Talia Talk

by Christine Hurley Deriso

  “You’re not my boss, Bridget,” I said evenly.

  “I’m the director.” Bridget jutted out her chin. “Step up or step off.”

  We glared at each other for a long moment.

  “Girls!” The urgency in Ms. Stephens’s voice startled us out of our showdown. “What’s going on with you two? You’re best friends!”

  “Bridget’s too bossy!” Brynne sputtered, nodding sharply.

  “Way too bossy,” Meredith said. “Talia, your essay’s just fine.”

  “I think Bridget should be fired!” Brynne said.

  I sucked in my breath. Bridget crossed her arms and turned toward the wall. Silence hung in the air.

  “No way,” Ben said quietly. “She’s an incredible director. We’ve been shooting footage every day, including after school. She interviewed Coach Quinn about the football season and asked really good questions. The football team said it was the only time they’d heard him speak more than two words at once.”

  “She even got the football players to do a cheerleader pyramid,” Shelley added. “It was hilarious.”

  “We’ll have the most awesome Oddcast ever, if you’ll let her do her job,” Ben said.

  I stared at Bridget’s back, not sure whether I wanted to comfort her or strangle her.

  “I think Bridget’s right,” I finally said in a small voice. “I’ll write a new essay.”

  Ms. Stephens set her jaw. “Guys,” she said, “we’re a team. We stand or we fall as a team. I don’t expect everyone on the staff to be best friends, but I do expect mutual support and respect.” She paused and gazed at every face. “If you can’t manage that, this is a good time to bail out. We work too closely together to be petty.”

  Meredith sneered, and Ms. Stephens looked at her sharply. “And Bridget is the director,” she said, still holding Mer’s gaze. “But that doesn’t mean her word is law. I have the final say about everything. But it means she has a lot of responsibility. And Ben’s right: she’s doing a fantastic job.”

  “She’s still too bossy,” Meredith grumbled under her breath.

  Ms. Stephens looked at me. “Talia, it’s up to you: do you think you can have a new essay ready in the morning in time for me to review it?”

  I nodded uneasily.

  “Good. Bring your original draft, too, just in case there’s any problem with the new one. Let’s wrap it up for today and come back in the morning, as a team. Seven-forty-five sharp. We’ve got a show to put on.”

  We sat there awkwardly for a minute, then began stuffing our papers into our backpacks. Bridget was the first to walk out the door. Impulsively, I grabbed my backpack and hurried to catch up with her.

  “Wait up,” I called as we reached the hall. She didn’t slow down.

  “Bridget!”

  I quickened my pace and walked beside her.

  “Why are you being so awful to me?” I asked breathlessly, shifting the weight of my backpack.

  “Sorry you and the Snob Squad couldn’t manage to get me fired,” she said, still looking straight ahead. “Better luck next time.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, then popped them open. “If you’ll recall,” I sputtered, “I’m the one who defended you!”

  “My bad,” Bridget said coolly. “I could have sworn that was Ben. Do you get that a lot? People confusing you with Ben?”

  I huffed. “What do you want from me? I agreed to write another essay. Thanks for that, by the way. Twelve hours’ notice is totally sufficient.”

  Bridget stopped in her tracks and turned to face me. “Who knew you were still planning to talk about locker combinations? How lame can you get? Granted, I’m the brains of the organization, but do I have to tell you everything?”

  Tears sprang to my eyes.

  Bridget sighed. Her face softened. “I’d love it if we’d had a chance to talk about it earlier,” she said. “But you weren’t talking to me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You weren’t talking to me!”

  “It’s one thing for Brynne and Mer to treat me like dryer lint,” Bridget said, now on the verge of tears herself. “It’s another for you to.”

  I looked at her pleadingly. “I haven’t been avoiding you,” I said, but I couldn’t quite look her in the eye. “You’ve been so busy with the Oddcast. And Ben’s right: you’re doing an awesome job. Just imagine what everybody will think when they’re expecting boring announcements, and the next thing they know, they’re watching the football players in a cheerleader pyramid. You’re amazing.”

  Bridget blinked back tears and smiled weakly. “If I could write like you, I wouldn’t have to stay after school interviewing football coaches. Want me to help you with your essay?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Considering you’re the reason I’m stuck with this assignment, I think that’s an excellificent idea.”

  15

  Our sneakers padded in unison as we made our way down the hall, then out the door to the parking lot, where Grandpa was waiting.

  “You pretty girls need a lift, by any chance?” Grandpa teased as we dumped our backpacks into the trunk of his car.

  “I dunno, Mr. Farrow. My mom told me not to accept rides with strange men, and you’re pretty strange,” Bridget teased back.

  “You’ve never held it against me before,” he said.

  “Good point,” Bridget said. “Onward.”

  I kissed Grandpa spontaneously on the cheek. Why hadn’t I listened to his advice about friendship? Oh, well. Now that Bridget and I were together again, it was like we’d never been apart.

  She leaned toward the front seat. “What’s the latest with your mom’s new boyfriend?” she asked me.

  Grandpa drew in his breath. “Her new what?”

  “Boyfriend,” Bridget repeated. “Talia told me all about him.”

  Grandpa’s neck reddened. “He’s just a friend, that’s all.”

  I giggled. “Grandpa, give it up. The whole ‘just a friend’ spiel is getting a little old.”

  “He is just a friend,” Grandpa insisted.

  “A friend who’s totally nuts about Mom. It’s okay. I’m cool with it.” I rolled down my window and let my hair blow in the breeze.

  “So is it weird for your mom to have a boyfriend?” Bridget asked.

  I shrugged. “Kinda.”

  “Is he like your dad?”

  Grandpa and I exchanged glances. That was Bridget, just blurting out whatever she was thinking. But I didn’t mind. “Dad’s hair was more blondish,” I said.

  “And more baldish,” Grandpa said, squeezing my knee.

  “I mean his personality,” Bridget clarified. “What was he like? I can barely remember.”

  I looked at Grandpa. He winked.

  “Um…I remember he liked to sing,” I said, squinting into the wind blowing in my face. “He used to sing to me all the time. They were real songs, but he’d put my name in the words: ‘Lovely Talia, meter maid….’ Stuff like that. And Dad was funny.”

  Grandpa nodded. “He could tell a story like nobody’s business. Our favorite was about the night you were born. We asked him to tell that story again and again, and we laughed just as hard every time. Seems he and your mom were in the middle of a Scrabble game when she went into labor, and they were both so competitive, they didn’t want to stop the game. So they took it to the hospital, your dad balancing the Scrabble board to keep the tiles in place—you’d have to hear him tell it—and him winning the game just a few minutes before you were born, adding the letters T, A, L and I to an A in your mother’s AARDVARK.”

  I squinted into the wind blowing in my face. “In the first place,” I said, playing along even though I’d heard the story a million times before, “you can’t use a proper name in Scrabble. In the second place, Mom should have won on general principle considering she knew how to spell aardvark. Not to mention that she was in labor. And in the third place, naming me after a Scrabble word is beyond tacky. What if Dad’s tiles had spelled out amnesia?”

&n
bsp; Grandpa chuckled, his eyes sparkling.

  “What did your dad do for a living?” Bridget asked me.

  “He was an actuary,” Grandpa responded. Bridget’s eyebrows wrinkled together, but I held up my hand to stop her question.

  “It’s a boring answer,” I assured her.

  “But your dad was no boring guy,” Grandpa said, then added in almost a whisper, “He was my boy.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’m just glad his tiles spelled out something. Otherwise, I guess my name would have been Aardvark.”

  We drove in silence for a few seconds; then Bridget said, “What’s the latest on Meredith’s blowout birthday party?”

  I squirmed. “Huh?” I asked, as if I’d barely been paying attention.

  “A party, eh?” Grandpa said. “You girls invited?”

  “Talia probably is,” Bridget said, looking to me for verification, but I stared straight ahead.

  “She’s spent the whole week making this big show of ‘subtly’ handing out her invitations to the A-list,” Bridget told Grandpa. “Guess who didn’t make the cut.”

  “Not you!” Grandpa teased, feigning astonishment.

  “Tragic yet true. And she tried to get me fired today as the Oddcast director.”

  “Is this the same Meredith you girls used to always run around with? She and the brunette…Brawn, is it?”

  Bridget and I laughed. “Brynne, Grandpa,” I said. “Yes, that’s the same Meredith.”

  “So why aren’t you all friends anymore?” he asked.

  “Talia’s their friend,” Bridget responded.

  “I so am not!”

  “You so are too,” Bridget said with the slightest edge in her voice.

  “I’ve just been sitting with them in the cafeteria because Bridget blew me off,” I explained to Grandpa.

  “You’re going to Mer’s party, aren’t you?” Bridget asked me.

  “Did you hear she’s registered at Threads?” I asked with a conspiratorial grin. “Oh, and good news: Even the people who aren’t invited are still allowed to buy her a present. See? She’s no snob. She wants everybody to have the pleasure of buying her a gift.”

  Bridget buried her face in her hands laughing. I chuckled, too, but I noticed Grandpa eyeing me warily. “Maybe we should take up a collection at school: Help Keep Meredith in Cashmere,” I said, making Bridget laugh harder.

  Sorry, Grandpa, I thought, knowing how he felt about gossip. I hated to disappoint him.

  But it felt so good to be laughing with Bridget again.

  Bridget put a hand on a hip as she peered skeptically at our creation.

  “Looks mushy in the middle.”

  It was her idea to bake one giant chocolate chip cookie rather than a bunch of regular-sized cookies, despite my warning that cookie dough wasn’t meant to be smushed into a cake pan.

  But she’d insisted.

  “Bridget, do you have to be different just for the sake of being different?”

  “I have to be different for the sake of being magnificent,” she responded.

  Of course, as soon as we took the cake pan out of the oven, we both knew I was right.

  “It’s not cooked in the middle,” I said. “And it’s burned on the sides. I told you we should’ve just made regular cookies.”

  Mom walked into the kitchen, wrinkling her nose. “What’s burning?”

  “Bridget’s cookie cake,” I said.

  “My cookie cake? You’re the one who mixed the batter,” Bridget said.

  “You’re the one who put it in the cake pan. And you put too much dough in the middle.”

  “I wanted it to look like a cookie mountain.”

  Mom waved her hand in front of her face to clear the burning smell. “Mount Mush?” she suggested.

  “Mount Magnificent,” Bridget said. “Want a piece?”

  “Gee, as tempting as that sounds, I think I’ll pass. I thought you girls were working on a project.”

  “My Oddcast essay. I finished a few minutes ago,” I said.

  Mom’s face brightened. “Can I read it?”

  Bridget and I sneaked glances and stifled giggles. “I’d rather you be surprised,” I said.

  “O-kay,” Mom said warily. “So who else is on the Oddcast staff? Anyone I know?”

  “Mer and Brynne,” Bridget said.

  “Oh, good!” Mom gushed. “The Four Musketeers are together again.”

  Bridget shook her head. “Our friendship is so five minutes ago,” she said. “Mer’s snob quotient is off the charts. She’s having some big froufrou birthday party, and you’d think she was the Queen of England.”

  “Are you girls invited?” Mom asked.

  “Talia is,” Bridget said.

  “Just because I’m invited doesn’t mean I’m going,” I clarified, dabbing my finger in the cookie cake, then yanking it away when the tip burned.

  Mom shook her head. “She used to be such a sweet girl…”

  A horn blared from the driveway. “My mom,” Bridget said. “Gotta go.”

  “What about Mount Magnificent?” I said.

  “It’s all yours,” Bridget said. “I just create brilliance. I leave it to the masses to enjoy it. And clean up!”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She scooped up her backpack, reminded me to be at school the next morning at seven-forty-five sharp, then zipped out the door.

  I waved, then answered the ringing phone in the kitchen. “Hello?”

  “Can you believe her?” Meredith hissed on the other end.

  “ ‘Her’?”

  “Bridget! I don’t think I can stand three months of her telling me what to do. Why wouldn’t Ms. Stephens fire her like we begged her to?”

  I shoved a hand into my jeans pocket. “She is working really hard on the Oddcast….”

  “Uh, hello? Looks like she’s making you do all the work. A new essay, one day before the first Oddcast? Look, Talia, I admire you for trying to stick by her and all—I mean, you’re the only one left on the planet who can stand her, except for a few brainiacs like Ben—but you’ve got to cut her loose. She’s no friend. She was, like, totally snotty to you at the meeting.”

  “Yeah, she kinda was….”

  “I think we should make a petition to fire her as director. If enough people sign it, Ms. Stephens will have to pay attention.”

  Subject change. Subject change.

  “Everything all set for your party?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

  “What?” Meredith asked. “Of course. You’re coming, aren’t you?”

  “Uh…”

  “All the cute guys will be there, Talia. This is your chance to make your break. Otherwise, your reputation is sealed: Loser Bridget’s Best Friend.”

  “Yeah, well…I’ve got to ask my mom if I can go. I’ll call you right back, okay?”

  I sighed with relief as we said goodbye, only to feel my muscles tighten as I hung up the phone and noticed Mom standing there.

  “Was that Meredith?” she asked cautiously.

  “Who? Oh, right. Meredith. Yeah.”

  Mom squeezed her lips together. “I thought you told Bridget you weren’t going to her party.”

  I flung a hand into the air. “Who said I was going? And who said I wasn’t going? I don’t recall actually saying that. And why does everybody care so much whether I go to a stupid party?”

  Mom shifted her weight and crossed her arms. “Honey,” she said, “I’m not trying to tell you whether to go to a party or not—and I’m certainly not trying to tell you who your friends should be—but you wouldn’t be playing both ends against the middle, would you?”

  I swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you were snickering about Meredith with Bridget, and now it seems like you’re talking about Bridget to Meredith.”

  “Meredith called me,” I reminded her testily. “And Bridget’s the one who was making fun of Meredith. I’m just trying to be nice to everybody, but it doesn’t se
em to matter what I do, because I keep getting grief everywhere I turn, and all I want is for everybody to be friends like we used to be.”

  Mom nodded. “So…do you want to go to Meredith’s party?”

  My shoulders sank. “Meredith really has turned into Little Miss All-That. But I wouldn’t totally hate the idea of hanging around with a few people besides just Bridget. And everybody will be at Meredith’s party.”

  Mom bit her lower lip. “Not Bridget.”

  “Well, everybody cool,” I said, then sucked in my breath, wishing I could take it back.

  “Talia,” Mom said, “it’s one thing to go to a snob’s birthday party. It’s another thing to be a snob.”

  “I am not a snob! But it’s supposed to be a really fun party with a deejay and strobe lights and…why are you looking at me that way?”

  Mom’s eyes softened. “I didn’t say you shouldn’t go, honey. You know I’ve always liked Meredith. Maybe she’s just going through a phase. It happens sometimes when kids get really preoccupied with what other people think of them.”

  “Meredith doesn’t worry about what other people think of her,” I said. “Other people worry about what she thinks of them.”

  Mom gently took my hand. “I bet Bridget doesn’t. And I wouldn’t think you would, either.”

  “Look,” I told Mom, “all I’m saying is: There’s a party a week from Saturday and I’m invited. I’m supposed to RSVP. I kinda want to go and I kinda don’t. I can’t help who’s invited and who’s not. So that’s the deal.” I looked at her pleadingly. “What do you think I should do?”

  Mom shook her head. “I don’t have all the answers, honey.” She sighed. “I think,” she finally said, “that this is your call to make. Pun intended.”

  She tossed her head in the direction of the phone.

  It was time to RSVP.

  16

  I knew what it felt like to have butterflies in my stomach. But as I listened to Brynne making the Oddcast announcements, then David giving the weather forecast, then Carl doing the sports interspersed with Bridget’s football-practice footage, my butterflies seemed to transform into crazed killer wasps set on devouring my internal organs. I dug my fingernails into my palms and bit my bottom lip.