“Yup,” I said. “That’s what she wrote in the letter I got today.”
“That’s so cool,” Doriane said.
“I know,” I said. I told them what Sophie said about the jog-a-thon—that if I sent her sponsor sheets she would get people in New York to sponsor her for running. “It’s perfect because Mr. Gallagher was just telling us to get more sponsors in the meeting we had yesterday,” I said. I didn’t mean to sound like a show-off, especially because I knew Doriane’s own pen pal didn’t even write to her anymore, but I was really excited.
“I can’t wait to meet her,” Aunt Jean said.
“Me too,” Doriane said.
“We could go to the post office in the morning to send everything to Sophie and then stop by the mall afterward, if you want,” Julie said.
“The post office is closed on Sunday,” Mom said. “And, Julie, you have Stephanie coming.”
“Who’s Stephanie?” Aunt Jean asked.
“The Stanford nerd,” Julie said, lowering her voice. The way she said it made “the Stanford nerd” sound like a kind of disease.
“Oh, Julie, you could just call her Stephanie already,” Mom said. “She’s lovely, she’s really good to you, and you’re making so much progress!” Mom turned to Aunt Jean. “You should hear what Stephanie says about Julie. She absolutely raves about Julie’s potential. I always knew Julie could succeed in school if she put her mind to it. Stephanie says Julie reminds her of how she was at this age, and now she’s at Stanford! I’m so happy I found her.”
“God, Mom, chill out,” Julie said. I remembered how she had told me to chill out the day before when we were talking about Jake. Was it really because I sounded like Mom, or was it something that Julie said to everyone? I’d have to pay more attention.
“But you should be proud of yourself, Julie,” Mom said. “Doesn’t it feel good to be doing so well?”
“Maybe,” Julie said. “But I’m cooped up all the time now. I barely have a life anymore.”
“Oh, that’s not true,” Mom said. “It’s just that school is a very important part of your life. And you know you can go out as soon as your work is done.”
Julie pushed her plate forward. “Whatever,” she said. “May I be excused?”
“No,” Dad said. “Your aunt still needs to open her presents.”
“Oh, really, Peter,” Aunt Jean said. “Nobody had to get me anything. You know in some cultures the person celebrating the birthday has to buy presents for all her friends? From now on that’s what I want to do for my birthday.”
“Don’t be silly, Jeanie,” Dad said. “We like getting you things. But funny you should mention other cultures. . . .”
“What are you talking about?” Aunt Jean asked.
Dad bent down and lifted up a present that had been in a small pile by the side of the table, but I wanted Aunt Jean to open mine first. I couldn’t wait. “No, Dad,” I said. “She has to open mine first. It’s the little box in the red wrapping paper.”
Dad bent back down. He rifled through the pile as though he were having trouble finding my gift. I knew he was just fooling around. Mine was the smallest box so it was right on top. “Are you sure it’s here?” he said.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said.
“I hope I didn’t lose it,” Dad said.
“Come on,” I said, feeling impatient. “Stop goofing around.”
“You hear that, Doriane,” Dad said as he sat back up and handed me the box. “My daughter just called me a goof. My very own daughter.”
“That’s because you are,” Aunt Jean said. We all started laughing, and Mooner barked.
I handed the box to Aunt Jean. “Open it,” I said.
Aunt Jean tore off the wrapping paper. “Oh my,” she said softly. She pulled out the charm bracelet and fingered each charm gently. “This is beautiful,” she said. “Thank you so much.” Aunt Jean put her arm around my back and squeezed me to her.
“You’re welcome,” I said. Aunt Jean held up her hand and I fastened the clasp of the bracelet. It fit her perfectly.
She opened Julie’s present next. It was a scarf, but not the kind you wear to keep warm. It was too thin and glittery for that. It was more like a fabric necklace that you loop around your neck. “I feel so glamorous,” Aunt Jean said.
“Okay,” Dad said. “Now mine.” He held out a pile of presents all wrapped in matching paper. I counted the presents in the pile. There were six total. If Aunt Jean was so hard to shop for, then how did he come up with six different things to get her? “These are from Lisa and me,” Dad said.
I had no idea what Mom and Dad had gotten Aunt Jean, so I was almost as excited to see her open their presents as I was to see her open mine. “Hurry up,” I said. She pulled the paper off the first present. “It’s a book,” I said. I was kind of disappointed. Aunt Jean works in a library. It wasn’t that hard to figure out that she likes books.
“Not just any book,” Dad said. Aunt Jean turned it over, and I leaned closer to her so I could read the title: A Sophisticated Traveler’s Guide to Europe. It seemed like a ridiculous gift to me. Why would Aunt Jean need a book about Europe?
“Subtle, Peter,” Aunt Jean said. She sounded upset, but Dad didn’t seem to notice.
Aunt Jean opened the rest of her presents. She smiled to be nice, but I could tell she didn’t mean it. The next two presents were also books. One was about England and one was about France. Then there was a leather case that sort of looked like a wallet. The last two presents were games you can play on a plane—travel Scrabble and something called Magnetic Sudoku, which I’d never heard of. “It’s a numbers game,” Dad said.
“Thank you,” Aunt Jean said.
“The passport case is the real gift,” Mom said. She picked up the thing that looked like a wallet and flipped it over. “See, it has your initials. But you can exchange the books for other ones if you decide to go somewhere else. I picked these because I’ve always wanted to go to Europe.”
“Lisa picked it out,” Dad said. “She thought it might inspire you to finally treat yourself to a great trip.”
It figured that Mom had picked it all out. She always thought she knew what was best for everyone, even if they didn’t want it themselves. Aunt Jean didn’t say anything. I knew she didn’t want to go anywhere. It was no fun to travel alone. I looked over at her. There was so much I wanted to say to her. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t care how much money she had or what she did with it. Mostly I wanted to tell her how happy I was that she stayed right here in Redwood City, right near me. I didn’t need her to travel anywhere. If she went somewhere else, she might like it better and decide to move away. I didn’t know what I would do without her. Of course Mom would never understand that. Stay here forever, Aunt Jean, I thought as hard as I could. I hoped she was listening.
Fifteen
IT HAD BEEN more than a week since Jake and I had stopped speaking. He seemed so far away. I made myself think about the jog-a-thon so I wouldn’t feel so bad about Jake, but then I started to get nervous that things wouldn’t get done in time. What if we didn’t have enough sponsors? What if we didn’t have enough runners? What if it rained?
“But it never rains in California in May,” Doriane told me. I had called her because I knew she would be thinking about the jog-a-thon too. Doriane was always scared about things. If she was relaxed about rain, then there couldn’t be any reason to worry. So why didn’t I feel any better? Maybe Jake was right; maybe I was turning into a different person. I used to think I was friendly and likeable, but now I felt weird and mean. I got up from my desk and looked at my reflection in the mirror on the back of the closet door. My hair was pulled back into a ponytail, just the same as usual. Some little wisps had escaped on the sides. They were a much lighter shade of blond than the rest of my hair.
“Katie?” Doriane said. “Are you there?”
I took a long, deep breath and closed my eyes, imagining the high school track with the sun beating do
wn on it. “I’m here,” I said. “And you’re right. I shouldn’t be worried about the rain.”
Mr. Gallagher had said getting sponsors was the most important thing, so that is what I decided to concentrate on. I knew Sophie was already starting to ask people in New York to sponsor her, so I had to send her the information packet we’d handed out to everyone at Hillside. The Saturday after Aunt Jean’s birthday, Dad drove me to the post office so I could mail the package to Sophie. Dad had worked late all week and for some reason Aunt Jean had been busy too, so the weekend was the first chance I got to go to the post office. I’d written Sophie a note explaining what everything was. “It’s so great you can help because I’ve been so nervous lately and we need more sponsors,” I’d written. But I hadn’t told her what I was really scared about—that Jake would never talk to me again, that nothing would work out the way it was supposed to. I’d signed “Sincerely, Katie,” at the bottom of the letter, and then I’d told Dad I was ready to go.
I was sending Sophie copies of sponsor sheets and Super Sponsor forms, and even the article about Emily that Doriane had found back in early April. It was too much to fit into a regular envelope but I would send it overnight so she could get it faster. Thinking about Sophie helped me forget about everything with Jake.
“It’s too bad we couldn’t go to the airport and find someone who was flying to New York. Then they could take the package to Sophie and she could get it the same day,” I told Dad.
“That’s a good idea for a business,” Dad said.
“Hey, Dad,” I said.
“What, Katie-Katie?” Dad said. He turned to look at me even though he was driving. Mom says you have to be careful when you talk to Dad in the car because sometimes he forgets to look at the road. He’s never been in an accident, though. I think it’s just one more thing that Mom likes to worry about. But even so, I waited until Dad turned back to the road before I kept talking.
“Do you think you need to do well in school to be able to run a business?” I asked.
“Are you planning on running a business before you finish sixth grade?” Dad asked, smiling.
I remembered the Dynamic Duo, but there was no way Jake and I were going to start a business now that he wasn’t even speaking to me. “No,” I said. “I was just wondering.”
“Well, no, actually,” Dad said. “I think there are plenty of good business people who didn’t do well in school.”
“Then why is Mom so worried about Julie all the time?”
“School is still important,” Dad said. “It would certainly be easier for you and Julie if you did well in school. It’s easier to get into college. It’s easier to get a job. Not everyone can run their own business, after all.”
“But Mom’s so mean to Julie,” I said. “It’s not Julie’s fault.”
“No, it’s not Julie’s fault,” Dad said. “But Mom’s not being mean. She just wants everything to be okay. She gets worried when things are out of her control.”
Like when Dad’s not looking at the road, I thought.
We pulled into the parking lot of the post office. I gathered everything up and followed Dad inside. There was a line in front of the row of clerks. Dad says there’s always a line at the post office. I hoped it would go quickly. I had a lot of work to get done.
“So who’s paying for this shipment to the famous Sophie?” Dad asked.
“I thought maybe you would,” I said.
“Is that what you thought?” Dad said.
“Please, Dad,” I said. “You’re my favorite dad in the whole world. Besides, it’s for a good cause.”
“You’re right,” Dad said. He ruffled my hair. “I guess I’ll do it, but only because I’m your favorite dad.”
It was our turn to go up to the clerk. I put all my papers on the counter. “I need to send this overnight to New York,” I said. The clerk gave me a slip to fill out with Sophie’s name and address. I didn’t have to look up the address because I knew it by heart. It reminded me of how I knew Doriane’s phone number by heart too. Just when I was starting to feel bad about myself, Dad put his hand on the top of my head. “My daughter is organizing an event in her school to benefit the Mexican earthquake victims,” Dad told the clerk.
“How wonderful,” the clerk said.
“It is wonderful, isn’t it?” Dad said. He ruffled my hair again. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was proud of me or because he thought I was a little kid. I hated when Dad treated me like a baby, but at least he thought there was a reason to be proud of me. He even got his company to be a Super Sponsor and he was paying for the package to Sophie.
Dad also said I could call some of his friends to see if they would want to be individual sponsors. He said he would help me make a list of all the friends of his that I knew. When Dad and I got home, Julie was studying with Stephanie in the kitchen. Mom says no one—not even Mom—is allowed to hang out anywhere near Julie when Stephanie is there. The problem is that the kitchen is smack in the middle of everything downstairs. Dad and I were banished from the kitchen, as well as the dining room and the den. He took his palm pilot out of his briefcase and we went up to my room and scrolled through his list of friends. I took a clean sheet of paper out of the top drawer of my desk and printed everyone’s name and phone number as neatly as I could. In the end we came up with twenty-two people for me to call. I would just start at the top of the list and check off everyone’s name as I went.
Mooner wandered into the room. “Hey, girl,” I said. “I can’t play right now. I have work to do.” Mooner cocked her head like she was listening and whined softly, as if she knew exactly what I had said.
Dad sat next to me as I dialed. It was the middle of the day and a lot of his friends weren’t home, but I ended up with nine sponsors. I left messages for the people who weren’t home, and I figured I would get even more sponsors when they started calling me back. I hung up the phone after my twenty-second call and looked at the clock. It was three thirty-three. Dad said we should probably walk Mooner, but I still wanted to work on the jog-a-thon. “I guess it’s just you and me, girl,” he told her. After they left, I wandered downstairs. Stephanie usually left around three thirty, so Julie would be free. She had said maybe we should go door-to-door to get sponsors, like we did when we were little and sold cookies for our Brownie troop.
But Stephanie was still at the kitchen table with Julie, and Mom was there too. If Mom was there, then tutoring had to be over. I hovered right outside the kitchen, waiting for Julie.
Stephanie didn’t look anything like I’d pictured when Julie had first described her. She had glasses, like Julie said. But she was also kind of pretty. She had really long hair pulled back in a braid. I could tell she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Julie thinks everyone over thirteen years old should wear makeup. I knew that if Stephanie weren’t Julie’s tutor, Julie would have wanted to give her a makeover.
I shifted my feet and the floor squeaked beneath me. Mom turned her head toward me. “Katie,” she said, “can we help you with anything?” She sounded like the assistant in Dad’s office who always asks how she can help me when I call.
“I’m just waiting for Julie,” I said.
“Julie’s going to be a while,” Mom said. “And after that she’s going to be busy anyway.” Mom spoke as though Julie couldn’t speak for herself. I looked over at Julie, but she was looking into her lap. I just kept standing there, staring at Julie. “Anything else?” Mom asked. She sounded annoyed.
“No,” I said. I went back upstairs to call Doriane and see if she wanted to come with me. But she said she had to babysit Avi, and actually she sounded relieved. I guess she’s probably too shy to go door-to-door.
But I felt lonely. First Julie couldn’t come, and now Doriane couldn’t, and of course I couldn’t ask Jake. Going door-to-door was exactly the kind of thing he would have wanted to do—he would have loved to impress all the neighbors. But instead I had to go by myself. I decided to concentrate on Sophie. The packa
ge was on its way to New York right at that very moment. I wondered what she was doing. Maybe she would start getting sponsorships before the package even arrived, or maybe she was too busy helping her sister with her homework. I bet Sophie’s mom would never make her sit home all day long instead of being with her sister. It made me wish I had a different mother. I left the house and walked toward Aunt Jean’s house. I could pretend she was my mother instead.
I stopped at a bunch of the houses in between my house and Aunt Jean’s to try to get sponsors for the jog-a-thon. But as I continued down the street, I started having the same problem I had had making phone calls. Most people weren’t home. I wasn’t too upset about it, though. The people who were home were really generous, and I decided to share the sponsors with Julie. We could split it fifty-fifty. It was her idea, after all. By the time I got to Aunt Jean’s, Julie and I had four sponsors each. I rang Aunt Jean’s doorbell three times.
“Katie,” Aunt Jean said as she swung open the door. “I didn’t expect to see you today. What’s going on?”
“Nothing much,” I said. “Jake isn’t speaking to me. I bet he’s not even thinking about me. He won’t even come to the phone when I call. Doriane is babysitting, so she couldn’t hang out today. And Julie was supposed to help with the jog-a-thon today, but Mom won’t let her out of the house.”
“Sounds like a hard day,” Aunt Jean said. She opened the door wider. “Come on in.”
Aunt Jean said she would get me a snack, and I walked into the den. The television was on, but the volume was low. Sometimes she turns the television on just to have other voices in the house. I could tell by the program—some game show with the teammates all dressed up in all the same color—that it wasn’t something that Aunt Jean had actually been watching, so I didn’t feel bad about interrupting her.
Aunt Jean came back to the den with a slice of cheese and a glass of juice. I took the cheese and peeled off the plastic wrap. I began to fold it into squares. I like to fold it into as many squares as possible, and then eat it one little piece at a time to make it last longer. “So,” Aunt Jean said. “I guess it’s not your best day.”
Sincerely Page 23