by Rachel Vail
She took a deep breath and dropped her head back into her hands. “I’m in such big trouble,” she whispered. “When my mom finds out . . .”
“She won’t,” I told her.
CJ looked up at me again.
“I’ll clean the whole thing up and bring the pieces home with me,” I said. “Your mom will think she just lost it. She never has to know.”
We stared at each other for a few seconds. Finally CJ whispered, “Really?”
I shrugged like, no big deal, and then out of my mouth popped, “You’re my best friend.”
I hadn’t meant to say it like that. It was our first sleepover, and I had no way of knowing if she even liked me at all, and there I was blurting that she’s my best friend. I couldn’t think of what to do, so I grabbed for another ball of mercury and said, Get! But it wasn’t that funny anymore.
“You’re my best friend, too,” CJ whispered.
We smiled at each other. What a relief. “I’ll never tell anybody about the broken thermometer,” I promised her, quickly gathering up the pieces in tissues. “Don’t worry. You won’t get in trouble. I’ll bring the pieces home with me, and no one will ever know. Even on my deathbed, I’ll never tell.”
“Thank you,” she whispered back.
After I got up all the little shards of glass and wrapped them in layers of tissues, we tiptoed down to the kitchen to tape it into a tight tissue ball and hide it in my suitcase. Mrs. Hurley was reading to Paul. She called to us and asked if we needed anything. CJ held on to my sleeve and said, “No!” We waited a few seconds, then smiled slowly at each other.
We brought my suitcase, with its secret inside, up to CJ’s pink room, where we played Barbies for a few hours. I didn’t have any Barbies at my house, because my mother thinks they’re sexist and perpetuate bad stereotypes and unrealistic body images that are damaging to young girls. CJ’s mother I guess thought they were OK. I sat cross-legged in the middle of CJ’s floor and wiggled my fingers deep into her pale pink carpet.
CJ took down all the Barbies from her shelf and let me choose whichever I wanted, even her newest one. I would probably have said, You can choose any except this one, because I just got her. But not CJ. She even let me dress the new Barbie in the bridal gown. The Barbie CJ chose had to be the groom, because CJ had no Kens. She shrugged and said, “That’s OK,” and I knew then that I had made a really good choice. I was only nine, but I knew already that most people aren’t about to let you be the bride.
nine
I look at the sealed white envelope in my brown bag while Lou Hochstetter finishes his presentation. I touch the envelope with my fingers, feeling the piece of thermometer inside.
I’ve kept the wadded-up pieces in my top desk drawer since I got home from CJ’s the next day and never told a single person, not ever. The first time I even took it out of the drawer was when I got that phone message from CJ, Friday afternoon. I cut the Scotch tape and spread the tissues out on my desk. I chose the biggest piece of thermometer off the tissues and slipped it into an envelope and put the envelope into the brown paper bag that had been standing open and empty on top of my desk blotter. I wondered for a second, What will Mrs. Shepard think, a broken thermometer? But she never said anything about you have to choose things that are obvious why you chose them; the assignment was: Choose ten things that represent who you are in all your many facets. So I thought, Too bad if she doesn’t know the meaning. This is who I am. And not even just, I’m best friends with CJ Hurley, but also, I can keep a secret and never tell.
I slip the envelope with the thermometer inside it into my desk, now.
No way can I get up in front of everybody and say, This broken thermometer is a symbol that I’m best friends with CJ, because now I’m not. She doesn’t want me anymore. Not that I care. It’s just, now I have only nine things left in my bag and what if Mrs. Shepard calls me?
I could say, And my tenth thing is nothing, which symbolizes the friendship ring I don’t have. Sure. Like I would ever say anything so embarrassing.
Lou’s guns and tanks from World War II are spread across Mrs. Shepard’s desk. He’s been smiling at Mrs. Shepard, but she hasn’t said Fine. She’s pointing her tongue at her upper lip, all four and a half solid feet of her waiting for something. Poor goofy Lou is starting to sweat. I think she hates him. “And?” she finally asks.
“And?” he asks back.
“And what does this panoply of World War II armaments reveal about Louis Hochstetter?”
Lou rubs his pants leg with the work boot on his other foot. “What do you mean?” Most social studies teachers go crazy for Lou and his expertise. We’ve been hearing variations of his World War II lectures for the past four years.
Mrs. Shepard narrows her eyes slightly. “The assignment, Mr. Hochstetter.”
We all wait. My hand is inside my brown paper bag, but I’m too terrified to move it, even to pull it out. Nobody moves, except our eyes—from her to Lou, who is resting his weight on his palm, beside his carefully arranged but suddenly ridiculous-looking World War II toys.
“The purpose of this assignment,” Mrs. Shepard states quietly, “was to reveal yourself in all your various aspects. Have you done that, Mr. Hochstetter?”
“I, sort of,” Lou managed. His face is turning purple.
“Oh?” Mrs. Shepard raises her eyebrows and I realize my mouth is hanging open.
Lou takes a big breath and bravely stutters, “I’m interested in, in World War II. Armaments.”
“Is that interest all there is to Louis Hochstetter?”
Lou’s eyes look misty. “Pretty much,” he answers.
What if she calls me next? No way am I standing there like poor Lou, ready to blubber. I have to think of something to split in half, fast.
Mrs. Shepard waits what feels like forever before she says, “Hmm.”
Lou places his guns and tanks gently back into his brown bag. I can’t watch. I turn my head, and who’s looking at me? CJ. She sits right next to me. We shake our heads at each other and make sad faces. Pour Lou. He’s a total zip but still. CJ closes her eyes, opens them slowly, and smiles slightly at me.
Maybe I’ve misunderstood.
My fingers are freezing cold. OK, OK. Concentrate because I could be called next. The cards, I could split them up. My mother’s gray, worn deck of cards that I’m never supposed to take out of the leather case in her night table drawer. I could pull two cards and leave the rest, bound by the rubber band, in my desk. Which two? A queen of diamonds because I love jewelry (too bad if I don’t) and a joker because I’m so funny? Right. Oh, God, I’m in big trouble.
I could put in the black scrunchie I have around my wrist. Oh, that’s meaningful. “To symbolize my hair.” No. I push the spatula aside and the branch. What’s in this box? I open it stealthily, under my desk, inside the bag. Oh, yeah. My baby tooth. Maybe I could say the box means something? What? A little white box. Because I’m interested in little white boxes. Sure.
I turn again to my left. CJ is still looking at me, making that sad face as Lou crosses in between us, shuffling back to his seat. She raises her hand to her neck, her sign for being scared or sympathetic. I do the same thing. She smiles.
I definitely must’ve misunderstood what happened this morning. She still wants to be best friends. Of course she does.
“Gabriela Shaw,” says Mrs. Shepard. CJ and I both breathe a sigh of relief. I almost touch my nose with crossed fingers, our symbol for being best friends, but at the last second I stop myself. My fingers lie crossed on top of the brown bag as I try to decide what’s really going on.
CJ said, right before lunch, that it wasn’t what I thought. I just didn’t let her explain what happened this morning with her and Zoe Grandon. It must all be a misunderstanding. I’m just stupid. Hallelujah.
I don’t even care what Gabriela has to say. I roll my eye
s at CJ, like, I am such a jerk, I’m sorry. I make a show of looking into my bag, then flaring my nostrils like the stuff inside stinks. CJ hunches her shoulders and smiles.
ten
After our first sleepover, CJ and I were practically inseparable. We ate lunch together, and whispered all day in school, and of course took ballet together. Me, CJ, and this girl Fiona were the best in the class; the other girls watched us three warm up in a tight threesome. But even Fiona knew CJ and I were best friends. Our two mothers carpooled. After ballet we’d go back to one house or the other, depending on whose mother picked up, and spend all afternoon.
One afternoon we were at my house. When Mrs. Hurley came to pick up CJ, Mom was looking for an excuse to delay writing her college applications. “Let them finish playing,” she said to Mrs. Hurley. “How about some coffee?”
Mrs. Hurley smiled and said, “Terrific.” Mrs. Hurley looks like a model. Beautiful people, like my father, really intimidate Mom. She took out her best cups, the ones she inherited from her parents, the ones we never touch.
CJ and I were in the middle of appearing together on an imaginary talk show in my room. We were telling the audience of my stuffed animals how it felt to be the two prettiest and most accomplished prima ballerinas in the world, how there was never, no, we swear it, not a shred of jealousy between us, we just took turns dancing every lead. It wouldn’t be any fun touring the world without each other, we insisted into the empty roll of toilet paper we were using as a microphone.
“Oh, yes, there are differences,” I told the cardboard roll. “CJ has the longer neck.”
CJ grabbed the mike and insisted that I had better turn-out, perfect.
I shrugged humbly and pointed my toes toward opposite sides of my room. The stuffed animals lined up on my bed clapped as we broke for a commercial. Since one of the three doors in my bedroom goes to the kitchen, CJ and I used the break from being interviewed to crouch behind it and eavesdrop on our mothers. I remember it so clearly, smiling at each other as we held in our giggles in anticipation of hearing some juicy grown-up gossip.
My mother was whispering about what an immature jerk my father was—her favorite subject those days (these, too). “So he felt that he didn’t know who he was. I told him, You are the father of two children, that’s who you are.”
CJ’s mom whispered back, “That’s right.”
“But he left.” My mother’s voice cracked like she might cry. “The next morning, he packed the car and left.”
I heard Mrs. Hurley gasp sympathetically, then the coffeepot clink against a cup. My eyes were closed, and I don’t know about CJ, but giggles were no longer a problem for me.
“Now he’s in L.A. bumming around, being a starving actor,” I heard my mother continue.
“Really?” asked Mrs. Hurley.
“Don’t even get me started,” Mom replied. I prayed to Saint Christopher with clenched fists and eyes that Mrs. Hurley wouldn’t get her started.
“Los Angeles?” Mrs. Hurley asked, like that was the unbelievable part. I peeked up at CJ. Her face was buried in her lap.
My mother laughed her cough of a laugh and said, “Los Angeles. And meanwhile I don’t have enough money to buy tuna fish, never mind ballet lessons. They’ve sent me three notices, and I just got a message on the machine that they’ll turn Morgan away from class this week if I don’t bring the money, which I don’t have.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Mrs. Hurley whispered. I remember her voice saying that, because I had never heard that expression before and thought it was a really bad curse, the way she whispered it: Oh, my gosh. My mother is so clueless to tell some lady she barely knew about her financial troubles. She sounded like such a kid. She sounded like she was in desperate need of a grown-up to take over. I was only nine, but who else was there?
I pushed open the door to the kitchen. Mrs. Hurley was so startled when the door slammed into the corner of the table, she splashed her coffee all over her white sweater. Too bad, I thought. She stood up. My mom stood up, too, and grabbed one paper towel, which wasn’t nearly enough.
I turned to my mother and said, “I hate ballet.”
“Morgan,” she said to me, then smiled at Mrs. Hurley. “I have a Stain Stick that’ll get that spot right off your sweater. I’m so sorry. Let me just . . .”
“Seriously!” I yelled, grabbing the dish towel that hung on the stove and shoving it toward Mrs. Hurley. “I hate it! It’s stupid and boring. If I could quit I’d be the happiest person.”
Tears were starting, so I had to turn away from the mothers. When I did, I was facing my room, where CJ was still sitting cross-legged, her face just slightly raised above her folded arms on top of her legs in their pale pink ballet tights.
“CJ wants to quit, too,” I said. Her pointy face turned as green as her eyes. “She hates it as much as I do, don’t you? CJ? She told me. She’s just afraid to admit it!”
Mrs. Hurley dragged CJ out of our puny house as fast as she could. She didn’t even finish dabbing at her sweater. Mom chased them down the driveway, offering Stain Stick.
I locked myself in the bathroom. My mother knocked on the bathroom door and said, “You sure have a gift for stopping conversation dead.”
I wasn’t in much of a joking mood. “At least I have a gift.”
“Hey!” She opened the door and found me crouched on the floor. “You can shut your smart mouth, miss.”
I hadn’t meant to say it like that, like my father. I just meant, Leave me alone. So I explained, “Nothing personal.”
“No?” She stood over me, with her fists on her hips, which made her look solid and fierce, although she’s only five foot one, like I am now.
“Just,” I said, “I’m happy you think I have a gift.”
Mom sneered. “It wasn’t meant as a compliment.”
I said, “No kidding.” We had a really charming relationship at that point. Not that it’s about to win the congeniality prize now.
She whirled around, stomped out of the bathroom, through my room, and out of the living room, slamming doors behind her. I sat in there by myself for a while after that. I think I might even have taken a bath, but that might be my imagination. Anyway, the next thing I remember I was standing at her bedroom door, and it was late that night, and I was asking if she wanted to play gin.
She loved playing gin; I had fallen asleep so many nights listening to her and Dad flipping cards onto the table. They had fun when they did that, I think.
“I hate seven-card gin,” Mom grumbled. Her TV was on, and her covers were pulled up around her. There was a container of yogurt on her bedside table with a spoon in it.
“I can hold ten cards now,” I said, holding up my hands to show how much they’d grown. I remember thinking, Anything just don’t hate me.
“OK,” she said and reached over to her night table where the cards always stayed, in the tight brown leather container my father had bought for her for Valentine’s Day when they were in Boggs High together and madly in love.
“You want to see a card trick?” I asked her, thinking a little magic might cheer her up.
“Can we just play gin?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s a stupid trick anyway.”
We played a few hands. I dropped all my cards once. She didn’t yell at me, just scooped them all up and said she’d had nothing, anyway, I’d done her a favor.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Did you and Dad have a love seat?”
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly, turning to watch a deodorant commercial on her TV.
“Morgan?” She shuffled, making a bridge out of the cards that fluttered flappingly into a neat stack.
“Nothing!” I looked at her with my most adamant face.
She started to deal the cards. “About ballet . . .”
“I really do hate i
t,” I answered as fast as I could. “Isn’t it my deal?”
She scooped up the cards and handed me the deck. “Thank you,” she whispered.
That’s when Little House on the Prairie came on. We both turned to the TV and watched the opening. I forced myself to go back to playing cards. She’d been playing solitaire a lot; I’d heard the cards slapping on one another.
“You want to take a break and watch this dumb show?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Not really.”
“So do I,” she said.
She took the cards and slipped them back inside their leather case. I snuggled under the covers with her and we watched. We both agreed Michael Landon was so cute, his name should be Cutie. Toward the end of the show, he pulled up his horse-drawn buggy beside his daughter, Laura, and said he’d be done working soon and did she want to go fishin’?
Mom and I sunk down on her pillows.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Mom asked.
“I hate fish,” I reminded her.
“Yeah,” she said. “And can you imagine having to go to the well so often?”
“And wear a hat to bed?”
We agreed we were way better off than the Ingalls family. I fell asleep in her bed that night, and I never put my ballet slippers back on. It just would’ve hurt Mom.
eleven
CJ didn’t quit with me, obviously. This summer she made it up to performance level, which means she’ll be taking five classes a week this year. She was so proud, I had to be happy for her, even if I couldn’t help pointing out that she wouldn’t be able to play soccer like all the normal people. I wonder if that annoyed her. But she knows I only mean it’s fun to be inseparable, like we used to be. I thought she knew that.