My Worst Best Friend

by Dyan Sheldon

  Not that I needed Savanna to say anything for me to feel guilty. I felt like a creep. A friend’s supposed to be there for you when you’re feeling bad – not run away the first chance she gets. All through my afternoon classes, I debated changing my mind. It’s not too late, I told myself. You can still say no. Tell him you forgot you had something to do at home. He won’t care. The minute English was over, I pulled my phone out of my bag so as soon as I got outside I could call him and tell him I couldn’t go.

  Cooper was waiting by the door as I stepped through it. I’d never had a boy wait outside a class for me before. Even though it was Zebediah Cooper and not someone normal – and even though it wasn’t a date or anything – I couldn’t help feeling kind of pleased. You know, like I was the kind of girl boys waited for in corridors.

  “You all set?” asked Cooper.

  I said I was all set.

  I don’t know if it was because I didn’t want to hear myself thinking about how I’d abandoned Savanna, or what, but I did most of the talking on the way to the library. About how I felt about all the other earthlings on the planet and how badly we treated them, and the fragility of the ecosystem, and how we were destroying our land base, and why I loved iguanas and stuff like that. The only time Cooper laughed at me was when I made a joke. By the time we got to library, I was feeling really glad I hadn’t changed my mind after all.

  “Look at this, Gracie!” Cooper handed me a book he’d just pulled from the shelf. “Iguanas! A whole picture book about iguanas!”

  “Oh, wow.” I flicked through the pages. Iguanas on rocks. Iguanas on trees. Iguanas all piled up on one another like acrobats showing off. Who could not love them? “This is really excellent.” I held it up. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

  “In a prehistoric kind of way,” agreed Cooper. “But I have to confess that I’m more a dog man myself. They’re cuddlier.” He sat down on the chair next to mine. Which, since we were in the children’s section of the library, meant that his knees were more or less level with his chin. “What do you think?” Cooper nodded at the pile of books on the table. “Got enough to get you started?’

  I had a book about whales, a book about elephants, a book about coral reefs, a book about what the future could be like if we didn’t start taking care of the planet (and what it could be like if we did) and a story about a moose.

  “Are you kidding? I probably have enough to get me through the year.”

  “Right.” Cooper was drumming on the tabletop with his fingers. “Then how about we check these out and then go over to the café at the Meeting House for a drink?” He started drumming faster. “I’d like to hear some more about the devastating effects of global warming.”

  “Really?” It didn’t seem possible. The only other

  person who didn’t start groaning and stop me after the first five minutes when I launched into one of my monologues about the environment was my dad. “You don’t consider yourself an expert yet?”

  “Don’t worry, there’s a price to pay.” He rubbed his hands together. Gleefully. “When it’s my turn, you have to listen to me go on and on about the global economy. You won’t believe how many fun-filled hours of gloom and doom there is in that.”

  I laughed. “You haven’t met my father,” I said, “or you wouldn’t think that’s a threat.”

  “I’d like to meet him,” said Cooper. “He sounds like an interesting dude.”

  I said he was. I said my dad thought Cooper looked like a nice boy.

  “Well, I am.” Cooper laughed. “Didn’t you know that?”

  You might think it’d be kind of demoralizing talking to someone who was as worried about the future as I was, but, in a weird way, it was almost comforting. I guess it made me feel less alone.

  But Cooper and I weren’t talking about doom and gloom as we stepped out of the library. We were talking about the peanut butter cookies at the Meeting House café.

  “Wait till you taste them,” Cooper was saying. “I always thought the best thing about the Quakers was the pacifism, but this is definitely a close second.”

  I didn’t laugh. I was distracted. Savanna Zindle was maybe five yards away from us, waving so hard it looked like some giant, invisible hand was shaking her. Something awful had happened. I caught my breath. I’d been a total, self-centred creep. There I’d been having a good time without her, while Savanna really needed me. Maybe she was locked out of the house again, or her mother had finally followed through on all her threats and thrown all of her stuff out of her bedroom window. I could feel guilt start seeping up from my toes.

  “Gracie!” screamed Savanna. She zoomed towards us. “What perfect timing. I was just coming to look for you.”

  “What happened?” At least it couldn’t be that Morgan had finally called to tell her he didn’t want to see her again because she wasn’t in tears. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She gave me a hug, hitting Cooper in the knees with her bag. “I just, like, suddenly remembered I still have to get Marilouise a birthday present. So I thought you could come with me and help me pick it out. I don’t have, like, a single idea…” She slipped her arm through mine, leaning her head close to my ear. “I mean, ohmigod, Gray, what do you get for the girl who is nothing?”

  I didn’t laugh at that, either.

  I was relieved that she was all right and everything, but at the same time I really wished that she could’ve waited till tomorrow to get Marilouise’s present. You know, when I didn’t have something else to do.

  “Oh, Savanna… I’m…” I looked over at Cooper. His eyes were on Savanna. He was smiling his private-joke smile. “We were just going for a coffee.” I nodded across the street to the Meeting House. It wasn’t the kind of place Savanna would go to unless you paid her. A lot. “They’ve got this really cute café. And these peanut—”

  “But you don’t have to go there, do you?” Savanna was beaming back at Cooper like a high-powered flashlight. “I’m, like, just going to get her something in the gift shop. It’s on the same block as Java. You can have your coffee there.” The flashlight swept from him to me and back. “We can all go.”

  OK, I know how bad this sounds – you know, like I was a really rotten friend – but I didn’t want us all to go. To tell you the truth, now that I knew Savanna wasn’t in some kind of trouble, the only place I wanted her to go was away.

  “I don’t know…” I looked over at Cooper again.

  “Don’t worry about me.” Cooper was still looking at Savanna but he wasn’t smiling any more. “You two go do your shopping. I’ve got a lot of homework tonight. I should get moving anyway.”

  And what about the doom and gloom and peanut-butter cookies?

  “But—”

  “Well, that’s perfect.” Savanna squeezed my arm. “Thank God I caught you before you, like, totally left the library and I didn’t know where to find you.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thank God for that.”

  Savanna’s big smile disappeared at about the same time that Cooper did, replaced by the anguished look of a heart in torment.

  “I don’t know what to do, Gracie!” Her hair shivered with suffering. Her face contorted in pain. “I mean, I really don’t know how much more I can take. I, like, literally found myself staring into the medicine chest this afternoon, wondering if Zelda’s got enough sleeping pills to put me out of this torture and misery.”

  “Oh, Savanna.” Fresh guilt kicked me in the stomach. Hard. I gave her a hug with the arm that wasn’t involved with holding my bike up. “I thought you said nothing happened.”

  She gave a hedgehog-in-distress kind of cry. “Nothing has happened, Gracie! That’s the trouble. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Absolute zilch. I might as well be on top of some mountain with no phone and a couple of goats for company.”

  I made a wild guess that we were talking about Morgan Scheck again. That would be why she’d come after me. He still hadn’t called.

  “I can’t believe it! I really
can’t believe it. I mean, can you believe it? It’s, like, Wednesday, Gracie. Wednesday. Which is, like, three days after Sunday. Seventy-two hours. People have been born and died in that time. They’ve got married and got divorced. But I haven’t heard a word from Morgan. Not one infinitesimally tiny word. I was really positive I’d hear from him this afternoon.”

  And I’d been pretty positive I wasn’t going to be hearing about him this afternoon. I ignored the feeling of annoyance this change of my plans had caused and tried to be comforting. As a best friend should.

  “Well, you did say he’s really busy.” She had said this more than once. Morgan had classes. Morgan had to study. Morgan had a part-time job. Morgan had a lot of extracurricular activities. Morgan had a ton of friends. If Morgan got any busier he’d have to have himself cloned.

  “Busy was yesterday, Gracie.” We turned onto the main road. Savanna wasn’t walking, she was stomping. “And Monday. Monday could be busy, too. Two days is understandable. I mean, it’s not like I’m one of those clingy girls. And I do have other things to do myself. But this isn’t busy any more. Three days is not understandable. Three days is way past busy.” She stopped so suddenly I rolled my bike over my foot. “Why hasn’t he called, Gracie?”

  Why was she asking me? I wasn’t the expert on men.

  “I mean, I do know he’s got a really crazy schedule,” Savanna went on. “I got that part. But he could just, like, text me and say that he’s got a trillion things to do and he’ll call when he gets the chance, couldn’t he?”

  That seemed pretty reasonable to me. You know, unless he’d broken both his arms and all his fingers and was in a coma. I said maybe she should call him.

  Savanna made one of her um, duh faces. “I did that Monday, Gracie, remember? I left a message that I thought I’d lost an earring in his car.”

  “You lost an earring?”

  “No, of course not. But I don’t want him to think I’m after him, do I? Men like to do the pursuing.”

  Yet more wisdom from the pages of the glossy magazines.

  “Well, maybe you should call him again.”

  She waved one hand in the air. Dismissively. Been there … done that… “I left another message yesterday – you know, in case he didn’t get the first one. But I can’t call again. It’s like three strikes and you’re out. I mean, I don’t want him to think I’m all desperate and needy.”

  God forbid.

  “So what do your magazines say you should do if he doesn’t call?”

  “You’re not funny, Gracie.” She stuck her tongue out at me. “And anyway, he will call. I know he will. I mean, he said he would. That was the last thing he said on

  Sunday. I’ll call you… I can still hear him saying it.”

  “Well, then, he will call.”

  “You don’t think something’s happened to him, do you?” asked Savanna.

  I decided against mentioning broken arms and digits and comas. She was upset enough.

  “Of course not.”

  “But you can’t be sure about that, Gracie.” She was looking at me, but she was pretty much talking to herself. “I mean, this is a really dangerous world. There are mass murderers all over the place. And terrorists. And kidnappers. And birds…”

  Birds?

  “You know, that flu thing they were warning us about. He could’ve eaten, like, contaminated chicken.”

  Or spinach. A lot of people had got E. coli poisoning from spinach. It was pretty hazardous, too.

  Savanna scowled. “This isn’t exactly a laughing matter, Gracie. I’m serious. He could’ve had an accident. You know how many accidents happen every day? Like millions. And I don’t mean just cars. People slip in the shower and get hit by things falling out of windows.”

  “I’m sure nothing’s happened to him.” My dad taught at the State college. If one of the pre-law students had been poisoned by poultry or knocked out by a suicidal TV he would have heard about it. “He probably just, you know … forgot.”

  “Forgot?” She let go of me as if I was hot. “You mean, like, I’m so boring he forgot about me? Is that what you think? What am I, Marilouise Lapinskye?”

  “Oh, Savanna, please… Of course you’re not boring. You’re the least boring person I know.” Leaves scudded past us and Savanna’s hair blew around us. “All I meant was that he doesn’t seem able to plan ahead, does he?” Or even get to a phone.

  But that wasn’t the right thing to say, either. She was standing with her arms folded in front of her, staring at me. It was the Zindle scrutinous mode. She really reminded me of her mother.

  “Now what are you saying?”

  What was I saying?

  “I’m not saying anything. It’s just that… Well, it’s not like he’s in the Sahara without a cell phone, is it? You know, unless he has been abducted, it does seem a little weird that the one time he did make a date with you was at the last minute.” To be honest, it hadn’t seemed weird to me before, but now that I was actually thinking about it, it did. I know I’d never had a date myself, but I did have the impression that you usually got more than an hour’s notice. “So, you know, maybe he intends to call you, but then … I don’t know…” I couldn’t stand her looking at me like that. I started walking again. “Something else comes up.”

  “You think he’s seeing another girl?”

  Did I say that?

  “He’s not seeing someone else, Gracie. Morgan would never do a thing like that.”

  Why not? She was doing it.

  “Savanna, please. I’ve never even met this guy. Why would I think he has another girlfriend? All I’m saying is that you’re obviously right – he’s really busy. He probably just loses track of time. He’ll call you. You should try and chill out until he does.”

  “But I can’t chill out!” cried Savanna. “That’s why I had to come and get you. I mean, I just couldn’t sit in my room all afternoon waiting for my phone to ring. I’d have gone totally nuts.” She threw back her head. “Oh, why doesn’t he call?”

  Good God. We were starting all over again. It was the conversational equivalent of the wheel in a hamster’s cage. You know, going in circles. Around and around. I was the one who was going to go nuts. I had to change the subject.

  We’d come to the bridge over the river that borders Crow’s Point at one end. It’s a narrow bridge, so we were walking single file. “Speaking of calling,” I said to her back, “why didn’t you call me?”

  She stopped and turned around. “What?”

  “Why didn’t you call me while I was in the library to tell me you wanted to meet me?”

  “Because you were in the library, Gray.” Savanna was speaking very slowly. And distinctly. “Your phone was turned off.”

  “You could’ve left a message.”

  “Which you would’ve got when? After you got home?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  Savanna tilted her head to one side, studying me like I was a dress in a store window. “Am I missing something here?”

  “I just wondered why you didn’t tell me you wanted to meet me. You know, since you knew I was busy.” I nudged her with my front wheel. “Go on, Savanna, we’re blocking the sidewalk.”

  She didn’t go on.

  “Are you mad that I turned up, Gracie? Is that why you’re being so unsympathetic to my emotional needs?”

  “Of course not.” I gave her another nudge. “And I’m not being unsympathe—”

  “Ohmigod!” shrieked Savanna. “Ohmigod! That’s it, isn’t it? You wanted to be alone with Mr Misfit!” She steadied herself against the bridge. So she didn’t fall over laughing. “Oh, I don’t believe this. It can’t be true. That’s why you told me you weren’t going to join that dumb do-gooders club and then you did. You like the King of the Cretins!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” If she didn’t get moving, I was going to run her over.

  Savanna wasn’t listening. “Oh, Gracie… I mean, I don’t want to, like, sound mean or anyth
ing – and I am totally not saying that you’re not attractive or anything like that because you know that isn’t true – but you can’t possibly think Cooper’s interested in you, can you?”

  I hadn’t actually given it any thought. Could I think he was interested in me? How would I know? I didn’t think he was uninterested. Or disinterested. Or physically repulsed. I was pretty sure he liked me as a friend. He laughed at my jokes. He let me drone on about stuff that I cared about. You know, a person doesn’t offer to share peanut-butter cookies with someone who isn’t a pal.

  “Of course I don’t.”

  “I mean, just because he’s started coming to school before the second bell doesn’t, like, signify anything. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Savanna’s mouth puckered as if worry was making it shrink. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, Gracie. I mean, you haven’t had much experience with guys…”

  That was like telling a fish that it didn’t do much flying.

  “I’m not going to get hurt. Cooper and I are just friends, Savanna. You know, like we were last week and the week before that?”

  “I hope so. I mean, you do realize that he’s never had a girlfriend.”

  “But neither has Pete or Leroy.”

  “That’s different. I mean, they, like, talk about girls all the time, don’t they? But Cooper never does. Not even to Archie.”

  “And?”

  “And you do understand that Cooper’s not really interested in girls, right?” Her voice sounded like it was wringing its hands. “Like not at all.”

  I thought she was talking about the time in the summer that she and Archie dropped by Cooper’s place and found him in the backyard wearing a “skirt”. She’d thought he must be gay.

  “It wasn’t a skirt, Savanna. It was a sarong. Lots of men wear sarongs when it’s hot.”

  “Not in Crow’s Point,” said Savanna. “And anyway, that wasn’t what I meant. I meant that he’s not like the other boys. They’re always staring at breasts and stuff like that. They’re into girls. The only things Cooper’s into are causes.” She looked like she wanted to pat my shoulder. “And I’m worried that you’re just another one of his causes. He thinks he can convert you to his whacky ideas because you cry when sea turtles die in fishing nets and want to save everything.”