Billy blinked his eyes open and turned his head toward Rosie.
She smiled at him. “Why are you here?” Rosie whispered.
“Lateness,” said Billy, smiling back. “How’s your grandpa?”
“No talking either!” Mrs. Caruso said sternly, and Billy’s mouth turned down as if he were a pouting child. Rosie tried not to giggle, certain that laughing wasn’t allowed either.
When the final bell rang, Billy jumped to his feet and stretched his arms toward the ceiling, yawning noisily. He said, “That was a blast, wasn’t it?” and left before Rosie could answer him.
The moment he was gone, she figured out what was different.
Billy Jones didn’t smell anymore.
Rosie felt invisible when she hit the hallway. Grandma once told her that the older you got, the more invisible you became to the outside world. When she got sick, Grandma made another discovery. Sick people became invisible, too. No one wanted to know them, or see them, or become them. If Grandma were alive, Rosie could tell her that she had found a new way to become invisible: punch someone in the nose and get detention.
Heads turned the other way and voices hushed as Rosie walked by. Summer was standing at Sarah’s locker, and they were deep in conversation.
Rosie approached them with a breezy “Hey!” If she ignored the problem, maybe it would go away.
“Hey,” said Summer, turning her back on Rosie and shutting her out. Sarah avoided looking at her altogether.
A lightning bolt hit her as Robbie rounded the corner, his familiar book bag with the Xbox logo slung over his shoulder. Summer and Sarah conveniently walked away, and Rosie called after them desperately, “Wanna hang out?”—the words nearly choking her. Overnight, it seemed they had lost their hearing.
“Hey, Robbie,” said Rosie, and her heart registered a little bleep as his eyes made contact, until his face went dead.
Rosie wandered away, searching for Lauren, but she was nowhere to be found.
Then Rosie walked home, alone.
She went straight to her room and wrote in her diary:
Tuesday
Dear Diary,
I might as well be Grandpa with half a mind. I’m invisible. Lauren is mad at me. Sarah is Rosie-phobic, like I’m a snotty tissue. I hate to say it, but Summer is Dumb and Dumber Summer again, because she doesn’t feel like being my friend anymore. All I can say is, Bloody Mary!
I am
Rosie Gold-bitterer-and-bitterer-and-bitterer
P.S. The only nice thing that’s happened is that Billy is keeping me company in detention for lateness. So what does he do? He arrives there, late. News flash! Billy doesn’t smell anymore. Wonder what happened.
Oh dear. My Kissing Diary has become a Dissing Diary, as in, I am dismissed.
14
Rosie’s Intention Is to Never Again Get Detention
Detention was so boring that it made Rosie crave the classroom. Oh, what she’d give to solve a math problem, learn about the Aztecs, run after a ball in baseball, read a sonnet. Anything but stare at the back of John Lory’s oily head, read for hours, count the dandruff flakes on Deena Corvo’s shirt, listen to Billy snore, or wonder how many minutes would pass before Mrs. Caruso woke him up. When the bell rang announcing the end of the day, the students stood up in slow motion, as though they had lost every ounce of energy by focusing on nothing.
As soon as she saw Lauren, Rosie called out her name. “Lauren! Wait up!”
Lauren was slow to turn around.
“Where’s everyone going?” Rosie said, joining the throng of kids heading down the hallway.
“The wrestling match. We’re playing St. Christopher’s.”
Rosie tagged along hopefully, glad that no mention was made of yesterday’s outburst. “I can’t believe Summer and Sarah are ignoring me,” she said. “What can I do?”
Lauren shrugged. “They’ll come around. Bloody Mary is telling everyone that you’re insane. And that her father might sue the school.”
“Sue the school? My mother would freak, Lauren. I’d lose telephone privileges for a lifetime.” Rosie sighed. She felt so low that it would take a gallon of chocolate ice cream and a thousand smiles in the mirror to make her feel better.
“Just get through detention,” said Lauren. “Is Billy still there to keep you company?”
“He sleeps all day until the teacher wakes him up.”
Rosie was delighted to hear Lauren laugh. Even if someone else was doing the laughing, it cheered her up. She followed Lauren into the gym, and they climbed up the bleachers, trying not to trip or step on fingers. Rosie had no wish to add to the humiliation of detention by taking a tumble and breaking her neck. Then again, if she ended up at the hospital, would it make people forget?
The gym was crowded, and in the distance they could see Sarah and Summer surrounded by kids, not a space in sight. Lauren settled into a vacant seat, and Rosie squeezed next to her.
“Is this the grownup section?” Rosie said, sizing up the adults wearing ugly sneakers and boring sweatsuits, a handful of businesswomen in dull suits and low heels, a smattering of men talking loudly about sports and the new condominiums being built.
“We’re stuck,” said Lauren. “We should have come earlier.”
“I don’t know anything about wrestling,” said Rosie. “Do you?”
“I watched my cousin once. It’s all sorts of moves you make to pin someone’s shoulders to the ground. And then the referee bangs on the mat and gives the thumbs-up and another guy throws a towel onto the mat if the guy gets pinned.” Lauren sat straight up and said in a mock whisper, “There’s Tommy!”
“He’s not going to hear you!” said Rosie, laughing.
“Shhhh!” said Lauren, smiling. “You never know!” There was a ripple of anticipation as the teams lined up.
The first pair of boys shook hands and circled around each other, the stronger boy swiping and lunging forward, grabbing at arms and legs until he had pulled his opponent to the floor. Rosie could feel her own neck muscles tense. Limbs made thumping noises and grunts erupted. They were present-day gladiators fighting until the end. Rosie held her breath so long that she had to force herself to breathe. The gym was dead quiet while the bigger boy pushed and pulled his opponent’s limbs as if he were reconstructing a giant Pillsbury Doughboy. With a knee on one shoulder and trembling hands on the other, he held the struggling boy down until he lay still. The referee blew the whistle and the match was over. Rosie was exhausted.
The pinned boy got up, and shook hands with his opponent. Rosie looked at him curiously. He was about her brother’s size, eyeglasses covered with a plastic guard, red-faced, sweating, a loser now. Although she had never seen him before in her life, Rosie felt a shock of recognition. The boy was pinned and helpless, struggling to free himself while the world was cheering his downfall. He could have been Rosie except that he had played fairly and lost with honor. Rosie had simply lost.
A voice behind her brought Rosie back. A mother voice, saying, “Here comes my Robbie. I can’t watch.”
“What time is it?” said Rosie, pretending to look at the clock. The lady behind her had covered her eyes, leaving two fingers apart so that she could peer through the space to watch Rosie’s crush lope onto the floor. Robbie Romano’s mommy, thought Rosie as she scanned the faces of the rest of the team. There was Tommy Stone, hooting and hollering as Robbie faced a kid with a shock of blond hair and a concentrated meanness in his eyes that scared Rosie to death. Robbie was pinned and it was over before she could blink.
There was a murmur around her, like a low buzzing of bees, as the throng of wrestlers parted to let a lone figure weave his way toward the center of the gym where the referee waited. Stocky legs sticking out of shiny plastic pants, blue wrestling shoes with no cool logo, the usual mouth guard that made all of them look menacing. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail, which struck Rosie as odd because most of the sporty boys wore their hair short.
An Asi
an boy approached his wary ponytailed opponent. They shook hands, then circled and sized each other up. The Asian boy’s face registered that he intended to murder; the ponytailed boy’s eyes were tense and familiar.
“Who is that?” hissed Rosie, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew. Short? Yes. Sturdy? Yes. Boxlike? Absolutely. “Oh my God,” she said at the same time as Lauren. “It’s Teresa Tubby!”
Their eyes were riveted on Teresa’s face as the Asian boy pulled her down. She wriggled like a pollywog out of water, flipping herself over so that her stomach was on the mat. The boy pulled and grappled in what seemed like desperation. Teresa settled her body and scrunched down hard, refusing to be moved despite more clawing and yanking. From their bird’s-eye view, her breasts looked painfully squished together. It made Rosie wince, and she couldn’t help wondering how the boy was feeling. Maybe he was brought up to honor women. To open jars for them. And car doors, too. To take out the garbage while his mother and sisters worked in the kitchen. Maybe he was brought up not to fight the opposite sex. To defend and protect them like they did in the olden days, before women could enlist in the army. To help ladies and children into the lifeboats first when the Titanic was sinking. Unless he was pretending that Teresa was a boy, or some person he hated, so that he could fight harder and ignore her girl parts more easily. Maybe he was angry that it was his hard luck to get stuck with a girl, the first girl anyone had ever seen on the wrestling team.
The people in the bleachers were going ballistic, screaming and whistling for their female wrestler. Rosie couldn’t take her eyes off Teresa’s face, grim and determined. A whistle signaled that the match was over, and Rosie thought, Wow! She wasn’t pinned! But no, they had to fight each other again.
The wary circling began once more. They lunged and grunted, and Teresa managed to get on top of the boy, pushing at his shoulders, straining to keep him down. He rocked wildly and wrenched his body, throwing Teresa to the mat. When he scrambled to his feet, Rosie wondered if he was thinking, “No girl is ever going to pin me down!” But Teresa was relentless, flailing and lashing out like a wildcat. The boy lunged and swooped and took them all by surprise, knocking her down and flopping on top of her, pushing hard on her shoulders, his sleek boy biceps bulging from the effort. Rosie watched with her mouth open, clutching Lauren’s hand as if she were at the doctor’s office getting a needle. Teresa was straining to keep her right side raised, but was forced to give up and give in and murmur a silent “Uncle,” and the referee tossed the towel, signifying that the match was over.
“That had to hurt!” said Lauren, but Rosie could barely speak. She was so proud of Teresa she thought she would burst.
When the gym cleared of people, Lauren and Rosie straggled out.
Lauren ran to the bathroom while Rosie walked to her locker. She swung the door open, and a small folded piece of lined loose-leaf paper fluttered to the floor.
Before she could open it, she heard Teresa’s voice. Tucking it into the pocket of her jean jacket, she went in search of her friend the female wrestler, Rosie’s new idol.
Rosie found Teresa, wearing regular street clothes that were far from regular, a red shirt with a huge yellow smiley face on the front of it, a horrible orange-and-green pleated skirt that looked thirty years old, blue wrestling sneakers, and long black woolen socks. She was a sight to behold, crying out for the “don’t” part of Glamour magazine’s “Dos & Don’ts” page, but Rosie simply told her, “Congratulations!”
“Get with the program, Rosie Poo!” said Teresa. “I lost!”
“But you did it!” Rosie told her. “You, just you, against all of those boys, you know?”
“If you say so. Hey, maybe the next time you feel like socking someone, you should do it in wrestling.” She gave Rosie a playful jab in the arm. She laughed and said, “You’ve gone through enough,” which was a change for Rosie, as if she knew Rosie was wrong but stood by her anyway. “Hey, maybe sometimes you win when you lose, you know?”
Rosie hugged Teresa hard. “You’re the greatest,” she said, surprising herself by feeling it so fiercely.
“Thanks,” said Teresa softly, adding, “I saw Lauren waiting for you in the main hall a minute ago.”
Rosie searched the entranceway, but Lauren was nowhere to be found, so she walked home by herself, past the ice cream shop, which was empty enough for her to enter alone. Ordering a Blue Hawaii ice, Rosie felt better. Almost optimistic. Teresa had lost, but she was fine. Losing could be winning, like Teresa said. Rosie would get through detention and try to learn from her mistakes.
She sat at the back and licked her Blue Hawaii ice slowly, making up words for a new mantra. Losing can be winning. No, not quite. Get over it, Rosie. It didn’t trip off the tongue. Cute is okay, but smart is better. She’d learned that too late. In the far corner of the shop, a girl with dark shiny hair was kissing the ice cream off her boyfriend’s mouth. Rosie watched the scene as if it were a documentary in gym. The boy gripped the girl’s neck, and it looked like he was strangling her. Rosie didn’t like it, and made a note to herself: Avoid the neck area, as it looks like murder. The boy took the girl’s head and turned it slightly, sticking his tongue in her ear. Ewwww! thought Rosie. Earwax for dessert! She made another mental note: Clean your ears, just in case, or just say no. Licking her ice as casually as possible, she pretended that she wasn’t the least bit interested in watching them. The girl turned her head, and to Rosie’s astonishment, it was Linda Reeves, Jimmy’s girlfriend. Her eyes flew to the boy, but she knew her brother’s shoulders, smaller and thinner. She knew his shaggy haircut, lighter in color. The boy looked older than Jimmy, and Rosie hated him immediately.
There was a jingle of bells and she half expected Teresa to appear, but a crowd of noisy boys entered the store. Rosie would have clutched at her heart had it not drawn attention, which was the last thing she wanted.
Robbie was among them, waiting at the end of the line, nearly reaching her table.
To Rosie’s surprise, he didn’t ignore her. “What’s up?” he said, scanning the list of flavors. “There are too many choices. My brother likes Cotton Candy. Strawberry Shortcake sounds good.”
She was grateful that he spoke, but was slow to answer, her Blue Hawaii ice cone up by her chin. She knew not to say to him that she was sorry he’d lost his match. “I had Black Cherry Cheesecake last time, and it was good.” There. That wouldn’t get her into trouble, would it?
“Cheesecake, huh? What about Mai Tai, what the heck is that?”
“I’ve got Blue Hawaii,” said Rosie. “It’s hard to choose.”
One of the boys hollered, “Nice mouth, Rosie!”
Rosie was flummoxed. What had she said? Nothing smutty or gross, but they were shrieking with laughter.
Robbie ordered a butter pecan ice cream cone. It figures, thought Rosie, who hated anything with nuts. He joined his friends outside, waving a hand as he left, not turning around with a smile or a nod. What did it mean, that she half existed? Rosie gave them time to get away, so that she wouldn’t bump into them when she rounded the corner. She slunk home, confused.
Her mother was in the kitchen making coffee. She muttered hello to Rosie without looking up from her task. “How was your day?” she said. “I hope it was better than mine.”
“Okay, I guess,” said Rosie, not knowing where to begin. Did she tell her mother about Jimmy’s girlfriend? About Robbie in the shop? About Teresa losing but winning her wrestling match?
“I started my day with a speeding ticket on my way to work. I must be slipping, Rosie, because as nice as I was to the officer, he gave me a ticket anyway.” Mrs. Goldglitt was off and running before Rosie could say a word. “So this client at the beauty salon, an old lady who comes in once a week, tells me, You always look so sexy, with that beautiful figure, how do you do it? I’m feeling better, you know? Maybe the police officer was having a bad day, or something. She says, Do you exercise every day? I tell her I walk at lea
st four times a week, and I use the elliptical trainer, and I thank her for the compliment, it’s very flattering. Then she leaves, and Alice comes over…” Mrs. Goldglitt stuck her head inside the refrigerator. “Didn’t I buy carrots the other day, Rosie?”
“I don’t know, Mom. Finish the story.”
“So Alice, you know Alice, a hairdresser at the salon, she comes over. She says, Doris was talking about you today. I say, I know, she asked me how I always look so sexy. Alice laughs, and says, No, she told me that a woman your age should dress appropriately, that you’re not a teenager anymore, that you’ve got to be in your forties already. Can you imagine? I was ready to spit. Here she’s complimenting me to my face and putting me down behind my back.”
“Well, you are in your forties, Mom, but you dress fine. Even if I want to borrow your clothes. And you have a nice figure compared to most of the mothers.”
Her mother poured herself coffee and sat down with a sigh, saying, “Thank you, honey. But it upset me so.” She looked up at her daughter and cried, “Oh my God, what happened to your mouth?”
Rosie ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Her lips and teeth were stained blue. “Nice mouth” was right! Rosie stuck out her tongue and it was aquamarine. She was a sight to behold. She called out to her mother, “No wonder they were all laughing at me in the ice cream shop! And Robbie was there! I can’t stand it, Mom. What else can happen?” Back in the kitchen, she slumped into the chair and laid her head on the table. “My life is over.”
Her mother reached over and stroked Rosie’s head. “Are you dead? Are you hurt? Does it really matter if you have a blue mouth? It’s kind of cute, you know?”
“Oh man,” said Rosie, looking into her mother’s somber brown eyes. “What about you, Ma? Look who’s talking?”
“What about me?” she said, arching an eyebrow.
The Kissing Diary Page 9