a while, thinking about exactly how to say what he wants to say. I wait for him to be ready, even though I’m pretty scared about what he might decide. What if he figures he’s still angry with me after all?
“I guess we’re the kind of friends who do science projects together,” he says. “Not the kind who go to dances together.”
“But we are friends, right?”
He smiles. “Always,” he says.
I realize that the rock was still in my stomach. It never went away until just now. I got so used to it being there I stopped noticing it, but now that it’s gone, I feel light and fluttery inside. I also realize I’ve been holding my breath, and I let it out in a big whooshing sound. I’m so glad that’s over.
“Thanks for today,” I say before he can walk away.
He nods, because he knows I’m talking about the pencil he lent me and what he did in Mr. Bennet’s class and not about how he said I did good in the play or how he forgave me for being mean. Jordan always knows what I’m talking about without me having to go back and explain myself.
I can’t stop smiling.
Even though pretty much all of today was awful, at least it ended great. I’m really happy while I go to find Nora so she can come and help me get out of this crappy (five Hail Marys) costume, which is what I should have done when I was putting it on, I realize too late.
“You forgot a line,” Nora says as she wrestles me out of my pillow baby. “What could you possibly be so happy about?”
I think about her question for a while, like Jordan would. “I guess I just find different stuff every day,” I say.
I find out on Christmas Eve that not only is Miri not coming back from school to spend Christmas with us, but I’m also going to be stuck sitting in the manger for the entire night. I get bathroom breaks and whatnot, but mostly I have to sit there staring at a baby doll while three separate masses happen.
I get why Miri doesn’t want to come home, but if Father Joe had told me that I was going to have to do the whole play, then sit up on the altar in the manger with Peter and the kid who’s playing the donkey (his name’s Bobby, and he’s from the same town as Peter) for the five o’clock, the seven o’clock, and the nine o’clock masses, I never would have agreed to it. We always spend most of Christmas at church, but this is too much, even for me.
Jordan and his parents show up for the seven o’clock Mass, so at least I can look forward to talking to him at the end of it. Sure enough, when Mass is done, Jordan comes and finds me.
“You were great. You didn’t mess up any of your lines this time,” he says, smiling.
“Ha-ha,” I say because, duh, I didn’t have any lines.
“But I think the donkey fell asleep.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter because he’s a donkey,” I say. “Anyways, he’s only eight, so he doesn’t have to do the nine o’clock with us.”
“You’re here for another Mass?” Jordan looks surprised in a way that actually makes me feel better.
I nod. “Christmas takes too long.”
Jordan’s parents come up behind him. “Jordan, are you almost ready to leave?” his father asks.
Jordan turns to me. “What do you do in between masses?” he asks.
I shrug. “Not much,” I say. “Between the five and seven I melted down three altar candles and made a snowman and an angel out of the drippings. Wanna see where I burned my hand catching the hot wax?”
I show him the red mark on my palm. It’s over my Jesus Hole, but bigger.
“Awesome,” Jordan says. “Did it hurt?”
“Only for a second, and then it starts to cool and then you can make, like, anything out of it.”
Jordan turns back to his parents. “Can I hang out here with Annie?” he asks.
His parents look at each other. “Don’t you want to get home and open your Christmas Eve present?” his mom asks.
“I’d rather stay with Annie,” Jordan says.
His parents look at each other again, and for a second it’s like neither of them knows what to do.
“I think we’d better go, Jordan,” his father says. “It’s getting late. We’ll watch a movie when we get home.”
“Fine,” Jordan says, sighing. He looks back at me. “I guess I’ll see you next year.”
“Have a good Christmas,” I say.
I include his parents when I say it, but they don’t smile at me. His mom especially. She’s looking at me like I tried to steal gum out of her purse. Not that Jordan’s mom looks like she chews gum. In fact, she’s the kin
d of person who’d probably say gum chewing is vulgar. I like gum, not that my parents ever let me have it. My dad thinks it’s vulgar.
I’m so tired when I finally get home. My big sisters and my brother are in the playroom watching A Christmas Carol—the creepy one with George C. Scott. They’ve got blankets all over the place, and everyone’s in a heap on the floor next to the Christmas tree. I scoot in between Aurora and JP, and Geronimo growls at me from under the covers and I have to scoot around him so he doesn’t take a swipe at me. I don’t even care that I can’t see the TV, because I fall asleep in like two seconds.
I feel like I’m floating and open my eyes just a smidge. JP is carrying me up the stairs. I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep so he doesn’t put me down, but he isn’t fooled. After he tucks me into the top bunk, he says, “Merry Christmas, Annie.”
I smile even though I’m trying not to. I love it when JP carries me to bed and tucks me in. It’s the only time I ever sleep without any nightmares at all.
Christmas morning at 17 Snow Lane is nothing like it is in the movies. In the movies there’s always snow falling and kids in pajamas running downstairs to rip open their giant presents and the fake mom and dad are smiling and happy and the kids believe in Santa. At 17 Snow Lane, there’s usually snow on the ground at Christmas, but it’s always just patches of the old, melted kind with brown leaves everywhere in between. We don’t get to open our presents first thing in the morning. Oh, no. We have to wait until after Mass, and my parents aren’t even there when we wake up because they’re already at church, and we’ve never believed in Santa because he’s pagan.
Nora and I find some fruitcake to eat and share a glass of milk, because that’s all that’s left in the fridge, while we wait for our turn in the bathroom. We go back upstairs, sing “Fool in the Rain” (I actually really like this one because of the whistle and fast bit in the middle that feels like a party), and get dressed, and then we have to chase Geronimo out of the Christmas tree before we all pile into the van and head back to church.
When Mass is over, we go back home and wait for the Italians to show up with the lasagna. My aunt always makes an industrial-size pan of lasagna for Christmas and Easter, and we get to eat as much as we want. By the time the relatives show up and the lasagna’s eaten and we’re ready to open presents, it’s usually about four o’clock in the afternoon.
The waiting used to be torture, but once I realized that I never get anything good anyway, it got much easier.
I’m the Elf this year. That means I have to dive into the pile of presents, read off the name, and then throw the gift to the person it’s for. I like being the Elf, even if it means I have to wait until the last present is given out to open my own. I keep calling out names and chucking presents, and a bunch of times I see Nora’s face looking hopeful, but the presents are always for someone else. I’m down to the last few presents when I realize she doesn’t have any.
Mom forgot Nora.
I check the last few name tags to make sure, but it’s no use. Nora didn’t get any presents this year. The Italians gave her money (they always give us twenty bucks for Christmas), but that’s it. That’s all Nora got.
I go and sit next to her. She’s looking pale and woozy.
“You can have half of mine,” I tell her, but she shakes her head. I know what she means. It’s not what’s in them that matters. It’s getting them, and she didn’t get anything for Christmas.
I see Fay and Bridget and the big piles in front of them. Fay got a Cabbage Patch doll, which is, like, whoa. They’re so hard to get, it was even on the news and everything how people had to stand in line for hours to get them and even grown-ups were buying them for themselves because they are collector’s items. Everyone wants one. You’d think with her getting a Cabbage Patch doll and everything, Fay would be running around screaming, but instead she keeps looking at Nora.
I shove some of my presents in front of Nora and whisper, “Just help me open them, okay?”
Nora’s face is totally blank, like, blanker than Jordan’s when he clams up. She helps me unwrap my crappy (five Hail Marys) tube socks and ugly shirts and old-lady Isotoner gloves that I’ll never ever wear even if it’s a thousand degrees below zero out, but she’s not really here next to me.
Chapter Nine
The whole school is finally excited about Christa McAuliffe.
Today is the launch of the space shuttle Challenger, and the teachers aren’t going to be teaching, so we can all watch on TVs that they’ve wheeled into every single classroom. They’ve even opened all the doors between the classrooms so we can watch with whoever we like, too.
The only time they’ve ever canceled classes before was because of a blizzard, and I’ve never seen them open all the doors. This is the biggest deal in my school ever.
Jordan brought the new Walkman he got last month for Christmas into school today so we could share his headphones and listen in, just in case. Which turned out to be a great idea because everyone is running around and making so much racket Jordan and I can’t hear the TV. We sit in the back of the science classroom under the table with the hamster on it while Jordan searches the radio.
“Doesn’t Wilson ever get tired of making fart noises?” I ask Jordan as Wilson runs by with a hand in his armpit.
“It’s all he’s got,” he replies.
“And you know he won’t even wash that hand before he eats lunch.”
“No point.” Jordan grins. “He’s just going to stick his hand back in his armpit to make fart noises while he’s eating.”
I laugh because it’s gross and true.
Jordan suddenly looks down at his Walkman. “I found it,” he says, and slips off his earphones so he can pull out the metal extenders.
Even with the extenders all the way out, we still have to press ourselves together so we can fit the earphones over both our heads, but I don’t mind being this close to Jordan. He always smells like dryer sheets and Ivory soap, and his breath doesn’t smell like much of anything at all. Maybe a little like fruit punch, because that’s his favorite drink.
We listen to the broadcaster telling us about the astronauts and the training they went through and how hard they had to study and stuff. I can feel Jordan getting more and more excited.
“I want to be an astronaut,” he says quietly.
I turn a little bit toward him so I can see his eyes out of the corner of mine. “Jordan? Do you think that’s your destiny?”
He looks down and runs his thumb over the stenciling on his Walkman, like he’s embarrassed to say it out loud.
“I bet you’ll walk on Mars,” I whisper. His face lights up.
“Come with me,” he says. “We’ll walk on Mars together.”
I smile because I think I’d love to go to Mars with Jordan, but it makes me sad, too, because no matter how much fun that would be, I don’t think being an astronaut is my destiny.
Jordan can tell my smile isn’t a real smile, and he’s just about to make me tell him why when great clouds of smoke and water vapor start shooting out from under the space shuttle Challenger on TV.
“It’s starting,” Jordan says, and we both stand up.
Mr. Bennet cranks up the volume on the TV and we all crowd around it, doing the countdown with the flight coordinator at Cape Canaveral. Three, two, one … and, liftoff!
The whole school is cheering. Challenger shoots into the sky in a huge cloud of steam and fire and ice. I grow two feet probably, my heart is lifting me up so high. Jordan grabs my hand. I can feel every bit of him squeezing, like he needs to hold on to me so he doesn’t grow wings and fly away. Challenger rolls and climbs higher and higher.
And then
An orange flash and a white cloud are all that’s left. It’s gone. It’s just … gone.
“No,” I hear Jordan say.
The one big cloud of white breaks off into two separate trails. One of them is still burning. It feels like everything is going slow.
�
��No,” Jordan says again, even louder.
Mr. Bennet drops his head into his hands and starts crying. I’ve never seen a teacher cry before. I can’t even breathe.
I look at Jordan. He looks at me. I can’t imagine if Jordan turned into a puff of white smoke. Even thinking it is too hard. How can those people who were just smiling and waving and rising into the sky be dead?
“I don’t want you to be an astronaut,” I tell him. “Promise me you won’t.”
He’s still holding my hand because I won’t let him let go. After a while he nods. “Okay, Annie,” he says. “I promise.”
The rest of the day is not like school at all. Jordan and I sit under the hamster table and listen to the reports on his Walkman with our heads pressed together. Nobody has any answers. NASA is launching an investigation. It doesn’t matter how many times we listen to the same thing over and over. It still doesn’t seem real.
After a while, Jordan takes the headphones off us.
“Was that their destiny?” he asks me. I don’t like the look in his eyes. It’s mean. It reminds me of Fay.
“No,” I say. “No, that was an accident.”
“So their destiny was an accident?”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, because I’m really confused now.
“When those seven astronauts got on that shuttle, everyone thought it was their destiny,” he says. His eyes are narrow and he’s clenching his jaw. “So was it? Were they wrong, or was it their destiny to die?”
Now I’m angry, because he’s starting to sound like Nora and Fay and everyone else in my family who spends more time thinking about everything that’s broken rather than thinking about how to make anything better. I don’t want Jordan to be like my family.
“It was their destiny to try,” I say. I butt-scoot out from under the hamster table. When I get out, I turn around and look at Jordan, and even though we just spent months in a huge fight, this is the first time I’ve ever actually yelled at him. “It was their destiny to want to do something important with their lives. Just because it didn’t work doesn’t mean it didn’t mean anything.”
Snow Lane Page 9