Stuff happening at home? I guess that’s the reason Kiara’s here. But would she have ever tracked me down if this problem never came up? I’m not sure how to respond.
“Look, Kiara,” I say. “I’m not going to lie. I can’t just make the past few months go away. But . . . it’s pretty clear you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need me. And you were my best friend for almost my whole life. So why don’t you come in, and we can talk.”
“Oh Jas. Thank you,” she says, still teary. “But your house? With your mom and dad and Abuela?” Again she covers her eyes. “I don’t think I can face them. Can we walk? The beach?”
I cringe. As much as I love the beach, in the winter it’s twice as cold and the wind gusts twice as strong. But I can tell from Kiara’s face that she really needs me to say yes. So I nod.
“Sure. The beach. Let’s go.”
Kiara looks up, her eyes meeting mine. “Really?”
“Yeah. Now start moving before I change my mind.”
We walk in silence through our neighborhood and across Main Street, where we begin the half-mile trek down Ocean Road. The road is flat and traffic is nonexistent this time of year, so we walk down the center of the street, avoiding the sidewalks made slushy by the night’s snow now melting in the afternoon sun. Down by the dunes, we head to the boardwalk and follow it to the sand. There’s no snow here, the air just warm enough to keep it from sticking.
Kiara walks over to an empty lifeguard tower and starts climbing. I rub my arms then follow. Once we’re both seated, she sighs.
“You’re not too cold?”
I shake my head, ignoring the breeze. “So what’s up?”
She frowns. “I don’t know where to start.”
“How about at the beginning?” I say.
And as she raises her puffy eyes to mine, she doesn’t look like the same girl who made fun of me in the halls. She seems smaller. Younger. More like the girl who I used to have sleepovers with every week. Who’d grab my hand when we crossed the street, and who’d talk all the way to Ms. Chloe’s as we dreamed about JKDesigns. The past hits me like a punch to the stomach, even though I’m still steaming mad. I nod, encouraging her to continue.
“Well . . . it’s my dad,” she says. “He . . . he lost his job.”
“What? How? He’s like the smartest guy I know.”
She shrugs. “Downsizing, whatever that means.”
“Well, don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll find another soon.”
“But that’s the thing,” she says. “This happened in December, and he still hasn’t found anything. If he doesn’t find something soon, we’re selling the house and moving. Next month.”
“Wait. Moving? Next month?”
She nods.
“Where?”
“Georgia,” she says, her voice flat. “To live with my grandma.”
“Whoa,” I say. “Is this why you weren’t in school last week?”
“Yeah,” she says. “We went to Savannah to visit Grams and check out the middle school. I spent a day there, following around some student ambassador like a lost puppy. The school was so much bigger than here, and the kids all had these different accents. Every time I talked, someone would laugh and ask where I was from. It was so uncomfortable.”
“But I thought you loved Savannah,” I say, thinking back to her annual summer trips.
“For vacation,” she says, “not life.”
“But can your dad can find work there?”
She nods. “His brother, my uncle, works at some aerospace company. They need engineers. He got my dad an interview. We find out next week if he gets the job.”
She rubs down her arms as a breeze whips by us.
“Let’s start walking. It’ll warm us up,” I say.
Kiara nods and we climb down from the chair.
“Well, that’d be great if he can get a job,” I say.
“Great? I have to pick up and leave all my friends and everything I know, and you think it’s great?”
“Well, no. I see why you’re upset. But I think there are a lot of cool parts of this too. Like getting to meet new people and live somewhere warm. It’s a new adventure.”
“Yeah, one where I have to live with my grandma.”
I shrug. “I’m sure that wouldn’t be forever.”
She sighs. “I know. Honestly, I just don’t know what to make about any of this right now. There’s one job he’s waiting on here, but if that doesn’t come through, Mom and Dad say we’re moving no matter what. They said we don’t have the money to stay here much longer, and at least at Grams’s we won’t have to worry about paying the bills. But it’s all just so up in the air. Who knows where we could end up, Jas? Not to mention that everything I know is here. They’re talking about moving in three weeks! I won’t even get to finish my first basketball season!”
Kiara is crying now, her cheeks slick with tears.
My eyes fill as I try to stare out to the distance, focusing on the horizon, where the sky meets the outline of Long Island. I try to visualize the choppy water lapping up on that opposite shore. Is the beach empty, or if we could zoom in would we see a couple of kids huddled under their coats, talking just like us? I blink, trying to fight through the wave of emotion sitting like a lump in my chest. Poor Kiara. All the time I was picturing her in Hawaii. All those times I looked down when she passed by, when I saw her laughing with her new friends. Smiling at Carter in class. I thought she was happy and everything in her life was perfect without me. All that time she was living with this secret that she might have to leave.
For a moment, I don’t know what to say. It’s easy to keep saying things will be fine, but it’s impossible to know if they will.
“Leaving would be really hard and scary,” I say. “But I still think that if it happens, it could turn out to be okay. I mean, just a couple months ago you didn’t know Beatrice at all, and then you joined the basketball team and now you’re like BFFs. Who’s to say the same thing can’t happen in Savannah?”
“I guess . . . ” she says.
“And look at me. Abuela moved in with us like a year ago now, and sure, it was a little crazy at first getting used to all her diabetes medications and excessive video chatting, but overall it’s been a good thing. Really nice actually. She’s taught me how to cook and helped with my sewing, and I haven’t had to spend as much time babysitting the twins,” I say. “So living with your grandma, I mean, maybe that could be good too.”
“Maybe,” she says.
“And just think about the weather. It’ll be warm!”
She smiles, then sobs again. “Oh Jas, thank you. I don’t deserve this, you talking to me, especially after the scene I caused last night.”
“You definitely don’t,” I say, my mind jumping back to Joseph.
“I know. God, I’m so embarrassed. But you don’t know what a relief it is to talk to you. How good it feels. So many times I wanted to tell Beatrice or some of the other girls, but I just couldn’t, you know?”
I sigh. “Yeah, I do.”
And then as our walk deposits us back at the road where we entered, Kiara extends her hand.
“Tick tock?” she says.
And even though I have no idea where we’re headed, and I’m still not sure I can forgive her, I say the words back.
“Tick tock.”
Chapter Fourteen
COSTUME CATASTROPHE
By the time I get home, I have ten more messages from Ava and Joseph in addition to those I still haven’t read from earlier. There’s also one from Lori. I deal with the easiest first.
Congrats, Lori, u guys were awesome last nite!! Sorry I had to leave early—tell Cam I say congrats too!!
I send the message off to Lori, then shoot off a smiley when she thanks me. Then knowing I’ll have to face Ava and Joseph at our afternoon rehearsal, I begin damage control. I send Joseph a quick text thanking him for last night and saying everything’s okay, then I call Ava and, after apologizing profus
ely for bailing on the sleepover, I give her the short version of what happened with Kiara.
“So basically she dumped you, then made a scene last night because her other friends weren’t so great after all? Talk about dramatic. Maybe she should join drama club,” Ava says.
“Hah, you’re right. She’d probably be the star. But I am sorry for running off and ruining our sleepover plans. I know I shouldn’t have freaked out like that, especially in front of Joseph . . .”
“Hey, don’t worry, I talked to him before. No one’s angry. We were just worried.”
“Well, thanks. I think everything’s okay now. I mean, we’re def not friends again, but she shouldn’t be hunting me down again anytime soon.”
“Good, I’m so glad to hear things are all right. Though . . .” Ava pauses for a second, then continues. “That’s not the only reason I was texting. I really hate to spring this on you with all you have going on, but it turns out we have a bit of a problem.”
“Problem? With what?”
“The play.” Ava sounds upset. This can’t be good.
“Okay . . . what’s up?”
She sighs. “It happened last night after the concert. Turns out it was one of the sixth graders’ birthday, so a few kids had a cake in the practice room after almost everyone had left. And even though everyone knows candles are strictly forbidden, I guess someone lit a few and then threw them in the trash. Only they weren’t fully out and some papers in the trash can lit on fire. Or maybe they didn’t really light on fire, but one of the kids thought they did. Anyway, everyone started yelling and someone grabbed the fire extinguisher and started spraying. And at first everyone thought this kid was a hero because he put out the fire before the smoke alarms could go off or anything. And really it shouldn’t have been a big deal, except . . .”
“Except what?” I ask, heart pounding.
“Except before the concert Miss Tabitha moved our costumes in there so they wouldn’t be in the way. And I guess a bunch of them are now covered in white foam from the fire extinguisher.”
“Are you serious? Who told you this?”
“Joseph,” she says. “His little sister was there.”
“So what does that mean for us?”
She breathes into the phone. “I’m not sure. But after Joseph called, I emailed Miss Tabitha to see if I could help out or anything. And she told me that about half of the costumes were destroyed and that we’re gonna need new ones.”
“What about the person who made them originally? Can they re-create them?” I ask.
“That would be Ms. Mahoney, the old literacy teacher. She made them years ago when the school first did Cinderella. And now she’s retired and living in Florida!”
“So what happens if Miss Tabitha can’t find someone to make new ones?”
“Well, her note was pretty vague, but I got the feeling that it was serious. I just hope this doesn’t mean they have to cancel the play!”
I can tell Ava is starting to panic. “What? Would they do that?” I ask.
“I don’t know, but what are we going to do without half the costumes? Anyway, I wondered if maybe you’d be able to help, since you’ve done so much sewing.”
“Wait. You want me to make the costumes?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, could you?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I do love to sew, but I haven’t done it in a while, and . . . full costumes? I mean, are there patterns for them? Or would I be making stuff from scratch? Because I’m not really that great at designing clothes . . . I really only know bags.”
“Well . . . how different can it be, right?”
I bow my head and find myself staring at a clump of lint on the floor. It rolls around the wooden boards in perfect rhythm to the heat vent a few feet away. Back and forth. Right and left. I try to think. Sewing costumes is very different than making bags. I cringe, envisioning my failed dress pattern shoved in the back of my closet, now covered with months of dust and neglect.
“I think we need to talk to Miss Tabitha,” I say. “I mean, two weeks is not much time. And rehearsals are starting to get really busy. I just don’t know . . .”
“Okay,” Ava says. “Well, rehearsal is in an hour, so we can talk to her then.”
“Yeah. Let’s just hope it’s not too many costumes.”
Only, once we talk to Miss Tabitha, it turns out the damage is worse than we thought. We’ve lost two of Cinderella’s costumes, one of the stepsisters’ costumes, all the animal costumes, and all the dresses for the townspeople in the ensemble! Everyone is on edge as Miss Tabitha tries to reassure us that we’ll be okay.
“I know there have been a lot of rumors floating around about canceling the play. And I want you all to know that we absolutely will not be canceling,” says Miss Tabitha, a smile plastered to her face. “After all your hard work, there will be a Cinderella! But this obviously will change things a bit. Since we don’t have the time or money to re-create what we had, I’m asking you all to go home tonight and look in your closets. Old Halloween costumes, dresses from dance recitals. I want you to bring it all in. Together we’ll go through the pile and create our own costumes!”
The room erupts into groans.
“But Miss Tabitha, we’ve worked so hard! Without real costumes, no one will take us seriously!” yells Courtney.
“Yeah, it’ll be a mess!” says a voice from the back. “No one will match!”
“Isn’t there a way to get real costumes?” asks Henry.
Miss Tabitha sighs. “All right everybody, now calm down. I know this is a disappointment, and I want the play to be a success just as much as you do. But remember, the play will be great because of you, not because of what you’re wearing. So, go home tonight and see what you have. I promise, we’ll make it work.”
Ava turns to me. “Old Halloween costumes? Come on, you have to help,” she says.
I breathe in deep. “I told you, I’m not good at designing clothes.”
“But we have nobody else! And Court’s right, without real costumes, the audience will be distracted. It’ll be a mess!”
“Yeah, but you heard Miss Tabitha. She said we’d think of something.”
“Yes! And you are our something!”
“I . . . I just don’t know.”
“Come on, Jas, we’ve worked too hard for this to all fall apart now!”
“Yes, but sewing costumes is so much work. I mean, maybe if I had someone who could help me . . .”
I close my eyes and think. And that’s when it hits me. I already know two people who fit the bill. Ms. Chloe and Kiara.
Breathing in, I raise my hand.
“Miss Tabitha?” I say. “I actually know how to sew. And I have some friends who do too. And, uh, I’m not sure I can make the costumes as great as the originals, but I’d love to try.”
“Oh my gosh, Jasmine, really? You would be our hero!” says Courtney.
“Yeah, Jasmine, that’d be awesome!” says Henry.
“Go Jas!” says Joseph.
And before long everyone is talking at once.
“Guys, guys, please. Order!” says Miss Tabitha. “Now Jasmine, that is awfully sweet, but I really think that’s too much work. I can’t ask that of you.”
I nod, ready to agree, but then I see Ava’s face. The tears welling in her eyes. And I want to do this, for my new friends and myself. I want the play to be great.
“You’re not asking,” I say. “I’m volunteering. Let me just make a couple calls. See if I can get a few people to help.”
Miss Tabitha looks relieved. “Well, if you’re sure, then go make those calls! We’ll have you practice last today. And Jasmine, if this turns out to be too much work, tell me. We can always make do with what we have.”
I nod, then slip off stage and into the hall. I call Ms. Chloe first. She agrees before I finish speaking.
“Of course I’ll help,” she says. “Anything for the school. And an excuse to see you. I
’ve missed you, Jasmine!”
My cheeks warm as I realize how much I’ve missed Ms. Chloe too.
“Really? Oh thank you, you’ll be saving the play!” I say. “So, Miss Tabitha says there’s a closet full of leftover fabrics and stuff here. I’ll bring over what I can later this afternoon so we can get started. The deadline is tight.”
“And I’m between DIY classes, so the timing couldn’t be better,” she says.
I end the call feeling a little surer of my plan, though no more relaxed about making the next call. But then if Kiara wants my help, she owes me hers. So I bite down on my lip and hit Send before I can chicken out.
“Hey,” she says, her voice quiet. “Everything all right?”
“Hey, uh, yeah, sort of. But it’d be better if you could help me out . . .” And then I dive in, telling her about drama club and the costumes.
“Wait. Are you seriously in the school play?” she asks when I finish.
“Yeah.”
“You auditioned and got a part?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So you haven’t been spending afternoons at Ms. Chloe’s?”
“Not since I overheard you and your friends.”
“Whoa. Who is this girl and what has she done with my old friend?”
“Same girl, new interests.”
“And friends.”
“Yup. New friends.”
Kiara sighs into the phone. “I’m still so sorry. For everything.”
“I know. And I’m still not over it.”
“Yeah. Right,” she says. “So anyway. You need to fix some costumes for the play and you want me to help?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Um, yeah, I can do it,” she says. “I mean, I don’t have a ton of time with basketball, and you know that whole maybe-moving thing, but I have this weekend off. There’s a tournament for the older girls, but I’m not going.”
“Can you meet me at Ms. Chloe’s at three?”
“Sure.”
“Great,” I say. “And Kiara?”
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