“I wonder where Sylvie’s locker is,” I said. I sort of wanted to see it. If we ever made up, which seemed doubtful, I thought maybe I would leave a sticker on it. For her birthday.
“Do you remember her number?” my mom asked.
I shook my head. I felt terrible, because even though Sylvie had told me her number, I’d forgotten it.
My mom and I wandered the halls until we found all six of my classrooms. Lots of people were doing the same thing. If I’d gone to elementary school with them, I’d have known which kids were the ones I wanted to be friends with and I could have struck up conversations with them. But I didn’t. So I spent a lot of time judging them by their shoes. I figured anybody wearing superwhite sneakers was a dork. And anybody wearing smelly old sneakers was a dweeb. My shoe-based potential friendship–evaluation process got trickier when kids wore shoes that weren’t sneakers.
Lots of girls were wearing shoes that looked like ballet slippers. They looked pretty and comfortable.
“I like those shoes,” I told my mom. “They might be made out of velvet!”
My mom lowered my schedule and looked at the wrong shoes. I pointed my finger in the direction of the correct shoes as they walked out the door. “There! There!” I said.
“Do you want to ask her where she got them?”
“No,” I said. Because that girl was basically gone. Then I looked at my shoes and realized that they had grass stains on them. I hoped that nobody had noticed and judged me. We walked out of the classroom.
“This way,” my mom said, pointing down the hallway to the stairs. I followed her all the way to the gym. “Well, those were all your classrooms.”
But there was a problem. I had already forgotten where they were.
“This place is a maze,” I said.
“You’ll learn it,” my mom said.
“I don’t know,” I said. I watched other kids talking in groups by their lockers. I wondered how long it would take me to meet people I wanted to talk to by my locker. I wondered what kind of person would have the locker next to mine.
After we rounded a corner, we ran into my dad, staring into the trophy case. Inside it they had pictures of all the sports teams from every year since the school was built. They also had group pictures of the cheerleaders. They looked so happy. I stared at their glossy smiles. I wondered if I would be as happy in middle school as they were.
“It feels like it was just yesterday that I was a seventh grader strutting down these halls,” he said.
I looked back at the trophy case and then at my dad. “Well,” I said, “it’s been a lot longer than that.”
really wanted to call Sylvie. But more than that, I wanted Sylvie to call me and apologize for switching schools and abandoning me and letting her mom read my list of fifth-grade regrets. And then I wanted her to switch back schools. But she never did that. It made my life feel pretty empty. And it was only getting emptier.
I sat on Grandma’s bed while she packed for her trip with Willy. I hadn’t even seen her check her email in days. Which meant that she didn’t know about all of her potential boyfriends on her now-active E-Date Me Today account. It was a big bummer. I should have tried to wreck her relationship with Willy, the maniac welder, a long time ago. Because now she was really leaving and there was nothing I could do. I felt like I wanted to puke, and I never wanted to do that, even when I had the stomach flu.
“You look so sad,” Grandma said.
I watched her fold her bathing suit and put it inside her giant duffel bag.
“I am so sad,” I said.
“Have you given up on your visualization exercises?” Grandma asked.
I nodded. “Pretty much.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Whatever,” I said.
“Don’t be a moper. Stay positive.”
“I will never be friends with Sylvie again because Mrs. Potaski positively hates me.”
“Mrs. Potaski doesn’t hate you,” Grandma said.
I slapped the bed. “Of course she does. She thinks I’m a bad influence. I’m not a bad influence. I’m just excited about life and so I seek out interesting things to do.”
Grandma packed a stack of bras and looked at me with a lot of concern. “I’m going to tell you something my grandma once told me.”
And I braced myself, because Grandma Lefter’s grandma had been raised on a farm and so her advice usually had something to do with cow herding or weasel removal.
“If a bull is chasing you through a field, it doesn’t do you much good to ask yourself, ‘What does this bull have against me?’ ” Grandma patted my knee lovingly and resumed packing. “Just step aside until the bull forgets about you.”
“I detest bulls,” I said.
“And maybe the bull resents that,” Grandma said.
This advice seemed pretty unhelpful. Grandma smiled at me, but I didn’t smile back.
“My life sucks.”
I tried not to watch Grandma pack her underwear. She was taking a lot. “Bessica, your life doesn’t suck. Everybody has jitters before the first day of school.”
“Jitters?” And that’s when I realized that Grandma was so busy thinking about her upcoming trip with Willy that she had overlooked the magnitude of my situation.
“I’m not going to know anybody,” I said. “Don’t you remember? Teton Middle School got too crowded and so they decided to split the sessions into North and South. North is early-day and South is late-day. Sylvie and I lived so close to the border that we got to choose, and I chose North and so did she. When I start middle school I will know zero people.” I held up both of my hands and bent my fingers to make a circle. “Zero.”
“Some people consider zero to be a good starting point.”
Then I started getting very frustrated, because my own grandma didn’t understand how horrible my life had become.
“I won’t know the dorks from the dweebs. In fact, I might be mistaken for a dork or a dweeb. I don’t even know what these people wear! For all I know they might dress in beaver pelts.”
“Calm down,” Grandma Lefter said. “Other than actual beavers, you won’t encounter anyone clad in a beaver pelt. It’s not that dramatic.”
But this only made me talk louder.
“I am going to get shoved into a trash can. Or somebody is going to challenge me to a fight on the T.”
“It’s been my experience that only underweight boys get shoved into trash cans, because it’s a very gender-specific form of hazing. And what’s the T?”
“It’s this concrete area in front of the school that’s shaped like the letter T. And it’s where seventh and eighth graders lure unsuspecting sixth graders so they can smack them around and knock them out.”
“Bessica, is that true?”
“It’s totally true! That’s why I’m mentioning it.”
“Well, if somebody challenges you to a fight on the T, I want you to run and get a teacher as fast as you can.”
This wasn’t what I wanted to hear at all. Then my mom called down the stairs.
“Willy is here,” my mom said.
Willy walked into Grandma’s room wearing a belt buckle the size of a hubcap. And then he gave her a quick smooch and I felt myself gag a little.
“I’m almost done,” she said.
“I think I’m going to make myself a cup of tea,” Willy said.
“Good idea,” I said. Because he was ruining my conversation with Grandma. And also my life.
Then she looked at me with a very serious expression and zipped up her duffel.
“Bessica Lefter, I want you to remember who you are and where you came from,” Grandma said.
“I know. I know,” I said. “The pioneers.”
“No, I’m talking about your name.” She smiled at me in a very forced manner. “Do you know who chose your name?”
“Grandpa Lefter,” I said. I’d heard this story before. But I didn’t interrupt her.
“He wanted you to b
e named after a gifted and original woman. Dr. Bessica Raiche built an airplane out of bamboo and silk in her living room. She used bicycle wheels and a marine motor to make the propeller. And in 1910 she became the first American woman to intentionally pilot a solo flight. She had a mind ahead of her time.”
And I didn’t bother bringing up the fact that Dr. Bessica Raiche had crashed the plane later that day.
“You are very special,” Grandma Lefter said. “And I have no doubt that when you show up at North Teton Middle School, you will win friends left and right.”
I could feel my throat tighten. I wanted to believe what she was saying.
Then I heard Willy coming down the stairs again. And I looked at Grandma and asked a very serious question. “Don’t you wish that Willy had a boat?”
She smiled. “Boats are nice, but I like Willy just the way he is.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So you do wish that he had a boat?”
And then boatless Willy the Maniac Welder walked into Grandma’s room and I couldn’t stand looking at him, so I left.
he motor home was packed and I stood on my lawn ready to die. Grandma had her arm around me, but I just kept glaring at Willy.
“When will you be back?” I asked even though I already knew. I figured making her admit to staying away for that long would make her feel tremendously guilty.
“Six weeks,” Grandma said, hugging me to her side.
She kissed the top of my head and then hugged my mom and dad. And then Willy tried to hug me, but I put my hands up and gave him a stop sign. “I only hug my family members.”
“Bessica,” Grandma scolded.
“I am very upset. I am not in the mood to hug strangers.”
My mom came and stood next to me. “Willy isn’t a stranger.”
I clucked my tongue. It was almost like Willy had brainwashed her.
And then it happened. Grandma got into the motor home and waved to me and Willy got into the motor home and waved to me, and they pulled out of the driveway. I’d thought I hated looking at the motor home parked in my driveway. But I hated watching that motor home pull out of my driveway a whole lot more.
“I’ll miss you, Bessica!” Grandma called from her window as they rattled down the road.
“Wow,” Dad said. “I bet they have the time of their lives.”
And I thought that was a pretty stupid thing to say. Because there was no way that Grandma was going to have the time of her life with Willy.
“Maybe you should call Sylvie,” my mom said.
I shook my head. “We’re not talking.”
“Don’t you think it’s time that you made up?”
I rolled my eyes. My mom was so naïve. Did she think that all it took to make up was a phone call? Because I didn’t think that.
Then I sat down in the grass and started ripping it out.
“Bessica, tearing apart the lawn is not a solution to your problems,” my mom said.
“Actually, if you want to move over by the sidewalk you could pull out some of the crabgrass,” my dad said.
“Bleh!” I said. Then I fell back into the grass and stared directly at the sun and waited to go blind.
“Come inside,” my mom said. “We’ve got a surprise for you.”
I closed my eyes, but I could still see the sun. “Every surprise I’ve gotten this month has been terrible.”
“You’ll like this one. A lot!” my mom said.
When I opened my eyes, my mom had her hand out to help me up and my dad was in the garage digging through his tools. I trudged back to the house and sat at the kitchen table and waited for my surprise.
“Is it a dog?” I asked. Because I thought that might actually make me feel better.
“No. When did you start wanting a dog?” my mother asked.
I shrugged. “Five minutes ago.”
My mother set a wrapped package on the table. I picked it up and tore off the paper.
“It’s a cell phone!” my mom cheered.
Looking at my brand-new cell phone bummed me out. Because if I’d gotten it at the beginning of summer, I would have had people to call, like Sylvie. But getting it now just reminded me that I didn’t have any friends and that Grandma had abandoned me.
“Since Grandma took the cell phone, I figured you’d need your own.”
I lifted up the box and turned it over. I guess it looked cool. But it was hard to feel excited.
“Who are you going to call first?” my mom asked.
I could feel my eyes getting a little watery. And I think my mom noticed this.
“I know. I know. Let’s charge it up and then you can call me,” she said.
“But we’re talking right now.”
“It will give you a chance to use it,” she said.
Then my dad came inside. “Trimmed the crabgrass.” Then he glanced at me and my phone. “Neat!”
“Yeah.”
“Who are you going to call first?” my dad asked.
“Mom,” I said. Then I held back a sniffle.
Mom and Dad looked at each other and then Mom came and sat down next to me, and Dad went back to the garage.
“I have another surprise for you,” she said.
“Is Sylvie coming to North?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Have you switched me to South?”
“Honey, as soon as I found out about Sylvie’s switch, I called the school, but they said it was impossible to make any changes.”
“Impossible,” I mumbled.
“I know you’re worried about making friends on Monday, so I set up a lunch date for you tomorrow.”
I looked up in panic. “Is it with the odor girl from the library?”
“Labels are mean. Stop that. No. I didn’t invite your library friend.”
“Is Mrs. Chico coming?” I joked.
“No.”
I got very delusional and excited. “Sylvie?” I asked. “Sylvie is coming over for lunch?”
My mother shook her head. “I was trying to let you iron that one out. Do you want my help?”
“No,” I said, putting my head down next to the table’s overflowing fruit bowl. “Just tell me who I have to eat lunch with.”
My mother smiled. “Marci and Vicki Docker.”
“Who?” I had never heard of these people.
“The Docker twins.”
I pulled a green grape from the bowl and rolled it around under my pointer finger. “How do you know them?”
“Marci got a stress fracture in her foot. She’s a cheerleader. We fitted her for orthotics. She’s delightful! She and her sister Vicki go to your middle school. Vicki is the mascot.”
“They let a girl be the mascot?”
“It’s the twenty-first century, Bessica. Girls can be anything they want to be.”
“I know that. But didn’t Dad say that the new mascot was going to be a bear or a wolf? Those seem like boy beasts.”
“Vicki was a bee.”
I guess it couldn’t hurt to know a cheerleader and a mascot. But, even though we were fighting and no longer on speaking terms, I would have preferred to be eating pizza with Sylvie. I let out a big sigh of disappointment.
“I can’t believe you’re not more excited about this. I’ll make you a pizza. It’ll be like a party!”
I tried not to gag when my mom said this, because it was pretty obvious to me that it was not going to be like a party at all.
“Why aren’t you smiling? In two days you’re going to be in middle school. Aren’t you curious about what to expect?” My mother was trying too hard. Her excitement didn’t sound genuine. It sounded desperate.
“I expect to feel sad and lonely and terrible and come home with a mountain of homework strapped to my back.”
“I think talking to Marci and Vicki will alleviate a lot of this emotional baggage.”
“Whatever,” I said. Then I stood up and walked to the basement stairs.
“Where are you going?” m
y mom asked.
“To Grandma’s room so I can be stabbed by her absence a little bit more,” I said.
And my mom didn’t object to this. When I got to Grandma’s room, it felt so empty. She’d taken all the sheets off her bed and some of her drawers were completely cleaned out. She’d even taken her slippers. I sat at her desk and stared at her computer. Then I turned it on and logged into her E-Date Me Today account. I couldn’t believe it! There were over fifty emails in her inbox.
It was such a bummer that she was on the road. I wanted to open up the emails and read them and maybe write back to all the men who owned boats. But that felt wrong. Because changing Grandma’s account to find a new boyfriend felt like it was only a little wrong. Sending messages to these potential boyfriends and pretending to be Grandma would almost feel like a crime.
I turned off the computer and crawled onto her bed. Then I stared at the emptiness again. The closet. The drawers. She’d even taken down her terrible movie picture of Ace Drummond in Squadron of Doom, leaving her big white wall blanker than blank. That was when it hit me that I could not live with things the way they were. I needed Willy out of the picture. So I turned on Grandma’s computer and went back into her E-Date Me Today account.
I started to click the messages open. The men who sent pictures all looked great! Some of them wore cowboy hats. Some of them wore baseball caps. And some of them were bald, so I deleted those. Willy had hair and I felt like I had to replace him with another guy with hair. It didn’t take me long before I spotted some good ones. Gary in Montana owned a ranch. Jim in Utah was a retired fireman. This was fantastic news. Because I knew that Grandma would love to date a hero!
So even though it was the wrong thing to do, I decided to write to some of these potential boyfriends so they wouldn’t lose interest. I tried to make Grandma sound as interesting and single as possible.
Hi, Jim! Thanks for writing. I’m off exploring caves at the moment, but will be back soon. I would love to learn more about you. Please send more pictures. When I get back, maybe we can get sandwiches.
I didn’t have all the time in the world. So I only responded to twenty-seven emails. And I didn’t always suggest getting sandwiches. Sometimes I suggested getting together for pie. When I was finished I went upstairs and curled up on my own bed.
The Reinvention of Bessica Lefter Page 5