The Key to the Golden Firebird

by Maureen Johnson

  She felt herself getting angry, like she wanted to go in and have an argument about something that hadn’t been said with someone who couldn’t possibly be there. But only insane people did things like that, so the argument twisted and stewed inside her with nowhere to go. She wanted to scream, but she just threw one of her pens against the refrigerator. It bounced off and rolled under the lip of the dishwasher. She felt stupid. She got up and retrieved it.

  There was a burning smell coming from the oven. It needed to be cleaned.

  And the volume just kept going up. For once, though, it had a useful effect. When it was sufficiently loud enough to cover her sobs, May sat down on the floor, put her head in her hands, and cried.

  june

  Firebird, golden

  Gold family entrances associated with

  Site of Brooks’s conception. Occurred at the Vince Lombardi rest stop off the New Jersey Turnpike, just outside New York City, on the way to a game at Yankee Stadium. (Not something I asked to know. I overheard my dad talking about it to Mr. Camp at a picnic.)

  Impromptu ambulance used to rush my mother to the hospital when she went into premature labor with me. My dad ran four red lights trying to get there and was eventually pulled over. The police escorted us the rest of the way. (I figure I can say “us”—I mean, I was there, right?)

  6

  In the past, the arrival of June had always been treated like a major holiday in the Gold house because June meant summer. June was when school ended and the Golds could turn themselves over entirely to the Baltimore Orioles and the summer leagues. A balanced meal suddenly consisted of hot dogs burned nice and dark on the grill, with a pile of fried onions and coleslaw on the side. Dinner was either in front of the television or out in the backyard, with the radio tuned to the sports station. There would be beer for the adults and fudge Popsicles or Mister Softie for everyone else. The Camps and various softball teammates of Palmer and Brooks drifted in and out, the phone rang constantly, May complained that she didn’t have anywhere quiet to do her homework (until she got her ice cream cone), and a happy chaos reigned. The main concerns were how Baltimore was doing and when Brooks or Palmer was playing.

  All of that had changed last year.

  For a start, Mike Gold’s funeral had been on the first of June—an overcast and unseasonably cold day. The service at the funeral home had been short and simple. Since his body had been cremated, there was no trip to the cemetery. There was an informal lunch in the back room of a small local restaurant, during which the Gold sisters sat in a corner, mute, ordering soda after soda and looking numbly out on the crowd of people, many of whom they barely knew. Their mother, who had been medicated by this point, made hollow conversation with whoever sat next to her.

  Their father’s parents had come out from California and stayed for the entire month. When that set of grandparents had gone, their mother’s parents, the Dreijers, had come over from Holland for a week. The Camps made daily visits. It was strange to have this endless company—this steady stream of people who seemed hell-bent on distracting them all. Whenever Brooks tried to retreat to her room, someone would come knocking.

  When Brooks finally got tired of sitting at home and returned to work at the pool in mid-July, her bosses gave her the easiest and most boring assignment—checking tags at the gate. People got quiet when they passed her. Even members of the pool who were complete strangers to her seemed to know that she was “that poor girl who had just lost her father.”

  This year, June came in on a decidedly more positive note. Brooks was concentrating on the details of her junior prom. It had taken a while for Dave to get around to asking her, but two weeks before, he’d finally done it. Casually, of course. In study hall.

  Even though the Gold family budget couldn’t really cover Brooks’s expenses, destiny had already decided that she should go to the prom in a certain amount of style. Magically, people started coming forward with all kinds of items. A neighbor had recently been in a wedding, and she had a spare dress—satin, basic black, with removable spaghetti straps. A nurse who worked with her mom lent Brooks a choker. Another had the right size feet and an amazing pair of black heels. The nurse manager had a gift certificate for a free manicure at a local salon that she was never going to use, having permanently lost her thumbnail after getting her finger caught in a car door.

  The topper was a two-hundred-dollar check made out to Brooks from their grandparents in California, who had correctly guessed that funds were running a little low. Of course, with all of the donations, this was just gravy. It went toward the limo, her hair, an eyebrow wax, a deluxe pedicure, ten minutes of shiatsu shoulder massage, and a black henna tattoo (the Chinese character for party) on the small of her back. She had just enough left over for all of the odds and ends.

  Brooks had started reading fashion magazines to get ready. She’d ripped out an article called “The Ultimate Prom Preparedness List,” which she tucked into the side of her mirror. (When May had seen this, she’d simulated vomiting. Brooks took it down and folded it into a notebook.) On the night before the prom, Brooks stopped into the huge drugstore across from Presto Espresso to do a little shopping.

  She wandered the sterile aisles, examining the cotton balls and cold remedies. She picked up a box of medicine that Jamie swore cured hangovers. She grabbed bobby pins, dry-clear deodorant, clear nail polish, safety pins, a small pack of tissues—everything on her list. As she walked past the alcove near the pharmacy, something caught Brooks’s eye. There, between the nonprescription eyeglasses and the incontinence supplies, were the condoms. Brooks stopped and stared at them for a moment. Then she turned her back on them and pretended to be deeply engrossed in the task of picking out baby formula.

  Condoms were not on the prom preparedness list. But maybe they should have been.

  The one thing that had been eating at Brooks recently was the fact that—no matter how obvious it was—Dave had yet to say that he was her boyfriend. Brooks had tried to bring the subject up, but it always seemed to fall by the wayside.

  Brooks was a virgin. No particular reason—it was just that she hadn’t seen the right opportunity yet. This, she realized, was the right opportunity. If she were ready at the prom, with Dave…it would be hard to evade the subject after that.

  She turned back to the display and tried to figure out where to begin. There were about fifty different kinds—ribbed, thin, sensitive, flavored, colored, extra strength, non-latex, nonlubricated, spermicidally lubricated, extra pleasure, large…. After a quick examination, she grabbed the pack that seemed the most average—something that offered protection yet came wrapped in a green package that looked kind of fun (it featured a dancing cucumber). She shoved the pack under her other purchases and headed for the checkout.

  There were two registers open at the front of the store and only one person waiting in line. As Brooks stepped behind, she saw that one of the cashiers was a girl from her Spanish class. It wasn’t someone Brooks really knew, but still, she didn’t want someone from school ringing up her stuff. She went to the back of the store, to the pharmacy line. There were eight people in this one, but Brooks joined it anyway.

  “Are you waiting for a prescription?” the woman behind the counter called to her.

  “Uh…” Brooks dug into her basket. “No.”

  “Then go up front. There’s no line up there.”

  Brooks couldn’t really demand to wait in the longest line, so she reluctantly turned and went back to where she had just been. Now Brooks was the only person waiting.

  “I can take you.”

  Of course it was the girl from class.

  The girl gave Brooks a glance and an I-know-you-slightly nod. Brooks nodded back and started unpacking her basket. Bobby pins…tiny hair spray…pack of tissues…

  “You’re in Keller’s Spanish class,” the girl said. “Right?”

  “Yeah,” Brooks said.

  Nail polish…deodorant…morning-after effervescent med
icine…

  “Are you taking Spanish IV?”

  The girl’s name tag read Tammy. She didn’t even know this girl Tammy. Why was she trying to get the lowdown on Brooks’s academic future?

  “I don’t know yet,” Brooks said.

  The basket was empty now except for the condoms. She wondered if she should just drop them to the ground. Forget about them. Or come back later.

  “I am,” Tammy was saying. “I’m thinking about taking Keller again.”

  No, Brooks thought. Why should she care if someone she barely knew saw her buying something that she had every right to buy? Brooks reached in one last time and set the condoms on the counter, sliding them as far under the pile of stuff as she could.

  “Except that I want to take AP history, which is at the same time,” Tammy said. She wasn’t even looking at the stuff. She reached over blindly, grabbed each item, and held it up to the scanner. Maybe she wouldn’t even notice.

  “Oh.”

  Everything but the condoms had been rung up. Tammy looked down, as if to ask, “Is that all?” and spotted the condoms on the counter. If Brooks had blinked, she would have missed it, but Tammy shot her a curious look, scanned them, ran them over a separate sensor, and dropped them into the bag.

  “Fifteen seventy-five,” she said, not looking Brooks in the eye.

  Brooks handed over her last twenty dollars of the two hundred. Tammy pushed back the change.

  “See you in class,” she said.

  “See you,” Brooks replied.

  As she hurried out into the parking lot, Brooks made a mental note to herself: Avoid Tammy like the plague.

  Palmer was on her way out of the locker room when she heard her name being shouted. She turned around to see her coach waving her into her tiny office, off on the far side of the gym. Palmer went over and peered into the room, with its mint-colored cinder block walls. Her coach, Mrs. Grady, was ducking in and out of various file cabinet drawers. Mrs. Grady never sat still.

  “I want to ask you something, Palmer,” she said, throwing a pile of manila folders to the ground.

  “Okay.”

  “I’m running a July session this year,” she said. “It’s the whole month, four hours every weekday morning. I have a pitching coach come in for part of the time. We’ll also be playing a few sample games for some scouts. It’s very competitive. We’re taking people from all over Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. I’m not even taking too many people from our team.”

  Palmer tangled her fingers in a nearby volleyball net, wondering where this was going.

  “I think you should come, Palmer. I think we could do some good work.”

  “When’s the tryout?”

  “You don’t need to try out,” Mrs. Grady said, dumping the contents of a very fat file into a recycling bin. “I’m accepting you.”

  Palmer didn’t know what to say. This was almost too good. But camps cost money.

  “I have to ask my mom,” Palmer said. “I don’t know if I can.”

  Mrs. Grady stopped file purging for a moment.

  “I need an assistant,” she said. “If you help out with the equipment and the paperwork, you can come for free.”

  “Free?”

  “Do you want the job?”

  Palmer nodded, trying not to look too eager. She didn’t really succeed. She also didn’t question why the coach seemed to know that money was a problem. That was fine. If it meant that she could go to the summer session, Palmer didn’t care what she knew.

  “So,” Mrs. Grady went on, “if you want to, talk to your mom about it and let me know by the end of this week.”

  “I’ll come,” Palmer said.

  “Check first. Make sure that you can.”

  “I’ll come,” Palmer repeated. “I’ll check, but I’ll be there. I’m just telling you.”

  “Good.” Mrs. Grady nodded. “We start the first of July.”

  As she left the building, Palmer felt a lightness she hadn’t experienced in a long time. Tonight she just might get some decent sleep.

  7

  The next morning May gazed miserably into her locker, trying to make some sense of the mosaic of self-stick notes that covered the door. Why did she write incredibly obvious and nonspecific things like study Tues. or bring book?

  “You’re mad about something,” Linda said as May yanked down three identical notes that read paper due.

  “Brooks’s prom is tonight.”

  “You’re mad about Brooks’s prom?” Linda asked.

  “I’m not mad about her prom,” May said, shutting her locker door with a loud bang. “I’m mad because she gets everything she wants. I work so I can buy a laptop and save some cash for college. Brooks does nothing, and people like leap out of the bushes to throw money and stuff at her.”

  “Bathroom,” Linda said. “With me. Come on.”

  They turned into the bathroom by their homeroom door. Girls’ had been built over a century before as a club for male students. The bathrooms were huge, intricately tiled places with historical plumbing and six inches of paint on the walls. May leaned against one of the old pedestal sinks and played with the cold water knob. Linda went over and sat on the high marble windowsill, pulling her long hair from behind her back and piling it on top of her head in a huge black coil. This was her thinking spot.

  “So,” she said. “The prom.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” May said. “That’s not it.”

  “I’m just asking. Could you like him?”

  “Pete? He’s Pete….”

  “Let me get this straight,” Linda said. “Pete gives you driving lessons and he drives you around. He shows up whenever you need him and even when you don’t. You want to know what this means?”

  “Not really.”

  “You’re in denial.”

  “I am not in denial.”

  Linda smiled, as if she had just heard a little voice in her head that was telling her a private joke.

  “I am not in denial,” May repeated. “Seriously. Pete is just a big-haired freak. He’s like a brother to me. It’s like asking you if you could date Frank.”

  “But he’s not your brother.”

  “I said like a brother,” May replied.

  “Right,” Linda said. “But Frank is actually my cousin, which makes it illegal as well as repulsive. You are not related to Pete in any way.”

  “After a while, it’s almost like I am. He’s like my common-law brother.”

  “You should work in an excuse factory,” Linda sighed. “It doesn’t occur to you that he’s only dating Nell because you pretty much told him to? And that it’s possible for him to date Nell and like you at the same time?”

  “Stop. Seriously.”

  “You won’t admit it.”

  “There’s nothing to admit,” May said. “He’s teaching me to drive because his mom made him, and he’s going out with Nell because he feels like it. He was nice to Palmer because it was a serious thing. That’s it. End of story.”

  Linda considered this as she reached into her bag and pulled out a small white candy, which she unwrapped and popped into her mouth.

  “My grandmother keeps giving me this ginger candy,” Linda said, her face contorting into an agonized spasm. “And I really hate it. It burns. But I can’t stop eating it.”

  “Is that supposed to be some kind of parable?”

  “No,” Linda said, sucking in air to cool her mouth. “Do you want it to be?”

  May turned the ancient tap on one of the sinks a bit too roughly, and water came gushing out and covered the front of her skirt. She brushed it away. The one good thing about her uniform was that it was made of indestructible polyester, impervious to stain or spill.

  “It was always the big joke,” May said, “when we were kids. Our parents always used to say that Pete and I were going to end up together. My dad said it all the time. He thought it was hilarious.”

  Linda fell into the wide-eyed silence that alw
ays cropped up whenever May accidentally mentioned her dad. It was a guaranteed conversation breaker. May was obliged to continue speaking so that Linda could see that it was okay to keep talking about the subject.

  “Pete is that person who wiped his nose on my ruler in fifth grade,” she went on. “I still can’t eat bologna because of him….”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “The point is,” May said, “I just don’t understand why Nell would date that guy.”

  “Because Pete’s not that guy anymore.”

  “Quit it with the deepness.”

  “I’m serious,” Linda said. “Things change.”

  “They don’t change that much.”

  “Yes, they do,” Linda said. “Are you saying that you’re the same now as you were when you were eight?”

  “I’m not talking about when I was eight. I’m talking about last year.”

  Linda made a thoughtful noise. May looked up at her.

  “What? That’s a Dr. Linda sound.”

  “Why did you give Nell the number?” Linda asked.

  May shrugged.

  “I had to.”

  “Had to? Oh, I get it. Nell’s scary, impressive assistant manager’s credentials got to you. You were blinded by her power.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” May said. “I don’t even care.”

  “Yes, you do. You care a lot. Will you please stop saying you don’t? It’s annoying.”

  “I just think it’s weird,” May said. “I can’t figure it out. Pete was the most annoying person I knew, and just as he was becoming normal, he gets together with the person who took his title.”

  “Okay, two things,” Linda said. “One, don’t try to figure out why people pair up the way they do. Perfect example: You know Dash?”

  “Frank’s girlfriend?”