“It’s fine, Gin. I can take on more tutoring,” I said, without thinking.
My sister screwed up her face. “You tutor?”
I felt my cheeks get unbecomingly hot. “Off and on,” I said, feigning airiness. “Tutoring is like governessing. It’s . . . noble.”
“Hm.” Ginny made a noncommittal noise, neither happy nor particularly inquisitive.
“Why don’t I open this?” I said, lifting my package.
“Yes,” Mom said faintly, as if I’d just discovered it in the back of a closet. “Go ahead.”
I untucked the tape and peeled the paper away from the contents.
If you are a certain type of girl, a girl between the ages of twelve and about seventeen who is introspective and readerly, people are always giving you notebooks. They can’t think of any other gift for you: books, you probably have all the ones you want already. Clothes and jewelry, you clearly do not care about, as evidenced by your bluestocking tendencies. Electronics, well, who can keep up with what the kids want these days? And then they wander into a bookstore, and see all those marbled covers and all that gold-edged paper and think, yes, that’s just the ticket for Plum, the bookish little weirdo. They buy it and wrap it and watch you open it with that barely contained eagerness of a satisfied gift giver: a notebook, can you imagine? Paper stacked and bound together, all ready for you to write in, since you so love writing—and in such a lovely cover! You smile, as though this is such a novel, thoughtful idea, and move on. Thus is another notebook added to your stack.
But this was not a notebook made to be a gift. This was two golden-yellow cardboard covers, smooth green pages with thin lines, and a wire binding. Nothing at all special. I looked up at Mom.
“I know, I know, it’s not fancy,” Mom said. “But it’s the kind your father swore by. I saw them at the art supply store and picked you up a few.”
“But I don’t write,” I blurted out. I had to say it. I had to insist.
Mom opened her mouth, then closed it. The room went silent, save the faint sounds of caroling. At the door, Kit Marlowe stuck in his tortoiseshell head, eyes flashing, but quickly absconded.
“Oh,” Mom said faintly. “Well, I feel foolish now.”
“Don’t!” I cried. My heart was pounding. “I mean, thank you. I will keep them. I promise.”
Mom smiled.
“I love you, Plum. Infinitely.”
“My skin itches,” Ginny said. Her face was smeared with something cakey and black, a packet torn open on the floor next to her. “Is it supposed to itch?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Almost-Doctor Andrews said.
Ginny leaped up, alarmed. “What if I have contact dermatitis? Do you see any swelling?” She clutched the arm of his chair and stuck her face in his face.
“I—”
“I have an idea,” I interrupted. “Let’s watch Jimmy Stewart.” The Blatchley tradition was to refer to movies not by the title but by the name of the starring actor. So It’s a Wonderful Life became “Jimmy Stewart,” while our preferred version of A Christmas Carol was—
“I want Mr. C. Scott!” Ginny cried, her contact dermatitis forgotten. Gizmo yipped in agreement.
So we began throwing out wrapping paper and cleaning up dishes and putting cookies on a plate—or I did, because Mom had taken to the kitchen couch with Gizmo, and Almost-Doctor Andrews should not be responsible for dishes in his landlady’s house, and Ginny was God knows where. I filled the sink with soapy water and pretended I was Sara Crewe pretending she was a prisoner in the Bastille, assuming prisoners in the Bastille were made to scrub cinnamon-roll frosting from a tube off Fiestaware. I was deep into the long-suffering aspect of my reverie when Ginny burst in through the back door.
“I have mail,” she breathed, rosy-cheeked from the cold. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? It’s probably been there for days!”
I barely looked up from the dishes. Mom rolled around to face her.
“Congrats, Meg Ryan. What’s it say?”
“It’s from Penn,” Ginny said.
“Did they change their mind?” I said, and both Ginny and Mom shot me a look to indicate that that was not a proper joke to make.
“It’s from the financial aid office.” A chill settled over the kitchen that had nothing to do with the heat not being on. Truth be told, in all my perseverating over cash flow, I had forgotten that was a thing. Perhaps because it had involved lots of filling out forms, something Ginny had taken to with vigor but which filled me with a mixture of terror at making irreparable mistakes and profound boredom. Or perhaps because I just didn’t want to think about the absolute and utter importance of it.
Slowly, Ginny tore the top of the envelope. She unfolded the letter. She read silently. Her face drained.
“What’s wrong?” I said. “What happened?”
“No money,” Ginny said, surprisingly quiet. “They aren’t giving me anything.”
“Nothing?” Mom pushed herself to standing.
“Yeah, after a careful review, blah blah blah, I get zippo.”
“On Christmas?” Mom said, incredulous. “That just seems . . . I dunno, heartless.”
“It’s a heartless world,” Ginny said darkly. She sank onto a stool.
“Oh, Ginny.” Mom sighed and squeezed Ginny’s shoulder. “I had to work to help put myself through college. You know your grandmother—well, I guess you didn’t, but point was, we never had anything growing up, and so I worked part-time selling pizza at the Coop—that’s what we called the—”
“You can’t do that anymore, Mother,” Ginny said. “You can’t pay for college on minimum wage. You need real money. Also, not about you, remember?”
Mom didn’t say anything.
“Hey,” I said. “It’s Christmas.”
Ginny nodded. She put the letter on the counter.
“Let’s just go watch the movie, okay?”
Ginny was staring at the ceiling.
“Fine.” She nodded. “Okay.”
So we grabbed several blankets and the plate of cookies and tottered upstairs to the TV room for Jimmy Stewart—even Almost-Doctor Andrews, who had found an ancient bottle of glühwein from a German Christmas market and heated up a mugful on the stove. I excused myself to let the dogs out, because they always need to go out, and took the long way upstairs, past the glass office doors.
I hadn’t put candles in those windows. Papers were piled up, in the dark, the smooth edges of the desk glowing in the streetlight. My fingers suddenly itched to yank the thin little handle and slip in. Just to look around. Maybe to see that jersey, for the Boston whoevers. Or the notebooks, the ones I now owned pristine copies of.
But of course, I couldn’t. Even if they didn’t see me, they’d sense it. The doors would creak or the dust would make me sneeze. So I left it there.
Mom barely made it through the opening credits without crying.
“Moooom,” Ginny moaned. Her face was a little pink, once again, but that could have been the three blankets she’d ensconced herself in.
“I’m sorry,” Mom said. “I’m sorry, it’s just . . . God, this movie. Every goddamn time.”
Almost-Doctor Andrews hummed “Buffalo Gals” under his breath.
As we watched, I nibbled my cookies and paid little attention. For some reason, I was thinking of the part in Harriet the Spy when Ole Golly tells Harriet that she has to do two things: apologize and lie. I had never been good at either. It was certainly my tragic flaw, second only to my lack of genius. And yet with each bite of each of the seven armadillo cookies I ate, my suspicion that I would have to do both grew.
Jimmy Stewart stepped back off the bridge. The music swelled. Mom swallowed her champagne.
“It’s always worth coming back,” she said to no one in particular. “Remember that. It’s always worth coming back.”
The next day, I braided my hair, laced up my snow boots, put on the Amazing Wonder Jacket™, and walked down to Evergreen Street. The gate at Ta
te’s house was closed, and I had to push it open in the snow, which made a horrifying creaking sound that no doubt announced my presence to everyone there. It was officially too late to go back. So I tramped over the snow to the back porch and the back door, which I knocked.
Mercifully, it was Tate who answered. He had on a TGS sweatshirt and green-and-red-plaid pajama pants, and his hair was askew, even though it was already 9:25 a.m.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your, um, whatever it is you were doing,” I said, “but I just wanted to come by and tell you I was sorry.”
“Sorry?” Tate’s eyebrows drew together, cocking his head like he didn’t remember how I’d gravely insulted him. “For what?”
I took a deep breath. “I implied,” I said, “that you were stupid.”
“Oh.” Tate shrugged. “I mean, yeah. But if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t need a tutor, right?”
“Well, I . . . you couldn’t use a tutor if you were stupid,” I said. “Too stupid to learn, that is.”
“So you’re saying I’m not too stupid to learn,” Tate said.
“Yes.”
“You got up at seven a.m. just to come over and tell me I’m not too stupid to learn.”
“Yes,” I said. “And that I’m sorry.” Also, it was now 9:27 a.m., but I did not mention that. We both stood there, Tate holding open the storm door and me standing resolute and tall with my hands in my pockets. Behind him, a cheer went up from what had to have been the TV room.
“Watching a game?” I asked politely.
“What do you think?” Tate said. The cold air was turning his cheeks pink.
“I’m sorry. Never mind,” I said, just as Tate said, “come in, it’s freezing.”
So I did.
I pushed off my boots on the mat and set them neatly onto the low cabinet beside the door. The kitchen was stacked with baskets and red ribbons and green swag and dozens of boxes of white candles. There was barely a square inch of countertop to spare.
“I heard,” I said, as a way to make conversation, “that the reason they call it Boxing Day is that it’s the day to put the Christmas things back in boxes.”
“Huh?” Tate said, and looked at all the stuff. “Oh. Yeah. We don’t really do Christmas.”
“You don’t?”
“Jewish, remember?” Tate said. “Weren’t you at my bar mitzvah?”
“Did you invite me?” I said, rather pointedly.
Tate nodded. “Right, guess not. Well, anyway, yeah, this is all just for my mom’s work. She’s having a fund-raiser or something.”
“Oh,” I said. Another burst of TV basketball noise. Tate turned his head back, his neck craning. He’d cut a little V into the front of his sweatshirt collar, through which I could see the little dent at the top of his collarbones.
“Wanna watch?” he said. “Unless you’re busy.”
“No,” I said. “I mean, no, I’m not busy.”
I followed him to the TV room, and it occurred to me that I knew where the TV room in Tate Kurokawa’s house was: down the first-floor hallway, second door on the right, after the white end table with the lamp and the small bowl of decorative stones. The strangeness of it all was fading into . . . not familiarity, or ease, or anything like that, but a distinct something. A ritual, where the steps are always the same but the ending never predictable.
This time, Tate sat on the couch first, flopping in the middle. I wanted a good view, and I didn’t want to sit in the chair, so I sat on the couch, too. The TV threw blue light across Tate’s face, creating crepuscular shadows over every little angle, even into the V of his sweatshirt and the V at the top of his neck.
“Oh, here.” Tate grabbed the remote and jabbed the volume button, and the TV roared with a cheering crowd and squeaking sneakers. “We’re up by ten. If you want to follow the game.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I just picked something random from the DVR,” Tate said. “They don’t play live games at seven in the morning.”
“It’s nine thirty-three in the morning,” I said.
Tate smiled. “I just mean I can rewind it if you want.”
“No, that’s okay,” I said. “I’d be happy to watch from here.”
That was a lie. I didn’t really care about the game. Of course I didn’t care about the game; I had never cared about a game of any sport in my entire life. But here I was. I had apologized, and I had lied.
Tate sat back and threw an arm over the back of the couch. I stayed sitting straight up.
“Don’t you have someone better to hang out with?” I blurted out.
Tate blinked. “It’s nine thirty-three in the morning.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right.”
He was smiling. I looked at the TV.
“Who are we playing?”
“The LeBrons.”
“The what?”
Tate leaned forward so his elbows were on his knees. “I mean, it’s the Lakers, but you might as well call them by the only player that matters. Aw, shit.” He fell backward and rubbed his forehead. “What the hell.”
Something occurred to me. “Why don’t you play basketball?”
Tate yawned. “You’re asking a lot of questions this morning, Peach.”
“It’s nine thirty-five,” I said. “Question time.”
Tate smiled. “Yeah, okay. Anyway, basketball’s the same season as squash, so I’m already spoken for.” He shrugged. “Also, like, look at me.”
I had been studiously avoiding doing so. I gave him a quick glance. “What about you?”
“I’m short,” he said.
“You’re not,” I said quickly. “I mean, you’re shorter than I am, but I’m pretty tall.”
Tate studied me. “Stand up.”
I didn’t move.
“Come on, stand up.”
I stood up. Tate scanned me up and down, and I felt suddenly very aware of the way my belt was bisecting my stomach, and how my stomach curved over the top of my jeans. I wished I was still wearing the Amazing Wonder Jacket™. Then Tate stood up, so that he was right in front of me.
“Hm.” He put a hand on top of his head, and moved it straight out, until he almost hit me in the bridge of my nose. “Yeah, checks out.”
He dropped back onto the couch. I followed suit. One of the LeBrons scored another point.
“Hey, how’s your sister?” Tate said, out of nowhere.
“She’s fine,” I said. “Why do you ask?”
Tate shrugged. “Benj said something about Ginny Blatchley being at some party the other day, and then I remembered you had a sister.”
No one forgot that I had a sister. It was always the other way around. And Ginny didn’t go to parties.
“A party?” I said. I must have looked alarmed, because Tate smiled, which I did not like.
“Chill, Peach. I’m sure it was nothing shady.”
“What did he say?”
Tate rubbed his chin. “Just like, he was surprised to see her there, I guess. Her and her friend—”
“Charlotte,” I said.
“Yeah.” Tate nodded. “That one. She, like, hooked up with one of Benji’s friends or something. I dunno.”
I cleared my throat. Tate shifted, and I felt an intense need to say something definitive to break the silence.
“Well,” I said. “It’s always surprising what some people consider a good time.” From his flopped position on the couch, Tate turned his eyes from the game to me for a disconcerting full second and a half.
“Like watching basketball?”
“Sure,” I said. “Yes. Exactly.”
We watched the rest of the game in silence, save the sounds of the TV. Tate fast-forwarded through the commercials, and I sat and wondered what could have made this so interesting to a man who would rather spend money on books than food. To someone like my father.
Eventually it was over, and Tate jabbed the pause button, freezing an ad for Icy Hot knee patches midframe.
“So there you go,�
� he said.
“It’s ten forty-six,” I said. I seemed to think that regularly announcing the time was an appropriate way to converse. I wasn’t sure what had gotten into me.
“You need to go?” Tate said. “Because we could watch another one, or . . .”
I didn’t know what that or was supposed to mean. I had to fill it in myself.
“Yes, I should go,” I said. “My sister will be wondering where I am.”
That may or may not have been true. But Tate nodded. “Yeah. Sure. Well . . . thanks for coming by.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
“We have that midterm,” Tate said. “When’s that, like, the second Monday back?” He stretched his arms above his head.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“So I should probably study.”
“I’d think so.”
“Can you come back?”
Could I? Of course I could. That was, of course, the whole reason I’d needed to apologize. To keep my governessing contract intact. To preserve professional decorum.
“Yes,” I said.
“Cool,” Tate said. “Tomorrow night?”
“I will see you then,” I said crisply.
That night, the temperature plunged, and we indulged in a rare nighttime thermostat boost all the way to sixty degrees. I took two blankets up to the TV room and wrapped myself like a burrito and watched Home and Garden Television and lost track of time until I heard Ginny squeaking up the back stairs. She wandered in, clad in leggings that were black-and-white splotched like a notebook cover, a saffron-colored cotton dress whose sleeves were too long, and hiking socks.
“Oh, Plummy.” She fell onto the couch and put her bulky-socked feet in my lap. “I’m tired.”
“Were you at a party?” I asked, as mildly as I could.
Ginny flip-flopped a hand in the air. “Of sorts. It was Charlotte’s idea.”
“I’m shocked.”
Ginny snort-laughed. “What, I’m not cool enough to go to parties?”
“No,” I said, because it was obvious. “Were you drinking?”
“Plum!” Ginny lobbed a pillow at me, which I did not dodge in time and it glanced off the top of my head. From the windowsill, Kit hissed. “No,” she said. “I was not. It wasn’t even a party qua party, anyway. Just Lily, Lily, Ava, Julia, and Charlotte taking shots of apple-flavored vodka.”
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