Fallon wasn’t just a good find, Pluto thought. She was an astronomical one.
“John, put something more fun on the speakers for the girls,” Sarah said, as another instrumental piece began to play.
Her dad’s expression was dramatically comical, his mouth dropping and his eyes opening wide. “Excuse me! This is a great song!” He turned the volume up, sounds of piano bouncing around the room. “The composer is a local Jersey guy. Your mom swears she’s served him pizza, but I think she’s full of it.”
“If he’s local, he’s had our pizza,” Pluto said. “Everyone eats our pizza.”
“You can’t dance to this,” Sarah complained. “What fun is pizza if we can’t have a dance party to go with it?”
Her dad scoffed, holding out a hand for Pluto. “Let’s show her we can dance to this, Pluto Jean. Come here.”
She hesitated, but then took his hand. He pulled her up off the couch and put one of her hands on his shoulder, then held the other tight. His other hand went to her waist and they began swaying. “See? We’re dancing,” he said.
Sarah laughed. “Yeah, well, I guess you are.” She turned to Fallon. “May I have this dance?”
Fallon blushed and nodded.
The four of them slow danced around the living room, around the coffee table, doing their best not to bump into the TV. Pluto’s dad spun her. “There you go, Pluto Jean,” he said. “Let the emotions of the song fill you all the way up and move to it.”
Pluto’s eyebrows knit together. “What emotions? It’s just music. There’s no words.”
“Listen to the music,” he said. “It’s all there. There’s a lot of love in this song. He wrote it for his husband, and you don’t need words for that. Think about how it makes you feel.”
Pluto didn’t like thinking about how things made her feel.
Still, she listened to the music, to the feel of her dad’s arms, so much bigger and different than her mom’s, even so much different than she remembered. She couldn’t recall the last time he’d held her, but she also couldn’t remember the last time she was held tight by her mom without one of them needing consoling, without it being something heavier and not nearly as simple as a dance.
Pluto started wondering what the limitations would be of music in space. She would have to call the Hayden Planetarium Astronomy Question and Answer Hotline and ask. Could this musician from Jersey play his piano in zero gravity? Would the song sound the same? Or would it be muted and dim like a weak constellation?
“Let me cut in,” Sarah suddenly said, and Pluto’s dad spun her to Fallon as he took Sarah into his arms.
Pluto watched them dance, simple and fun, Sarah’s soft laugh filling the room alongside the music.
Fallon put her hand on Pluto’s waist, and Pluto jumped. “Sorry!” Fallon said. “I just . . . can we dance?”
Pluto nodded and took Fallon’s hand. Fallon wasn’t much taller than Pluto, and it was easier, it felt less awkward and more right, to place her hand on Fallon’s shoulder than her dad’s.
The flutters in Pluto’s stomach felt nice.
They danced around the living room, and when the song came to an end, they kept going as the next song began. They danced, and danced, and danced, the car horns and life of the city drowned out by the music and their laughter.
That night, Pluto did not miss the stars. She didn’t even remember they weren’t visible.
Her mom came the next morning before lunchtime. Pluto had already taken a shower and her medication. She was sitting on the floor with Fallon and her dad around the coffee table, absorbed in a beginner’s D&D campaign they had started (slowly, since there was a lot to do and learn and create and understand first) last night.
“Didn’t expect you so early,” Pluto’s dad said as he answered the door. “We’re in the middle of a campaign.”
“I told you I didn’t want to get stuck in traffic,” her mom said, and looked past him toward Pluto. “And, selfishly, I really missed my Shooting Star.”
Pluto’s disappointment shocked her. The feeling in her chest that squeezed at the thought of leaving felt . . . wrong. But it was there, and it was real, and Pluto—who hadn’t wanted to come in the first place—didn’t want to leave now that it was time.
Sarah took out her hand sanitizer and rubbed her hands. “Hi,” she said, standing and extending a bacteria-free hand toward Pluto’s mom. “I’m Sarah.”
Her mom hesitated for a brief moment. “Oh! Hi,” she said, shaking Sarah’s hand. “I’m Anna, Pluto’s mom. It’s great to finally meet you.”
“You want to stay for lunch before you go?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, thanks, that’s sweet, but we really should go.” Her mom gestured at Pluto. “Plu, you and Fallon get your stuff packed so I can talk to your dad for a minute.”
Pluto’s dad rolled his eyes dramatically. “As you can see, she’s in one piece, Anna. She was fine. She did good. We did great, actually, no issues or anything at all.”
Were they really going to do this now? Here? In front of Fallon and Sarah?
“I see that, but—”
“Just, think about what I said, okay?” her dad interrupted. “Sarah’s got pictures of the kid out in the middle of Central Park. She likes it here. It’s good for her here.”
Her mom’s shoulders were squared for battle. “Can you just help me get all their stuff? I’m double parked again.”
“Fine, Anna,” Pluto’s dad said, crossing the room to his office. Pluto’s mom told her to “just . . . stay here” as she followed Pluto’s dad. She closed the office door behind her, and Pluto knew they were going to argue, knew that the good feelings she’d had all day yesterday, all morning, were going to go away.
Fallon rolled the dice around in her hands, and Sarah pretended she wasn’t listening, and Pluto stood in the center of her dad’s apartment, waiting for her parents to stop fighting, wishing she could just go back to bed.
That night, back home, Pluto counted the thirty-two chips in the gray paint on her wall, over and over and over. Thirty-two paint chips. Thirty-two stars pulled down. Pluto hated those paint chips. She hated her walls. She wondered if her dad would let her paint the ones in his office if they decided she would go stay with him.
Pluto turned to face the threshold of her bedroom, where her door used to be before her mom knocked it down, knocking Pluto’s world upside down with it. Her mom was in her own room, and Pluto’s list was in her hamper in the pocket of her jeans.
If she went outside, right now, she’d be able to see the city across the bay from the boardwalk. If she looked out her window, right here, she’d see stars.
Her mom hugged her tighter than usual when they got home from her dad’s, and it made Pluto feel guilty. The entire car ride home she was thinking about how, after fighting it all summer, living in the city with her dad might not actually be all that bad.
17
Mrs. McAuliffe was going over social studies with Pluto, which made Pluto smile, because Christa McAuliffe had taught social studies, and her Mrs. McAuliffe was really good at teaching it, too. She started singing a song called “King Tut” and Pluto laughed, and Mrs. McAuliffe looked at her like she was the best student in the world. Pluto liked that, too.
“You seem extra happy today,” Mrs. McAuliffe noted.
“I had a really good weekend at my dad’s,” Pluto said.
“Hmm,” said Mrs. McAuliffe. “That’s interesting. You didn’t seem too happy about having to go last week.”
“It was unexpected,” Pluto agreed. “But Fallon came, and my dad’s girlfriend has OCD, and the city was really busy and noisy, and I was busy and noisy there, too, and I felt like me. Like the old me.”
Mrs. McAuliffe smiled. “I’m really glad to hear that. Sometimes it takes time for medications to work, and sometimes you just need to wait for that light at the end of a long, long, sad tunnel.”
The word made Pluto think of the Lincoln Tunnel
, and made her think of the city. She smiled even bigger. “I thought I would feel worse in the city, but I didn’t. I felt better.”
Mrs. McAuliffe frowned a bit, which made Pluto frown a bit, because what had she said that made the smile go away?
Little bumps on the front door, followed by the sound of the doorknob opening, signaled Sunny’s arrival home. She stumbled in with her arms full of grocery bags. “Oh! Hello, Pluto!” Her voice was muffled behind all the bags.
“Wait, Sunny, jeez. Let me help you.” Mrs. McAuliffe was up off the couch quickly, and she hurried over to take some bags from Sunny, who laughed when her face was finally free. Mrs. McAuliffe laughed, too, and they seemed to share a little private moment, even though Pluto laughed a little with them. They reminded Pluto of her and Fallon, and she liked that. She hoped she could have such a good friend when she was their age. She really hoped it would still be Fallon—or maybe even she and Meredith could be friends again someday.
And then Pluto watched as they kissed.
Right on the lips.
Oh.
“What was that, Plu?” Mrs. McAuliffe asked.
Pluto didn’t realize she said anything out loud, but she did realize she was still staring. “Nothing!” she said, but her voice was high, a little too high. The real Christa McAuliffe, from the Challenger, had a husband and two kids.
This Mrs. McAuliffe didn’t have a husband. Which meant . . . she had a wife.
And this Mrs. McAuliffe and Sunny still reminded Pluto of her and Fallon.
“Plu, come on, we gotta get a move on.”
It was early, and Pluto wanted to keep sleeping, wanted to be left alone.
“Did you take your meds? Come on, Plu, seriously, we have to open up shop,” her mom said from where she stood in Pluto’s doorway, putting on her earrings. “Donna can’t be there this morning, I already told you this. We gotta go.”
Get a move on. Come on, Plu. We gotta go. Move, move, move.
Pluto sank into her bed just as her mom flipped her bedroom light on. Pluto pulled at her comforter, trying to block out the sudden brightness.
“I’m not messing around. We need to go.”
We need to go. Get a move on. Get. A. Move. On.
“Pluto!”
“Leave me alone!” Pluto screamed at the top of her lungs. “Go away and leave me alone!”
Her mom stared at her from the doorway, jaw dropped, until she pulled herself together. “Don’t yell at me. You have to get out of bed.”
Pluto sat up, reached for her pillow, and threw it at the doorway, at the space where there would normally be a door (a door she would slam if she had one), at the space where her mom was still standing. Her mom ducked out of the way, shocked. “I don’t want to get out of bed!” Pluto yelled. “I’m not getting out of bed! What was the point of hiring Donna if you still need to make me do things I don’t want to do!”
“Hey!” her mom yelled back, crossing to Pluto’s bed. “Knock it off.” She reached for Pluto’s arm, but Pluto started kicking her. “Pluto, stop!”
“Get off me!” Pluto yelled, kicking, as tears spilled down her cheeks and her chest grew tight and her head started pounding. “I want to be left alone! Dad would leave me alone!”
“Yeah, no kidding! Your dad’s left you alone for thirteen years!”
It was a low blow, and her mom cringed as the words left her mouth. She knew it was a low blow, too. Pluto pushed at her. “He doesn’t make things worse. You make things worse.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“You suck at it!” Pluto backed away from her mom, pressing herself against the wall where the stars used to be. “I lied to you on my birthday, I hated the planetarium, I hated every second of it and I hate being dragged to the pizzeria, and I hate every second of being here right now with you!”
Her mom took a step away from the bed, her hands raised weakly, as if in surrender. Tears streamed down her face, her eyes wide, gray irises like storm clouds. “I don’t know what to do,” her mom said, voice cracking. “I’m trying . . . I can’t . . . I don’t know what to do.”
Pluto pulled her knees into her chest, trying to take deep breaths and failing. “I want to live with Dad,” she said.
Her mom looked as though she was the one having trouble breathing. “You . . . what?” she practically whispered.
Pluto couldn’t say it a second time.
“But . . . your list,” her mom said, cheeks wet, shaking her head.
Pluto had failed at almost everything on her list. She was tired of trying. She was tired of her mom’s desperate, eager eyes. She was tired of all of it. “Get out of my room,” she yelled. “I want you out of my room. I want a door again so you stay out of my room!”
“Okay!” her mom yelled, and then took a deep breath to control her voice. “Okay,” she said much softer.
Her mom didn’t immediately go. She stood there, in the empty doorway, tearstained and pale, and when she did turn to leave, when Pluto was finally alone, Pluto did not feel any better.
She buried herself in her comforter, closing her eyes and finding the darkness, shutting everything out to go back to sleep.
18
Pluto still didn’t want to get out of bed the next morning, but not because her body protested. She was mad, it was pushing at her chest, and she didn’t know how to face her mom. When she finally did leave her room, there was a bowl waiting for her at her seat at the table, the cereal box beside it. Pluto could hear that her mom was already in the bathroom they shared, getting ready for the day.
Pluto didn’t want to go into the bathroom; she didn’t want to look into the mirror at her mom’s reflection, too afraid of what she might see in her eyes. So she took a seat, poured herself some cereal, and focused on the newspaper left on the table.
It was open to an article about the Perseid meteor shower. Which made Pluto mad, because her mom clearly did that on purpose, clearly tried to extend an olive branch that wasn’t really an olive branch, that felt more like another ambush.
The Perseid meteor shower could be seen from the beaches in Monmouth County every year in August. It was tradition, just like going to the planetarium on Pluto’s birthday, for her and her mom to watch the shooting stars together. Her mom must have wanted to keep tradition, must have wanted Pluto to want to try.
Pluto felt her chest grow tight, her jaw clench, and she threw the newspaper across the room, pages scattering to the floor. She didn’t want to try. She was tired of trying, even more tired of failing. She’d failed at the planetarium, she’d failed at the therapist, she’d failed at being Meredith’s friend.
She’d failed at everything here.
She suddenly felt like she was being watched, and she turned around to find her mom standing in the threshold to the kitchen, staring at her with wide, teary eyes. But then her mom blinked, and the tears went away, and her jaw was set as she said, “Go get changed. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”
It was a long ride to the restaurant, even though it was right around the corner, and by the time they got there, Pluto couldn’t handle it anymore. She didn’t want to be near her mom, to feel her eyes on her, to wonder what on earth she could be thinking. “I don’t want to be at the stupid restaurant.”
“Tough,” her mom said.
“I said I don’t want to—”
“I heard you, Pluto,” her mom snapped.
Pluto yanked her seat belt off and shoved open the door. “Then I’m going to go see Fallon.”
“Fine,” her mom called after her. “And work on that attitude while you’re gone.”
The summer was half over, but Pluto realized as she headed toward Fallon’s that she hadn’t gone down the boardwalk toward the amusement park at all this year. Usually—like last year—Pluto would have ridden the roller coasters and the go-karts and begged her mom for dollars so that she and Meredith could try to win prizes from the games a million times b
y now. It was where she and Meredith challenged each other at Skee-Ball last year. Where they spent the entire summer they turned ten saving up tickets (and stealing all the unclaimed tickets from the game machines) for the popcorn machine that everyone wanted to save enough tickets for. Where Jeremy Ng kissed Meredith, and after, where she and Pluto hid behind the claw machines to gossip about what his mouth felt like.
Thinking about all that just made Pluto feel even angrier, and she bit hard into the side of her cheek.
“Pluto!”
She turned at the sound of Fallon’s voice, and Fallon’s smile pulled Pluto’s mind from memories of the past her to something much better.
“What’re you doing here?” Fallon asked. She had powdered sugar on her hands and cheek.
Pluto stepped forward to wipe the powder off Fallon’s face. Fallon’s cheeks turned pink under Pluto’s fingers. “Can I hang in your store today?”
“I was hoping to spend my break at yours,” Fallon said. “My brothers are driving me up a wall.”
Pluto sighed. “I don’t want to be anywhere near my mom.”
Fallon’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Why?”
“We’re fighting. I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” It came out harsher than she meant it, but Pluto couldn’t bring herself to apologize. Her chest still felt too tight.
Fallon slowly nodded. “Okay. I guess you can come help me make zeppoles?”
Fallon’s dad did not want Pluto anywhere near the hot oil, which was a fair rule, since Pluto did not want to be anywhere near it, either. So she, along with Fallon’s little brother Tommy, were in charge of the powdered sugar while Fallon was in charge of the zeppole dough.
Fallon’s family, the Zamprognas, worked much differently than Pluto and her mom. For one, it was just them, no college students helping out, no other cooks or employees, no Donna. For two, there were more of them. Fallon had a mom and a dad who mostly liked each other, and two older brothers and two younger ones. Her oldest brother, Grant, was too busy planning his new life with his fiancée to work with them, and Fallon’s other older brother, Dom, constantly got in trouble for disappearing up the boardwalk with his friends. Tommy and Billy, though, who were eight and ten, spent their summer in the store like Pluto and Fallon did.
How to Become a Planet Page 11