“You miss her,” Pluto said.
“All the time,” her mom agreed. “But you remind me so much of her. In more ways than I can talk about right now, because it still hurts so much to talk about. But she would have been able to understand you, Plu. She’d have known what to do.”
Pluto wanted to ask what her mom meant. She wanted to ask her mom about the memory she had of Poppy telling her that her grandma used to have temper tantrums, too. But her mom wiped her cheek before the tear could spill all the way down, and it struck Pluto just how lonely she seemed.
Pluto could relate. “Thanks, Mom.” She didn’t know what, exactly, she was thanking her for. She just knew that she had the overwhelming urge to say it.
Her mom smiled, and reached over to open a drawer to pull out matches.
“It’s not my birthday anymore,” Pluto quickly interrupted. “And I made a wish yesterday. I don’t get another one.”
“Screw it,” her mom said. “My house, my cake, my rules. You deserve the wish, Pluto.”
Her mom started lighting the candles. Pluto noticed the slight shake in her hand, flame flickering and dancing with the movement.
She lit all fourteen and looked to Pluto.
Pluto kept her eyes on the cake, on the candles, on the flames, not wanting to see her mom’s face, not wanting to see the expression in her eyes.
Still, she could not make a wish. “Will you . . . ?”
“What?” her mom asked a little too quickly.
Pluto still did not look at her. “Will you blow them out with me?”
“Yes,” her mom said. “Yes. Ready?”
Pluto nodded.
“Three, two, one . . .”
Together, they blew out the candles. As the flames went out, Pluto couldn’t help wondering what her mom was wishing for, what her mom wanted more than anything, what her mom would think if she knew how terrified Pluto was of ever going to a planetarium again.
Criterion #2
A planet must have enough gravity to pull itself into the perfect spherical shape.
13
Sometimes, Pluto spent all of her tutoring sessions pretending she had been sucked through a wormhole, through time and space, and was getting actual lessons from Christa McAuliffe before the Challenger accident could happen. It made the sessions a little more bearable, to be lost in her head, to pretend.
The real Christa McAuliffe had been chosen to go on the Challenger to give school lessons from space. Pluto knew she’d been chosen because of her “infectious enthusiasm,” and while Pluto sat with her Mrs. McAuliffe, she found herself smiling more than usual. Her Mrs. McAuliffe had infectious enthusiasm, too, even when it came to something as mundane as math.
Pluto surprised both her mom and herself by eagerly getting ready that morning to head to tutoring.
“Can we do astronomy for my science section?” Pluto asked, in the middle of Mrs. McAuliffe’s showing her how to solve for both x and y.
Mrs. McAuliffe laughed. “I think you know enough about space, Plu.”
“What do you know about space?”
“I know enough.” She tapped on the science textbook that was placed aside on the stack for later. “I also know that your seventh-grade work is all about the environment right here on Earth.”
Pluto shrugged. “Earth’s a planet.”
Mrs. McAuliffe smiled, a big smile that seemed like it was just for Pluto. “I guess that is very, very true.”
After tutoring, Pluto didn’t even argue against going with her mom to the pizzeria for the afternoon, even though Donna was already there and working. It was a rare Jersey summer day where the humidity didn’t make breathing feel like death and the heat feel thicker than wool, which was a nice change.
Pluto was still feeling good from her morning session with Mrs. McAuliffe, and really, she hadn’t felt that good in a while. She wanted to feel the sunshine on her face. She wanted to try, finally, to enjoy the summer weather.
The college girls were dancing, Donna was in a seemingly good mood, since she didn’t ask them to stop, and Pluto’s mom even had a little bounce in her step as she made her way into the kitchen. Pluto didn’t feel much like dancing, but still she smiled as she sat at the counter, and didn’t argue when Donna asked her to “make yourself useful and wipe down the menus, they’re filthy.”
Pluto was about two-thirds of the way through the menus when Julie, one of the managers from Barb’s Burritos next door, came through the front door, the little bell jingling. “Anna! Glad I caught both you and Donna!” she said, making her way over and leaning against the counter next to Pluto. “Hey, Pluto, it’s been a while! You and your friends need to come by sometime. I’ll hook you up with some quesadillas.”
Pluto just smiled, and Donna hip-checked the cash register closed before saying, “What brings you by? Slow day next door?”
“You’re not stealing our customers, if that’s what you’re implying.” Julie winked at Pluto, which made Pluto’s cheeks warm. “Kelly sent out a group text, I wasn’t sure if you saw? They’re hosting a paint night again tomorrow night. You guys need to come, we had a blast last time.”
Donna wrapped an arm around Pluto’s mom. “Convince this one to go, and I’m in.”
Pluto saw as her mom glanced too quickly in her direction, saw her mom pretend she didn’t look over at Pluto at all before answering, “I really shouldn’t. But you guys have fun! Send me pictures!”
Donna and Julie exchanged a look. The mood in the pizzeria seemed to change, too. The radio was playing a slow song and the college girls were actually working quietly, clearing tables, the dancing replaced with quick steps and How can I help yous and Pluto could not get out of her head the look on her mom’s face as they blew out her birthday candles.
If her mom really was lonely, that was Pluto’s fault, too.
“You should go, Mom,” Pluto said. “I’m thirteen now. I can stay home alone for a couple of hours.”
Her mom’s headshake was small but quick. “I don’t know, Pluto.”
“Maybe she can have a friend over?” Donna suggested. “Safety in numbers. And they’ll both have cell phones. It’ll be good for you to have a night out, Anna. You live and breathe this place.”
No, Pluto thought. She lives and breathes me, like a space suit.
“You’ll just be here, Mom, on the boardwalk. I’m not a little kid anymore.” Her age wasn’t the issue, though. Pluto could see that, plain as day, by the concern written all over her mom’s face. “I can text . . .” She was about to say Meredith, because once, Meredith would make sense. They’d spent so much time at Pluto’s house or Meredith’s house together that it would have made the most sense.
It didn’t anymore, though, and Pluto took a second to think. Who made the most sense now?
“Fallon,” Pluto said. “I can go over to the funnel cake shop and ask Fallon and her parents if she can stay with me.”
“It’s settled then!” Julie said. “I’ll see you two for wine and painting tomorrow!”
Pluto’s mom still didn’t look all that sure.
Pluto’s mom still didn’t look all that sure after Fallon’s parents said yes, and Fallon was ringing their front doorbell and Pluto’s mom was opening it to invite her in. Fallon’s gaze took in their house, and Pluto, feeling scrutinized, felt the blush move up the back of her neck. It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t made her bed in weeks. There were dirty clothes scattered around her bedroom, along with half-empty glasses of water and medication bottles sprawled all over her desk.
Not to mention she had thirty-two paint chips on the wall in her room, and a doorframe without a door that she did not want to have to explain.
“Want to watch TV in the living room?” Pluto said, and Fallon nodded, following her to the couch, the safe space where she wouldn’t have to explain much of anything.
“You two sure you’ll be okay?” Pluto’s mom asked. She had s
traightened her hair and picked out one of her nicer tops and sandals, clothes that mostly lived in the back of her closet these days.
“You look nice, Mom,” Pluto said. “And we’ll be fine. Can you just go now?”
“Text me, Shooting Star. If you need anything.”
“Mom, go.”
“Okay! Okay,” her mom said, rolling her eyes. “I can’t help worrying, I’m your mom, get used to it, etcetera. Fallon, keep an eye on this one. I’m entrusting her to your hands!”
“Mom!”
“You got it, Ms. Timoney!” Fallon said, laughter in her voice.
It made Pluto smile, even if her cheeks were on fire.
But her mom finally left, and Pluto and Fallon were alone. “What do you want to watch?” Pluto asked. She wondered if she should suggest She-Ra, since Meredith seemed to really like it, and Pluto hadn’t really been watching much TV lately to know what else was good, or what Fallon might enjoy.
“Hey,” Fallon said. “Can I see your room?”
Pluto’s stomach sank, thinking about her broken door. “Um,” she said, but Fallon was already standing, and Pluto followed her out of the living room, even though Fallon didn’t know the way. It was easy to find Pluto’s room, though, since their home was only one floor and her bedroom didn’t have a door, so Fallon was able to look right in. Pluto braced herself for the inevitable questions.
But Fallon didn’t say anything about her lack of a door, or the paint chips on the wall. She didn’t look at the medication bottles on her desk. Instead, she walked right over to Pluto’s bookshelf, glancing at the spines and titles of all the astronomy books she had there. Pluto watched as one of Fallon’s long fingers went from book to book, and Pluto shivered, as if it were her own spine that Fallon had touched. “Did you read the book I lent you yet?” Fallon asked.
Pluto sighed, looking down at her toes. “Not yet. I want to!” she quickly added. “I really do. I’ve just . . . it’s been hard to focus. I haven’t really read much of anything lately, and . . .”
“It’s okay,” Fallon said. “I get it. You can keep it as long as you need to. But definitely let me know when you do.”
Pluto quickly nodded. “I will. I promise.”
It was a relief to hear Fallon didn’t mind. Pluto used to read a lot. She had read all of the astronomy books on her bookshelf and had checked even more out of the library. She’d read a bunch of her mom’s old Star Trek books, and she used to always be up to date on her school reading, too.
It was just harder lately. She couldn’t explain it.
Fallon pulled one of the nonfiction Star Trek books off Pluto’s shelf, the one that her mom loved that discussed all of the plausible science and physics they used in the show. Pluto watched Fallon as she opened the book. She had an eyelash on her cheek, and Pluto’s fingers itched to reach out and sweep it away.
The thought of touching Fallon’s face made Pluto’s stomach flutter, a much different feeling than the anxiety she was used to. The flutter kept her from saying anything at all, and the eyelash stayed where it was.
Fallon’s eyelashes were long and dark and they fanned over her ice-blue eyes. “Neptune,” Pluto said, before she could stop herself.
“What?” Fallon asked.
Pluto, who was already sweating, felt her cheeks grow warmer. “Your eyes. The color. It’s like Neptune, on the bright sides away from its dark spot. Neptune is blue because of methane gas.” Pluto realized she was rambling. “Sorry.”
“What color is Pluto?” Fallon asked.
“Mostly light brown,” Pluto said. “Which is a lot more boring.”
“Your eyes are kind of gray.”
Pluto smiled. “Like Mercury.”
Fallon laughed, and it made the flutters in Pluto’s stomach bigger. “Can I borrow this?” she asked, holding the book up.
Pluto nodded.
They sat in Pluto’s room, Fallon flipping through the Star Trek book while Pluto played one of her astronomy podcasts. They weren’t really talking to each other, but it didn’t seem to matter. Not in the way it started to matter that last month of school, when Pluto didn’t know what to say to Meredith, and Meredith couldn’t understand why. This felt . . . normal. Like it used to when she and Meredith would play a video game, and they wouldn’t even need to talk, both lost in their own worlds and the game play, because that was the kind of friends they used to be.
Her mom texted to check in, because of course she did, and the buzz of Pluto’s cell phone was a jarring disruption. Pluto quickly sent a text back, because if she didn’t, she knew her mom would probably rush home. After she’d sent the police and the fire department and maybe even Pluto’s therapist and her dad, just for safety.
“My mom worries a lot about me,” Pluto said. “She used to not worry so much. She used to let me run around the boardwalk with my friends, and I’ve even stayed at Meredith’s without parents, just Meredith’s older cousin there with us. But I’m . . . different now. So she’s different, too, I guess.”
“I’m sorry,” Fallon said.
“I made her think I liked the planetarium so that I could cross something off my list. I made her think it was okay.” Pluto sighed. “It wasn’t okay. I think she’d be upset if I told her that, though.”
“Hey, Pluto?”
“Yeah?”
Fallon grew quiet again for a minute, chewing on her bottom lip, her fingers playing with the corner of the book in her hands. “You think we could do something on my list today?”
That actually took Pluto by surprise, and she flushed with embarrassment instead of whatever was warming her cheeks before. She’d forgotten about Fallon’s list. “Oh. Okay, yeah. Well, what did you want to do?”
Fallon pulled out her list from her pocket, and it was just as wrinkled and worn as Pluto’s. She pointed to the first item on it. “I want to start at the top,” she said.
Pluto frowned. “Did you tell your mom you wanted to get your hair cut?”
“My mom won’t let me cut it short, so we have to do it.”
That was not what Pluto wanted to hear. “Wait, wait, wait. We can’t just go to the hair salon ourselves. What about your dad? Or your oldest brother maybe?”
Fallon shook her head, eyes narrowing, her hands tightening on the list. “No. No. It has to just be us, Pluto. My mom . . . ever since we moved, she’s so busy with funnel cakes and Grant’s wedding, and my other brothers are just constantly everywhere getting to just . . . be them and I need to do something that’s me. When Tommy was three he cut our neighbor’s hair. He did it so bad, her mom had no choice but to get it cut short for real.”
Pluto, eyes wide, started shaking her head. “Your brother was three! He didn’t know better. I’m thirteen! I do! We do!”
Fallon’s nose turned red, and Pluto really hoped she wouldn’t start crying. “I need to do this,” Fallon said, her voice soft.
“I know, but . . .”
“Please. Please. Help me do this. You said you’d help me with my list.”
Fallon’s face was open and begging and eager.
It reminded Pluto of her mom.
And just like she couldn’t let her mom know how much she panicked during the planetarium show, she couldn’t let Fallon down, either.
“Okay. I’ll do it.”
Pluto found scissors in one of the kitchen drawers. They were big and clunky, and kind of rusted at the edges. Pluto felt a little light-headed holding them.
Fallon took a seat at the kitchen table, reaching for the dish towel to drape around her shoulders as a makeshift smock. It made things look a little too real for Pluto, who wasn’t really convinced this was a good idea.
She reached for Fallon’s hair, soft and thick and curly in her hand. “Fallon, I don’t know if I can do this. Your mom’s going to be so mad. At me.”
“She’ll get over it,” Fallon said. “She needs to get over it.”
“What if she
doesn’t?” Pluto asked. “What if she doesn’t let us hang out anymore?”
“I’ll still hang with you anyway,” Fallon said, as if it was the easiest thing imaginable.
But it wasn’t, not to Pluto, who had a hard time talking to, let alone hanging out with, all of her old friends. Who’d barely spoken with her best friend for months. Who’d barely wanted to go anywhere, be with anyone, except her mom. Except for Fallon. She didn’t know what she would do if she lost that.
She didn’t know how to tell Fallon she needed her, either.
Her fingers grazed Fallon’s neck, and when Fallon shivered from the touch, so did Pluto. Pluto swallowed, but didn’t move her hand, as she carefully made the first cut. Long brunette strands fell gracefully, twirling down to the floor.
At the same time, the front door opened.
“Hey, you two! How was your evening? What are you—” Her mom’s words got caught in her throat as she took in the sight of the two of them, both looking back at her with wide eyes, like deer in headlights. “What? Why?” The last question was shrill and loud in the small space.
“I asked her to!” Fallon said, as Pluto’s mom dropped the painting she’d made during her evening out to grab for the scissors still in Pluto’s hands. She yanked them from Pluto so roughly, it hurt. “I wanted her to,” Fallon added.
“You don’t just . . . you’re thirteen, not five, Pluto!” her mom yelled. Pluto couldn’t remember the last time her mom had scolded her like this. In a way that felt so . . . normal. Her mom still had the scissors gripped tightly in her hands, and she ran her hand through Fallon’s hair, or at least what was left of it. “Okay. Okay,” her mom said, rubbing her eyebrows. “Okay, Fallon, I need to take you home. I need to—Jesus, what were you two thinking! We trusted you, I trusted you, on your own!”
How to Become a Planet Page 8