Gimme a Call

by Sarah Mlynowski

  “Ready?” Karin asks me. She’s waiting for me at the front door.

  The phone vibrates again. I scrape my hand on a pencil but finally find it. Maya? I glance at the caller ID.

  It says my number. My number is calling me again. What is going on? “Hello?”

  “It’s you,” the girl from before says. “Good. I must have misunderstood you earlier. When you said, ‘This is Devorah Banks,’ you meant me, right? As in I’m Devorah Banks? You recognized my voice?”

  What is she talking about? “This is Devorah,” I say slowly. “Me. I’m Devorah. Who are you?”

  “This is Devorah Banks!” she screams. “I am Devorah Banks! Just tell me who this is!”

  Hotness erupts at the base of my neck and spreads to my cheeks like a bad rash. “I’m. Devorah. Banks.”

  “You can’t be,” she says. “That’s impossible! I’m hanging up!” The phone goes dead. A second later, it vibrates. Again, my number.

  “Still me,” I sing.

  “You’re crazy!” she screams.

  “Alrighty then.” I press end, turn off the power, and toss the phone back into my bag. What, am I going to stay on the phone with some nut job who calls me names? I don’t think so. There’s a tingling on the back of my neck, and I try to scratch it away. I hurry to catch up with Karin. “Sorry.”

  The mid-September air cools me down like a glass of ice water. Or like wet cotton, which is what I’ve been wearing since lunch, when I tried, unsuccessfully, to rinse the ketchup out of my shirt.

  We spot a pack of students playing softball on the baseball diamond and pause outside the wire fence to watch.

  “Tryouts,” Karin says, pointing to the scoreboard. “Baseball, basketball, and soccer today; cheerleading, swim, and gymnastics on Monday. I’m so nervous.”

  “Don’t be. You’re definitely going to make the gymnastics team.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” She twirls a blond ringlet between her fingers.

  “Oh, please. You’re a shoo-in. You’ve been doing gymnastics since you were six. You’re gonna make it.”

  “You should try out for something too,” she tells me.

  “Sure,” I say. “Maybe cheerleading.”

  “I can see that,” she says seriously.

  I burst out laughing. “Oh, shut up, you cannot. I’m the most inflexible person in the history of the world. And I can’t dance and sing at the same time. Plus I’m too short. Those girls are all gazelles. You be the athlete. I’ll be the …” My voice trails off. I don’t know what I’ll be. “Why don’t you try out for cheerleading?”

  “Yeah, right,” she says.

  “Why not?” I ask.

  “First of all, I don’t think you can be on both the gymnastics team and the squad. Travel conflicts. And second, I’m not pretty enough to be a cheerleader.”

  I flick her on the arm. “You are so!”

  “Am not.” She shakes her ringlets.

  Karin will never admit she’s pretty—even though she is. She’ll say, “My nose is too wide and crooked,” or “My eyes are too far apart,” or “I have no boobs,” even though her nose is fine, her eyes are normally spaced, and a 34B is not nothing. I’m a 34B, thank you very much.

  “You are so,” I tell her.

  “Well, so are you,” she says.

  “Of course I am,” I say with an overdramatic toss of my hair. Then I giggle. It’s not that I think I’m gorgeous or anything, but I’m not insecure about it. Sure, I break out on my nose and forehead, but whatever. Who doesn’t? I’m fine with my looks. Or I will be after I get my braces off. I point to the fence. “Wanna watch?” Maybe watching cute boys will cheer her up. It usually cheers me up.

  “For a sec. But then my mom’s taking me to the mall. I need some new sneakers. Wanna come? We’ll treat you to a Cinnabon.”

  It’s not like I’m going to hang out here by myself. “Sure.”

  Karin points to Celia King, who’s sitting on the bleachers. “Joelle got us all invited to her party tonight.”

  “Seriously?” I ask, impressed.

  “Yup.”

  “Celia’s so sparkly,” I say. “It’s like she bathes in glitter.”

  “Switch it up!” the referee on the field screams, and everyone in the outfield runs in. A crew of new guys take their places.

  Karin holds on to the fence and leans back. “So do you want to go to the party?”

  “Obviously,” I say. “It’s a good thing your parents are friends with Joelle’s parents. ’Cause she’s certainly connected.”

  “Yeah. She knows people from all the different middle schools. And I know she can be a bit bossy, but she means well.”

  “I like her,” I say. “I like Tash too. I thought she was snobby at first, but I think she’s just shy.”

  “I know. It’s because she’s so gorgeous. With a little styling—”

  “Don’t you dare. I’m going to tell her what you did to my bangs.”

  “That was in the third grade.”

  “You’re lucky I forgave you.”

  Karin grins. “I’ll keep my hands to myself. Promise. You know, Tash is supposedly a science genius.”

  “Seriously? I have chemistry with her. She hasn’t said much yet.”

  “I’d pick her as my lab partner if I were you. Joelle told me that her mom died of leukemia back in elementary school and now her goal is to be an oncologist when she grows up so she can cure cancer.”

  “That’s … so sad,” I say. I’m impressed that she has a goal. Better than my goal, which is to meet cute boys and avoid getting cheese stuck in my braces.

  “So tonight,” Karin continues, “we’re meeting at Tash’s at eight and then we’ll walk over. Celia lives in Mount Woodrove.”

  “Fancy.” Mount Woodrove is one of the most expensive areas in town.

  We watch as a goateed, giant junior at bat whacks the ball and sends it flying into the outfield. And wait! The cute, spiky-haired guy with the fabo smile who I’ve noticed in the hallways chases after it. Now he’s wearing a black and red baseball jersey and running backward to catch the ball, his glove above his head.

  He’s got it, he’s got it, he’s got it—he jumps and tries to catch it—he don’t got it.

  The ball sails way over his spiky hair. Miles over. Like me, he’s on the wrong side of five foot five, and when he jumps, he somehow falls backward and lands on his butt. Ow. Spiky immediately springs to his feet, takes off after the ball, grabs it, and shoots it to second base, but it’s way too late.

  “Safe!” the referee yells.

  Spiky shakes his head in defeat, but he’s smiling. A big, broad, two-dimpled liquefy-my-heart kind of smile.

  “You okay?” Jerome Cohen, the third baseman, asks him. Instead of a jersey, he’s wearing an old Foo Fighters T-shirt and ripped jeans.

  Spiky salutes him. “I’ve been working on that move all week.”

  Cohen laughs.

  “Do you know who that is?” I ask Karin. His track pants are covered with dirt, his jersey completely disheveled, but his cheeks are red and he’s laughing.

  “Jerome Cohen,” she says. “That’s the guy Joelle has a crush on.”

  “No, I know that guy. He’s in my algebra class. I mean the guy who dropped the ball.”

  “Ryan. He went to Carter. No—sorry, it’s Bryan. Bryan Sanderson.”

  Hello, Bryan Sanderson.

  chapter three

  Friday, May 23 Senior Year

  After my sucky day at the mall, I dump my broken cell phone onto my nightstand, leave my stupidly uncomfy and now bleach-scented jeans in a heap on my floor, wash green goo off my legs in the tub, and roll on a pair of sweatpants. Then I pop by my father’s home office to check in. “Hey, Dad.”

  He’s sitting in his brown bathrobe. His slippered feet are up on the desk. They’re Mickey Mouse slippers. We went to Disney when I was seven. Not that I remember the last real family vacation we went on, but I’ve seen the pic on the living room m
antel. “Hi, hon,” he says, scratching the back of his mostly gray head. “How was senior skip day?”

  Would have been better if I’d had someone to skip with. “Boring. How was your day?”

  “Fine.”

  He doesn’t look fine. He looks like he could use some color. And a trip to the gym. An empty pizza box is sitting on his desk. “When will Mom be back?”

  “Later,” he says, not looking up.

  “Any job leads?” I ask, peeking at the chessboard on his computer screen.

  “Not today.”

  I return to my room, close my door, and decide that it’s time to toss all things Bryan, starting with the framed pictures we took with the now broken camera I bought for him. I’ll dump them into my garbage pail one at a time like I’m performing an exorcism. They’re cheap plastic frames anyway. I take a deep breath. Here goes. Bryan and me out for Chinese for his fifteenth birthday. Dump. Bryan and me on the Ferris wheel at the Florence carnival. Dump. Me sitting on Bryan’s lap on my sixteenth birthday. Dump. Bryan on a swing. Dump. Bryan and me the day I got my braces off. My bright white teeth are practically the entire picture. Bryan and me dressed up as vampires for Halloween. That was just seven months ago. We weren’t going to dress up, but then we saw these ridiculous fangs at the drugstore, and voilà! We covered our faces in white makeup, drove to his cousins’ house, and offered to take them trick-or-treating. They ate too many SweeTarts and threw up in the back of Bryan’s blue Jetta.

  Maybe I’ll leave this one up for now, since it reminds me of vomit.

  Bryan has copies of all these pictures too. I put them in a scrapbook for him for his birthday. It was a gorgeous scrapbook. There was calligraphy involved. I had way too much fun making it. Waste of time. It’s probably in his trash now.

  What else has Bryan given me?

  My TV. He gave it to me when his father and stepmom, not realizing that his mom had gotten him a TV the year before, sent him one as a birthday gift. It’s not like I want to get rid of that.

  I fiddle with the bracelet he bought me for our one-year anniversary. Its five white-gold hearts are strung together on a delicate white-gold chain. I can’t toss jewelry, can I? Maybe I should sell it. I should at least take it off. I fiddle with the lobster-claw clasp but it won’t budge. Fantastic. I need a girlfriend to do this for me. I need to go to a girlfriend’s house or get her to take me shopping or come over and watch sad movies with me, but … I don’t have any girlfriends. Pathetic, no?

  I used to have girlfriends, but not anymore. I’ve spoken to no one all day except my former boss and my dad. Oh, and an obnoxious younger girl who thinks she’s me.

  Why would someone claim to be me? My life sucks. Unless her name really is Devorah Banks. Maybe there’s another one. And somehow when I dropped the phone into the fountain, our lines got crossed. Yes. That must be it. I sit down at my computer and search for my own name online. There are 105 hits. Doctor Devorah Banks! Lawyer Devorah Banks! Who knew? So my line just got crossed with another Devorah Banks. There ya go. Problem solved. I push my computer chair away from my desk.

  The back of my neck begins to tingle. Kind of a coincidence that my line would get crossed with another Devorah Banks’s, though, no? And here’s the strange thing: the girl on the other end of the line, she did sound kind of familiar.

  She sounded like me.

  Hah! As if. Maybe dropping my cell phone into the fountain was like tossing in a penny. And didn’t I wish to talk to my fourteen-year-old self?

  I swivel my chair back and forth. Hah. You can’t drop your cell phone into a fountain and then call your younger self. That’s ridiculous.

  I grab the cell, stare at it suspiciously. Then hit the send button. It rings and then goes to voice mail. My voice mail?

  “Hiya, this is Devi. I’m out and about and can’t take your call. Sorry! Leave me your deets and I’ll get back to you as soon as I have a sec. Bya!”

  Beep.

  Is someone messing with me? Someone must be messing with me. Even the voice on the message sounds like mine. But it is not the message I have on my phone. My message is a recording of Bart Simpson saying that I can’t come to the phone, and not to have a cow.

  Bryan loves The Simpsons.

  Maybe someone hacked into my phone and rerecorded my message?

  A chill spreads up my back. Wait. I made that message. On my cell phone. When I was a freshman.

  Sure, it sounds like a simple message to record, no? But it wasn’t. It took five takes before I didn’t sound like a giggling freak. Okay, eight takes.

  I made Karin call it. “It’s fabo,” she said. Everything was fabo back then.

  It can’t be my freshman message. Why would my freshman message still be on my phone?

  I jump out of my seat. I need a snack. My brain is obviously malnourished. I hurry to the kitchen and rummage through the fridge. Half-empty carton of milk. Processed cheese slices. Apples that have seen better days. No wonder my dad has pizza places on speed dial. I find a warm can of Coke and a slightly stale box of Froot Loops in the cupboard and spread myself across the graying living room couch.

  As I crunch on my cereal, I figure out the answer to the phone issue. The phone must have deleted my recorded message when it fell into the water. And … and it’s replaying the one I left when I first bought it.

  Hmmm. My theory explains the message, but how does it account for the girl who keeps answering the phone and saying she’s me?

  Hah—maybe I did just call my freshman self by accident. Yeah, right. Not possible.

  My neck begins to tingle again. What is up with that?

  Maybe I’m not such a good judge about what’s possible and what’s not. I never thought it possible that Bryan and I would break up.

  So who knows what’s possible? Maybe I did make a wish. Maybe it did come true. Maybe I did call myself in the past. Maybe I can keep calling myself in the past. I take another gulp of Coke. Maybe I’m losing my mind.

  chapter four

  Friday, September 9 Freshman Year

  I’m in the kitchen with Mom, telling her about my day. She’s rummaging through the fridge for ingredients while I set the table. She’s making her lemon chicken, my favorite.

  “How was chemistry?” she asks. “Did you get lost again?”

  “Not terribly.” The corridors in my new school are like a maze, but she’s not talking about my finding my way. I reach into the cupboard for three plates.

  “Only two,” Mom says, splaying three chicken breasts onto the cutting board. “Dad’s stuck at the office. I’ll warm his food up for him later.”

  Shocker. I put one of the plates back.

  “I was never good at science,” she continues. “Maybe Dad can help you.”

  “If he’s ever home, maybe,” I mutter.

  She sighs. “Don’t start. It’s a busy time for him at work.”

  “The last five years have been a busy time,” I say. “Whatever. You never get mad at him.”

  “Yes I do,” she says. “Did you see the picture I finally printed out from our anniversary dinner? I put it on the mantel.”

  I drop the napkin I’m folding and check out the eight-by-ten glossy photo in the shiny silver frame beside the Disney photo and a bunch of photos of me and Maya. Me and Maya all sudsy in the bath. Me and Maya wearing matching purple polka-dot dresses. Me and Maya hugging and stuffed into one of my dad’s woolly sweaters. In the anniversary shot, Dad is looking a little pale and scrawny, but Mom is looking fabo in a low-cut black dress. I hope I look as good as she does when I’m her age. She can still fit into my clothes. “Very foxy,” I tell her.

  Mom stretches out a piece of chicken on her cutting board and slices off a hunk of fat. “So, how was the mall?” she asks. “Did you get anything?”

  “A new nail polish. Plum. Nice, huh?” I lift it out of its bag to show her. “And what did you do today?”

  Slice, slice. “Did Karin find shoes?”

  “She did
. You know, Mom, there was a career fair at the mall today near the food court. There were all these pharmaceutical booths and cosmetic company booths and telemarketing booths. I was thinking you should go by this weekend to see if there’s anything you want to do.”

  “Do you want me to make you a snack?” she asks, ignoring me.

  “I’ll find myself something,” I tell her, and open the pantry.

  “No marshmallows,” she jokes.

  “Ha-ha. Do we have any Froot Loops?”

  “Why don’t you have some grapes? I just washed them.”

  I open the fridge and pull out a bowl of purple grapes plucked off the stem. Someone has way too much time on her hands.

  “Back to you getting a job—”

  She laughs again. “Devi, I don’t have time to get a job.”

  “Yes, you do. I get that you wanted to stay home with us when we were little, but now it’s only me and I pretty much take care of myself. Dad is never here, so he doesn’t need too much looking after either. You need a job. Or at least some hobbies. Why not go by?”

  “Because I don’t want to be a telemarketer,” she says tightly. “And I have a hobby. I cook.”

  “Besides cooking,” I say. I plop down onto the kitchen chair and take out my new nail polish.

  My cell phone rings. I put down the still unopened bottle of polish and look at the caller ID. Her. Again.

  “You are not going to apply nail polish while you’re sitting at our new wood table, are you?” Mom asks.

  Busted. “Um …”

  “Why don’t you cut up some Gruyère to go with the grapes?”

  The phone rings again.

  “Because the cheese slicer’s a weapon. Do you know how many times I’ve cut my thumb on it?” The phone rings a third time.

  “Why aren’t you answering?” Mom asks.

  I have to tell Crazy Stalker Girl to quit bugging me. “Yes,” I answer.

  “Devi,” the girl says. “Don’t hang up!”

  “Hold on,” I tell her. I grab my bottle of polish, hurry up to my room, and close the door. “What do you want?”