Her mom stood up. “So…is there anything you want to tell me? About anyone, I mean?”
Bridge looked back at her. “Nope.”
“Great.” Her mom smiled. “I mean—”
“Don’t worry, I know what you meant.”
“Great.” Bridge saw her mom mentally checking this task off of her to-do list. Then she said, “Is Em okay?”
“She’s okay, yeah.”
Her mom started pulling on a boot. “When I was your age, I went with my friend Marjorie to get my ears pierced—without permission.”
“You did?”
“Yes. But when I got home, Grandma told me that I was under the mistaken impression that my body belonged to me. She said that until I turned eighteen, it actually belonged to her. And she hadn’t given anyone permission to put holes in it.”
“Seriously?”
Stepping into the second boot, Bridge’s mom nodded. “She was very serious. She made me take the earrings out and let the holes close up.” She stood up, stamped once to make her dress fall straight, and looked at herself in the mirror. “You think the boots work with this?”
“Definitely.”
Her mom caught Bridge’s eyes in the mirror. “Grandma was wrong, Bridge. She was wrong. My body was mine. Your body is yours.”
“Okay.”
“Especially your body, Bridge. You earned it back, little by little. Don’t forget that.”
Then she zipped her suitcase closed.
SHERM
December 10
Dear Nonno Gio,
Last night Dad and I were at the table, just us.
He said, “How are you doing, hon?” And I honestly didn’t know what I was supposed to tell him. I said, “Good. You?” and Dad said, “You know what? I think this whole time I’ve been convinced that Nonno’s coming back. It just seems like a joke, doesn’t it? Or something? And I’ve been waiting.”
And I said, “Yeah.”
Dad told me that you called him at work, to give him your new address in Hoboken. That you asked about me. You told him you’d been trying my cell.
Well, I saw your voice mails and deleted them. Dad didn’t know.
Dad says you still love us. He’s like the perfect poster child for divorce:
Adults are complicated!
Sometimes people change!
But everyone still loves the kids so much!
I nodded at him like I was supposed to. But you moved out. That and your supposed love are two supermagnets that repel each other. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make them touch.
Sherm
P.S. Two months, four days.
NOT LITERALLY
Just before winter vacation, Bridge watched as the letters from the Talentine committee were distributed in homeroom. Emily slid hers into her binder without opening it. Then she turned and smiled at Bridge. It was such a careful smile. Bridge got a terrible feeling.
“Can you believe this? I got dinged!” Em waved her letter in the hall after class. “And I know why.”
“There were so many good singers,” Tab said. “You picked the hardest thing to go for. They said singing was the most competitive—”
“Oh please. That’s not why! It’s because of you-know-what. This stupid school hates me.”
“Nobody hates you,” Bridge said. “Em, they said there aren’t that many spots for seventh graders, remember? You guys will get in next year.”
Tab shrugged her knapsack down from her shoulder so that it dangled from her elbow. “I got in, actually—but it was only because I was, like, the only juggler.”
Em stared at Tab for a second and then said, “You know what? I’m turning into a huge jerk. I didn’t even ask whether you got in. But—this is amazing. Now Bridge and I have a reason to go to the show. We’ll sit in the front row and cheer for you.”
“Actually,” Bridge said, “I have to do Tech Crew stuff—we kind of design the whole show, and then we run the lights and sound and everything.”
“That’s so cool!” Tab said. “I went to the show back when Celeste was in it, and they did this crazy psychedelic ghost-town cowboy theme: rainbows, tumbleweeds, and a gigantic papier-mâché…um, I think it was a horse, but it might have been a unicorn.”
Bridge made a face. “I hope we come up with something better than that.”
“No, it was cool.”
Em looked at them. “Well, then I’ll sit by myself and cheer you both on. And we’ll meet up after. Okay? It’s a plan!” She marched off toward class.
Tab and Bridge watched her go. “Those jerks,” Tab said.
“Who?” Bridge asked.
Tab spun to look at Bridge. “Don’t you get it? They totally banned her. You were there. Her audition was crazy good! Definitely one of the best.”
“So why didn’t you say so? To Emily?”
“I thought it would make her feel even worse. This makes me want to kill someone!”
“You? Kill someone?”
Tab sighed. “Well, not literally. Come on. We have French.”
VALENTINE’S DAY
Why you’re there, at the Bean Bar, wrapping day-old muffins, has nothing to do with a boy. Not exactly.
It started right before Halloween, at Dollar-Eight. The four of you were at the big round booth in the back.
“Let’s play truth or dare!” Zoe said. Truth or dare always gets an automatic yes from Vinny.
“Okay,” Vinny said, leaning forward. “I’ll start. Something really easy.” She pointed at Gina. “Who’s your crush?”
“My crush?” Gina looked sick. She has one of those faces that can’t hide anything.
“You’re supposed to ask her truth or dare,” you said. “You didn’t even ask what she wanted.”
Vinny ignored you. “Crush. Spill it. Here and now.” She knocked on the table, gave Gina a friendly smile.
Gina shook her head. “It’s complicated.”
Vinny’s smile changed. “Complicated?” Your head began to ping. You knew that smile. You tried to send Gina a telepathic message: Just make something up.
But Gina isn’t like that. She smiled back shyly. “Yeah. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I just literally can’t. Can I tell you something else? A different truth?”
Vinny straightened her back, and you saw Zoe do the same. Did she even know how precisely she copied everything Vinny did?
“That’s not how it works,” Vinny said, sounding genuinely sympathetic. Vinny was truly genius at being awful while looking incredibly nice. Part of you had to stand back and almost admire it. “If you refuse to tell the truth,” she said, “you have to do a dare.”
“Oh—right.” Gina looked relieved. “Great. I’ll do the dare.”
“So you’ll definitely do the dare?”
“Sure.”
Vinny tossed her a ChapStick and said, “Okay. Here you go.”
Gina caught it, smiled. “What do I do with this?”
“Eat it. Obviously.”
Gina’s smile caved in. “You’re not serious.”
“It’s not poisonous or anything,” Vinny said reassuringly. “I know someone who ate one, and she was fine.”
“Voluntarily?” Gina asked. Her eyes went to you, then dropped to the ChapStick in her hand.
Vinny was lying. Either that or she had once made poor Zoe eat a ChapStick.
“Look, are you playing or not?” Vinny said. “You can leave any time you want.”
Gina’s face. She looked at you again.
“Really? Eating ChapStick?” you asked Vinny. “Did you think of that yourself?”
“She wouldn’t do the truth,” Vinny said. “She gets the dare.”
“Okay, but what you’re asking her to do is actually”—you deliberately dropped your voice—“disgusting.”
Disgusting was, to Vinny, the lowest of the low. The idea that she herself might be disgusting had clearly never entered her mind.
“Excuse me?”
“Th
ink about it,” you say. “It’s kind of a disgusting idea.” You turned to Zoe. “Did you come up with it?”
“No!” Zoe squealed, and then looked guiltily at Vinny.
Vinny stood up. “Game over,” she said, and walked away. After a pause, Zoe jumped up and scrambled after her, snatching her purse from the back of her chair—it was dark red, just like Vinny’s.
“Wow,” Gina said when they were gone. She smiled, but her face was sad all over. “She hates me a lot, huh?”
“She’ll get over it,” you said.
“It’s because we’re friends,” Gina said. “You and me.”
“Vinny has a lot of friends,” you tell her.
“Yeah.” Gina opened the ChapStick and used it on her lips. “But we’re the kind who would never hurt each other.”
—
The next day, Vinny and Zoe looked right through you. After lunch, you found a little pink envelope in your locker with your name on it. Inside was one of those invitations for a little-kid party, with a cute parade of animals in party hats on the front. You opened it and saw it was the preprinted kind, with “You Are Invited” at the top and blank lines underneath where you’re supposed to write in the details. Someone had filled them in with a black marker:
You Are Invited!
What: Vinny’s Halloween Bash
Where: Zoe’s place
When: Halloween. Duh.
Why: Think about it.
Glad you won’t be there!
Uninvited. If “umpteen” is the best word in the world, maybe “uninvited” is the worst. It shouldn’t even be a word. It shouldn’t be anything.
TECH CREW
The full tech crew had been called for a Wednesday meeting, and they were all squeezed together backstage. Bridge was close enough to smell Sherm’s bread smell. Mr. Partridge had ordered pizza again. Now he stood in front of a whiteboard he’d propped up against an old piece of scenery. From her spot on the floor, Bridge could make out some blue sky and the back end of a large pink pig.
Mr. Partridge glanced at his watch. “Quickly, people. We don’t have much more time.” He tapped the board, where he’d written their list of Talentine show themes in purple block letters:
ITALIAN RESTAURANT
NORTH POLE (PENGUINS)
APOLLO 11 MOON LANDING
ROMAN BATH
THE SIXTIES/HIPPIES
RAIN FOREST
“I don’t think there are penguins at the North Pole,” Bridge whispered to Sherm. “They’re all in Antarctica.”
“Good point,” Sherm said. “Why’d you nominate the moon landing?”
“Because. I thought we could try it out.”
He gave her a questioning look.
“A fake moon landing,” she said. “We’ll make one of those landing-pod things, and we’ll get a flag, and—I don’t know, rocks? Come on, just vote for it.”
The sixties was a strong contender. “Four votes!” Mr. Partridge said, making a note on the board. “There may be some tie-dyeing in our future. Okay, who’s for the moon landing?”
Hands went up. Sherm hesitated. One arm waving wildly, Bridge reached out with the other, grabbed Sherm’s wrist, and held it up.
Mr. Partridge smiled. “Bridge, please release Sherman.”
Everyone laughed. She let go.
Sherm’s arm dropped, but a second later he put it up again.
“Okay, folks, we have a winner.” Mr. Partridge drew a circle around the words “Apollo 11.” “We’re going to the moon.”
A few kids cheered. Bridge did a mini-fist-pump.
“Remember,” Mr. Partridge said. “This is a secret. Anyone who spills the beans has to pay double for their T-shirt. Understood?”
—
When the meeting was over, Bridge waited for Mr. Partridge by the auditorium doors.
“Question, Bridge?” He was still coming up the aisle toward her. It occurred to Bridge that Mr. Partridge was on the older side.
“You were a judge, right? For the auditions?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t Emily make it? I was there. She was one of the best.”
Mr. Partridge stopped. “Let me ask you a couple of questions. How many judges were there?” he asked.
“Three.”
“And how many people am I?”
“One.”
“Exactly.”
Bridge only hesitated for a second. “So she was banned?”
He shook his head. “Nothing that formal. But unofficially, yes.”
“But that’s completely unfair!”
“And,” he said, looking at her, “it’s exactly how most unfair things happen.”
“Did you even say anything? Fight for her?”
He blinked. “Bridget, I know how to pick my battles. This conversation is over.”
—
Bridge and her parents were on the couch, watching the annual network broadcast of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, when they heard the front door slam and the now-familiar sound of Jamie’s enormous steps.
“How was practice?” Bridge’s mom called.
“Fine,” Jamie called back.
“It’s Rudolph!” Bridge yelled. “Hurry up! We’re almost up to Hermey’s big moment.”
“No thanks.” And his door closed.
Bridge looked at her parents. “Did he just say ‘No thanks’?”
They told her to give him a few minutes alone. Her mom handed her a candy cane.
—
After the movie, Bridge knocked on Jamie’s door. “You wrecked Rudolph night!” she yelled. Without waiting, she opened the door. “Rudolph is no fun without you.”
“Sure, come right in,” Jamie said. “That’s what I meant to say when I closed my door.”
He was still in his track clothes, lying on the bed with his computer resting on his chest. On the floor next to the bed was an empty bowl stained with red sauce.
“You ate all the meatballs?” Bridge said.
“Running makes me hungry,” Jamie said. He swiveled his laptop around to face her and said, “Check this out.”
Bridge leaned forward. It was an eBay listing for a Rolling Stones T-shirt: the 1981 North American Tour. The same shirt he’d lost to Alex almost a year ago. “A hundred dollars? Wow.”
“Yeah. Can you believe I bought it for seven bucks? When’s that gonna happen again?”
“You know Grandma and Grandpa would buy you another one. For Christmas. Or Mom and Dad—they have all that celebrity-wedding money coming in.”
Their mom’s second fancy wedding had been a bigger hit than her first. She’d just booked two more jobs.
Jamie shook his head. “No way. I told you, I’m winning it back.” He shut the laptop. “Only a loser would pay a hundred bucks for a T-shirt. It’s not even cool anymore if you pay that much for it.”
Bridge took Hermey the elf from Jamie’s bookshelf. “So what are you going to ask for? For Christmas?”
“Maybe a new best friend.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Get me an ice cream sandwich from the freezer?” Jamie asked. “I barely have enough juice left to go brush my teeth.”
“Sure. For two bucks.”
He grinned. “How about a nickel?”
“Fifty cents,” she said. “I’m saving for my Tech Crew T-shirt. I need to have it in time for the Talentine show.”
“A quarter?” Jamie countered.
Bridge felt kind of sorry for him. She tossed him Hermey and said, “It’s a deal.”
—
Bridge was sleeping that night when a door slammed, waking her up. She looked at her clock: 12:01.
A minute later, she heard the bathroom door open, steps coming down the hall, and then Jamie’s door, closing quietly.
—
“Hey, was that you slamming doors in the middle of the night?” she asked him in the kitchen the next morning.
“Sorry.” He looked embarrassed. “I was waiting for mi
dnight. I closed the bathroom door too hard.”
“Waiting for midnight?”
“Yeah. I always get into bed on step ten thousand, right? So then if, you know, nature calls, I have to wait until it’s officially the next day.”
“Jamie,” Bridge said, shaking a cereal box to see how much was left. “You really do need a new best friend.”
SLEEVES
On the first day back after every vacation, school lunch came with a cupcake, so Bridge left her bag lunch at home. From across the cafeteria, she spotted Em walking toward their corner table, wearing a baggy green sweatshirt and carrying her tray. Tab wasn’t coming; the Human Rights Club met on Tuesdays at lunch, and even a cupcake couldn’t persuade her to miss quality time with the Berperson.
“Aren’t you hot in that thing?” Bridge asked, catching up to Emily. “I feel like we’re in a furnace.” It was always like that, once the school turned on the heat.
“Yeah,” Em started, “I’m—” and then she burst into tears. She just stood there with her tray and let them come.
“Hold on.” Bridge held her tray in one hand and took Em’s with the other. She slid both trays—sandwich, milk, cupcake—onto the table, and then she grabbed Em’s hand and led her out of the cafeteria.
In the bathroom, Em was nearly choking on tears and snot. “They said…I have to wear this stupid sweatshirt. It’s from the lost and found. They said”—she wiped her face with a fist—“my shirt was too revealing!”
“Revealing?” Bridge ducked into a stall and came out with some balled-up toilet paper.
“Spaghetti straps!” Emily sobbed out the words.
“What?” Bridge said. “Breathe, okay? I can’t understand you. It sounded like you said ‘spaghetti.’ ”
Em shook her head. “Spaghetti straps. They aren’t sleeves, they said.”
“Oh.”
Em took a breath, calmed down. “You can wear cat ears all day, but I can’t wear my own shirt.”
“Hey!”
“Sorry.” Em blew her nose, folded the toilet paper, and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. That was jerky.”
“It’s okay,” Bridge said. “I get it.”
Em sniffed, exhaled.
Goodbye Stranger Page 13