I almost tripped over my own feet, immediately assuming that she knew something about Danko. But then I remembered she’d never even met my mom, and I hadn’t told a soul about what had happened in Croatia, so there was no possible way she had somehow heard a rumor. Caught unprepared on the topic of virginity, I muttered, “Sort of,” without wanting to either confess to her, or lie.
Fortunately, her own virginity and not mine was the reason that she had dragged me out to the track for a discussion. Why she had wanted to confide all of the dirty details of her relationship with Todd in me instead in her friends, I would never know.
“So… on Halloween when I went to Connecticut, Todd randomly mentioned two things that totally freaked me out. First, he’s going away for the entire month of December to Spain because he was chosen to be on some student UN panel about failing economic systems in Europe. I mean, I thought we were going to try to find a way to spend part of the break together either in Los Angeles or New Jersey, but then it turns out all this time he’s been making other plans to go to Madrid,” Taylor rambled. She was talking so quickly, it was as if she had ripped a hole in a night air and words were just gushing through it, widening the hole with their volume and quickening the pace at which her story was spilling all over the darkness. “Then, out of nowhere, he mentions this girl, Sidley, Sidley, not only once, but twice! He never talks about any girls in his classes at all, I swear, and then suddenly it’s Sidley this, Sidley that. Sidley is in his International Studies program and they’re on the debate team together. He was, like, I really want you to meet Sidley while you’re on campus, you’ll like her, and guess what? I did not like her! From the way he described her, I thought she would be hideous and boring. But then when he introduced me to her at the dance, she was like, Catherine Zeta Jones. Like, gorgeous.”
It was kind of comical to see Taylor, who was usually so aloof and collected, having such an explosive emotional reaction so many weeks after her Halloween heartbreak. But this was my big chance, I knew, to be the kind of friend to Taylor that I longed to be. She had obviously been keeping all of this bottled up inside for over two weeks.
“And she asked me where I went to school, and I said Treadwell, and she was like, I’ve never heard of it. So I clarified that it was boarding school, and she laughed at me. She thought it was hilarious that I’m in high school. She actually said she thought it was sweet, as if I was a security blanket that Todd had brought with him to school from home, or something,” Taylor recalled, sounding disgusted. Her breath was escaping from her mouth into the cold night air in white puffs illuminated by the flood lights. “So, that was supposed to be like… the night. We had planned it out and everything. But then I put two and two together and realized that Sidley’s going to Madrid with Todd, and I am pretty sure she’s after him. And I think he might be interested in her, too.”
“So..?” I egged her on when she trailed off, the memory of the miserable night distracting her from completing her retelling of the story.
Taylor was nervously wringing her hands as we walked. “So I chickened out. I didn’t want to tell him why, but it all just seemed weird. He’s supposed to be like, mine. I’m his. We grew up together. That’s always the way it’s been. Meant to be. Why does this dumb college girl have to get in the way and mess everything up?”
“So, you guys didn’t…”
“No,” Taylor reiterated. “I told him I didn’t feel well. I don’t think he believed me, but I didn’t care. Now, I don’t know what to do. When we talk on the phone it’s like, I’m listening to what he’s saying, but I just feel like a detective because I’m waiting for him to drop clues. Should I just break it off?”
“Well, do you still like him?” I asked, knowing the answer before I posed the question. If she didn’t still like Todd, she wouldn’t have even been telling me the story. I was hugely flattered that she thought enough of me to ask for my opinion on such an important decision.
She hesitated before replying. “Yeah, but I don’t want to like him if it’s going to be like this. I mean, I’m here. He’s there. I can’t stop him from falling in love with someone else.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d have just as little control over that if they were on the same campus, or even living together, as my sister was finding out. “I don’t think you should break it off,” I advised her. “If he wanted to be with Sidley, it would be pointless for him to keeping you hanging. I mean, he must really like you if he’s keeping in touch with you even though there are tons of college girls around.”
My own limited experience with boys was that they usually just took advantage of whatever was available to them. If they were willing to pass up what was right in front of them, it was because they were interested to the point of obsession in something else. I felt some negativity creeping into my thoughts related to how badly I had wanted Alex to kiss me in the dark at the museum. I had been right in front of him and he’d not been the least bit tempted because Nicola had been only a few feet away.
“Really?” Taylor asked, not believing me.
“Yeah,” I insisted. “Duh. If he wasn’t into you, how easy would it be for him to just text you and say, sorry, not into this? But it definitely sounds like this other chick is out to get your man. Is there anything you can do to keep him from going to Madrid?”
She frowned, defeated. “I don’t think so. It’s like, all he wants to talk about. If I gave him some kind of ultimatum, I don’t think I’d like his response.”
I was stymied. Preventing a romantic liaison from occurring in another country was a little outside of my realm of expertise. “You’ve got time between now and then,” I assured her. “Two weeks to figure out a way to make sure nothing happens between them in Spain.”
“I have no idea how to do that,” Taylor confessed. “I suck at all this relationship stuff. I really wish sometimes that my mom…”
She trailed off. Taylor talked about her mom so infrequently that it was easy to forget that she had died not even six months earlier, at the beginning of the summer.
“Sorry, Taylor,” I said. Over the summer, Dad had told me and Bijoux not to bring up the subject of Taylor’s mom because her death had been unexpected. So I’d never told her since meeting her in July that I was sorry for her loss. I knew my relationship with my own mother was complicated; no matter how much I tried, I’d never be the sophisticated, elegant daughter that she wanted. But still, the thought of her suddenly being taken away from me was enough to make my throat swell even out on the cold track.
“It’s OK,” Taylor said. “I just didn’t have a lot of time to think about it over the summer because we were moving around so much. But I miss her, you know? She knew a lot of stuff about boys.”
“I’ll help you,” I vowed. “I’m good at making plans. Really good. Someone should make a reality TV show about me instead of Bijoux.”
At this, Taylor smiled. “You’re not how I thought you’d be, Betsey. And I mean that in a good way. I wish I had a sister like you.”
To my mixed horror and delight, on Thursday morning at six-thirty when I reported for Aikido practice, Tova informed me that the Northwest Chapter of the Shodokan Aikido Association was going to let me attend the match. This exception was not due to any kind of special qualifications on my part, but only because they had an uneven number of female students in my age division since so many kids were unable to attend during the holiday. So basically, they let me in so that no one else would have to compete in the first round twice.
“Congratulations, you’re in,” Tova informed me, and explained that the meet would be held on the campus of a public high school in Saugus on Saturday, November twenty-ninth. Tova would be driving me and Erin to the match in her own, personal hybrid compact car, and I liked the idea of that.
To prepare, I had to master the basic techniques. Each of the seventeen basic moves that Tova tried to drill into our heads had a crazy Japanese name, none of which I could remember
for more than a few seconds after Tova spoke them. I knew that she was categorizing them into four different sections called wazu: the striking, elbow, wrist and floating techniques. The floating techniques confused me the most, because there was absolutely no floating involved whatsoever. Just more standing, and more stuff to memorize.
I mistakenly thought that perhaps I could skip the memorization part involving the names, since learning French was already blowing my mind. Mixing in some Japanese was not likely to help me out. But that fantasy was cast away by the time I arrived back in my dorm room before dinner at Hartford; Tova had posted a study guide to the student intranet for me to download. I sank into my chair as my laptop strained to open the file. How was it possible that I had picked the one sport available on campus that was going to require me to study?
It didn’t matter how little time I had for studying the terms; I couldn’t slack off, and I had no right to be resentful of more studying obligations. Tova had provided me with a perfect excuse not to accompany Mom and Danko overseas. All that was left to do was to call my mother in between her meetings in Paris, and deliver the news.
Unfortunately, my mother considered my time to be up. Before we even got around to discussing plans for Thanksgiving, she was tearing into me for not having gone home for a weekend visit yet to pick up my winter clothes.
“Why don’t you go home this weekend? I can book a flight for you for tomorrow night and have a car pick you up on campus after classes,” Mom offered. “It’s been seven weeks, Betsey. Aren’t you homesick?”
“You’re not even there right now!” I exclaimed. “Danko doesn’t care if I come home for a weekend. Besides, I’m really busy here, Mom. I can’t take a weekend off from studying right now. This place is really competitive.”
“But aren’t you getting cold? All of your sweaters and coats are at home. Besides which, Betsey, you could bring your books home and study there.”
She was clearly out of her mind if she thought I was going to travel all the way from Treadwell to New York for a weekend alone in the apartment with my stepfather.
“That’s the thing,” I said, trying to neatly segue into the announcement I needed to make regarding Thanksgiving. “It’s not just studying in books. I’m doing this martial arts thing, and there’s a meet at the end of the month. There’s practice every single day. I can’t miss it.”
“Whoah, whoah, whoah,” Mom objected. “Hold on. You’re doing martial arts? I never signed any permission slip for that. What happens if you fall and break your back? Who is this person who’s teaching the class? This makes me very uncomfortable, Betsey.”
I was relieved that I had stepped outside the dormitory to have this private conversation instead of having it upstairs in our room, within earshot of Kate, although my mom was right. It was downright cold outside and I didn’t have a jacket at school with me. Whenever I had recently been in a situation where I could have bought a new one, I never wanted to be bothered. Instead, I wore two sweatshirts, a hoodie over a crewneck, and still shivered. Ordering something online would have been like throwing down the gauntlet about visiting home. “Mom,” I began calmly. “Aikido is my elective class. It’s not a violent sport. Mostly we just memorize these motions called katas. And it’s important to me, OK? I really want to be good at it.”
“Well, when is this meet? Could Danko attend it and bring some of your winter clothes?”
I inhaled deeply, steadying my nerves for the news I was about to deliver. “It’s Saturday, the twenty-ninth. Parents are allowed. Although I think it’s probably going to be pretty boring.”
I cringed, waiting for her to spring.
“Betsey, that’s two days after Thanksgiving! You’re booked on a flight to Zagreb on the twenty-sixth. How do you expect to be back in the Boston area just three days later?”
Above me, visible through the checkerboard of illuminated windows on each the floor of the dorm, girls were blow drying their hair, talking on their phones and watching televisions. How I wished I was just one of them, one of the girls who truly belonged at Treadwell, and wasn’t instead an imposter carrying on an elaborate charade of avoidance.
“Mom, I really want to go to this meet. I didn’t know you wanted to go to Zagreb. I thought we were just going to Grandmother’s and it wouldn’t be a big deal. I guess I forgot you were going to be in Paris all month.” I was trying my best to remain calm. Whining and acting bratty wasn’t going to get me anywhere, I knew.
My mother contested that it didn’t matter what she had been planning, I was fourteen years old and she didn’t think I should be making plans of my own.
“When I went to Pershing, I didn’t get good grades and you were embarrassed because I was going to get thrown out. Now I’m trying really hard to do a good job at this school and you can’t mess it up for me!” I firmly stated. “I don’t want to go home this weekend, and I want to stay here for Thanksgiving so that I can go to my competition.”
There was silence for a moment. I could hear my mother’s exasperated breathing on the other end of the line. Perhaps she was considering allowing me to do what I wanted. All I could do was wait patiently for her reply.
“But this is ridiculous, Betsey! You’re only fourteen. You haven’t moved out of our household for good, you’ve simply gone off to school. It seems like you are just completely avoiding us.”
The breath in my lungs whooshed out of me. She had just invited me to tell her exactly why I was indeed avoiding her and Danko. Maybe she wasn’t as much of an absentee mother as I considered her; she knew something was up.
“Mom,” I said angrily, my strategy abandoning me. “Is Bijoux going to Croatia?”
I knew—even before my mother replied—what the answer would be.
“Well, no, she and Tobin—î
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I know what’s happening here, Mom,” I exploded. “You’re upset that Bijoux moved out and isn’t coming to Thanksgiving. This isn’t about me. No one cares if I’m in Croatia or not. I have a life of my own now and I am begging you not to ruin it for me. If you really care about what’s best for me, please don’t make me go!”
“Betsey, I…” my mother sounded surprised and hurt by my outburst.
“I don’t want to talk anymore,” I said sullenly, wanting to bring an abrupt end to this conversation. “I have to go to the dining hall for dinner before it closes.” Naturally, this was a lie; I wouldn’t be going anywhere near the Colgate dining hall during hours when dinner was served. I was planning to surreptitiously eat the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had bought at the campus store later that night in the library while I studied with my algebra tutor.
My mother paused for a long time, so long that I wondered if she had hung up. Then I heard her impatiently exhale. “Well, you’ve given me a great deal to think about. I will give you a call later this week when hopefully I’ll catch you in a better mood.”
All day long on Friday I was expecting an email or voicemail from her, telling me what time the car service would be arriving on campus to pick me up for my flight home. I had been so sure that Mom would go ahead and book that flight, I had even half-heartedly packed a suitcase in the morning before my early Aikido practice, probably giving Kate false hope that she’d have the room for a few hours to herself that evening.
But there was nothing in my email inbox from Mom. And my phone didn’t ring all day. I began to suspect that I was perhaps off the hook when Bijoux texted me around five o’clock in the evening asking what I had said to Mom to make her so upset. I ignored the text. Maybe I had struck more of a nerve than I’d realized by implying that Mom was more distraught about Bijoux growing up and moving out than about my departure for boarding school and reluctance to visit home.
I became a little distracted on Friday from my own Thanksgiving plight when scandal broke out on the Treadwell campus and spread like a brushfire around the Hollywood Hills in August. In French class, the freshman were wiggling at their desks,
trading notes, and whispering, so I knew something downright epic had to be going on. When we finally broke into conversation circles, I cursed Ms. Ziegler for making us communicate entirely in French, because it took the younger girls almost ten minutes to look up all the words they needed in their dictionaries to share the hot gossip with me.
The Hollywoodland website, an entertainment gossip blog, had posted a mug shot of Emma Jeffries, allegedly taken back at the end of September in Illinois. The freshmen argued about the cause for her arrest, some claiming she had been brought into the police station after a routine speeding ticket, others claiming she had vandalized the Hunter Lodge corporate headquarters. One girl claimed Emma had gone so far as to slap a police officer. Had she been making such an outrageous claim about any Treadwell student other than Emma, no one would have believed it.
Fortunately, I had study hall after French, and Taylor, Riddhi and I crowded around Taylor’s tablet computer to pull up the blog on the wireless internet. It was authentic, a real mug shot from Cook County, Illinois, and even though Emma looked thoroughly disgusted in the picture, she still looked beautiful.
“How did she end up in jail?” Taylor wondered aloud, mystified.
The blog post said she’d been brought in after a routine traffic stop for speeding because she had been belligerent and emotionally distraught. I couldn’t help but feel a little selfishly relieved that in all of the times I had personally felt emotionally distraught over the last few months, there had never been any police around to question my behavior.
I’d had gym class with Emma second period, and I racked my brain trying to remember if she had been there. Nothing especially memorable had happened, so I couldn’t recall if I’d seen her trailing behind Paige on the track, or not. But I had a strong suspicion she had been absent. I tried to imagine whether or not I’d attend classes if my hypothetical mug shot had been released to the press. Probably not, I decided.
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