Bad Best Friend

by Rachel Vail

  “Come in,” I said.

  Mom opened it partway and leaned against the doorframe, one foot on top of the other. She’s very fit. She and Ava’s mom, Samantha, go running, three miles, every morning together, and a longer run on Saturdays. They’re best friends too.

  “It means so much to Danny when you come,” Mom whispered.

  “I have to read this whole book,” I lied.

  “Bring it,” she said. “Come on, keep me company. I have no friends among the moms on the team this year.”

  “Sure,” I said. Meaning, sarcastically, sure she has no friends. She has all the friends. Everybody likes her. She grew up on this rock and is friends with pretty much everybody on it. But that’s not how she took it.

  “Oh goodie!” she said, beaming her smile at me. “Yay! Quick, quick, let’s go. I have to get Danny to put on his uniform and for some reason . . .”

  “Cut out the tag,” I suggested, getting off my bed.

  Danny hates tags in his clothes.

  “You’re a genius!” Mom yelled. “You’re, like, the Danny Whisperer. Grab the box of doughnuts, will you, Niki? On the counter!”

  I followed her down the stairs, tucking my phone into my pocket as I went.

  I picked up the box of doughnuts Mom had bought for Danny’s team and went to sit in the car. Back seat. Old rule: if we’re both in the car, we both sit in the back, so it’s fair. Even though I am almost five years older.

  I put the box of doughnuts in the front seat and took out my phone to play a game on it while I waited.

  A text.

  From Ava. Phew.

  Ayuh.

  That’s all she said. She always makes fun of how Mainers say ayuh instead of yeah. She’s lived here since she was seven. She still isn’t a Mainer, not really, she says. Everybody says.

  Was that Ayuh making fun of me? I don’t say that. I don’t think I do, anyway.

  Mom and Danny got into the car. Danny had his shoes in his hands, and half a tuna sandwich balanced precariously on top of them.

  I opened my window as soon as Mom turned the car on.

  “Can you close that?” Mom asked.

  “His sandwich smells.”

  “No commenting on other people’s food choices!” Danny yelled, with tuna sandwich bits falling out of his mouth and onto his shoes and sweatshirt and whatever else he was holding.

  I turned away.

  “Just hurry and finish, Danny,” Mom said. “Niki, please?”

  I closed my window.

  “You’re the finest kind,” Mom said, catching my eyes in the rearview.

  I smiled but didn’t say it back.

  4

  I SAT IN the stands next to my mother, looking out at the ocean, wondering if anybody in Little League has ever hit a ball that far. Obviously not the fourth graders, especially Danny. He walks or strikes out, depending entirely on the pitcher. My butt was already starting to itch from sitting on the wood bleachers and we were only three innings in.

  Mom was chatting happily with all the other parents. Of course.

  Madeleine’s mom was one of them, since Madeleine’s sister, Margot, is the pitcher on Danny’s team. Like Madeleine (and their mom, Marya), Margot is tiny, adorable, very athletic. The mom, Marya, said a friendly hello to me. She’s always friendly and perfect, in her cute cardigans and smooth dark hair just like Madeleine’s and Margot’s, but was today’s hello extra?

  I slumped down over my book, wondering if Madeleine’s mom or any of the other parents had heard what had happened to me in gym class.

  Not paranoid. A fully likely possibility, honestly.

  I mean, we live on an island. In the summer it’s packed here, but most of the summer people left three weeks ago, after Labor Day. Not that many families live on Snug Island full-time over the winter, so it’s not that huge a school. Everybody knows everybody else, and your family and your grandparents and if you were weird in kindergarten or you got dumped by your best friend fourth period today or who your mom went out with in high school if she grew up here too. (She did, my mom; Dad didn’t. She went out briefly with a kid named Jerome who died of cancer a few years later. There’s a plaque about him in the high school. It doesn’t mention that he went to the prom with my mom on the plaque, just that he was on swim team and exemplified the values of Snug Island HS, whatever the heck those values might be. Mom says he was sweet, and smiles sadly. It was a long time ago, she sometimes adds.)

  “What’s going on?” Mom whispered at me.

  “Nothing. I have to write three pages on this book I haven’t read!”

  A lie. I just like to read. Mom thinks I should try to be friendlier, out and about.

  “Fun, fun,” Mom said. She was probably in whatever the Squad was called when she was in eighth grade.

  “Look, Niki! There’s Madeleine and Isabel!”

  I peeked. Oh, dread. They saw me, because of my mom waving at them.

  “Stop,” I begged Mom in a whisper.

  She draped her long tan arm around my shoulders. “Everything good?”

  “I just . . .”

  “I know, you have to read. But friends are important too, Niki. You want to invite them over for pizza or something sometime?”

  I shrugged. Madeleine and Isabel were getting off their bikes.

  “Think about it—we could get a movie or something.”

  I don’t like people to come over. My mom doesn’t get that and it’s not a thing I can explain to her without making her super mad about why, so I try to just avoid the conversation. Also, like I could just go ahead and invite over the Squad. Sure.

  “Friendship is really important, Niki, and you have to—Danny’s up! Woot! Come on, Danny, come on, slugger!”

  Phew. My brother trudged toward home plate. His pants were a little crooked and one of his socks was drooping to his sneaker. He stood beside the plate with his bat on his shoulder.

  The ball went past him. I clapped. Yay, Danny, thanks for distracting Mom.

  “Ball one!” the mom behind the plate called.

  “Good eye, good eye!” Mom yelled at Danny from the bleacher. “Oh, hey, Terry,” she said to the mom next to Marya. “Let me know when you have a chance about Danny’s party, yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Terry said. “I’m so bad at responding!”

  “No worries,” Mom said. “Whenever you get a chance!”

  “I just have to—the weekends are so packed now that Tommy is on travel soccer.”

  “I know it!” Mom answered cheerfully. “We’re all so overbooked! Oh, Marya—you’ll let me know about Margot?”

  Marya nodded. “So hard to pin these kids down, even the fourth graders, never mind the eighth! Can you imagine, when we were kids, the moms weren’t at all involv—”

  “Oh, so true,” Mom agreed.

  As the moms laughed about kids-these-days, I glanced at Isabel and Madeleine. They were walking toward us.

  “Strike one!” the ump yelled.

  Closer. I couldn’t tell if they were looking at me, as their heads bent close to each other’s, as they walked the path up from the beach. Whispering? What did I do so wrong today? Or, maybe: Were they inviting both me and Ava into their Squad? Could that be it? BE FRIENDLY, NIKI.

  “Ball two!”

  Raising my book to hide my face, I glanced in the other direction. Britney, on her green bike. And next to her, Ava.

  On a bike. Her shiny black-and-silver bike. Her mom bought it for her in June. Ava had rolled her eyes and never rode it. She doesn’t like bikes. She looked good on it.

  “Ball three!”

  My brother hadn’t budged.

  What if I slip between the slats and hide under the bleachers? Possible? Too late? Could I hide down there? Would anyone notice? What if I get caught between? And have
to hang there like a speared bluefish, dangling, while the workers disassemble the entire bleacher system to free me? That would be subtle. Probably nobody would notice that.

  “Ball four!” the mom-ump yelled.

  “Good eye, good eye, slugger!” my mother yelled. “Take the base, you earned it!”

  Danny dropped the bat and plodded toward first base.

  “Maybe yell some encouragement,” Mom suggested to me.

  “I’m losing my voice,” I whispered.

  The four girls stood together, with their bikes resting against their hips, out beyond the outfield. They were too far away for me to tell where they were looking, and if it was mean.

  The next kid up swung and connected, hit the ball in a dribbly line right toward the pitcher’s feet. She bent down, picked up the ball, pivoted, and threw to first (out!). The first-base kid tossed the ball right into the glove of the kid covering second, who touched the base and then waited for Danny to make his slow way toward her, so she could tag him on the belly, for good measure. “Out!” the other ump called. “Two outs!”

  Without breaking his slow stride much, Danny turned and lumbered back toward the bench. His coach called to him to come off the field, over to the side, Come here, Danny! so the next kid could bat, the game could continue. But Danny is not that easy to distract once he’s doing something. He took his own sweet time of it, wandering through the infield, while everybody waited. The other adults smiled patiently at Mom, whose smile was one click too intense. “Attaboy,” she called to Danny as she shrugged at her friends. They laughed supportively, but I caught the eyebrow raise that Madeleine’s mom, Marya, gave to her best friend, Terry, as they turned away from Mom.

  I don’t know if Mom saw.

  Probably.

  She grew up with those women. Wonder if Ms. Andry ever told them to stand with their best friend. If so, I bet Mom was never the one left out. Maybe Madeleine’s mom and mine were in their version of the Squad together.

  Ava was waving. At me? I waved back, just in case. Don’t want to leave her hanging—she gets really prickly about that kind of thing. Plus, maybe it really was Ava and me the Squad wanted.

  Friends are important and you have to . . . something. Is there something I don’t do, in terms of friends? Am I a little, like, weird, like Danny? Danny really doesn’t have any friends but this one also-weird kid, Boone.

  Mom smiled at me. “Call them over,” she encouraged. “You know Ava, sometimes she needs to feel wanted.”

  It’s true, I thought. Maybe I haven’t been attentive enough to Ava lately. Maybe she feels like she needs more attention. I shouldn’t read so much. I should be friendlier, more fun. Sportier. I have to really work on that. Friends are important. I waved a bit more committedly.

  Isabel started waving. I felt my breath release, breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in. I let my book close on my lap. I smiled bigger at them. Isabel is the friendliest kid in the whole grade. She really is friends with everybody, not all exclusive like Britney and, in her quieter way, Madeleine. Maybe because her family is so huge, Isabel just gets along with everybody. Her smile is so easy, so natural.

  I smiled back at her.

  Sometimes you’re such a goon, Ava tells me all the time lately. Spinning your dopey little stories . . .

  I need to be friendlier, more chill, less intense. Prioritize social stuff more. Grow up. When’s the last time Ava and I had a sleepover and did our jumping-on-the-bed contest, being the Olympic gymnasts and the announcers at the same time? It was, like, July. I should invite her to sleep over this weekend. Have some fun together. Ava is the only one I like to have over. If Danny has a tantrum, Ava and I hide in my closet and pretend we’re orphan stowaways on a train or something. Maybe I’ve been too nerdy lately, too head-down in schoolwork. She and I usually nerd out together getting school supplies and setting ourselves up for a good start to the school year, though this year, I was maybe more into it than she wanted to be. But we both love school supplies. I even got two of those pink erasers I love so I could give her one, and wrote her name on it in Sharpie. We are such school supply geeks!

  But maybe, despite those faults, the Squad was open to bringing in me and Ava, expanding to five. The pairing-up thing was just a blip, a weird gym nothing. Everything’s fine! Why am I so un-chill? I was making a big stew out of a pebble.

  “Ava!” I yelled. “Dude!”

  Her face turned in my direction, her waving arm still in the air.

  Oh.

  They were waving. Just not at me.

  At two boys on their bikes, coming down the hill at them. Bradley and Chase.

  Six of them now, in a group, all looking right at me.

  Awesome.

  Even the ocean and sky behind them blushed.

  I slumped down again behind my book and picked at the flaking green paint of the hard bleacher beneath me. Hating my mother.

  Thanks for the bad-vice, Mom, I didn’t say.

  She was tipping her cute face up to the setting sun, like she was just hanging out on a nice afternoon, nothing wrong with her two kids, all cool.

  All the other parents were busily looking at their nails or into their bags.

  “Out!” the home base umpire called. End of the inning and my brother still hadn’t made it back to the bench. Margot handed him his mitt and he turned around, toward my friends, the outfield, the ocean. Turned and kept walking. He has never caught a ball either. When Uncle Todd was trying to engage with him over Labor Day about sports, he asked Danny, What position do you play on your Little League team, sport?

  Left out, Danny said.

  I still don’t know if that was a joke on purpose or not.

  Kind of a family tradition, that position.

  I watched the group I was very much not a part of head back down the hill away from the game.

  Usually that’s not me, left out. Maybe it’s just a weird day.

  Don’t overreact, Niki, I told myself. Ava hates drama that’s not her own.

  5

  “I GOT THE game ball,” Danny told Dad, taking the bowl of peas from him.

  “Hey,” Dad said. “Great job, champ! Did you get a hit?”

  “Yeah!”

  “A foul,” I muttered.

  “Niki,” Mom said.

  “I swung, and connected!” He took a spoonful of peas. Five of the peas missed the plate and rolled onto the table. Two of them dove off the edge onto the floor.

  There’s a reason Fumble sits right under Danny at dinner.

  “Danny, don’t dump the . . .” Dad said, and then took a deep breath instead of continuing, when Mom shot him a sharp look. “Cool, though. You swung! Can’t believe I missed it!”

  “It would’ve been a home run if it was over to the left a few feet,” Danny said.

  “Maybe!” Mom said, her voice high soprano, but a tight smile on her face as she plunked a piece of chicken onto Danny’s plate.

  Dad passed me the peas. I took a careful spoonful and then a second, ladling them over my rice. No chicken for me, and a quick wish that Dad would please not make a thing of it tonight.

  Extra peas!

  See, eating plenty, and peas have protein. I don’t have to eat a dead bird to get protein.

  “Don’t comment on other people’s food choices” is an Ames family rule.

  “I was the MVP,” Danny announced, with his mouth full.

  “Chew,” Dad said.

  “I’m chewing!” Danny yelled. A hunk of chicken dropped out of his mouth onto the table.

  Ewwww grossssss ewwwww. I closed my eyes.

  Dad breathed deep again.

  I drank some water and when I opened my eyes, I kept them on my plate. Counted peas.

  Isn’t that a band?

  Mom turned to me. I could feel it. “Niki?”
/>   “What?”

  “How’s everything with you?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “How was school?” Dad asked. “Learn anything interesting?”

  “No,” I said. “Of course not.”

  “Niki!” Mom said.

  I looked up at her. Her eyes were wide. Shocked? Angry?

  “What?” I asked.

  “I don’t like your tone of voice,” she said.

  I didn’t like her tone of voice either, but was I making a thing of it?

  “Sorry,” I said, and went back to counting peas: 27, 28, 29, 30.

  “Can we please have a pleasant dinner conversation?” Mom asked, and turned to Dad. “How was your day, Jake?”

  “Good,” Dad said. “How about yours?”

  “Busy, thanks,” Mom answered. “Showed that house on Pinebrook. Mostly just gawkers. And the owners refuse to repaint or stage it. Nobody will bite, mark my words, unless I get through to them that they have to at least get rid of all their tiny bug-eyed dog sculptures, and take down their horrible curtains.”

  “I have work I have to get done after dinner,” Dad said.

  Mom’s lower teeth were out in front of the uppers and she was breathing through her nose. She hates when Dad doesn’t even respond to what she just said.

  He helped himself to more rice, oblivious.

  I let the rice and peas just hang out there in my mouth, trying to keep breathing through my nose so I wouldn’t suffocate.

  “Have some chicken,” Dad said.

  “No, thanks,” I answered.

  Mom was doing her breathing. The tension was so electric, I had to think fast.

  “An interesting, well, it was weird—in gym today?” I started. The whole family looked at me, so, no turning back. “Ms. Andry said, ‘Everybody stand next to your best friend.’” I imitated her as best I could. I’m not as good as Ava at that.

  They all just kept looking at me, my whole family, waiting for the rest of the story.

  “Isn’t that—like, we’re not even supposed to; it was just really awkward, everybody splitting up like animals.”

  “Animals?” Mom asked.