by Dyan Sheldon
“And what sense does that make?” I argued. “It’s like going to a buffet and not eating.”
“You what?” Savanna’s smile set like cement. “What are you saying, Gracie? Are you saying you’d rather go to some church supper than the Christmas dance?”
I’d rather go to Florida in August than the Christmas dance.
“You know I don’t like stuff like that, Savanna. Dances really aren’t my scene.” Nor were parties, of course. I hadn’t even thought about the Neighbours’ bash. “And anyway, I didn’t say I was go—”
“I mean, that’s not, like, the point, Gracie,” said Savanna. “The point is that it’s, like, really hurtful to me that you’d rather … that you don’t want to come. Pete and Leroy are coming.” She turned to Pete and Leroy, the selling-ice-in-Alaska look on her face. “Aren’t you?”
Pete shrugged. “I guess so. Since it’s Christmas.”
“Yeah, why not?” said Leroy. “I suppose it could be fun.”
I said, “Oh, Savanna…”
Cooper leaned towards me. “I guess that means you’re dreaming of a white Christmas,” he whispered.
“Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, Holiday Inn,” I whispered back.
“Ow!” screamed Savanna. “You don’t have to yank the hair out of my head, Gray. When I said I wanted to look different, I didn’t mean bald.”
“But I have to get the hair through the little holes in the cap, don’t I? And I can’t do that without pulling.”
It was almost Thanksgiving and Savanna wanted a new look for the holidays, so I was giving her low-lights. When she’d wanted to revamp her image for the summer, we’d dyed her hair black, but she’d had an allergic reaction and her face had swollen as if she’d been stung by a swarm of bees, so this time we were going for a less radical change. You know, one that wasn’t life-threatening.
“Just be, like, gentle, OK?”
I said that I’d be as gentle as someone pulling hair through tiny holes in a plastic cap with a crochet hook could be.
“So what were you and Archie being all conspiratorial about this morning?” asked Savanna as I started applying the colourant.
“We were plotting the overthrow of civilization.”
Savanna laughed. “Yeah, right. What’s Archie’s role? Is he in charge of bringing the snacks?”
I said that if he saw her the way she looked now – like a refugee from Star Trek with her hair all sticking out and an old beach towel wrapped around her – he’d probably bring a camera.
When Savanna stopped honking she said, “So what was it? You were thick like thieves.”
“As thieves.” My voice was a little muffled because I was wearing a bandana across my face so I didn’t inhale any death-ray fumes. “Anyway, we weren’t conspiring, we were just talking.” The plastic gloves protecting my hands crackled. “He was just telling me how happy he is. You know, now that everything’s normal again.”
This was practically the first time Savanna and I had been alone since Monday morning. While I was watching this space as Savanna had told me to, she had spent the week putting the “in” back into “inseparable”. Whenever they weren’t in a class, she and Archie were together. Holding hands. Rubbing shoulders. Kissing goodbye as if they were going off to war and not history and gym. She’d spent a couple of afternoons with him, playing footsie under the table while they did their homework together in the library. She even went to the basketball game on Thursday night. It was as if the week before – when she’d been distant and distracted and checking her phone every three minutes – had never happened.
“Me too.” Savanna smiled at me in the mirror. “Not that I, like, had any doubts. I knew it would work.”
“Excuse me?” I dropped the strand of hair I’d been dabbing with dye. “Are you saying it’s all an act?”
“Not an act, Gracie,” Savanna corrected. “It’s called being philosophical. I mean, I couldn’t take another week like that last one, all warped out because of Morgan. It was way too stressful. Look, my nails even started breaking.” She held her hands in the air so I could look. “Anyway, it isn’t like I haven’t figured out Morgan’s MO by now.”
Self-centred. Pretty self-absorbed. Inconsiderate. So hard to get on the phone you’d think he was a spy.
“He’s very disorganized, Gray. And that’s, like, really not helpful when you’re so busy all the time. I mean, I know I’m going to see him before he goes home for Thanksgiving next week – he absolutely promised I’ll see him this weekend – but I just have to accept that there’s no way he’ll call till the last minute.”
This was Friday. There couldn’t be too many minutes left.
“Exactly. Like, what’s the point of me being all miserable when I could be having a good time? I mean, not to mention poor Archie. You have to think of him, too, you know.”
I thought I had.
“Yes, you did,” agreed Savanna. “And I’m really grateful to you for making me see that. I mean, why should he suffer? It’s not like I don’t still like him.” The towel shrugged and the tentacles shook. “I just like Morgan a little more.”
I started dabbing again. “So you’re not really back with Archie.”
“Never mind about me.” Savanna was watching me in the mirror. “What about you?”
“Me?”
This was what happened when I spent a few days without Savanna: my thought processes slowed down. I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Yeah, you—”
“Savanna!” I tugged on her hair. “Stop moving your head. I’m getting this junk all over me.”
“Don’t change the subject,” said Savanna. “When I asked you what was going on with you and Cooper, you told me nothing was going on.”
Which would be because it was true.
“Really?” Arching your eyebrows doesn’t really work when you’ve got tentacles sticking out of your head and a Bart Simpson beach towel wrapped around you. “Well, that’s not what Archie says. Archie says that he definitely thinks there’s, like, something going on.” She twitched her shoulders and Bart kind of winked. “At least with you…”
I stopped dabbing again. “What do you mean, at least with me?”
She shuffled in her seat. “Well, it wouldn’t be Cooper, would it? I mean, like I tried to tell you, Gracie, Cooper’s never shown any teensy weensy interest in girls. I’m not saying he takes the other road or anything, Gray, but Archie says he’s never even said he thought someone was hot or anything like that. And he’s never said anything about you. As a person, maybe, but not as a girl.” She raised her eyebrows. Pointedly. “You have to think what that means.”
It was amazing how she could look totally ridiculous and smug at the same time.
“I think it means that he’s not a testosterone-drugged jerk, that’s what I think it means.”
The tentacles shook. “Oooh, somebody’s touchy.”
“I’m not touchy. I just don’t know why you’re all of a sudden on my case about Cooper.” Again.
“I’m not on your case. I’m just concerned.” She looked concerned. A concerned visitor from another planet. “You’re my best friend, remember? I don’t want you to get your hopes up or anything.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Savanna.” She wasn’t looking in the mirror, so she couldn’t see the scornful expression on my face. “I’m sorry, but didn’t we have this conversation already?”
“That was then,” said Savanna. “Now, Archie says you stuck as close to Cooper as a stamp to an envelope when you all went bowling without me. He told me all about it.” She stopped looking at her lap. “Which is, like, more than you did.”
“Because there was nothing to tell. And I didn’t—”
“Archie was full of all kinds of information, Gracie.” Maybe it was because of the plastic cap on her head, but she reminded me of one of those old movies where the women all sit under the dryers at the hairdressers’, gossiping about their neighbours and friends. “H
e said you even got Cooper to put his arms around you.”
If I hadn’t had gloves covered with gloop on my hands I would have slapped my forehead. “I didn’t get him to, Savanna. He was showing me how to bowl. That’s why I finally managed to knock something down.”
Just to prove that her repertoire of animal sounds wasn’t limited to honking like a goose, Savanna snorted like a horse. “In the snack bar?” She smiled. Thinly. “Don’t the balls trip people up? That must get kind of messy.”
“No, not in the snack bar. In the lanes.”
“Archie said that you were practically on Cooper’s lap in the snack bar.”
This was so ridiculous that I burst out laughing.
“Have you and I met, or what?”
Savanna’s lips were twitching, but she wasn’t going
to give up yet. She single-handedly redefined the limits of stubbornness.
“You have been hanging out with Cooper a lot,” she said.
“No, I haven’t.”
“You went to the library with him.”
“One time. To get some books. And it was his idea.”
Even though Savanna didn’t wear glasses, the way she was looking at me made it seem as if she did. “But you did tell him you’d be at Anzalone’s. And you invited him back to Marilouise’s for cake.”
“No, I didn’t. Marilouise—”
“You go to that quacking thing with him.”
“They’re Quakers. Some of them. And I don’t go with him. I—”
“Well, he’s there, Gracie. And you didn’t used to go, did you? You only went in the first place because of him.”
“Oh, you really are too much.” I was ready to throw the disposable sponge applicator at her. “I don’t even like Cooper. I only got to be friends with him because of you.”
I don’t know why I said that. You know, about not liking him. It sounded like I disliked him. It just came flying out of my mouth like a bat from a cave at dusk. It was like the time when I was little and I told my dad that I wished he was dead. I didn’t want him to be dead. I never want him to be dead.
“Really?”
“I told you before, Savanna. I could never like him like you’re saying.”
“Phew!” Savanna pretended to wipe sweat from her forehead. “Archie really had me worried. He seemed so sure. And I really didn’t want to see you make a fool of yourself.”
I gazed at the two of us in the mirror. Octopus
Woman and a short bandit.
Me neither.
She rolled her eyes. “I should’ve known Archie was up the wrong tree.”
“Exactly. Way the wrong tree.”
Chapter Fifteen
Savanna and I Finally Go to the Mall
Even though he’d absolutely promised, Morgan couldn’t see Savanna that weekend after all.
“He’s just, like, really busy, Gracie,” Savanna explained. She meant that he was still really busy. “I mean, Thursday is Thanksgiving, so, obviously, he’s got a lot going on. He said that he’ll see what he can do.”
He was either a spy or a turkey farmer.
“You should’ve heard him on the phone, Gray. He was, like, so sweet and sorry I thought he was going to cry.”
I thought I was going to cry, too. One of the things I’d always loved about Savanna was her optimistic nature. You know, because I was such a worrier. But now I was starting to worry about her optimism.
“At least this gives us a chance to go to the mall on Sunday,” Savanna said. Besides needing something for the Christmas dance, she didn’t feel that her wardrobe was really worthy of Morgan Scheck. (Just in case she ever saw him again.) “And we can’t go next weekend when everybody else starts their Christmas shopping – because The Professor’s doing that thing he does, so we’re busy.”
I didn’t really want to go to the mall. I wanted to help my dad start getting ready for that thing he does. Which is Remember the Wampanoag Day. My father never makes a big deal out of Thanksgiving. He has issues with the Pilgrims. The day he makes a big deal of is Remember the Wampanoag Day. The Wampanoag were the people who helped the colonizers. My dad says we should never forget the arrogance of the invaders or how the Wampanoags’ trust and kindness was repaid with genocide and theft. So every year, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, my father invites all his friends and his whole department and their families over for a major meal. Everybody brings something to drink and a dessert, and he cooks succotash and stuffed squash, talks about the Iroquois Confederacy until you feel like you’d been there, and, after dinner, he and his band play and everybody sings along to “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” and “Pocahontas.” It’s a big deal for me, too. It’s the kind of day that makes you think you’ve always been happy. That’s why we were busy the next weekend. Savanna was coming to remember the Wampanoags.
So on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we took the one o’clock bus to the mall.
* * *
Savanna twisted to the left, then twisted to the right. “What do you think, Gray? Does it make me look older?”
“Older than what?”
She sighed. “Gracie… I’m dating a college man, remember? I don’t want to look, like, juvenile. I want to look mature and sophisticated.”
“It’s yellow.” I was getting really bored. It was at least the twelfth outfit she’d tried on. “Yellow doesn’t make anyone look older, unless it’s the colour of her skin.”
Savanna screwed up her mouth, still staring at the mirror. “You’re right. It makes me look like something you’d get in your Easter basket.” She heaved another sigh.
“Well, what about that red skirt and jacket we saw? There was nothing juvenile about that. I’ll go and get it if you want. It’d look great on you.”
“Oh, nonononono.” She shook her head. “Not red. Red’s, like, totally not in the equator.”
“Equation. And I don’t see why. I mean, half of your clothes are red. You love red. Red’s your colour.”
Not any more it wasn’t.
“Yeah, I know that. I mean, I did really used to like it a lot. But that was when I was a lot younger.”
“You mean two weeks ago?”
She stuck her tongue out at me. In a mature and sophisticated way. “Anyway, now it just seems loud and, you know, really childish.”
“I thought red was supposed to be sexy.”
“If it’s a Dior cocktail dress or something like that, Gray, you can, like, maybe get away with it. But not if it’s just for casual. And anyway, the point is that Morgan’s a muted-colours man. Didn’t I tell you he was wearing this awesome desert-pink shirt the last time I saw him?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You did mention it. But he wouldn’t be wearing the suit, Savanna. You would.”
There was another woe-is-me sigh. “Maybe I’ll check out the green again.” She reached over and took a dress from one of the hooks on the wall. “Here,” said Savanna. “Why don’t you try this on while I’m changing?”
I stared at the dress she was holding. It was short and thin and bandage-like and looked like it was probably the reason they invented thongs.
“Me? I thought that was for you.”
“It was.” She gave it a shake. “But I’m not sure about black. Black is more your colour, isn’t it?”
“It’s not black,” I argued. “It’s covered in glittery stuff.”
“Don’t quibble,” sighed Savanna. “Anyway, I got the wrong size by mistake. It’s way too short for me.”
“But I’m not here to buy anything.”
“You don’t have to buy it, Gray, just try it on.” She shimmied it towards me. “So we can see what you look like when you’re being feminine.”
I knew what I’d look like – an unconvincing female impersonator.
“I think I should go and get that red outfit for—”
“Oh, please, Gracie. It’s not going to kill you just to try it on.” She edged it closer. “It’ll be fun.”
“Funny is not
the same as fun.”
“Pleasepleaseplease…” She pretty much shoved the dress into my arms. “Your inner girl will thank you.”
My inner girl must have been more eager to get out than I’d thought, because (and against my better judgement) instead of arguing, I put on the dress. With difficulty.
“There,” I said, when I’d finally managed to struggle into it. “Are you happy now?”
Savanna stepped back so she was against the door of our cubicle. I could see her in the mirror with her chin in her hand and her eyes narrowed, studying me in a critical, will-this-boat-float? kind of way. “Yes, Gracie. Yes, I am happy now. I really like that dress.” She nodded. Slowly. “It’s simple but classic. It’s definitely you.”
Simple, maybe. I wasn’t so sure about classic.
“It is?” It looked like someone else to me. Someone taller. And with breasts. Someone who risked haemorrhaging to death by shaving her legs more than once every couple of months.
She nodded faster this time. “Yes, it is. It’s exactly what I’ve been telling you about the real, feminine you lurking under your grab-that-lizard façade, Gray. You look, like, totally great in that dress.”
I could see that I didn’t look horrifically hideous or anything – I just didn’t look like me.
“You really think so?” I turned around to see myself from the back. At least I was never going to have to go into massive debt to have fat sucked from my butt. “I think it looks weird.” Aside from the problems with breathing and walking, I couldn’t see how you could possibly sit down in this dress unless you had a blanket to throw over your thighs.
Savanna hummed like our old refrigerator. “That’s because you’re wearing basketball boots, Gracie. Try to picture it with heels and stockings.”
I could picture the dress with heels and stockings all right. But I wasn’t in them. I was still wearing my basketball boots and my giraffe socks.
“You’re wrong, Sav. The real me likes jeans and shoes you can walk through woods in. I wouldn’t wear this in a zillion years.”
“Yes, you would,” said Savanna. “It’s absolutely perfect for the Christmas dance. The glitteriness makes it look like you’ve been dusted with snow.”