“Salem,” my mom would complete.
And I thought it was her travel career that gave her the unfair advantage.
All the signs were there. I just didn’t speak witchcraft.
Maybe one day my dad will take us to an island. Miri and I could learn to scuba dive and then I’d be able to better communicate with Tammy.
Hmm. Maybe not. Aren’t witches allergic to water? The wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz melted when Dorothy drenched her. Does Miri have to stop bathing now? Super. Something else to look forward to.
Tammy eyes me with pity. “I’m so lucky my moms and dad all live in the city.” She is surprisingly well adjusted regarding her mother/stepmothers situation. On Mother’s Day she even buys three cards. “Tomorrow, all of them are coming over for Valentine’s Day dinner. Can you believe they all get along?”
“You’re lucky.” Since my parents’ divorce, I don’t think they have even volunteered to be in the same room. It’s not that they fight—they’re always civil— they’re just awkward. I get the feeling that, to them, being in proximity to each other is like listening to nails scraping against a blackboard.
I guess I should be grateful that they don’t fight. They never fought. My dad just realized he was no longer in love with my mom. They had gotten married young, the day after they graduated from college, before he knew what he wanted. For weeks after they discussed divorcing, he stayed in our apartment until they worked out the financial arrangements and he found a place of his own. And not even during those weeks did I hear them argue.
“You spending Valentine’s Day at your dad’s?” Tammy asks me, interrupting my trip down Divorce Lane.
“Mais oui. Unfortunately. No hot date for me.” No potential change in my Frenching status this romantic holiday.
Tammy gives me a comforting shoulder pat as we head toward math. “Let’s stop at the bathroom,” she says.
“I have to ask Ms. Hayward something before class,” I lie, and continue walking before she has a chance to renege.
Explanation: I’m ditching Tammy in case Jewel gets to class early and saves me a seat. Math is the only time she’s nice to me these days.
Okay, okay, I’m a horrible person.
But if it weren’t for accelerated math, I’d never spend any time with Jewel. And I see Tammy all the time because we have practically every class together.
Enough said.
As I follow the stairs up to the third floor, I try to talk myself out of my traitorous behavior. Why should I be nicer to Jewel than Tammy? Forget it! Jewel can sit alone for once.
I open the classroom door. Jewel is in the back row, her furry pink pencil case on the desk next to her, saving me a spot. She waves me over.
So what am I supposed to do? Not go? I can’t be rude.
“Hi, sweetie!” she sings as I slide into the plastic chair beside her.
“Hi,” I say, admiring her gorgeous, frizzless mahogany curls perfectly perched on top of her head with two silver hair sticks. (I’d feel stupid with chopsticks in my hair, but they look great on Jewel. She’s tall enough not to have to worry about poking out someone’s eye.)
She’s tried to teach me her frizz-busting technique (“comb it in the shower, insert gel immediately post gentle towel dry, scrunch and diffuse within ten minutes or all is lost”), but I can never get my boring brown just-past-my-shoulders hair to look right. It’s not straight, not curly. Just wavy. I’m an ocean head. And as I sit down, a single hair stands up straight to the ceiling.
Jewel giggles.
I lick my finger and rub the strand, trying to encourage it to stay with its friends. “Remember when we used to rub balloons on our heads to make our hair staticky?” I say. I like to remind Jewel about our shared past in the hopes she’ll remember we’re supposed to be best buds.
“Mmm-hmm,” she says, and opens the magazine on her desk.
Jewel and I have been friends since preschool, when we wore matching pairs of white leather sandals. During playtime we discovered we could attach our bands and pretend to be contestants in a three-legged race.
I’m dying to tell her about Miri. She would freak out. I’m freaking out. It’s all I can do not to stand on my chair and scream at the top of my lungs, “My sister’s a witch!”
I know, I know, it’s not my secret to tell.
If I were a witch, I would blab to the world. Although . . . then everyone would know I was putting spells on them. Where would the fun be in that?
I’m also dying to tell Jewel because it would give us something we could bond over. It would be just like old times, the two of us whispering secrets. We always had other friends, but we were the team. Occasionally, the three-legged team. Maybe one day we’ll be a team again. It’s not as if we had a fight, I remind myself as she flips a page. She’s just really busy with her fashion show friends.
I spot Tammy at the front of the room, looking for me. I motion hello, but the thing is, the seat next to me is already taken. She finds a spot two rows ahead of us, next to Janice Cooper. Janice hardly ever talks in class, and she always looks very serious when she takes notes. Tammy is friends with her, and she sits with us at lunch. She wears her straight long brown hair half-up in a gold barrette every day. She’s a bit geeky, but that’s all right.
“Which do you like better?” Jewel whispers twenty minutes later while Ms. Hayward is explaining the surface area of the polygon on the blackboard. She slips me a stack of glossy pages ripped from months’ worth of magazines. All feature A-list-looking models in barely-there designer dresses.
Jewel doesn’t pay much attention in math class. Why should she, when she knows I can explain it all to her later?
I’m really good at math. I mean, really good. Geometry, trigonometry, algebra, whatever. Numbers make sense to me. I get a little rush when I crack a problem. And I always get the highest grade in the class. I know I always get the highest grade, not because I ask my fellow students what they got, but because Ms. Hayward always makes a big deal of it. I’m not sure if she does it to be nice or just to embarrass me. “And once again, surprise, surprise, the highest grade in the class goes to . . . little Miss Back-of-the-Room, Rachel Weinstein.”
Ms. Hayward is not one of my biggest fans. Mostly because I spend her entire class passing notes instead of listening to what she has to say. I still get the highest marks. What’s the point in paying attention? Everything she says is plagiarized directly from the textbook.
On the other hand, she can’t seem to help showing the tiny nugget of respect she must feel for me. She can’t hate her prized pupil. Who else will she send to the state math competition?
All right, yes, I went to the state math competition in November. And—geek alert!—I placed in the top five. I came in second. I am going to kick serious butt on my PSATs.
My dad wanted to know why I didn’t come in first. He won a math competition in high school and lets me keep his triangular silver trophy in my room at my mom’s. He draws immense pride from his theory that while other daughters wasted their time playing with dolls, I entertained myself by playing with his calculator.
Which is true. Except that I was playing a game I used to call Barbie’s Office, and the calculator was used solely as a prop.
Since my dad never had a boy, he tries to use me as a replacement for traditional father-son activities. It worked for Star Wars and calculators. Not as much for baseball.
“You throw like a girl!” he’d yell at me in Central Park.
“I am a girl!”
Maybe one day, Mick will be able to teach me. Sigh.
Anyway, I hate when Ms. Hayward focuses on me. That’s why I don’t participate in class. Who wants to look like a know-it-all? (Answer: Doree Matson, a fashion show annoyance who unfortunately is in most of my classes—not this one thankfully—always sits in the front row, and has her hand permanently stapled to the ceiling.)
So instead of paying attention, I flip through Jewel’s fashion options. I point t
o a knee-length dress in electric blue. “This one.” It’s a dress by Izzy Simpson, who is my absolute favorite. Not that I own anything designed by Izzy Simpson. Her designs are way too expensive. Jewel’s family isn’t rich, but her mom always buys her the best clothes.
She raises a thick, perfectly arched eyebrow. “Yeah? Maybe.”
“What’s it for?”
“Spring Fling.”
She’s already shopping for Spring Fling? I don’t even know when it is, let alone have a date.
Every year JFK throws four dances: Fall Ball, Winter Mixer (apparently the administration thinks that rhymes), Spring Fling, and the prom. But the prom is only for seniors and, of course, the hot freshman, sophomore, and junior girls who the senior boys want to hook up with.
These dances are big deals. Major big deals. And no one goes without a date. But that’s not a school rule. The administration makes a point of telling us again and again that no dates are necessary, but the unwritten mandate is no date, no go, which I am well aware of.
Fall Ball: The fashion show tryouts were two weeks away. Watched Star Wars trilogy with Jewel (who had yet to be let through the gates of high school coolness). Popcorn! Pedicures! Pajama party!
Winter Mixer: Jewel had a date. New friend Tammy had strep. Me, home alone, with Miri.
Spring Fling: Me at the dance. Cinderella-style, I will gracefully sashay into the gym, professionally blown-out hair swaying over my strapless, sparkling, dewy shoulders. I will dance, I will dip, I will dazzle. I will have a handsome A-lister on my arm. Preferably his name will be Mick or Raf.
I’m going to Spring Fling. I am not missing another dance. I don’t care who I go with, but this time someone will ask me. I know, I know. I should ask someone myself. But what if I ask and he says no? I’m not being antifeminist. Just chicken. But do you know what I’m even more chicken about?
The dancing part. Did I inherit witchcraft? Oh, no. I’ve inherited my mother’s total lack of rhythm. Jewel used to spend hours with me, trying to show me how to move my butt without looking as if I were being electrocuted. Nothing worked.
But people don’t really dance at dances, do they? Besides the slow ones, of course, which I can do. That’s all about the sway. The school dance is more about the outfits, gossiping, and making out. Dancing is completely secondary.
“Do they know the date yet?” I ask.
“Will told me”—
I blink. Jewel is on a first-name basis with the school president? To Tammy and me he’s William Kosravi, the gorgeous and unapproachable senior, and president of the student body. He’s also the older brother of Raf, aka one of the Loves of My Life.
—“that it’s April third, the night after the fashion show. The Saturday kicking off spring break.”
Oh, no. No, no, no. “That’s the night of my dad’s wedding.”
Jewel looks disappointed—for a millisecond. Her lips make an O. “Well . . . it’s just a dance.” This coming from the girl who has already put together a portfolio of clothing options. “I’ll show you my pictures,” she says as a consolation.
“What time is the dance?”
“Nine.”
I’ll never make both. The wedding starts at six, but the torture will carry on until at least midnight. And it’s in Port Washington, Long Island, which is at least a thirty-five-minute train ride away.
Ms. Hayward says in a loud singsong voice, “Rachel, I know you don’t feel that paying attention in class is worth your while, but perhaps you could stop yapping so your fellow classmates might benefit from my instruction?”
Then she winks at me. See? It’s a love/hate relationship.
I space out for the rest of the class, but this time it’s because all I can think about is that way back in October, before Jewel forgot we were best friends, I invited her to the wedding (my dad said I could invite two friends) and she said she’d be there.
Guess she forgot that, too.
As the bell rings, I pile my books. “What are you doing after school? Want to come over?”
Jewel carefully inserts her pen, purple calculator, and bunny-shaped eraser back into her pencil case. “Can’t. I’m hanging out with Liss.” Liss is Melissa Davis, my redheaded, snobby A-list replacement. Her nose is so turned up, I don’t know how she sees where she’s going. Her mother choreographs music videos, so—do you have to ask?—Liss automatically gets to be in the fashion show. “But definitely another time,” Jewel promises, squeezing my arm. And then she takes off.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is me getting a firstclass burn.
A burn that would have been more pronounced if I’d given her the bumblebee-shaped “Won’t you bee my valentine?” card that has her name on it in my - schoolbag.
I swear it’s not as pathetic as it sounds. When we were nine, Jewel threw her flip-flop into a beehive and we each got five stings. We spent the day crying and consoling ourselves with ice cream.
Okay, it’s pathetic.
Tammy, at least, is waiting for me at the front of the classroom.
I can’t believe I am going to miss Spring Fling because of my father’s horror-show wedding. I spend the entire train ride to Long Island freaking out. Which might be slightly premature, considering I don’t even have a date yet, but what if someone asks me?
It’s completely selfish to prefer an inane high school dance to the celebration of my father’s nuptials, but . . . but . . . STB is annoying and she doesn’t love him as much as my mother did.
“Spring Fling is just a stupid dance. Get over it.” Miri’s a tad annoyed that I keep interrupting her reading. She’s been hunched over her grotesque-smelling encyclopedia of a book since we got on the train.
“Wait till you’re a freshman. You’ll see,” I tell her. “And I’ll stop obsessing if you let me look at the magazine you’re not even reading.” On the glossy cover is the gorgelicious face of Robert Crowne, the new twenty-one-year-old singer/songwriter. His single, “Sixteen Shades of Love,” is on the radio 24/7.
Miri rolls her eyes. “I need it to disguise The Authorized and Absolute Reference Handbook to AstonishingSpells, Astounding Potions, and History of Witchcraft Since the Beginning of Time.”
“Are you going to say the entire name every time?” I yawn. “It’s putting me to sleep.”
“What should I call it?” she asks. “Authorized and Absolute?”
“A-squared. That sounds cooler.” I gaze at the cover. “Where did that book come from, anyway? Is there an Amazon.witch?”
“Noooo,” she enunciates. “Mom put a spell on hers to produce one for the next generation. But I like the new name. A-squared.”
“Let me see it.”
“I’m reading.” Miri lets out an amazed giggle. “It even updated the language to be appropriate for a young, twenty-first-century witch.”
“Fine. It’s not like I care.” Yeah, right. I spent all day attempting to kick-start my magical powers, whenever my thoughts weren’t otherwise occupied with my Spring Fling obsession.
Like when I willed my combination lock to revolve itself.
Believe me, if it had worked, I would not be on this train.
And then later, when I spotted Raf in the cafeteria line, spooning mashed potatoes onto his plate, and I willed him to park that cute butt of his beside me.
He sat next to stuck-up Melissa Davis. She already stole my best friend; did she have to hijack Raf, too?
“So,” I say. “How was school? Put any spells on your teachers?”
“Noooo. First of all, I don’t know how to use any of the spells, and second, for the hundredth time, I’m not doing any magic until I’ve finished my training.”
Blah, blah, blah. If I were her, I would have made dear old Liss choke on her celery sticks. “What a waste. You could bet I’d use my powers if I had any.”
“Maybe that’s why you don’t.”
Look what witch has already become a diva. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Miri leans
back in her seat, holding her ticket. “Mom says that some people get them when they’re ready for them. Maybe you’re not ready.”
“Excuse me, Miss Maturity.” I push her book and magazine out of her hands, and they tumble into the aisle.
She rolls her eyes. Does she think she’s the older sister?
I bet she used her powers to make me do that just to illustrate my immaturity.
“You up?” I ask Miri.
My father has enough money to build a pool and sauna in his new house, but not enough for Miri and me to have our own rooms. STB decorated ours in yellow. She thought it was cute. I feel like I’m drowning in a lemon meringue pie.
“No.”
I throw a sunflower-shaped pillow at her. “If I were a witch, I would never sleep. I would zap myself permaawake and spend the night flying around.”
She sighs. “Maybe I’ll zap myself asleep so I can stop staring at the ceiling.”
“Hey, there’s a full moon. You want to borrow STB’s Swiffer for a quick spin around town?” I giggle.
“Ha-ha.”
“Can you fly?”
I see the outline of her head shaking in the dark. “No.”
“So you’ve tried?” I say, psyched to have found her out.
“Mom told me that flying is a myth.”
“And you believe her?” I tsk-tsk. “You can bring lobsters back to life, make yourself invisible when playing hide-and-seek, but you can’t fly?”
She sits up and her eyes glow in the dark. Not in a creepy way, but because it’s dark in here and she’s always had really white eyeballs. She can do tricks with her eyes, too, such as crossing them, and making both eyeballs look outward. Mom hates when she does that, and is always warning her that one day they’ll stay like that and she’ll have only herself to blame.
“I don’t get how I did that lobster thing,” Miri confides. “And I didn’t make myself invisible. I projected my thoughts on you.”
“Does that mean I have a weak mind?”
“Maybe.”
“Shut up.”
She throws the sunflower pillow back at me. “I don’t think you’re weak minded.”
I feel creepy crawlies up my spine. “Do you make suggestions to me a lot?” Fantastic. My own mother and sister constantly control my thoughts, without my even realizing it. How do I know what I’m really thinking and what they’re telling me to think?
Bras & Broomsticks Page 4