Stick With Me

by Jennifer Blecher

Wren’s mom waved her hands in front of her face. “I just need a minute,” she said as she turned to face the closed refrigerator.

  Wren’s mom needed a minute all the time.

  Wren had once read Hannah a picture book that was supposed to help little kids learn about big numbers. One page showed what ten green peas looked like on a plate. Another page showed what five hundred green peas looked like in a shoebox. The last page showed what ten million green peas would look like in a house, pouring out the doors and windows onto the street.

  Her mom’s minutes were like those peas.

  Add them together and they would fill entire days.

  “Take all the time you need,” said her dad, lightly squeezing her mom’s shoulder. “The girls and I will go explore.”

  Hannah raised one arm, like she was holding a sword. “Explorers,” she yelled as she charged up the stairs.

  The second floor was similar to the first, with creaky hardwood floors and crisp white walls. There were colorful touches, like a patterned hallway rug and a shelf under a window stuffed with books.

  Wren had wandered into a bathroom when Hannah yelled, “Wren! Come! I’m in the pretty room.”

  Wren followed the sound of Hannah’s voice to a room at the end of the hall. It had two big windows looking over the driveway. Pink pom-poms lined the edges of white curtains. There was a desk with globs of color on its flat surface, as if someone had repeatedly colored off the edge of the page.

  But there was no Hannah.

  “Hannah? Where are you?”

  Hannah loved to play hide-and-seek. So when Wren didn’t see her, she peered behind the curtains and looked under the bed.

  “Come out, come out wherever you are!” sang Wren. She tried to keep her voice soft and cheery. She didn’t want to ruin Hannah’s fun, but ever since the seizures began, their mom hated it when Hannah hid. If their mom thought Hannah was hiding in this new house, she’d come sprinting up the stairs in a full-on panic.

  Thankfully, Hannah giggled. The sound came from behind the open bedroom door. Hannah was sitting against the wall, her knees tucked into her chest.

  “You found me!” she said. “I was hiding with my friends.”

  “You’re not supposed to hide alone. You know that.”

  Hannah pointed to the door and smiled. “I’m not alone.”

  Wren moved the door so there was space for her to sit down. She pulled Hannah onto her lap. The back of the bedroom door was covered with stickers. Hundreds of stickers in all shapes, colors, and sizes. There were ducks wearing rain boots. Hearts in dozens of colors. Even smiling neon skulls.

  It looked like someone had shot an entire sticker aisle out of a cannon and they’d all landed sticky side down on the door. Wren was mesmerized.

  “Look,” said Hannah, pointing toward the bottom corner of the door. “Unicorns.”

  “Cool,” said Wren.

  “Do you think they knew I was coming?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Neigh,” said Hannah as she ran her tiny finger over the unicorn stickers.

  Hannah’s hot pink nail polish was almost completely worn off. Wren wished she’d remembered to bring the nail polish bottle from home. But it hadn’t even crossed her mind.

  “Neigh,” repeated Hannah. Then she nodded. “Yep, they knew I was coming. The unicorns say hi.”

  “Hello, unicorns,” said Wren, playing along. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Hannah leaned against Wren and stuck her thumb in her mouth. Wren wrapped her arms around Hannah’s round belly and rested her chin on the top of Hannah’s head.

  Hannah was so warm. Like a light bulb. Not because she had a fever, but because she was always warm. And giggling. And dreaming of unicorns.

  Wren thought about what was going to happen to Hannah on Monday. The wires and the stickers stuck to her scalp. The surgery to follow.

  A tear dripped down Wren’s cheek. It was the size of a green pea.

  There were others right behind it.

  Wren pictured the ten million green peas from the book busting through the rental house’s windows and doors. If she started to cry, Wren worried that she wouldn’t be able to stop.

  Wren wiped her cheek.

  She refused to drown the house.

  “Come on,” she said, pushing Hannah up from her lap. “Let’s check out the other rooms.”

  Hannah slipped her hand into Wren’s and they turned left out of the bedroom. There was another bedroom of a similar size with green walls and a large collection of gold soccer trophies. Then a bathroom and a third, larger bedroom at the end of the hall with a king-size bed.

  Their dad walked out of that bedroom. “What’s the verdict?” he asked.

  Wren shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  “Did you find a room you like?”

  “I like the one with unicorns,” said Hannah.

  “Unicorns?” said their dad. “This I have to see.”

  Hannah led their dad back to the room with the sticker door. “Wow,” he said, looking at the sticker door. “It sure is pretty. But how about we let Wren have this room. The unicorns can keep her company when you’re sleeping at the hospital.”

  Hannah paused, considering this. “Okay,” she said. “Wren likes unicorns, too.”

  “Wren loves unicorns,” said their dad. He winked at Wren and threw Hannah over his shoulder, carrying her out of the room.

  Wren sat down on the bed, feeling it out.

  The room reminded Wren of Nora’s hand-me-down clothes from her two big sisters. “This is new new,” Nora said whenever she got something from a store. “Not old new.”

  The room was new to Wren, but it was clearly not new new.

  Wren thought about the girl who lived here. The one her age who was now staying over the garage. She must have pressed all those stickers onto the door and made all those marks on the desk.

  Wren walked over to the window by the desk and pressed her forehead against the cold glass pane. If she tilted her head to the right, she could see the windows on the second floor of the garage.

  Who was she? wondered Wren. And what was she doing right now?

  8

  Izzy and the Judgment Paint

  Izzy waited at the top of the stairs in the garage apartment, hugging her knees to her chest. Nate was out “studying” at Starbucks and her dad was at Home Depot buying tools to fix the leak in the garage sink. Her mom had left to welcome the renters.

  And it was taking forever.

  Row sat down next to Izzy and plopped his head on her lap. “Did you see them get out of the car, Row? Did you see that girl? She looked my age. Did you think she was pretty? Prettier than me?”

  Izzy scratched Row behind his ear. She didn’t want to be sitting in the garage apartment worrying about who was prettier, her or this new mystery girl. She wanted to be inside her house finding out for herself. But her mom had made Izzy stay behind with Row. So all Izzy knew about the renters was what they looked like. She was relieved there were no boys staying in her house, but she’d spent so long worrying about the boy possibility that she hadn’t considered what it would feel like for someone just like her to be renting her house instead.

  It mattered that the girl was her age. And pretty. And that she’d kept her gaze on the ground, barely looking around as she walked into the house.

  What if she was one of those popular girls who waltzed through life with tons of friends and loads of confidence? What if she thought Izzy’s sticker door was babyish? What if her cool girl judgment spread over the walls of Izzy’s room like paint?

  What if they met, in the driveway or the backyard, and it spread to Izzy herself?

  Izzy couldn’t just sit there anymore. She stood to find Row’s leash. If she took Row for a walk, she’d have to walk down the driveway, past their car. Maybe she’d run into the girl unloading more bags. She’d be able to see if the girl had braces, if her skin was clear, if her ears were pierced. She could look for elastic headbands
and beaded bracelets. Not the exact ones that Daphne and Phoebe wore, but something that gave off the same vibe of belonging.

  And maybe, if she seemed friendly, Izzy would ask the girl her name.

  But as Izzy was about to clip the leash on Row’s collar, her mom opened the door at the bottom of the garage stairs.

  “So who are they?” asked Izzy.

  Her mom paused, and leaned against the wall of the stairway. “They’re a really nice family.”

  “That’s all? A nice family? What about that older girl? Is she twelve? Did you ask?”

  Izzy’s mom nodded but didn’t say anything. She walked up the stairs to the apartment and sat down at the folding table that was covered with blue-and-white checkered fabric. Her mom didn’t pick up Row’s leash or straighten the pages of paper that Izzy had left in a messy pile.

  “What?” whispered Izzy.

  “That poor family,” said her mom.

  “They didn’t look poor,” said Izzy. The older girl had been rolling some kind of fancy bag and the younger girl had been carrying a clean white unicorn with a glittering pink mane.

  Izzy’s mom shook her head, as if Izzy had disappointed her somehow. “The little girl has epilepsy.”

  “What’s epilepsy?” asked Izzy.

  “It’s a condition where kids have seizures,” said her mom. “It’s very scary.”

  Before Izzy could respond, her dad walked in carrying a plastic bag from Home Depot. “What’s scary?” he asked. “What’d I miss? Please tell me I don’t need to go back for mouse traps.”

  “The little girl staying in our house has epilepsy,” said Izzy.

  Her dad exhaled a long breath. He placed the plastic bag on the folding table, the hard objects inside hitting against each other with a metallic clang. “Man, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “They’re checking her into Children’s Hospital on Monday,” said Izzy’s mom. “Apparently there’s a surgeon there who’s the best in the field. She’s going to be admitted for at least a week.”

  “That stinks,” said Izzy.

  “It more than stinks, Iz,” said her mom.

  Izzy’s dad walked over and wrapped his arm around Izzy’s shoulder. He gave her a gentle squeeze. “Anything we can do?” he asked.

  “I told them about theater camp,” said her mom. “I’m going to forward them Principal Carr’s e-mail in case there’s room for Wren to sign up.”

  “Wren?” asked Izzy. “That’s the girl my age?”

  Her mom nodded. She smoothed a wrinkle in the checkered fabric covering the table.

  “But she’s not even from here,” said Izzy, shifting out from her dad’s grip. “It’s makes no sense for her to go to theater camp.”

  “Come on, Iz,” said her mom. “How about a little empathy, huh? That family is dealing with a lot right now. You’re old enough to start thinking about other people.”

  Her mom stood up and pulled her phone from her pocket. She turned to face the window over the sink. Izzy stared at her mom’s back, feeling as empty as a blank page. Izzy thought about other people all the time. Sometimes it felt like all she did was think about other people. About Phoebe and how she ditched her. About Daphne, Serena, and Prithi, and how they sucked Phoebe into their friendship like a vacuum. About her dad and how stressed he sometimes looked at the end of the day. About her mom and the client who cancelled at the last minute.

  How was Izzy also supposed to think about a girl she’d never met? A girl who looked like the kind of person that Phoebe would love to hang out with at theater camp? The kind of girl who would slide into her very own bedroom and old friendship?

  Her mom put down her phone. “I’m going to lie down for a bit,” she said. “Then how about we go to the library.”

  “Great,” said Izzy, under her breath.

  Phoebe and Daphne were going ice skating that afternoon before Daphne left for a week-long ski trip. And Izzy was going to the library with her mom. Opposites.

  “I could use some help with the sink,” said her dad.

  He said it kindly. Hopefully. But Izzy shook her head and walked into her sleeping space. She slid the curtain shut.

  So much had changed in just an hour. Earlier in the day, when she’d walked into the apartment for the first time, Izzy had been relieved to see that her dad had installed a large piece of plywood to separate her space from Nate’s space. Her mom had hung fabric in the place of doors, striped for Nate and polka dots for Izzy. The air mattresses on the floor were made up with comforters and pillows in colorful pillowcases. There was a wood crate in the corner of Izzy’s area where her mom had placed her butterfly tin of Sharpies.

  Izzy had thought the space was cool, in a glamping kind of way.

  But now she looked at the pile of her clothes stacked in the corner and wanted to kick them over. The space wasn’t cool; it was small and dark. It smelled like sawdust and wet towels. Izzy imagined that girl, Wren, unpacking her clothes in Izzy’s real room, laying out the perfect first-day outfit. She’d probably float into theater camp on a thick, fluffy cloud of popularity.

  And Izzy would be stuck watching from the ground, gazing up at what she could never seem to reach.

  9

  Wren Minus Two

  “All right, Bird,” said her dad as he stood up in his hockey skates. “It’s you and me and the ice. Nothing else matters.”

  “And about one hundred other people,” said Wren. Her dad had found a rink near the rental house with Saturday afternoon public skating. They’d rushed to get there. But so had tons of other people. The ice was crowded.

  “Forget about them,” said her dad. “Block them out. What do I always tell my players?”

  “Grind and grit,” said Wren.

  “That’s right. The two magic G’s. You have to work through the daily grind to find your inner grit. That’s how the magic happens.”

  Wren nodded. Her dad’s sayings played in her head like a catchy radio song.

  Grind and grit.

  Head and heart.

  Train your brain and your body will follow.

  But as Wren took her first strokes, she wanted to tell her dad to wake up and look around. There was no space here for any magic.

  The ice was choppy with tracks and dense with people. Some skaters pushed milk crates; others hung on to the boards. Loud music played from a staticky overhead sound system.

  “Time to represent,” said her dad. He had a proud look on his face, like he was patting himself on the back for sounding young and cool.

  Wren didn’t want to ruin his mood.

  She dodged a dad holding a little kid between his legs.

  She veered to the left as two boys pushed off the boards without looking.

  She stopped abruptly when a small girl lost her balance and fell right in front of her.

  Then she heard a loud voice behind her. “Yikes.”

  “Wipeout,” sang another voice.

  “Big-time,” said the first voice.

  Two girls her age skated by wearing black leggings and tight athletic shirts, stacks of colorful beaded bracelets on their wrists. One of them noticed Wren staring.

  “Who’s that girl?” Wren heard her ask.

  “No idea,” answered the other. “And who cares?”

  Who cares? thought Wren. Watch this.

  Wren skated past the bracelet girls. They wobbled as they turned to watch.

  Their eyes both fed Wren and made her hungry. She pushed even faster toward center ice.

  “Bird,” called her dad. “Be careful. This is public skating ice.”

  Wren nodded. She turned backward into a deep inside edge. Then she stepped into a layback spin, arms overhead in an open circle, her back deeply arched.

  The ceilings lights spun into tight circles.

  Wren knew those girls were watching. She exited the spin and smiled right at them.

  “Whatever,” said one of the girls. “I can do that.”

  “Really?” asked he
r friend.

  “Of course. It’s not that hard. She’s just showing off.”

  The bracelet girl turned backward and tried to find her balance. Her arms wiggled. Her body tilted. But her lips were pressed tight in concentration. She stepped forward on an inside edge and tried to spin.

  Wren almost called out for her to stop. Spinning on an inside edge was difficult under the best of circumstances. It was physically impossible the way the girl’s body was tilted.

  The girl went down. Hard.

  “Daphne!” screamed her friend.

  Wren stood back as several adults surrounded Daphne, the fallen girl. She was crying and clutching her wrist.

  A man wearing a red skate patrol uniform helped her off the ice. Daphne’s friend followed behind. Wren’s dad came up next to Wren and put his hands on his waist.

  “Poor girl,” he said.

  “She was showing off,” said Wren.

  “She was the one showing off?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t you see? That girl had no idea what she was doing.”

  “Wren,” said her dad, “you can tell yourself whatever story you want. But we both know what happened out there.”

  A tickle of guilt crept into her mind. Maybe it was a little bit her fault.

  Or maybe not.

  Wren remembered what her dad had said last weekend when she’d landed a double axel. You make it look like a piece of cake.

  It only looked easy because Wren worked so hard. Because she trained every day, even when her head throbbed from a hard fall or her legs were exhausted from an earlier workout. It wasn’t her fault if people didn’t understand that.

  Wren skated away and pushed into another layback spin.

  Two fewer people on the ice meant more room for her.

  That night Wren’s family drove into town for dinner. The main street was lined with brightly lit stores and restaurants.

  “There it is,” said Wren’s mom, pointing to a restaurant with funky light fixtures hanging from the ceiling. “That’s the place Julie recommended.”

  “Who’s Julie?” asked Wren.

  “The woman whose house we’re renting. She left us a list of all her favorite places in town.”

  “That was thoughtful,” said Wren’s dad.