by Rachel Vail
seventeen
I walked over to Oakbrook Playground, where I used to play.
I like being alone, I reminded myself. I walk home alone most days; it’s my time for myself when I can imagine things like what if I could fly. I walked across the grassy area toward the swings. Sometimes I sing show tunes in my head or even out loud, if I want. I love show tunes. I couldn’t think of a single lyric.
“I like being alone!” I said out loud. Then I cried.
I sat on the swing and wrapped my arms around the chains with my head hanging far forward, and cried, watching the tears plunk down, ineffectual little dots on the vast dry sand. “Alone,” I repeated, and cried some more.
I wasn’t just crying out of loneliness. That was part of it, definitely, but not all. I was mourning the loss of the girl who liked to sit here alone. I was crying about the fact that I was turning into somebody who valued having a friendship ring with the most popular clique of girls in seventh grade, turning into somebody who cares what other people think and who wants to please them, someone who wants to be liked. How weak!
I looked at my naked ring finger. For the first time in my life being alone felt lonely. I don’t think I ever understood the word before.
I tried swinging a little but my heart really wasn’t in it. Holy Olivia, never wrong. Maybe, but better that than a sheep following the crowd, bleating “I’m so stupid” all over the place. I’m not stupid and I’m proud of who I am. Mostly.
“I need a friend,” I whispered. I leaned back and looked up at the sky. “I need her.”
No. I don’t need Morgan. I don’t need anybody who lies, and walks away from me, and gets so angry, and is so fragile. Trust her? What a crazy, reckless thing to do—she was right, I don’t do reckless things. It is safer to be alone.
But maybe safer shouldn’t be the only consideration?
As I stood up, I covered the teardrops with sand.
eighteen
Instead of turning right, toward my house, I turned left and walked to Morgan’s. I thought maybe I’d sit on her porch and wait to be discovered, like she’d done in the morning.
She was already on her deck. She was playing with a Barbie, a really tacky-looking one, which she put down behind her when she noticed me coming up her walk.
I sat down next to her and tried to think how to start. I didn’t want to apologize. I just sat there for a long, long minute. I should’ve thought of something on the way, I chided myself.
She didn’t say anything either. I was afraid to look at her.
I reached behind her and picked up her Barbie. I smoothed the hair down and adjusted the Velcro closure in the back of the nylon dress, then handed her to Morgan, who held her gently.
“I don’t play with her anymore,” Morgan mumbled.
“OK,” I said. I leaned back onto my elbows and rested my hands on top of my shorts. I felt the Tylenols in their plastic bag in my pocket. My mouth was killing me, I remembered. I checked my watch. Time. “Morgan? Could I have a glass of water?”
“You? Need something from me?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
“Come on.” She opened the screen door and held it for me. It banged shut behind us. “Shh. My mom’s in bed. Depressed. Don’t ask.”
“OK.” I followed Morgan into her kitchen, which was small and sort of triangular, with a tiny, round metal table in the corner. The cabinets were dark wood with metal handles, and reached all the way up to the ceiling. The stove had black paint peeling off it, showing silver underneath. In the sink was a pile of dirty dishes and a pot full of greasy water. A cabinet was open, and inside were two open boxes of pasta, a jar of artichoke hearts, and a can of olives. That’s all. I looked at my sneakers, my shiny, white, new Adidas.
Morgan slammed that cabinet shut, climbed up on the counter, opened a different cabinet, and chose a glass for me, a pretty glass with a stem, like for wine. She turned on the tap and held her finger under the water. After a minute, she filled the glass and handed it to me.
I took the Tylenols out of the bag in my pocket, popped them in my mouth, threw my head back, and tried to swallow the pills without gagging. When I opened my eyes, Morgan was reaching out for the glass. I handed it to her. She drank from it, then gave the glass back to me with just a little water left.
In my family we don’t share glasses because of germs.
I closed my eyes and tipped the remains of the water into my mouth. Then I opened my eyes and looked her straight in the face. “I like Lou,” I said.
“That again?” she pushed my shoulder.
I didn’t budge. “Seriously.”
“You do?” Morgan opened her eyes wide. “Lou Hochstetter?”
I nodded.
“Wow,” Morgan said. “Lou. Really?”
“I know you think he’s a geek,” I said. “But I like him.”
“I didn’t think you liked anybody.”
I shrugged.
Morgan lifted the glass out of my hand and refilled it. “Lou?”
“I know he’s awkward, but don’t you think . . . I don’t know. My mother says sometimes the charming guys are the real losers.”
“She’s right,” Morgan agreed, drinking the water. “My dad is charming, and he’s the biggest bowel movement in the world.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
She jumped off the counter. “Maybe your mother is right. Maybe I should like a geek, too.”
“OK,” I said, following her into her room.
“Maybe Gideon Weld,” she said. “He’s sort of a klutz.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“And he’s friends with Lou, which would be fun. We could be, like, a foursome.” We sat on the floor, our backs against her bed.
“That would be great.” Then I whispered, “But what about Dex?”
“I didn’t mean to tell you that.” Morgan covered her face.
“I won’t say anything.”
“Good.” She shook her head. “He’d never like me anyway. Gideon Weld, though. He wears brown socks in gym class. He’d have no right not to like somebody, right? OK. Here’s what we have to do—we have to flirt.”
“Maybe we should just ask them out.”
“Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“Actually,” I admitted, digging my fingers into her rug, “I already asked Lou out.”
Morgan stared at me. “You did?”
I nodded. “Yeah. But he’s not allowed to go out with anybody.”
“So he said no? You asked him out and he said no? I would die!”
“Actually he said . . .”
“Wait, wait, wait. Tell me the whole thing, every single syllable.” She grabbed her two pillows, handed me one, and hugged the other, all excited. “What did you say? Just ‘Will you go out with me?’”
“Yeah.” I felt a smile creeping onto my face, remembering.
“Where were you?” Morgan’s eyes were open very wide. She chewed on the corner of her pillowcase.
“In Oakbrook Playground,” I said. “On the swings.”
Morgan grabbed me by the arms. “No way!” She gasped.
“Wait. It gets worse. He doesn’t have great hearing, so he thought I was asking if he wanted a garoudabee.”
“A what?”
“That’s what he thought I said, ‘Do you want a garoudabee?’ Which isn’t even a thing.”
Morgan pushed me away and shouted, “No!”
I started to laugh. “I know. It was pretty tense for a minute there. I had to say it again.”
“Again? What do you mean, again? You asked him out—twice?”
“Well . . .” I buried my head in the pillow. “Just because of his hearing.”
“This is, I think, the funniest thing I ever heard. His hearing? I can’t believe
you didn’t tell me!”
“I just did.” I looked up at her. Her mouth was way open. I smiled.
Morgan closed her mouth. “When Tommy asked out CJ, she called me right away.”
“I’m not CJ.”
“True.”
I punched the pillow down in my lap. “I’ve always thought it’s so stupid that girls feel like they have to report all the intimate details of their lives to one another.”
“Fine,” Morgan said. “Don’t. Not that I care.” She stood up and threw her pillow back on her bed.
“No, wait. I meant, I always used to think that; it always seemed like such a, I don’t know, an invasive requirement.”
“Invasive?” She turned her back to me and fiddled with an eraser on her desk.
“Don’t make fun of my vocabulary, Morgan. Please. I’m trying to tell you something. OK?”
She put the eraser down. “OK.”
“That’s what I always used to think—that it didn’t make sense, confiding in somebody about private things.” I got off the floor and sat down on her bed, still hugging the pillow. “But this is fun, telling you.”
She came over and sat down next to me on the bed.
“I’m not good at this,” I said. “I never, I don’t . . .”
“Tell me more,” she whispered.
“It was totally terrifying,” I admitted. “Asking him the second time. I almost threw up.” I hid my face in the pillow again. The pillowcase was worn so smooth it felt velvety.
Morgan put her arm around me. “He really said no?”
“Oh, no.” I explained. “He said he wasn’t allowed, but that he does like me.”
“Oh,” Morgan said. “Well . . .”
“He does! He gave me a cartoon.”
“A what?”
I pulled the cartoon from my pocket and showed her. She read it and smiled. “He’s good.”
Morgan handed it back to me. While I folded it, she stood up and went back to her desk. She opened a drawer, pulled out the brown paper bag, and lifted my ring out of it. I watched her.
She blew the hair away from her eyes and came back to the bed. I reached out my hand. She smiled and placed the ring in my palm. I slipped it onto my finger, where it fit perfectly, and whispered, “Thanks.”
She shrugged. “It looks good on you. We have to funk them. Lou and Gideon.”
“Excuse me?”
“Funk,” she repeated. “With an N.”
We flipped over and hid our faces in her comforter for a minute, giggling. “What does that mean?” I finally asked.
“You never funked anybody?”
I shook my head. “I’m a virgin.”
She hit me with the pillow, and said, “You pervert! It means you call your crush and then hang up when he answers!”
“Why in the world would you do that?”
“Trust me,” she said. “Once you do it, you’ll understand.”
“Yeah?”
“You want me to go first?”
I nodded. We tiptoed out of her room and found the phone book in the front hall closet. We raced back into her room and together looked up Gideon Weld’s number. “Here!”
She dialed, waited wide-eyed, then slammed down the phone. “Phew! Your turn.”
“I know his number.”
“I figured.”
I dialed Lou’s number. At the first ring, my palms started to sweat. I sat down cross-legged on her bed and closed my eyes. Second ring. I could barely catch my breath. I opened my eyes. Morgan was nodding.
“See?” she whispered.
“Hello?” Lou’s voice in my ear.
I opened my mouth.
“Hang up!” Morgan mouthed. I gasped, looked at the phone, found the TALK button, and pressed it quick. Then I screeched and fell over backward on the bed, pulling Morgan’s pillow over my face.
“See?” Morgan asked again, jumping on me.
I screeched again, and then the phone rang. I was under the pillow with me so it sounded like a fire alarm, it was so loud. Morgan and I both screamed. It rang again. “You answer,” Morgan breathed, through her fingers.
I picked it up, pressed TALK, and said, “Hello?”
“Hello?” It was Lou.
“Lou?”
Morgan’s mouth dropped open so wide I could see her tonsils.
“Olivia?” Lou asked.
“Yes,” I squeaked. Morgan grabbed the pillow from me and crumpled it in her lap.
“Did you just call me?” Lou asked.
“Um,” I said. “Yes. How did you know?”
“I did automatic callback,” Lou said. “What happened?”
I covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “Star 69!”
Morgan opened her mouth wide, then screamed into the pillow.
“Olivia?” Lou asked.
“Um . . .” I grabbed the pillow from Morgan and screamed into it myself. Then I shook my head and, as calmly as possible, lifted the phone to my mouth again and said, “What?”
That cracked Morgan up. She grabbed the pillow back and laughed into it, rocking and repeating, “Star 69!”
Meanwhile, Lou was asking me, “Did you have an idea about our code?”
I tried to stifle my giggles. “Yeah,” I lied, gasping for air and self-control. “Yeah, that’s it. The math project!” The last two words came out sort of a scream. That was it; I lost it. I fell off the bed, laughing, listening to Lou asking, “Olivia? You OK?”
Morgan thumped her head against the mattress, giggling hysterically.
“Uh-huh,” I managed.
“Well,” Lou asked, “Do you want to go over it?”
“Now?” I screeched. “The math homework?” Morgan was rolling around on her bed, clutching herself.
“True, it’s not due till Tuesday, but, do you want to sit together on the bus to apple-picking? We could, like, work on it.”
“I’m sitting with Morgan,” I explained, looking at Morgan.
“Oh,” Lou said.
Morgan jumped off the bed and grabbed me by the legs. “Say you have to go!” she whispered.
“I have to go,” I told him.
“All right,” Lou said.
“Thanks for calling,” I said. “Back.”
Morgan slapped her hands over her face.
“You’re welcome,” said Lou.
I hung up and screamed with Morgan. “I can’t believe I did that. I made a total fool of myself!”
“Yes,” Morgan agreed, nodding vigorously. “You sure did!”
“Aaa!” I screamed. I fell backward onto her bed, pulled my feet up, and laughed.
“Morgan!” her mother yelled.
We got serious fast. Morgan put her finger to her lips.
“Morgan!”
She lay silent beside me and held her hand up, above our heads. “These rings are nicer than I thought,” she whispered.
I held mine up, next to hers. “They are nice,” I agreed.
“I asked you for ten minutes of peace!” her mother screeched.
“Sorry,” Morgan yelled.
“Can’t you go outside?” her mother pleaded.
“Going,” she answered without budging.
“Let’s go for a bike ride,” I suggested.
Still staring at our hands, she whispered to me, “What a couple of losers we are, huh?”
“I think we’re great,” I whispered.
“You would.”
I shrugged.
Morgan knocked my hand lightly with hers. “So do I.”
nineteen
I wrapped my arms around Morgan’s waist as she started pedaling. She pumped really hard, and I closed my eyes to force myself not to steer. We banked around a corner. I just held onto her and tried to
imagine us cemented together. It was very frightening, but at the same time, a little exciting.
I felt us picking up speed and had to open my eyes. We were heading down the steep hill on Oakbrook. I brake when I go down that hill all alone. I squeezed my eyes closed tight.
“Whew!” Morgan yelled as we picked up more speed.
I told myself to sit still and hold on. Don’t lean! Stop imagining the hospital emergency room and my father racing in, in his surgical scrubs with his beeper lighting up, furious and disappointed in my judgment.
Trust her.
The road flattened out. I opened my eyes and loosened my grip. Slightly.
“That was great!” Morgan yelled, pedaling again.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It was.”
“We did it!”
“Whew!” I yelled. We bobbled a little. I gripped her tighter. We didn’t fall. I sat up straighter and reminded myself to breathe. After two or three breaths, I had relaxed enough to let myself look around. We were passing Oakbrook Playground, where I used to play.
Turn the page to read the first part of Zoe’s story!
If You Only Knew
one
When you’re the youngest of five girls, nothing’s your own. I share a room with my sister Devin, and most of my clothes used to be hers. The first day of school, teachers say, “Oh, another Grandon,” instead of just, “Hello, Zoe.” I have my sister Bay’s hair and my sister Anne Marie’s mouth and, unfortunately, my mother’s behind. I doubt if I’ve ever had an original thought.
That was all fine with me until tonight.
I’m friends with everybody in my grade, including the boys. I haven’t been asked out yet—maybe I’m too tall or too good friends with them or something. Doesn’t bother me, though. Last year nobody tried to kiss me, but just about everybody passed me notes.
I’ve never had a best friend, either, never really saw the point. I like to hang out with lots of different people. Why limit myself? But here I am, lying in the dark, plotting how to make CJ Hurley choose me as her best friend.
We’re having a sleepover at her house, which is partly why I’m still awake—it’s cold. They have air-conditioning but no yelling, the opposite of us. When their mother said, “Bedtime,” CJ and her little brother ran straight to the bathroom and started brushing. That was a surprise. I got up and rushed in after them; I hate to be left out and besides, what could I do? Stay and bargain for a few more minutes with somebody else’s parents?