“Hello, is Emily there?”
It was him! My cheeks started burning. Then I panicked. I didn’t know what to say. Sure, this is Emily. No, this is Bunny, but I’m the one you want. “This is—” I sort of muffled my voice. “Who did you want?”
“Emily. I, um, I don’t know her last name, but I know I’ve got the right number.”
“Oh, Emily. Ahh, yes. Just a moment.” I needed time to think.
Shad came back into the kitchen. “Who is it?” he said.
I covered the phone with my hand. “No one. None of your business.” I shouldn’t have said it. Not to bulldog Shad.
“Boy or girl?”
“Shad. Does it matter?”
“Is it Emily? Can I talk to her?”
I looked down at the phone and clamped my hand over the mouthpiece tighter. “It’s somebody from school.”
He knew I was lying. He got this silly smile on his face. “Who is it? Let me say hello.”
“No! Shad, will you please go? This is personal.”
“It’s not Emily? I’ll go if you tell me who it is.”
“Shad!”
“It must be a boy, if it’s so personal.”
“Shad Larrabee, if you don’t leave this minute—” I tried the same thing on him that I’d done with Wilma. “—I’m going to haunt you.”
Didn’t bother him in the least. “You could do it,” he said, “you’ve got the face for it.”
“Shad! I mean it! Go!” He left at last. I closed the kitchen door, took a big breath, and unclamped my hand from the phone. “Hello?”
“Emily?”
“Yes.”
“Hi! It’s me, James. From last night.”
“You remembered my number.”
“I told you, I have a good memory. Who was I talking to before, your sister?”
“Uh, yes, and before that my little brother.”
“Little joker, isn’t he? I called you twice and twice he said you didn’t live there.”
“He did? He does things like that sometimes.”
“Well, I just called to say hello, and I thought I’d ask you a few more questions about Lulu Belle. Hey, it was fun last night. Never thought I’d enjoy a Lulu Belle concert.”
“Oh. Well, do you like her any better now?”
“I’ll tell you. She’s pure corn, but good corn.”
“Creamed corn,” I said.
“Listen, Emily? I hope you don’t think I always go around picking up girls.”
“Oh, no.”
He laughed. “But I do. But only cute ones, like you.”
All of a sudden, I thought, What if Dad picks up the phone in the study and hears this? He’ll want to know everything! “James? I can’t talk right now. In fact, I’m sorry, but I shouldn’t have given you my phone number. I mean, you really can’t call me here.”
“Why not?”
“Well … you just can’t—My parents … they’re, uh, they’re peculiar about the phone. They’re, uh, they have rules about the phone.”
He groaned. “You, too, Emily? Tell me about it! My old man is a total nutcase when he gets on the subject of the telephone. Are they on you about the phone bill?”
“No, it’s not that so much. Just—my father needs it for his work, and—” I was stumbling, making it up as I went along. “I have to call all my friends, actually, from pay phones.”
“Mondo bizarro,” he said. “They sound worse than my parents. Why don’t you call me back? Pick a time when they’re not around, or they’re not using the phone, or whatever.”
“Okay,” I said. “Yes. I will.”
He gave me his phone number. “It’s an easy one.”
“Yes.” I kept checking the door and listening for that little click on the phone that tells you someone else is on.
“When’s a good time for you?” he said. “I want to talk to you some more about that article. How about tomorrow afternoon?”
Sunday. If I went out to use a pay phone, Mom would say, Bunny, today’s a day for us all to be home together.
“Not tomorrow.”
“Busy?”
“Yes.”
“Date?”
“Umm, not really.”
“I know what you mean.”
He did? I didn’t. “How about Monday?”
“No, I work Monday, Emily. Tuesday, around four o’clock?”
“Okay.”
“Great talking to you again, Emily. Hey, I really liked those earrings.”
“Zuni bird charms,” I said.
“I know. I remember. Bye-bye, Emily-braids.”
“’Bye,” I said weakly.
Chapter 9
I meant to tell Emily about James. I was going to do it first thing Monday, when I saw her. We met by the window on the second floor. “Hello, sickey,” I said. “You feeling okay now?”
“Pretty good.”
She didn’t look that good to me. She looked like what my mother calls green around the gills. It probably didn’t help that she was wearing a green sweater.
“Your clown act must have cured the twins, Bunny. After you left, Mom said they got better so fast she couldn’t believe it. She promised them another party over vacation.”
“I’ll be in Toronto with my grandmother.”
“I know. I have to figure out something else good.”
“Let the little monsters play some games. Pin the Tail on the Donkey, or—”
The bell rang and we had to run for it. That was the way it went all day. Every time I started to tell Emily about James, either we talked about something else, or something happened to stop me or—I finally realized—I stopped myself.
Why? Two things. First, I was sort of worried how Emily would feel about my using her name. I didn’t know if she’d be mad, or what. I started arguing with her in my head. Look, Em, if you used my name, I wouldn’t be mad. But that was ridiculous. Why would anybody want to use my name?
Then, I was uneasy about telling her how much I liked James. I guess I thought it was sort of traitorous of me. Here we went around all the time saying, Nobody falls in love at our age! I mean, it was something we didn’t care about. Not yet. And now I’d done it.
I walked home with Emily after school. I didn’t say anything about James. Instead, I started going on about my sister, Star. She’d called home the night before and talked to Mom again. A whole hour on the phone and not one word to me!
“It really burns me, Emily. Mom says Star has things on her mind. But does that mean she has to act like I don’t exist?”
“I wonder if I’ll be like that with Chris and Wilma.”
“No, you won’t. You’re too nice. You’re not self-centered like my sister.”
When we got to Emily’s house, she sat down at the kitchen table. “Whew. I feel so dragged.” She put her head down on her arms. “You want something to eat, Bunny?”
“Yes.” I took a box of graham crackers out of the cupboard.
Emily picked up her head. “You know what I wish I could do? Get in bed and sleep for about fifteen hours.”
“Why don’t you?”
She shook her head. “The twins’ll be home in a couple of minutes. I have to make supper for them. Mom doesn’t get home till six today. They go berserk if they don’t eat before that.”
I opened the refrigerator and took out the butter. “I’ll make supper for them.”
“You?”
“Hey, Emily. You’re not the only one who can do things, you know.”
“I don’t mean that. Why should you cook for my sister and brother? It’s my job.” Her voice was wavery.
I took a good look at her. She had that green, fishy color around the eyes again. “Dummy! Will you shut up and go take a rest?”
“Don’t call me dummy. And don’t keep telling me to shut up.” All of a sudden, she started to cry.
Then I knew she was still sick. I pulled a chair over and sat down next to her. “Em.” I put my arm around her shoulders. “Go get in bed,” I
said, in my best Nurse Nancy voice. “And wipe your nose.” I handed her a napkin. “This is like kindergarten, isn’t it?”
“I know.” She giggled, blew her nose, and started crying again. I finally got her to go to her room and lie down. About two minutes later, the twins blew in. They each had a little knapsack on their backs.
“Hi, guys.” I told them I was going to cook their supper.
“You?” Wilma said.
“You?” Chris echoed.
“It better be good,” Wilma said.
“Hey, it’ll be the best supper you ever ate, Wilma.”
“Are you going to juggle oranges?” Chris asked.
“Maybe. We’ll see.” I was trying to remember what kids their age liked to do. I thought I’d have to amuse them, play games with them, do my clown act, keep them from wrecking the house, but after I gave them graham crackers and milk, they sat down at the kitchen table like two little pussycats and did homework.
I got my own homework out. I kept peeking over the top of my notebook to see if they were going to suddenly explode. I kept my eye on Wilma, especially, but she was the one who told Chris he had to finish. “Or no tv tonight. You know what Mom said.”
Emily had told me to make them—ugh—salmon patties. When I started fixing the food, I told Chris to set the table and Wilma to sweep the floor.
“We don’t have to take orders from you, Bunny.”
“Yeah, you do, if you want to eat supper.”
When Mrs. Boots came home, Emily was still sleeping and the kids were eating dessert. I’d made them Jell-O.
“Bunny, did you eat?” Mrs. Boots said.
“No, thanks, Mrs. Boots.”
“No, no, the least I can.… Bunny, please … there’s plenty here.” She pulled off her shoes and massaged her feet.
“No, really, Mrs. Boots—”
“But I insist. After all you’ve.… Sit down, Bunny. Mmm, these salmon patties you made look delicious. Here’s bread. Do you want a glass of milk?” She started serving me. I didn’t know how to tell her I hated salmon patties, so I ate two of them.
The next day, Emily felt better. Lunchtime, I decided I’d definitely tell her about James. But I just didn’t get to it.
Mr. Pelter and Ms. Linsley came into the cafeteria together, and we started gossiping about our teachers. “She doesn’t even look like a teacher,” Emily said. “They’re cute together, aren’t they?”
Later, in study hall, I wrote Emily a note.
Dear Emily,
I want to talk to you. Have something to tell you. Make sure I tell you. Meet you after school, the usual place.
Love, Bunny
We met on the steps near the parking lot. “Well,” I said, “don’t kill me for not telling you right away, but I met a guy at the concert. And today I have to call him.”
We started walking. “You met a guy?” Emily said. “You mean, somebody you didn’t know before?”
“His name is James. I met him at the concert.”
“You said that already.”
“I’ll say it again. I met him at the concert.”
“You picked him up?”
“No! Yes. I don’t know, Em. I just talked to him.”
“Was he cute?”
“Adorable!” I told her what he looked like, how he was dressed. I told her about the article and about his calling me at home. I told her everything—almost. I still left out the part about using her name! It was cowardly of me. I don’t know what I was so afraid of. Maybe I wasn’t afraid of anything. Maybe I just didn’t want to hear Emily say something sensible like, Well, Bunny, just tell him your right name.
Also, though I said I really, really liked him, I didn’t put in that I might be in love.
“At first you thought he was Paris?” She had a little smile on her face that I couldn’t figure out.
“Almost. Wait until you meet him,” I said, forgetting that she couldn’t meet him, unless I was prepared to: 1. tell Emily I’d called myself Emily, and 2. tell James my name was actually Bunny, or, 3. tell Emily I’d used her name, and 4. let James go on thinking it was my name. I began to imagine the meeting.
James, I want you to meet my best friend. Her name is Emily.
Hello, Emily! Well, Emily, I’m glad Emily introduced me. So, Emily. Emily is your best friend? Emily, how long have you known Emily?
“How old did you say he was, Bunny?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I guess, seventeen.”
“Seventeen!”
“Maybe eighteen. He thought I was in high school, Em.”
“When you get dressed up, you look older. It’s probably being tall.” She made a face. “Nobody ever thinks I’m older. What are you going to say when you call him?”
“I don’t know. He said he wanted to talk about the article.”
“Where are we going to call him from?”
“We?” I coughed. “Em, I hope you don’t mind, but—” I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I slung my arm across her shoulder. “It would be better if I just called. I mean—it’s embarrassing to have someone else listen.”
“It’s just me,” Emily said.
“I know. But you know what I mean.”
Emily shrugged.
“I’ll call you tonight. Tell you what he said.”
“You don’t have to.”
I stared at her. She had that odd little smile on her face. Was she jealous? “I want to call you tonight, Emily. I want to tell you about it. I’m not trying to keep this to myself. Why do you think I just told you everything?” All the time I was saying it, I felt like such a big liar. Because I hadn’t told her everything at all. “Maybe I won’t even get him,” I added.
I phoned James from a pay phone outside a drugstore. He answered right away. “Well, here I am,” I said. “Calling from a pay phone.”
“Your timing is perfect, Emily. I’m working on that article right now. I even went to the library and looked up Lulu Belle, so I know her whole story, how she was a poor girl from the hills of North Carolina, how she got her first job singing when she was ten years old on a local radio station, etcetera etcetera.”
“I think she was eight years old,” I said.
“And I talked it over with Maureen—”
“Who?” My face flushed.
“Maureen. My friend. Remember I said I was doing this for a friend? She tells me the background stuff is okay, but I need more personal stuff.”
I leaned against the wall of the phone booth. “Well, if you give your opinion—”
“Yeah. Right. That’s personal, but she meant more on the line of the kind of stuff we were talking about. When I was interviewing you. Maybe you could just tell me why you like Lulu Belle so much—”
“You know. I told you. I like her music.”
“Right. Anything else? I’m just looking here for some little anecdote to spice up this column.”
“Why don’t you tell Maureen to write the column?” I blurted. “I mean, since you’re having so much trouble.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment.
I thought I’d made him mad. Just like me, opening my big mouth. What if he hung up on me? Would I call him back? “James?” I said, very softly. He didn’t answer. Then I started wondering if Maureen was his girl friend. Did he have more than one girl friend? He was so good-looking. He probably had two or three. I looked outside. It had just started to rain. A man was waiting for the phone, tossing a coin from one hand to the other.
“James?” I said again.
“Uh … sorry. I was just thinking about what you said. I guess this is a matter of pride. Didn’t you ever say you’d do something, Emily, and then be sorry? But you went ahead and did it anyway? Just because of pride?”
I couldn’t remember anything like that, exactly. Still, I knew what it was to want to do something really well. “I have this clown act I do,” I said.
“A clown act?”
“Yes. I do things like pratfalls and
juggling tennis balls. I like to tell jokes, but in this act—”
Just then, the operator broke in, or the computer—anyway, a voice saying I had to put in another quarter for two more minutes.
“Let me call you back,” James said. I told him the number and hung up. The phone rang and I picked it up. The man with the coin gave me a mean look and walked away.
“Hi, there,” James said.
“Hi.” The raindrops on the top of the phone booth made a cozy sound.
“So, look, Emily, let’s get back to Lulu Belle. Can’t you think of some cute little story about you and Lulu Belle?”
“Well, let me think.”
“Sure. Go ahead. Take your time. It’s my dime.”
I stood there, but I didn’t think of anything. I wanted to help him, but my mind was blank. All of a sudden, I had a terrible thought. The only reason he was interested in me was because he needed my help in writing his article. “I don’t have a story about Lulu Belle,” I said. “I don’t know her.” I really felt sort of disgusted and upset.
I guess it was in my voice, because James said, “Emily? Are you okay, Emily?”
Just at that moment, I was ready to say, My name isn’t Emily! Stop calling me Emily!
“You know what, Emily?” he said. “Why don’t we just sit down together someplace and talk?”
“About what? The article?”
“Well, sure. Or we could talk about school, or we could talk about anything. How does that sound to you? Why don’t we meet in Stanchio’s in the mall, the gelato place? Where are you now?”
“You want to meet now?”
“Like my dad always says, ‘No time like the present.’ Are you anywhere near the mall? We don’t have to meet there.”
“I’m about two blocks away.”
“You see! It’s perfect. I could meet you in about ten minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Great. See you soon, Emily. Bring your money. You gotta buy me a gelato.”
I hung up and started walking toward the mall. It was still raining. I thought, What am I doing? Then I tried not to think at all. I was excited and worried at the same time. I told myself it was stupid to be worried. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. This wasn’t a date. I was just meeting a friend to have some gelato and talk about a singer. That made me feel better.
It was raining a little harder and it reminded me of the first time I ever heard Lulu Belle sing. It was five years ago. The Rosenfelds, friends of Mom and Dad’s, loaned us their trailer and we drove up to Iron Lake over the Memorial Day weekend. It rained the whole time. We hardly ever got out of that little trailer. We ate popcorn, played gin rummy, and listened to the radio.
B, My Name Is Bunny Page 5