The Goodbye Time

by Celeste Conway

  Chapter Four

  My dad got home, and he and my mom stayed in the kitchen having a glass of wine while the chicken cooked. He wasn’t surprised to see Katy there when my mom called us in for dinner.

  “Hey, Katydid!” he said to her, as always. I think he really likes her a lot. He kissed us both and we sat down at the table. Then right away he asked us how things had gone at school and if we’d learned anything useful. Katy started telling him about photosynthesis and he acted really interested, as if he’d never heard about it before.

  My brother’s girlfriend, Anka, had come by and was staying for dinner too. It was quite a crowd at the dining room table for my mom’s lemon chicken, roast potatoes and zucchini ribbons, as she calls them. My parents like to feed Anka because she looks as though she never eats. Once I heard my mom say to my father that Anka looked anorexic—that word for people who won’t eat because they think they’re fat, even though they’re so skinny you can see their bones right through their clothes.

  Katy and I always stare at Anka because she’s so beautiful. You know what Anka looks like? She looks like Johnny, only in girl form. She has the same wild curly hair, though hers is a lot longer than Johnny’s, and she has a pierced eyebrow just like Johnny’s and a diamond stud in her nose, though, thank goodness, not in her tongue. I don’t think my mom could handle that. I don’t even think Tom could handle that. She wears black leather too, like Johnny, and this long necklace with a bunch of little skulls hanging from it. The funny thing about Anka is that even though she looks scary and a lot like Johnny, she’s really really sweet. She’s so polite and nice to everybody, and she has the gentlest voice you’ve ever heard, like she ought to be singing a lullaby. Also, she’s a genius. She and my dad and Tom are always talking about history together. She knows a lot of stuff about the Civil War and the French Revolution and subjects like that.

  Anyway, by dinnertime Katy and I were ready to start playing again. We’d worked out the story details before we went into the dining room, which looks a little English, in fact, with the good china dishes and the candles my parents can’t live without. The story was this: Johnny had been into such shenanigans and was having so many rows at high school that Aunt Mimi had arranged for them to have dinner at the Anglican minister’s house with him and his wife. Anka was a visiting wayward girl from America, and Tom, well, he was just Uncle George again.

  You’re probably wondering how Katy and I could do this, how we could be sitting there eating chicken and pan-roasted potatoes and talking (occasionally) to my parents and my brother and Anka and at the same time be Aunt Mimi and Johnny at the minister’s house. But we were good at it. We’d been playing for close to two years in all sorts of unlikely places, such as at lunch in school and even at birthday parties with our friends. What we did was we dropped the English accents and just didn’t say too much. We let the others do the talking, and somehow it all worked.

  For example, when my dad and Tom started yakking about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, we just pretended it was the minister and Uncle George talking. And when my mom asked if we’d like more of her famous zucchini ribbons, we pretended she was the minister’s wife, Mabel, offering us more vegetables. The only part that didn’t make sense was how the wayward girl was so smart about history and knew about something called the Pottawatomie Massacre.

  My dad, by the way, is a history professor at Columbia University. He just loves talking to “young people” about things that happened hundreds of years ago, before anyone was born. He and Tom and Anka talked so much at dinner about the past that Katy and I usually ended up feeling a lot less weird about what we did. I mean, what they talked about wasn’t really real either, was it? Not anymore, at least.

  Anyway, we played through the whole dinner, despite the brainy conversation. My mom served tiramisu for dessert. Katy hadn’t even known what that was before eating it at our house, and now it’s her favorite. My dad calls her, in addition to Katydid, Tiramisu Kate.

  Afterward, Tom and Anka hung out and helped my mom clean up. Tom was just showing off, pretending he did that all the time; Katy and I sure weren’t the only ones play-acting around here. Meanwhile, Katy and I went back to my room to continue playing for a while before her mom came to pick her up.

  “I hope the minister put some sense into your head,” I said in my Aunt Mimi voice.

  “Sod all,” said Johnny disgustedly, “he’s an old windbag.”

  “Don’t be disrespectful, lad. Not about a minister.”

  “Bosh,” said Johnny.

  “Do you have homework, young man?” I asked.

  “Just some math,” he answered.

  “Get to it, then,” I snapped at him. So then we got out our math books and sat on my bed doing the homework for Mrs. Phillips’s class.

  “I hate math,” Johnny complained. “And what good does it do me anyway? I’m a rock ’n’ roll star, not a guy in a bank.”

  “Pipe down. You won’t be making a pound twanging on that guitar of yours.” Then we both chuckled, remembering how in real life Johnny is a millionaire and drives a fancy car called a Lotus, which they don’t even make in America.

  Playing sure made homework go better. It wasn’t as boring as just doing your homework all alone in your room. Also, I’m a lot better at math—and every other subject, to tell you the truth—than Katy is, so I could be Aunt Mimi helping Johnny and actually be helping Katy without her feeling weird.

  We finished the math problems, and Katy started packing up her stuff so she’d be ready when her mom showed up. Mrs. Paoli never hung out to have a glass of wine or anything, even though my parents always invited her to. She got mad if Katy kept her waiting, because she was always tired and in a hurry to get home to relieve Bug Eye from babysitting Sam.

  In the meantime, Tom and Anka passed my room laughing and went into Tom’s room, which is right next door to mine. Through the wall we heard Anka’s laughs suddenly get all smothered, and Katy said that was because Tom was kissing her.

  “Right on the mouth,” she added. “Because otherwise you’d still hear her laughing.”

  “Yuck,” I said. Thinking about kissing Johnny on a foggy night in England was a lot different from thinking about my geeky brain brother kissing his gorgeous girlfriend right in the next room.

  “Do you think they do more than kiss?” Katy asked me next. “I mean, they’re in that room all by themselves. I’m surprised your mom lets them.”

  “Tom’s going to college in a couple of months. He’ll be able to do whatever he wants. Maybe it’s like practice, leaving him alone.”

  “Would they do stuff here? With everyone home?”

  “I don’t know. Don’t ask me that.”

  “I bet they do in the afternoons. Before your mom and dad get home.”

  “Stop it. I mean it. You’re making me sick.”

  “Why?” she said in this strange soft voice. “Your brother’s not disgusting. He’s actually sort of cute.”

  “What the heck are you talking about?” And I grabbed a pillow—the little one with BLESS THIS MESS embroidered across the front of it—and threw it at her head.

  “Ouch,” she said, not ducking. She was listening hard, trying to hear what was going on behind the wall. It was really weird, and I actually kind of felt relieved when my mom came in to tell us that Mrs. Paoli was there.

  As usual, Mrs. Paoli was all ready to leave the minute we came out to the living room.

  “Hi, Anna,” she said to me in her low, exhausted-sounding voice.

  After Katy was gone I took my time getting ready for bed. Even though I sometimes wished she could live with us, it’s also kind of nice being alone at the end of the day. I knew I was lucky that I didn’t have to sleep in a room with a mean older sister and a zillion fairy dolls or listen to my brain-damaged brother having a fit or banging his head on the floor.

  I got into my comfiest pajamas, with the pink and red cats on them, and climbed into bed with my book and
a pile of old stuffed animals. I don’t play with my animals, of course; I just lean on them as if they’re pillows, and sometimes I like to smell their fur.

  On the other side of the wall, well, yeah, I did hear Tom and Anka.

  They must have been playing a video game, because now and then there were beeping sounds and one of them hollered, “Yes!” Then sometimes I didn’t hear anything and I knew, of course, that Katy was right; that they were kissing and whatever. To tell you the truth, it doesn’t really gross me out even though I say it does. And I really don’t think my brother is yuck. I actually think he’s cool. I’m not saying I enjoy thinking about him kissing Anka. Sometimes, though, I do like to think of Anka. I like to imagine how it must feel to be inside her body and get kissed by a boy who likes her a lot, as I know for a fact my brother does.

  Chapter Five

  Usually Katy and I spent practically the whole weekend together. But the weekend after that dinner, I saw her just on Sunday. That was because all day Saturday my parents were getting ready for their annual Shakespeare party and they needed me to help. This is a big, weird event they do with their friends where everybody brings food and wine and takes turns reading a scene from a Shakespeare play or reciting a poem or something. It’s pretty goofy, and I was glad I had Katy there so I could hang out in my room and not have to listen to them, or worse, be forced to read a sonnet.

  At first Katy was kind of curious and wanted to hide and secretly watch my parents’ friends drink wine and recite stuff. You can be sure Mrs. Paoli never threw a Shakespeare party. Or probably any kind of party, what with Sam running around screaming or ripping his clothes off like he sometimes did. But even Katy got bored after a while. The good part was that there was a lot of fancy party food around, which we could take into the parlor and eat while we played.

  The story that day was that I was Clarissa (I played both Aunt Mimi and her) and Johnny and I were at my house, where my dad, who we called the Guv’nor, was having a party with all his old friends from the War. Katy and I weren’t sure what war Clarissa’s dad had been in, but there was always a war going on, so we figured there was probably one going on when he was young too.

  “When is your dad going to finally accept me?” Johnny asked, to get the game rolling.

  Clarissa sighed. “When you cut your hair and stop strumming a guitar, I guess.”

  “I’ll never give up me music.”

  “Oh, Johnny, I don’t want you to! Forget about Dad. Someday I know you’ll hit it big, and then we can run away.”

  “D’ya really believe it?”

  “Yes. You’ll be rich and famous and we’ll live in a house in St. John’s Wood and drive around in your Lotus.”

  “And I’ll marry you too.”

  “I’ll be Mrs. Johnny Clark.”

  “And then you’ll have my baby.” I looked down at my shoes, suddenly all shy. “Ya will, won’t you?” Johnny persisted. I don’t know why, but it always came back to babies when we were playing these days.

  “My dad would kill me if you ever gave me a baby,” I whispered.

  “I’d never hurt you, luv,” said Johnny, and I guess he meant what you do to make a baby, which we both thought could hurt somewhat, based on what we’d read.

  And I said, “When you talk like that, Johnny, I don’t know how long I can wait.” Footsteps clattered in the hall and I whispered, “The Guv’nor,” and we shut up and pretended to be doing homework, like Johnny and Clarissa would. But in real life it was my dad, who’d come to say that the singing was about to begin and would we like to join them.

  Of course we didn’t really want to, but my dad was all excited—his cheeks were even rosy—so we told him we’d be right there.

  “What are they singing?” Katy asked in her regular voice.

  But I answered like Clarissa: “Some old songs from the War. Poor blokes.”

  What they actually sing are some goofy songs Shakespeare wrote a few centuries ago. One of my dad’s friends, who’s also a history professor, plays the mandolin, which is like a guitar, only rounder, and everyone gathers around singing in their not-so-good voices. They all hold photocopies of the words in their hands.

  Katy and I sat as far away as possible on a couch. I told her that Professor Willings, who was playing the mandolin, had his leg shot off in the War and that his right leg was made entirely of wood.

  “Poor bugger,” said Johnny.

  And while all my parents’ friends sang “With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonny-no,” we pretended they were singing about grenades and trenches and bursting bombs. In the back of my mind I kept wishing we were old enough to go to the movies without a grown-up. That was where Tom and Anka had escaped to. I’d asked him if Katy and I could come, but he’d said No Way on Earth.

  They probably kissed in the movies too, like those people you see who think you don’t see them just because it’s dark.

  Chapter Six

  On Monday Katy and I met at our usual place in the schoolyard. She seemed kind of tired, and then I noticed that her hair was a mess, and it almost looked like she’d forgotten to wash her face. If that happened to me, let me tell you, my mom would be sure to point it out before I got to school.

  “What’s wrong?” I said, a little worried.

  She answered in her Johnny voice, “Me nephew went off his trolley last night.” I knew right away that she really meant her brother, Sam. “Started flailing round and busting things, and then he knocked Aunt Mimi down.”

  “Blimey. Is the old girl all right?”

  “The neighbors came and someone called an ambulance. She needed stitches, a bunch of them right over her eye.”

  “Lawd.”

  “And the daft little bugger. He broke ’is wrist.”

  “Sam has a broken wrist?”

  “Me nephew’s name is Jeremy.” I looked at her more closely and noticed how red her eyes were. I wondered if she’d slept at all.

  “Come on, Johnny. Let’s fix your hair.”

  In the bathroom I got her to wash her face. Then I took out my super knot-busting bionic hairbrush that my mom had recently bought for me. She stood there while I raked her hair and then braided it: I let her use my cherry-flavored lip gloss too, and by the time we were done, she looked pretty good. Not a minute too soon either, because right about then, Kendra and her little clique barged into the bathroom.

  “Big news,” said Kendra importantly, and before Katy or I could ask “What?” she told us in a breathy voice: “Michael’s back. He’s going to be in class today.” Katy was still sort of out of it, and it took me a few seconds to realize what she meant.

  “He’s back from New Jersey? How do you know?” I asked her.

  “My mom is, like, his mom’s best friend. Like, her only friend when his dad was sick. Anyway, on Saturday our moms met up in Fairway and Mrs. Trefaro—Angela—told my mom what was going on.”

  “So we got the idea to give him a card,” piped up Nancy Palmer. “A card from the class to welcome him back.”

  “Whoooo got the idea?” said Kendra.

  “We all did,” said Nancy.

  “But who, like, actually purchased it?”

  “We’re going to pay you,” Nancy whined. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a giant card. It had a picture of a big calm ocean on it, and above the ocean were some glowing clouds with golden rays streaming out of them. “Everyone has to sign it,” she said, “and we’ll give it to him when he comes in the room.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, and got out a pen so Katy and I could squeeze our names in under all the other messages. Everyone had written “I’m sorry” or “So sorry,” and it was hard to think of something original. I ended up just writing, “Welcome home. We missed you. Anna.”

  Then it was Kendra’s turn to reach into her big pink backpack. She yanked out two notecards and passed them to Katy and me.

  “That’s an invitation to the welcome-back party I’m throwing for him. It’s going to be on Saturda
y, and my mom’s sister from Paris—the one who bought me my dress—is making crepes.”

  “That’s pancakes, right?” said Katy.

  “French pancakes,” Kendra replied, and everyone looked at Katy and me like we’d grown up on a potato farm or something.

  “Do boys eat crepes?” somebody asked—Jenny Mortimer, I think—and I giggled because it seemed funny. Or maybe I was just feeling strange—laughing in the dark, my dad calls it—thinking about Michael being back and how weird and sad it must be to have your father be dead.

  Everything happened the way Kendra had planned it. The girls went to homeroom a little early with our teacher, Mrs. Baumgarten, and then when the boys came in, Michael was with them, which he hadn’t been for a month or so. We all clapped when we saw Michael, which seemed a little strange since he hadn’t done anything but walk through the door. Then Queen Kendra yanked the card out of Nancy’s hand and presented it to him. He looked at the picture on the front, then opened it and read all the “I’m sorry’s” and signatures.

  He seemed a little embarrassed, as I guess anyone would be with everyone staring at him like that and giving him a big tearjerker ocean card. He kept looking down at the card and I found myself noticing again how long and dark his eyelashes were. My grandmother would say eyelashes like that were wasted on a boy. As if boys weren’t allowed to have pretty eyes.