I gasp.
“Yeah,” she says. “Want me to go on?”
I’m crying now, soft sobs that make my shoulders jerk. “No,” I say. I sniff hard, hoping no one stops to ask if I’m okay. “I’m sorry,” I say. “But I don’t get what any of this has to do with me. We were best friends.”
“Don’t you get it?” Nikki asks. She’s crying now, too. But I can tell she’s more mad than sad.
I wrack my brain. It’s filled with a million facts, but not one of them can help me figure out why Nikki hates me so much. “No, I don’t get it,” I say a little louder than I mean to. “I don’t get why you hate me. I never did anything to you.”
“You did,” she says, sniffing hard. “It’s totally not your fault and I know that. But still, I can’t let it go.”
“What?” I feel like shrieking. “What did I do to make you hate me so much?”
There’s silence; then Nikki says five flat words that cut me like broken glass.
“You got the good parent.”
“What?”
She sighs. “Your mom was like a mom to me, Olivia. She cared about me more than …” Nikki chokes on her own words. “More than my mom ever did.”
I start to say something to protest, but don’t. Pictures flash in my mind of my mom cooking Nikki dinners, tucking us both in during sleepovers and giving Nikki a pad and a long talk when she got her first period at our house when she was only nine and a half. Mom even yelled at Nikki once for like fifteen minutes when she came to pick us up at the mall and saw Nikki talking to some creepy guy who had said he wanted to get her into modeling.
“I get it,” I say in a quiet voice.
“Do you?” she says in a mean tone.
“Yes,” I say, “I get why you’re so upset, but I don’t get why that means we can’t still be friends. Why you can’t even talk to me.”
“Because …” Nikki sobs, and I want to reach through the phone and hug her, even though what she said was so hard to hear. “Because it hurts too much to talk to you, Olivia. To be reminded of everything I lost. Of what you still have.”
“But I—”
She hangs up.
I don’t call Nikki back, even though it’s my first instinct. I want to tell her she can call me and Mom anytime, that she can visit us too, but I know there’s not money for that. I want to tell her that if I win on Jeopardy!, I’ll buy her a plane ticket, a dozen plane tickets.
But it doesn’t feel right. Nikki doesn’t want to talk to me. Doesn’t want to be reminded. Is it fair to make her feel bad just because I want to talk to her?
I take a deep breath and rush into the restaurant’s bathroom. I stay in the stall awhile, wiping away tears, waiting for my face to feel less hot and prickly. I go over the conversation in my mind again and again. Maybe someday things will be different. I’m sure they will. But for now, I feel like I have to respect Nikki’s wishes since I can’t change the way things are. I wish Stella weren’t such a lousy mom. I wish Dad were a better parent to her.
To me. And Charlie.
I remember that Dad is only a few yards away from me. Dad. I pat cold water on my face, dry off with a paper towel, fling open the bathroom door and walk into the restaurant to find my family.
“Hey, Butter Bean,” Dad says, scooching over to make room for me beside him.
My heart thumps. I slide in next to my dad and give him back the phone.
“Did you talk to Nikki?” he asks.
I feel Mom looking at me.
I nod, hoping I don’t start crying again.
Mom must sense how I’m feeling because she pushes the bread basket toward me. “Eat something, Livi.”
I shake my head because I’m not hungry, but decide to shove a piece of bread into my mouth to keep myself from crying.
Neil reaches over and pats my hand. This makes me want to cry even more.
“The mahimahi here is excellent,” Dad says, his head behind the menu.
“Sharks eat mahimahi,” I say, sniffing.
“Somebody’s ready for Jeopardy!,” Dad says.
I know he means it as a compliment, but I get annoyed. I think of how everyone at the table helped me prepare except him. How he couldn’t even call when he was supposed to. How he took Nikki away from everything she cared about but didn’t give her anything she needed.
I scooch a tiny bit away from Dad and touch the shark’s tooth in my pocket. I look at Charlie. He’s got his head on his hand while he looks at his menu.
“Hey, Charlie,” I say. “You getting the mac and cheese?”
He closes his menu and nods.
“With salad?”
“Applesauce,” he says.
“Good choice, little—”
“He’s reading?” Dad asks.
“He’s been reading for a while,” Mom says. She doesn’t say what she’s probably thinking: If you paid more attention to him, you’d know that.
“Charlie reads trivia books,” I tell Dad.
Dad nods and goes back to his own menu.
“You rock, little man,” Neil says, and Charlie’s face lights up.
Neil winks at Charlie.
I look at Dad. His face is hidden behind his menu.
During dinner, Dad tells gambling stories. How he almost won this and should have won that. How he won $4,700 at poker in Las Vegas last month but gave it all back and then some. And how mad Stella was.
By the time we’re finished eating, Charlie yawns openly.
Dad taps him on the head. “Your old man boring you?”
“He’s tired from the flight,” Neil says, pulling Charlie closer to him.
Charlie has his head on the table. He lets out a big, noisy yawn.
“Tired, pal?” Neil asks.
Charlie nods, his head still on the table.
“C’mon, buddy,” Dad says. “It’s only six o’clock. I was going to take you and Livi out for ice cream.”
I realize if we don’t go out for ice cream, Dad will go home. And even though he’s not always there for us, I really want to spend as much time as I can with him. After all, I worked really hard to get out to California.
“It’s nine o’clock for him,” Mom says, putting a hand on Charlie’s neck. “Which is half an hour past his bedtime.”
“Yeah,” Neil says. “Dinner took a long time.”
I feel annoyed at Neil for saying this, like he’s insulting Dad in some way. I want to say I’ll go out for ice cream, but I don’t.
The check comes and it sits in the middle of the table. And sits. Until Neil picks it up and says, “I’ll get this one.”
“Thanks, Neil,” Dad says, folding his napkin.
Mom’s lips pinch together.
I swallow hard, thinking about how tight money has been. I hope the extra spending money Jeopardy! gave us covers the cost of dinner.
“Well, I’d better hit the dusty trail,” Dad says. He looks at Mom. “Since Charlie’s so tired.”
I want to scream, What about me? Let’s go out for ice cream, just you and me, Dad.
“Oh, wait!” Mom says as Dad stands.
I’m glad she’s keeping him here a little longer. Maybe he’ll decide to take just me out for a while.
Mom reaches into her pocketbook and pulls out a cardboard ticket. “Here,” she says, handing it to Dad. “This was in our packet when we arrived.”
As Dad takes it, their fingers touch.
Mom pulls her hand away. “It’s a ticket to see Livi on Jeopardy!”
Dad winks at me. “I’ll be there. You can take that to the bank.”
And he’s gone.
There is a feeling of disappointment in the pit of my stomach. Why didn’t he realize I’m older than Charlie and not at all tired? Why didn’t he realize I came all the way out here to see him and would have loved to go out for ice cream … or whatever, as long as I was with him? The feeling of disappointment grows into an ache.
I wonder if this is how Nikki feels all the time.
The next morning, all the families meet the “Music Express” van outside our hotel lobby.
Just the kids get on the van. The families have the day off to do whatever they want. That’s what it says on the schedule. Mom, Neil and Charlie are going to Disneyland! I thought I’d be jealous, but I’m so excited to visit the Jeopardy! set that I’m happy for them.
On the bus to the studio, I look at the other fifteen kids in the van (there is one alternate in case someone gets sick or can’t do the show for some reason) and realize Melissa didn’t make the cut. I’m surprised but, I have to admit, also a little glad. I wouldn’t want her trying to psych me out before my taping. I hope these kids are nicer than she was.
I slide onto a plush purple seat next to the window and watch Mom and Neil lift Charlie up by his hands and swing him between them as they walk back into the hotel.
“Hey,” a boy from the back shouts, “who is the only American president who was never married?”
“James Buchanan,” someone shouts.
“Easy,” says another kid.
A bunch of kids laugh. So does the driver.
I take a deep breath and my shoulders relax.
The girl across the aisle from me says, “Okay. Who wrote Charlotte’s Web?”
“E. B. White,” two kids shout at the same time.
“Hey, that was on the test,” another kid says.
I smile, remembering the test. The online test that I took in Tucker’s room with my feet nearly frozen. That seems such a long time ago. I remember changing my answer for that question to “Elwyn Brooks White.”
“Elwyn Brooks White,” I shout.
“Oooh. Good one,” the boy from the back says.
“Totally,” another girl says.
A few other kids nod at me.
My chest swells. I look around as we pull out of the parking lot and realize that on this van with these kids, I’m definitely not the red umbrella.
At the studio, the contestant coordinator, Maggie, takes us into a room where we fill out paperwork and get another free pen. Maybe I’ll give this one to Tucker. Or Charlie. I reach into my pocket and touch the shark’s tooth he gave me.
After that, we’re led into a room where we crowd around a table with bagels and cream cheese, bananas, milk, orange juice and even hot chocolate. A man takes photos of us.
“Breakfast,” Maggie announces. “Then we’ll show you around the studio, let you get a feel for how the game will work tomorrow and give you some instructions.”
My stomach is a jumble of nerves and excitement, but I take a bagel with cream cheese and a glass of orange juice and sit with the other kids.
While we eat, we talk about our hobbies and where we’re from. A boy from Ohio collects Pez dispensers and has over two hundred of them. The girl who sat across from me on the van has a black belt in tae kwon do. (Mental note: Do not get on her bad side.) All of us have watched Jeopardy! since we were little, except one boy who just started watching this past year.
I know two of these kids will be my competition tomorrow, but right now, I feel so comfortable with them, like we could all be friends if we lived near each other.
I wish school could be like this. It would be so nice to feel like I fit in. Before we’re even done eating, we agree to exchange information and keep in touch with each other when this is over. I hope we do. It will be nice to have some new friends. Friends who don’t obsess about Bolivia and nail polish and boys. Friends who care about the same things I do. Friends who don’t make fun of me for being smart. Friends who don’t live three thousand miles away … and hate me.
The set is not as big as it looks on TV. I can’t believe I’m standing behind Alex Trebek’s podium. But I am. A man holds a giant microphone over my head. Another man holds a camera. And a lady stands near them, telling me where to look. A bright light shines in my eyes, and I have to answer questions, like what I want to be when I grow up. This time I say, “A game show host, like Alex Trebek.”
The lady smiles.
We do a fun skit together that will be used to encourage other kids to take the online test.
When we get a chance to practice with the buzzer, I grip it like the pen I used at home and press the black button with my thumb.
We even have to practice using the light stylus pen to write our names. I make my name neat and clear: Olivia Bean. I’m tempted to write Brainy Bean, but I know it would look like I’m showing off, so I resist the urge.
Maggie tells us that all five shows will be taped tomorrow. After each show, Alex will change into a new suit so that it looks like the shows are taped on different days.
I love getting this insider information.
And I can’t wait to meet Alex Trebek!
It’s so much fun that I’m bursting with excitement when we’re dropped off at the hotel.
Mom, Neil and Charlie meet me in the lobby.
“I made a load of new friends,” I say. “And the set is really cool. And they fed us really good food. And—”
“Mom and Neil took me to Disneyland,” Charlie says. “I didn’t throw up even once.”
I hug Charlie. “That’s great.”
“No,” Mom says. “It’s really amazing because your brother ate cotton candy, a giant soft pretzel and ice cream, and gulped down two big sodas … plus lunch!”
I tousle my bother’s hair and wonder if the spending money the show gave Mom was enough to cover Disneyland and dinner last night and everything else they have to buy. Because I know we don’t have any extra to pay for those things.
I shake my head and remind myself that tomorrow I’ll have a chance to earn some money. A lot of money. Money that can really make a difference. The first-place winner is guaranteed fifteen thousand dollars plus a family vacation. Fifteen thousand dollars! That’s probably more than Dad ever won gambling.
I make up my mind I’m going to win that money tomorrow. I’m going to press the buzzer faster than my opponents. I’m going to access the information in my brain more quickly. And when I win, I’m not going to buy video games or computers, like some of the other kids said they would.
I’m going to take Charlie, Mom and Neil to the mall and let them buy anything they want. I plan to spend a lot of time at the bookstore, buying all my favorite titles. And I’m going to buy about a thousand rolls of really soft toilet paper!
Then I’ll put some money away for college. And Mom will get everything that’s left over.
But first … I have to win.
Today, when we get into the van, we’re all quiet. We nod to each other, but no one calls out trivia questions.
Today, we are friends, but we are also competitors.
When we arrive at the set, we’re told that they’ll take groups of three kids at a time until all five shows are taped. No one knows which group he’ll be in or when he’ll be called. All we know is that we get only one chance. Unlike the adult games, on Kids Week, there are no champions. Even if you win, you don’t return for the next game.
We wait.
I chew on my fingernails, unable to believe this is actually happening. I’m really going to be on Jeopardy!, the show I’ve loved watching since I was little. The show Dad and I watched together night after night. Our special thing to do together. And now Dad will be in the audience watching me.
I’m so glad Mom, Neil, Charlie and Dad will be here. Especially Dad. With all of Tucker’s tutoring, I can finally prove to him that I can be good at geography. I wish Tucker could be here, but he’d probably be a dumb butt and shout out answers or something he’s not supposed to do. Maybe I can invite him over to watch the show in a couple months when it airs.
Oh, I hope I win.
I look around at the other kids, some bent over, some pacing, some muttering facts to themselves, and know they want to win as much as I do.
Maggie strides in with her clipboard and reads the names of the three kids in the first group.
“Jacob Andrews, Samantha Goff
and Olivia Bean.”
Olivia Bean? My eyes go wide and my pits erupt in sweat. I try to remember how many bacteria are in each square inch of armpit, but can’t. Oh, no! My big, beautiful brain can’t go blank now! I grip the shark’s tooth in my pocket and follow Maggie and the two other kids toward the set.
Toward the Jeopardy! set!
I’m positioned behind my podium on the left side, farthest from the audience. I hold on to the sides of the podium to still my shaking hands. I think that standing on the left side is a good omen because on the adult shows, the left side is the returning champion’s spot.
I remind myself what Maggie told us: Smile. Smile. And please, whatever you do, smile. Look like you’re having the time of your life, even if you feel like you might throw up.
So, even though no one is talking to me and we’re not actually doing anything except waiting, I smile so hard my face hurts.
Maggie also said, “Don’t look at the audience. I guarantee your parents are out there, so please don’t look in that direction.”
I break this rule.
The lights are bright and it’s hard to see, but I scan the audience quickly. I spot Mom, Neil and Charlie. There are no empty seats next to them. Maybe Dad is sitting somewhere away from them. Maybe he arrived late and there were no spaces next to them.
The show hasn’t begun yet, so I keep smiling and look more carefully at the audience.
There are no empty seats; Dad’s not here.
I’ll be there. You can take that to the bank.
I face the category board, like I’m supposed to. The show is about to begin.
Dad’s not here. He didn’t come.
I stop smiling.
Even though I’m supposed to pay attention, I can’t help thinking about my fifth-grade talent show instead.
I’m standing backstage, just beyond the curtain, waiting for my turn to go on.
Lauren Garcia sings “Amazing Grace.” Even though her voice cracks twice during the song, she gets thunderous applause.
That means I’m next. After weeks of practicing my hula hoop routine every single day after school, it’s finally my turn.
Olivia Bean, Trivia Queen Page 14