I put my pizza slice down. “Caitlin told me to get revenge. She said she knew where he lived. But it was mostly my idea. I felt like I had nothing to lose after flunking and missing camp.” I drink my water. “I don’t know. Maybe I wanted Mr. Finsecker to feel as bad as I felt.”
Mom sighs. “All that time you were struggling in his class, and you never once came to us for help. Dad and I are not the enemy. We love you, and we want you to be happy.”
“It didn’t seem like it then, Mom. Like the night it happened, you didn’t come in my room until you heard me making a mess, not even when I was yelling bad words and crying.”
“You had to get your emotions out. We left you alone to vent.”
“You should have come in anyway. You’re my parents.”
The waitress is eyeing us from the corner. We must be louder than we realize.
Mom cocks her head to one side. “You’re tough, Abby.”
“I’m like you.”
She looks at me like I’m a fish in a tank. “No. You have a mind of your own. You’re not exactly like me.”
“I’m not exactly like anybody.”
Mom throws her head back and laughs. It breaks the tension. “That’s true! You are one of a kind.” A good feeling comes over me when she says that.
We finish our meals, and Mom asks for the check. “You get mad as fast as I do,” I tell her. “Maybe you could work on not being so stressed.”
She nods, considering it. “I’ll do that.” She sips her drink. “Do you want to talk about anything else? Boys?”
“Ew, with you?”
“No, Abby, Oprah called. She wants to talk to you about your love life.”
“Mom!”
“What?”
I smile at her. “You made a joke. You should do that more often.”
She wrinkles up her nose. “You’re right. I should.”
“And, Mom?”
“Yes.”
“This is nice.”
Her eyes soften.
“Thanks for listening…for finding Dr. C. For everything. I’ll always blame Mr. Finsecker for some of what happened, but I know why you didn’t send me to camp. Anyway, thanks.”
Mom’s eyes tear up, and her hand flies to her throat, clutching her necklace. And she says I’m dramatic.
“Oh, and, Mom?”
“Yes?”
“I think I know where I can get a dress for the bar mitzvah.”
Teen Princess is a quick walk from California Pizza Kitchen. Amy is sitting behind the cash register reading a Teen Vogue. As soon as she sees me, she rushes out and hugs me.
“Hello again,” Mom says to her. “Amy, right?”
“Yes, hi,” she answers.
A beautiful, older version of Amy comes gliding out of a back room in a flowing maxi dress. “I’m Monique,” she says. Mom holds out her hand. Monique takes it in both of hers. “I can’t tell you how happy I am our daughters met. It’s lovely to meet you both.”
“I’m Rachel, this is Abby, and it’s a pleasure to meet you too,” Mom says warmly. “I feel the same way.”
They start chatting. Amy leads me toward the back of the store. “So this is what you do on weekends?” I ask her.
Amy nods and says, “Can I help you?” We giggle.
“I need a fancy dress for my brother’s bar mitzvah, but PS, my mom won’t pay big bucks.”
Amy leads me to racks in the way, way back and pulls out a minidress in my favorite shade of blue. It has a full, patterned skirt. “This is a Stella McCartney.”
The dress fits like it was made for me. I twirl around, enjoying the way it flares out. I wish Max could see me in this. It would be great if we ever did a fancy magic show. “If I don’t get this dress, I’ll die. How much is it?”
“It’s not from this season, so it’s marked down.”
I look at the price tag. “That much?” Amy nods. My heart is now somewhere at the bottom of the ocean. “No way is Mom going to pay that,” I say sadly.
“Wait,” Amy says. She comes back with black sequined sandals, long sparkly earrings, and a black headband. I put everything on.
My heart sinks even more as I admire myself. “I literally have to plan my funeral, because you’re killing me.” I twirl around and moan, “Why does it have to be so expensive? I don’t want to take it off.”
“Then don’t. Stay here.” She leaves and comes back with Mom. I hold my breath, wondering what she’ll say.
Mom takes one look at me and gasps. “Oh, Abby. You have to wear this.”
“It’s not too expensive?”
She squints at the price tag, holding it at arm’s length because she won’t wear reading glasses. “We’ll make it work. Let’s get it.” I squeal, jump up and down, hug Mom, throw my arms around Amy, and then do a little dance.
“You’re a very talented stylist, young lady,” Mom says to Amy, who looks about to burst with happiness. “I’ll go and tell your mother we’ll take everything.”
Mom leaves, and Amy unzips the back of my dress. “I can’t believe you called yourself nothing,” I tell her reflection in the mirror. “Do you have any idea how talented you are?” I raise my arms up in a pose. “Look at what you created.”
She copies my pose with her arms stretched up. Except I surprise her and tickle her under her arms. She jumps away, laughing, and then asks timidly, “Will you let me style you when you’re on the red carpet?”
“Of course. That way we can meet all the celebrities together.”
I twirl one last time before slipping off the dress. Amy is still smiling. So am I. This has been a really, really, really good day.
It’s the class sleepover. I’ve just walked in. About half of our class is already here. Max is sitting on a table with Kelvin, showing him a card trick. “I bent the corner of your ace,” Max tells him. “You didn’t notice because I was talking to you. That’s called misdirection.”
Max looks different tonight. It takes me a second to figure it out: white T-shirt, navy hoodie, dark jeans. New clothes. He looks sort of…cute. No kidding.
I’m really wishing he wasn’t moving right now.
Before I have a chance to go over and say hi, Sofia whacks Kelvin with her pillow and yells, “PELEA!” Apparently, this is the Guatemalan battle cry for a pillow fight. The ponytail girls go bananas hitting each other with their pillows and screaming in Spanish. I grab my pillow and jump in. So does Max. I get him good. He hammers me back. I’m about to retaliate when I hear “FREEZE!”
It’s Tony, in jeans and a polo shirt, no tie, and khakis. He doesn’t look like a teacher. He looks like one of us. Mrs. Shoop is right behind him in her usual cardigan. “Everyone needs to calm down, m’kay?” She tries to smile. It doesn’t look like it comes easily to her.
“Penalties for unnecessary roughness!” Tony shouts. He tells us to listen up, reminds us about what the midsummer-night custom was all about in the olden days, and then has us push the tables against the wall, stack the chairs, and roll out our sleeping bags.
Pizza arrives next, and we sit around eating while Tony tells us disgusting facts about the Elizabethan age, like the boils people got with bubonic plague, and how people didn’t brush their teeth, lived with rats, and only bathed a few times a year. Basically, they were like zombies from The Walking Dead.
The factoid that grosses us out the most is the love apple. An Elizabethan woman would cut an apple in half, rub it in her armpit, and then give it to her boyfriend or husband before he went away on a trip so he could smell her BO while he was away. BO was considered attractive. Everybody pretend barfs and goes “ew!”
“Oh, my,” Mrs. Shoop says, adjusting her cardigan.
“I have something for you,” Max says to me when Tony is done talking. “I wanted to give it to you before I leave.”
“If it’s a love apple, no thanks,” I say, chewing on my pizza.
He wipes his hands on a napkin, reaches into his overnight bag, and pulls out a book titled
A How-To Guide to Stand-Up Comedy.
I laugh. “I guess I need this.”
“You don’t. But I thought you’d like it.”
“I have something for you. But not here.”
“So you told me. But you don’t have to give me anything. You already gave me you.”
My pulse instantly speeds up. Does he like me the way Trina thinks he likes me?
“As an assistant, I mean,” he adds.
“Oh. Right.” My pulse goes back to normal.
After we eat, Tony tries to teach us these awkward, cuckoo Elizabethan dances, and afterward it’s free time. Max and I look at videos of magicians on his laptop. At around ten, Tony waits until Mrs. Shoop leaves to go to the ladies’ room, then surprises us with cans of silly string. Even Tony gets into it, spraying everyone.
Mrs. Shoop isn’t thrilled when she walks back into the room and there’s silly string everywhere, but we clean it up. After that we’re all pretty tired, so we crawl inside our sleeping bags while Tony turns off the lights and shows us the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, a modern version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Tony sits on the desk near where Mrs. Shoop is sitting in a chair. After a while I get up and ask him if I can go use the restroom.
“Sure,” he says.
I turn to leave, then stop. “You’re a great teacher, Tony,” I tell him.
He tilts his head to one side, as if getting a good look at me. “Well, thank you, Abby. That’s good to know.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t know it already.” He smiles, then glances at Mrs. Shoop, who is obviously eavesdropping. I expected Tony to become the enemy. But I’ve learned more from him than any English teacher I’ve ever had, and it doesn’t hurt that I can tell he likes me. That makes all the difference.
When I get back from the bathroom, Tony is in his sleeping bag. Mrs. Shoop is still in her chair, but she has a blanket over her. It’s SO BIZARRE to be sleeping in the same room as teachers. I slink back into my sleeping bag. When the movie ends, I hear the slow, heavy breathing of a room full of people passed out.
“They’re all asleep,” Max whispers to me.
“Yeah.”
“Are you cold?” I guess he can see I’m shivering. My T-shirt is really thin, and the air-conditioning is too strong in here. “Do you want my sweatshirt?”
“Are you sure you don’t need it?” I ask. “You’ll be cold.” He doesn’t answer, just takes it off and hands it to me. It’s got that just-purchased-from-the-store-and-hasn’t-been-washed-yet smell.
“So…uh, g’night,” he says.
“G’night,” I say back. His eyes are closed. Why haven’t I ever noticed how long his lashes are?
This is weird. Max and I going to sleep right next to each other.
I hear a scratchy sound.
Palmetto bugs?
PALMETTO BUGS.
Palmetto bugs are not just any old bug. They are flying cockroaches so big they have faces. What if one crawls on me? What if one crawls inside my sleeping bag? What if one crawls inside my mouth?
There it is again. That noise.
“Max?” I whisper. “Are you sleeping?”
“Yes.”
“Do you hear anything?”
“Yeah, you, unfortunately,” he mumbles. “Stop wiggling your foot. It’s making your sleeping bag crackle.”
“Not that. Another sound.” He doesn’t answer. “Do you think there are palmetto bugs in here?”
“There might be. We’re in Florida. Termites, ants, spiders, all sorts of bugs. They’ll probably get inside your sleeping bag.”
“Stop it.”
He sighs. “Abby, don’t be a canker blossom.”
“A what?”
“Hermia calls Lysander that in the play,” he says in a sleepy voice. “Now go to sleep.”
“I can’t. I’m scared.” I can hear him laughing under his breath. “Stop laughing. I didn’t tell you this before, but I have a major phobia about bugs. They really freak me out, especially when—”
The next thing I know, he’s holding my hand. Just as a friend, because I’m scared, not because there is ANYTHING between us. Because there isn’t. “Let’s talk,” he says. “You start.”
“How did you flunk Finsecker’s class? You’re so smart.”
“I was angry at my mom for leaving, angry at my dad for moving me out here, angry at you guys because I didn’t know you and I didn’t want to, angry at Finsecker because it was obvious he hated kids, just angry in general.”
“So lemme ask you a question,” I say.
“What?”
“By any chance, were you angry?”
He laughs. “So I blew off school, for the most part. I managed to pull it together at the end of the year in most of my classes. Just not Finsecker’s.”
“I’m glad you told me,” I say.
We talk about new ideas for our act for when Max visits from Pennsylvania, plans for our website, his dad who never talks, which Nickelodeon shows we still secretly watch, which Will Ferrell movie is our favorite, his mom’s new apartment, what he’s packing, and what he’s leaving behind. When I ask him if there’s any way to change his mind about moving, he doesn’t answer me, just takes deep, slow breaths. He’s out. My eyelids get heavy. I drift off to sleep, my hand still in his.
When we wake up in the morning, we’re still holding hands. Nobody sees, which is good. They might get the wrong idea.
It’s the last week of summer school. Since the sleepover Max and I have been FaceTiming every night. We never run out of things to talk about. I talk to Trina too, but with Max leaving, I have to get in as much Max time as possible. My project just might convince him to stay. I’m going to give it to him tomorrow. I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up, though.
I’m lying in bed, about to fall asleep, when my phone rings. I can’t believe it. Caitlin. I guess she’s calling because camp is ending soon.
“So did you get cast in Legally Blonde?” I ask her.
“I decided to work crew instead. I work the lights or change the backdrops in between scenes. It’s SO fun.” Baloney. She didn’t get a part. “How’s your summer been going? Are you still hanging out with Trina?” She says Trina as if it means lice.
“Yeah, and Max and Amy. It’s been the four of us this whole summer, basically.”
“Well, I’m coming home next week, so you won’t have to hang out with them anymore. And next year you can come to camp and have adventures, like me and Brett. You’ll forget all about stupid dummy school.”
“Summer school hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be.”
“Come on,” she laughs. “Be serious.”
“I am. Max, Trina, and Amy made it fun. We’ve gotten really close.”
She sighs, the way my mother does when she’s running out of patience with me. “Abby, are you off your meds? When school starts—real school—you have to dump them.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re nothing like us!”
“You know what, Caitlin? I think you should seriously consider finding another best friend.”
Did I just say that? Yes, I did.
“Don’t be stupid. I’m your best friend.”
“Were my best friend. Not anymore. You’re not even my friend. You don’t act like it, anyway.” A mixture of anger and relief flows out of me as I say the words I’ve been thinking for so long. “And you can have Brett, for all I care. Good luck with that.”
Silence. And then she asks, “I’m still going to your brother’s bar mitzvah, right?”
“I don’t know. I’m hanging up now.”
I thought I needed Caitlin. She made me think I didn’t have a choice, that I wouldn’t ever be able to find another close friend, that she was my only friend option. But it’s not true. I have a choice. I always did.
I drop Mom’s bottle of Sexy in my bathroom. Glass and perfume are everywhere. Drew holds his hand over his nose. “Why do you always break things and mess ever
ything up?”
“Shut up and help me before Mom and Dad get home. Can you get me a towel?”
“Like your bedroom window and that man’s car and your expensive pillow—”
“Stop!”
“You stop!”
Why is he mad? “Did I do something wrong?” Drew and I almost never fight. It’s not like him to speak to me like this, although he has a few times this summer. “What did I do?”
He marches into my room, opens my closet, and points to my new dress. “Mom was supposed to take me to get my suit for the bar mitzvah, but first your friends had to come over, and then she took you shopping instead. Now I don’t have a suit, and there probably won’t be time to alter it. My friends told me they needed to get theirs altered.”
“How is it my fault that Mom forgot to get you your suit?”
“Do you have any idea how much time Mom and Dad spend dealing with you and all your stuff?”
“A lot, lately, I know, but—”
“Mom was so busy with you, she forgot about me. What else is new?”
“Calm down, Drew. She didn’t forget—”
“Did you know Dad wanted you and me to have a double bar and bat mitzvah?”
“You mean a b’nai mitzvah?”
“Yeah. He wanted to do that to save money, since it would only be one party instead of two, but Mom said no, that I deserved one for myself without you stealing the spotlight, like you always do. Because you always, always do.”
“I do not.”
“You do too. We should have done one party anyway, because you’re still taking up all their attention. I’ll probably end up wearing sweatpants to my own bar mitzvah, thanks to you. But you’ll have a new dress.” Drew stomps out, goes to his room, and locks the door.
I follow him and knock. He doesn’t answer. I talk through his door. “Drew, the doctor told Mom and me to spend time together, I swear. That’s why she took me shopping. If I’d known you needed your suit, I would have told her to take you instead of me.” No answer from Drew. “Shouldn’t Dad be taking you? Isn’t suit shopping, like, a father-son thing?”
This Is Not the Abby Show Page 15