Odessa Again

by Dana Reinhardt

  Couldn’t he see that she was trying to save her family? That it didn’t matter about the dress, that what mattered was trying to do the right thing?

  “Jennifer,” he said. “Can you give me a minute alone with my daughter?” He reached out and pulled her into a hug. He was a head taller than Jennifer, and he kissed her curly hair. He let her slip slowly from his grasp and she left the room.

  He turned to face Odessa and crossed his arms. She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see his reddening face. Please, please, please be proud.

  He wasn’t.

  “Your dress yesterday,” he said. “That wasn’t an accident.”

  Like he’d been doing at the table, he was putting together the pieces of a puzzle. “And now this, Odessa. I hardly know what to say.”

  “Dad,” she whispered.

  “Quiet,” he snapped. “I’m talking.”

  Dad never snapped. Odessa started to cry.

  “This behavior is inexcusable. It’s mean and hurtful. You need to use your words, Odessa. I don’t know how many times we have to tell you that. You need to talk when you’re angry, not push or hit or act out like this.” He gestured to the dress and the scissors on the floor.

  “It’s just …,” she said, choking back tears. “It’s just …”

  Dad came and sat next to her. His face had returned to normal Dad color. That was when Odessa found her words.

  “It’s just that you’re supposed to love Mom.”

  “Oh, sweetie,” he said, taking her chin in his hand and turning her to face him. “I do love Mom. I’ll always love Mom.”

  “Then why are you remarrying Jennifer?”

  “Because,” he sighed. “Things change.”

  He said more, about two people growing apart, realizing you’re different from who you once were, and blah, blah, blah.

  Odessa was not listening.

  She’d heard what she needed to hear. I’ll always love Mom. When they talked about the divorce with Odessa and Oliver, her parents said things like We still care about each other and We’ll always be in each other’s lives, but this was the first time Odessa had heard him use the word love.

  Words count. There are so many to choose from, and Dad had chosen love.

  That was all that mattered.

  And yes, things change. Odessa knew this better than anybody, because she had the power to change things.

  Things change.

  *

  Before he drove her home, back to her attic, Odessa apologized to Dad. It was harder to know what to say to Jennifer.

  She couldn’t look her in the eye.

  “It’s not about you,” Odessa said. “You’re nice. You’re always nice to me. You let me wear your lip gloss. And you gave me that dictionary with all the purple words. And your dress is so pretty.”

  Jennifer put a hand on Odessa’s shoulder and squeezed. Odessa understood that squeeze: It’s okay.

  Still she added, “What can I do to make you feel better?” She wasn’t just repeating what Mom had forced her to say when she upset Oliver. She really did want to make Jennifer feel better. She didn’t want to hurt her.

  Jennifer smiled. “You’ve already made me feel better.”

  Odessa wasn’t sure she believed Jennifer, but it didn’t matter. Soon enough that dress would be back hanging in the closet. The scissors would be back in the drawer. No one would stare at her with shock, or go red-faced with anger.

  Unfortunately, it was too late to do anything about her lavender dress. She’d ruined it Saturday morning and she couldn’t go back that far. She did so love that dress. But that was okay. She wasn’t going to need it.

  There would be no wedding between Dad and Jennifer. Odessa was going to change that too.

  It was time for Odessa to admit that her GMOP needed an accomplice. Her GMOP was now a GMOOP—a Grand Master Oliver/Odessa Plan.

  Plan to Go Back and Fix What Really Matters.

  Plan to Re-Hyphenate the Family.

  Plan to Get Our Old Life Back.

  A plan this big required a coconspirator.

  Though Uncle Milo was always her first choice when it came to a partner in crime, he was an adult, and he was Mom’s brother. Odessa crossed him off her list.

  It was time to fix things with Sofia.

  Time to tell her everything.

  Sofia was coming for a sleepover. They still talked on the phone all the time and played Dreamonica online, but it had been months since they’d had a sleepover. Time had almost erased Odessa’s anger about the Theo haircut incident. It was funny how time could do that—change things without your even knowing.

  Or it could have been that Odessa didn’t care as much about what Sofia did or didn’t say about Theo, because a miraculous thing had happened on Monday.

  Theo asked her about math camp.

  He asked her. Not Sadie Howell.

  He told her his mom was signing him up, and he wondered if Odessa might want to sign up too, because, he said, applications were due at the end of the week.

  Theo Summers. He asked if she wanted to go to math camp.

  Math camp.

  What a magnificent pair of words.

  Mom had already signed her up for Camp Kattannoo, the same place she and Oliver went every summer—she had a collection of tie-dyed T-shirts and a drawerful of lanyards to show for it. Though she planned on getting her old life back, that didn’t mean she couldn’t go to a new summer camp.

  Their conversation went like this:

  THEO: Hey, what are you doing this summer?

  ODESSA: (too embarrassed to say the word Kattannoo out loud) Going to camp. It’s pretty cool. We design clothes and do weaving.

  THEO: Oh. Sounds cool.

  ODESSA: (Did she really just say “do weaving”?) It’s okay, I guess.

  THEO: Well, my mom signed me up for math camp. Applications are due by Friday.

  ODESSA: Math camp?

  THEO: Yeah. I thought maybe you might, you know, wanna go too.

  ODESSA: Me?

  THEO: (scratching his buzzed head) Yeah, you. You know, since you’re like my math buddy, I thought you might want to go.

  ODESSA: (cheeks in full Red-Light mode) Okay. I’ll talk to my mom.

  When she got home that afternoon, she wondered if the conversation had really happened. It seemed too good to be true. She’d always been told she had an “active imagination.” Maybe it had run wild. Willy-nilly. Maybe she’d lost her marbles.

  She wished she could go back and relive it, but she couldn’t, because although it had happened at the end of the school day and she had the time, she only had three opportunities left to fix the Things That Really Mattered. It would be selfish to use an opportunity just to hear Theo say those words again, and she was no longer Odessa the Selfish.

  So instead she inscribed the conversation into her journal, and while she did, she was able to decode the true meaning behind Theo’s words:

  Theo: Hey, what are you doing this summer?

  (What he meant: I like you so much more than Sadie Howell.)

  Theo: Oh. Sounds cool.

  (What he meant: You are brilliant, just like me.)

  Theo: Well, my mom signed me up for math camp. Applications are due by Friday.

  (What he meant: I prefer girls with brown eyes.)

  Theo: Yeah. I thought maybe you might, you know, wanna go too.

  (What he meant: I can’t face the summer without you.)

  Theo: (scratching his buzzed head) Yeah, you. You know, since you’re like my math buddy, I thought you might want to go.

  (What he meant: I know we’re only in fourth grade, but we’ll be in fifth grade soon, so I think we should get married.)

  Maybe it was this, the fact that Theo wanted to marry her, that made Sofia’s comment those months back about his hair seem insignificant.

  So she’d forgiven Sofia.

  Odessa the Absolver.

  *

  Mom had ordered pizzas. There
was talk of make-your-own-sundaes. It was shaping up to be a great sleepover.

  Up in the attic, Odessa asked Sofia to swear herself to secrecy.

  “Cross your fingers.”

  Sofia did.

  “Now cross your toes.”

  Sofia removed her slippers. Four crossings were enough to gain Odessa’s trust.

  Odessa knew that most stories began at the beginning, so she started with the night she smashed Oliver’s I Did It pottery. She told Sofia how she’d come downstairs to a plate of carrot cake. She told her about all the embarrassing things that had happened at school that Sofia didn’t know about because Odessa had wiped them off the map. She told her about breaking into Mrs. Grisham’s house. And Oliver’s fall in the cafeteria.

  Sofia hardly moved, hardly breathed. Her eyes barely blinked.

  Odessa didn’t tell her about the hundred-dollar bill, because she still felt a little guilty about it, just a little, and she didn’t tell her what had happened with Theo and his haircut, because she figured there was no point in bringing up Sofia’s less-than-perfect behavior when they were right in the middle of patching things up.

  “So,” Odessa said. “I realized this all must be for something. It has to have a purpose, right? And I don’t want to go back to change the small things. I want to use these last opportunities to change what really matters. I want to get my old life back.”

  “Are you for real?” Sofia asked.

  Odessa nodded.

  Sofia made a face. She looked to Odessa, then to the attic floor, and back to Odessa again.

  “Show me how this works,” she said.

  “I just roll up the carpet, close my eyes, and jump.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yep.”

  “Show me.”

  “I can’t,” Odessa said. “I think there’s only three times left and I have to make them count.”

  “Well,” Sofia said, twirling a strand of blond hair on her finger, “if you want my help you have to show me how this works.”

  Odessa tried explaining again to Sofia why she didn’t want to waste the opportunity when there wasn’t something she needed to undo, but Sofia said, “Show me.” She crossed her arms. “Or I’ll tell.”

  “You’ll what?”

  “I’ll tell. I’ll tell your mom, or my mom, or somebody, everybody, about how you think you can turn back time by stomping on the floor.” Sofia chuckled.

  It wasn’t a friendly sort of laugh.

  Odessa couldn’t believe her ears. Her ears that were turning bright red with anger. She and Sofia were best friends. They had identical mansions and a dozen puppies, and they talked on the phone every day, and Odessa had hurt Claire terribly just to please Sofia, and they could communicate sometimes without using words.

  Odessa tried this now. She looked at Sofia. She tried saying with her look: Do you even know what you’re doing? How you sound? What it means for our friendship? I’m asking you to catch me and you’re stepping out of the way and letting me fall and split my head open.

  Sofia stared back. “Show me.”

  Odessa began to roll up the rug.

  She stashed it next to her bookcase, made her way to the middle of the floor, and glared at Sofia.

  “Hold on,” Sofia said, scrambling to her feet and over to where Odessa stood. “I want to go with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re my best friend.”

  In a flash, Odessa played out two scenarios. In the first one she grabbed Sofia by the hand and they jumped together, back three hours to find themselves in their own homes preparing for their sleepover. She’d pick up the phone and call Sofia and listen to her marvel about the magic of time travel, and maybe even apologize for doubting her. Then she’d come over and they’d stay up all night whispering and plotting and putting the final touches on her GMOOP.

  In the second scenario she’d shove Sofia out of the way and go back the three hours on her own, back to preparing for a sleepover at which she would not reveal the secrets of the attic.

  Odessa chose option number two.

  Despite what Dad had said, and Mom had said, and even Ms. Banville had said about how words rather than fists (or scissors) are the way out of conflict, Odessa gave Sofia a huge shove. Strong enough to knock her off her toe-crossing feet.

  And then Odessa jumped.

  Alone.

  Odessa tried using words. If words really were the way out of conflict, then words should have helped her. Words should have been able to get her old life back.

  But words weren’t enough. Words were failing her. They didn’t help with Sofia and they wouldn’t help with Mom and Dad.

  She couldn’t just come out and tell Mom that Dad still loved her. Mom wouldn’t believe her. And Dad wouldn’t remember saying it, because Odessa had gone back and never asked for scissors, and she’d never taken the dress from the closet and Dad had never stared at her red-faced and disappointed. But Odessa knew. That was what mattered. And now all she had to do was confirm what she suspected: that Mom still loved Dad too.

  She called another family meeting.

  She couldn’t just call a meeting to ask if they still loved each other, so instead she talked about math camp. She loved repeating her conversation with Theo—how he’d asked her. She’d told Mrs. Grisham and she’d told Uncle Milo and Meredith and she’d already told Mom and Dad and she’d even told Oliver, but still, she so enjoyed reliving it.

  Mom and Dad sat and stared.

  “This is about math camp? Really?” They exchanged a look.

  “You said we make all the big decisions together. As a family. Because we’re still a family. Right?”

  “Yes,” Dad said. “We’re still a family. But I’m not sure going to math camp qualifies as a big decision.”

  “It’s big to me,” Odessa offered lamely.

  “Far be it from either of us to stand between our daughter and math. Of course you can go to math camp.” Mom reached over and mussed Odessa’s hair as if she were a child. Still, it was better than smelling her head. “Now hurry up and get out of here so you can have your dinner with your father and get home in time for bed.”

  It was a Wednesday. Dinner-with-Dad night.

  “Why don’t you come?” Odessa asked.

  “Oh, no, honey.” Mom didn’t even look at Dad. “This isn’t my night. This is Dad’s night.”

  “Dad, you don’t mind if she comes, do you?” Odessa could feel Oliver’s eyes on her. She could feel his wonder and awe.

  Odessa the Brave.

  “Um, well, no, I guess I don’t mind.”

  What followed was an awkward exchange where Mom kept saying no, she couldn’t, and Odessa kept saying of course she could, and Dad kept mumbling something about how it was okay by him, and then Odessa used the most powerful word she knew, the long, drawn-out pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease?

  That was how they all wound up at Pizzicato for dinner together, the same place where Dad had told Odessa and Oliver that he was remarrying Jennifer, on the night before they moved into their new house with Mom.

  But this night was the opposite of that night. This night was jovial. They laughed and ate too much pizza and drank too much sparkling lemonade, and afterward as they walked back to Dad’s car Odessa took each of her parents by the hand. If she hadn’t been in the fourth grade and about to embark on a major relationship with a boy with buzzed hair, she might have jumped and let her parents swing her back and forth, back and forth, like she had when she was younger.

  In the car Mom sat up front and Dad reached across her and took his minty tummy tablets from the glove compartment. Odessa inhaled their smell. Everything felt perfect. Once they reached home it would become clear that this was how it should always be, the four of them together.

  But Dad dropped them off and drove away with a few short honks and a wave.

  She’d have to do more.

  *

  The next weekend at Dad’s, Odessa tried reminding hi
m of all the ways Jennifer was not Mom. Jennifer was nice and pretty and she smelled good, but she belonged in someone else’s family.

  Mom belonged; Jennifer did not.

  “Remember our family trip to Mexico?” Odessa put the emphasis on the word family.

  “Of course,” Dad said.

  “That was the best.”

  And then:

  “Remember that necklace you gave Mom for her birthday a few years ago?”

  “Yes, I remember,” Dad answered.

  “That was one beautiful necklace.” This time she put the emphasis on beautiful.

  Odessa loved words. Even when you used the obvious ones, you could add so much meaning by just leaning on them a little.

  But words had their limits. Dad reached over and gave Odessa’s arm a squeeze. The squeeze was harder than the kind you give when you want to say I love you. This squeeze said: Lay off the Mom stories in front of Jennifer.

  Nothing seemed to be working, but Odessa didn’t lose faith. She knew what she had to do.

  Stop the wedding.

  She’d seen enough TV and movies to know that there was always a moment, an opportunity for someone in the audience to stand up and say: I object!

  And this was what she’d have to do. She’d have to make Dad see, in that moment before he said vows he didn’t really believe in, that he was remarrying the wrong person. She would stand up and she would grab her mother by the hand and she would shout: I object!

  Or I protest!

  Something like that.

  The problem, however, was this: Mom wasn’t invited to the wedding, and Odessa’s gesture was going to be a lot less grand without Mom there as a visual aid.

  Odessa paced around her attic floor, squeezing the owl figurine in her fist. She talked to the boards as if they could listen.

  Help me. You are here for a reason. I have this power for a reason. How can you help me stop this wedding? How can you help me realize my GMOOP?

  Going back two hours couldn’t change everything. It couldn’t make Odessa live in her old house or make Mom and Dad still be married to each other or make Oliver less of a toad or make Odessa taller with pale blue eyes. It couldn’t make Sofia trustworthy, or make Milo want to be with her more than with Meredith, or make Mrs. Grisham’s husband still alive so she wouldn’t be alone. And it couldn’t make Mom appear at Dad’s wedding so that Odessa could shout I object! and he’d see her and realize that he was making a big, fat mistake.