The Last Tree Town

by Beth Turley

  “I’ll make you a deal,” I blurt.

  “Huh?”

  “Forgive me, and I’ll tell you a story.”

  Aaron looks at me. I want him to laugh or smile, but he doesn’t.

  “Okay,” he says.

  My face flames like I’m under a heat lamp. I take a breath.

  “One afternoon, when I was ten years old, I fell off my bike. I was on Smith Street, by my grandparents’ condo. I cut myself from my palms to my wrists, and my sister helped me up. She cleaned my cuts and covered them with Band-Aids that had Snoopy on them. I can still remember the way she said ‘This is going to hurt’ before she used the rubbing alcohol. It made me feel like I could get through anything as long as Daniella was there with a Band-Aid.”

  I show him the crescent-shaped scar that the fall left behind on my wrist. He doesn’t say anything.

  “I know I’m not as good at telling stories as you,” I mumble.

  “No, it’s a good one,” Aaron says.

  He smiles. I start to erase hates me, but only halfway.

  “I really am sorry about your eye.”

  “Why did you do that?” he asks.

  My eyes drop to the rubber floor, my cheeks still burning at a thousand degrees.

  “I guess I thought you might disappear unless I acted more like Sage.”

  Aaron taps his skate against mine. “I’d rather you were just Cassi. It seems less dangerous that way.”

  I laugh, and it mixes in with the screaming sound of static from the rink’s loudspeaker. I replace hates with forgives. In small, secret letters, I add cute.

  “Time for the friendship skate,” a voice announces through the speaker. A song starts playing, another one I’ve listened to while propped up on Daniella’s pillows.

  “Do you want to skate?” Aaron asks. His cheeks turn the color of his injured eye.

  “If you insist,” I answer.

  We take twelve awkward skate-steps to the rink, and then we’re on the ice. Jac and Ben skate around together. Ben does disco dance moves, and Jac pretends she’s going to push him over.

  The song keeps playing while we skate around the rink. On our second lap, Aaron holds my hand, the laced-fingers way.

  “Is that okay?” he asks.

  “Uh-huh,” I say, nodding. I feel the warmth from his palm even through both of our gloves.

  “OH. MY. GOSH!” Jac shouts from across the rink. Her voice fills the entire Ice Plex.

  I don’t care about the way Sage is staring at me or if Jac makes jokes for the next fifty years, because it feels so nice.

  Right now, I don’t wish to be anyone else but me.

  February 14

  Jenna said I should go on a double date with her for Valentine’s Day. I have no space in my brain for heart-shaped chocolates. But I told her she could come over before her date and I’d help her get ready. Even though having other people in my space feels more overwhelming every day.

  She rifled through my closet and pulled out a red shirt with a lace V-neck. She pressed it to her body and spun around.

  “What do you think? Patrick says red makes me look like a rose,” she said.

  I couldn’t focus on whether the shirt made her look like a flower. A button dangled from the sleeve by a piece of red thread.

  “It’s torn,” I said, and pointed to the sleeve.

  Jenna looked.

  “Oh. I guess it is.” She dropped the shirt onto the floor and returned to the closet. She left wearing a white sweater and lip gloss all over her mouth.

  I picked up the red shirt and studied the broken button. Buela taught me how to hand sew and got me a kit for my eleventh birthday. I took it from its place on the dresser. I prepared the needle with red thread that almost matched the fabric. I watched it weave in and out.

  But the button was tiny and I was out of practice. It hung sideways, so choked up with thread that it didn’t even look like a button anymore. And that is when I stopped trying.

  Jenna texted me a picture of the Dove chocolate truffles and stuffed kitten that Patrick gave her.

  I thought about asking for help.

  Instead I texted back, “Precious.”

  37 Gifts

  The day after Valentine’s, I’m in Ben’s living room with Jac, Aaron, and Ben. His town house is the same as Jac’s except opposite, like a reflection in a mirror. The coffee table is painted bright blue. Some of Mrs. Chay’s photos hang on the walls, and some are clipped to clothespins on a string across the doorway to the kitchen. My favorite is in a frame next to the TV. It’s of all of us at one of our summer barbecues, the Chords and the Chays, waving from a long picnic table. Mrs. Chay had set her camera up on a tall tripod. I can see Mrs. Chay in the kitchen now, cutting into pieces of pink paper with scissors.

  “I brought gifts,” Jac says, and tips over her backpack. Wrapped chocolates fall onto the crocheted carpet. A shiny gold bag follows behind. Aaron and Ben lunge for the stash. I stare at the trail of buttons on Jac’s flannel shirt and think about the entry in Daniella’s diary. Maybe there isn’t room in my brain for heart-shaped candy either. It’s too stuffed with worry. I pick up the gift bag and twirl the thin handle around my finger tight, my thoughts knotted up in red sewing thread.

  “Where’d you get this?” Ben asks.

  “I have many secret admirers, Ben,” Jac says.

  Ben narrows his eyes suspiciously and then starts to juggle three pieces of chocolate. I tug on the gift bag again. The little tag slides down the handle.

  To Leslie. So glad I met you.

  “Jac! You stole this from your Dad.” I toss the gift bag at her. She smiles. The bag falls off her lap like it might scurry under the blue coffee table.

  “So that’s why it tastes like guilt,” Aaron says. He swallows.

  I laugh, and he looks at me. We’re sitting next to each other on the carpet, only inches away from holding hands again. Maybe there is a little room left in my head to think about that. And to hope that my French braid isn’t frizzing. I started over three times to get it perfect.

  “It’s not like it mattered anyway. Dad just went out and bought her a bigger bag of chocolates,” Jac says. Ben stops juggling and puts one of the chocolates on Jac’s knee.

  Mrs. Chay walks in from the kitchen with a stack of pink and red paper and a box of candy hearts.

  “Your dad is very happy, Jac,” she says. “You should be happy for him too.” I’m used to her being an extra participant in our conversations, like Buela, but I don’t mind because Mrs. Chay gives good advice and Buela makes tostones. They’re both honorary Chordays.

  Jac unwraps the chocolate from Ben and sticks it into her mouth. “I know.”

  “Happy Valentine’s Day, all,” she says. She hands Jac, Ben, and me one of the papers from her stack. I study mine. A picture from New Year’s is glued to the pink sheet—Ben and Jac and me standing in front of the TV, the streamers on our noisemakers blown straight out, Daniella standing behind us with a smile on her face and a pointed hat on. My throat constricts, tight with tears. I don’t know if they’re happy or sad.

  Ben holds his picture up to Aaron. He’s in the middle of a dance move.

  “I was singing ‘Elmtown,’ ” he explains.

  “I can tell,” Aaron says. He has no picture in his hands.

  “You’ll have to start coming around more, Aaron. Be a part of the photo shoots.” Mrs. Chay hands him the box of candy hearts.

  “That’s not going to work, Mrs. Chay. See, Aaron is a vampire. And vampires don’t show up in pictures,” Jac says.

  “False.” Ben shakes his head. “So false.”

  Aaron smiles and tears open the cardboard box. Mrs. Chay laughs. Her laugh is like a camera going off. A fast, bright flash. She has one valentine left in her hands.

  “This is for Daniella,” she says. She gives me the red piece of paper. The same picture as mine is stuck on.

  “Thanks,” I say softly. I stare at it for a second, allow my ey
es to trace over the words Mrs. Chay wrote underneath the picture. We love you. I set the paper down next to mine.

  “I hope she likes it.” Mrs. Chay turns to walk out of the living room. She picks her camera up off the table and heads out the door to the backyard.

  I’m quiet while Jac reaches for the remote to turn on another episode of the ghost documentary. We only have three episodes left. I read the title of the one Jac just turned on—“What’s Done Is Done, Or Is It?” Ben and Jac debate which episode has been the best, while the intro music starts. Jac thinks it was the one with the apple orchard. Ben says it was the one with the haunted movie theater.

  I really hope this series doesn’t get renewed for another season.

  Aaron nudges me lightly with his shoulder.

  “Here.” He shakes his cardboard box.

  I hold out my hands and let him pour candy hearts into my palms.

  * * *

  I knock on Daniella’s door. There’s no music inside tonight. She cracks the door open slowly.

  “What’s up?” she asks. Only the bedside lamp is on in her room, and the hall light is off, so I can barely see her.

  “I have something for you from Mrs. Chay.” I hold up the red piece of paper with the picture. She opens the door wider. I hand it to her.

  “It’s from New Year’s,” I say.

  Her eyes scan the photo. For a second, I’m scared. What if the red paper reminds her of the rose-colored shirt with the torn button?

  “That’s sweet.” She keeps looking at the picture and not at me.

  I wait. I want to see if she’ll put it on the mirror with her other pictures. I want her to read the words and realize that we all still love her.

  She looks up.

  “Your hair looks good,” she says.

  I took out the French braid before bringing Daniella the valentine. It’s a big, bumpy mess now, but I didn’t try to fix it. It’s like a lion’s mane.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  I want to tell her about Aaron and the Ice Plex and the candy hearts. But her door closes before I can, the seashell DANIELLA swinging side to side, the real Daniella out of sight.

  38 Bingo

  We’re at Kindly Vines on a Dad-Visit Thursday, playing bingo in the recreation room. The windows look onto the patio like a cruel reminder that it’s too cold to be outside.

  “B-seven,” the caller says. The room fills with the shuffling sounds of people marking their cards with stampers. I like bingo, because of the numbers. But I don’t have B7 on my card.

  “Look, tu tienes,” Buela says, and points to Buelo’s card. She sits on one side of his wheelchair, and I’m on the other. He has a green stamper in his hand.

  “I know.” He presses his stamper into the card and leaves a round, inky spot. Before I can stop myself I’m thinking about my classroom nightmare. The poster with the colored circles and the teacher telling me I wasn’t Cassi. I squeeze my stamper. I don’t want to think about the nightmare teacher while I play bingo with my family.

  “G-fifty-six.”

  I mark the number on my card. Buelo has it on his card too, but Buela has to remind him again to stamp it. Mom and Dad are sharing a card. Their stamps make an X in the middle. Daniella puts a mark on G56. She doesn’t press hard enough, so her circle is incomplete. I look away.

  “You almost have bingo,” I tell Buelo. He looks at me and smiles slowly.

  “If I win, we split the prize?” he suggests.

  “Sí, un equipo,” I say. A team.

  One of the nurses stops in front of us then with a tray of plastic cups full of popcorn. She wears scrubs the color of pink cotton candy.

  “That’s very impressive that you know Spanish,” she says.

  My skin gets hot. “Why shouldn’t I know Spanish?” I ask. “This is my grandpa.”

  “Cassi,” Mom says in a low voice.

  “Is it surprising that I could actually be Spanish and speak Spanish?” I’m causing a scene. My family is staring at me. The bingo caller up front pauses, the ball for the next number in his hand. He clears his throat.

  “I-twenty-one, everybody. I-twenty-one.”

  The nurse puts an extra popcorn cup in front of me.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie.” She takes her tray to the next table.

  I stamp I21 on my card. The ink smell makes my head hurt, or maybe it’s the anger trapped inside, or maybe it’s because things don’t add up the right way anymore.

  “What was that about?” Mom asks.

  “Nothing,” I say. The waves in my hair from the other night have gone limp. I was wrong to think that I could be a lion.

  “She didn’t mean anything by it, Cass,” Dad says around Mom’s shoulder. Daniella is looking at me too, her eyebrows pulled together.

  Lesson Twenty-One of Math Olympics: Functions take something in (the input), and then give something out (the output). They’re cool that way.

  Maybe the nurse didn’t mean anything. Maybe Daniella didn’t either. Or Briana from the mall. Or Aaron when he first met me. But I’m sick of taking all these things in. I don’t have anything left to fight back with.

  “B-twelve,” the caller says.

  None of us have the number. Buelo leans in close to my ear.

  “Take me home,” he whispers.

  I wish I could.

  39 Factorials

  Mr. G has us act like we’ve already qualified for Regionals, even though we won’t find out for a few more weeks.

  “I think you have a good shot,” he says. He pretends to shoot a basketball into the digits of pi. His tie says G0 4 I+. “Regionals requires us to have a specialist in the speed round. The specialist is the only one who will compete in that round. Today, we’ll figure out who our specialist will be.”

  Mr. G pulls a stopwatch out of his desk. I think about the fast math I’ve been doing in my head lately—the equations to help Daniella, the number of times I’ve wondered if Aaron would hold my hand again. The number of good moments with Buelo that cancel out the bad ones at Kindly Vines. It’s all been practice for this.

  “We’ll pick a specialist and an alternate. Keep in mind that you’re not competing against each other. You’re still a team. Everyone has their own strengths, and you’ll all have your chances to shine even if you’re not the speed specialist.”

  Markus walks to the front of the room to go first. Mr. G sets the stopwatch.

  “Two hundred ninety-one plus eight hundred seventy-three,” Mr. G says.

  Markus hesitates, but only for a second. “Eleven hundred sixty-four.”

  “Correct. Twenty-two times five.”

  After Markus has answered five questions, Mr. G checks the stopwatch.

  “One minute and fifteen seconds is the time to beat,” he says. We all clap for Markus, because that’s what teammates do.

  Aaron leans in closer to me.

  “Did I ever tell you about how I became speed specialist?” he asks.

  I smile at my desk. My heart is still sore from what happened during bingo at Kindly Vines, but Aaron helps. Like the Snoopy Band-Aid that Daniella put on my cuts.

  “I thought you only told true stories,” I say.

  Sage heads for the front of the class. She turns around in time to see Aaron with his face close to mine. Her hands fold into fists.

  “What is six to the power of three?” Mr. G asks.

  “Two hundred sixteen.” Sage answers the next four questions in one minute flat. Her eyes stay fixed on me the whole time.

  Aaron answers his questions in one minute and five seconds. Allie gets stuck on a hard question with fractions and takes almost two minutes. I clap a little extra. Emilio finishes in one minute and two seconds, just barely losing to Sage.

  I’m the last one up. I take the spot at the front of the classroom. Mr. G raises his stopwatch and presses go.

  “Five as a factorial,” he says.

  I remember Lesson Eighteen of Math Olympics.

  Factorials m
ultiply every positive number that comes before the integer. P.S. Don’t forget to shout about it with a !

  So 5! would equal five times four times three times two times one.

  “One hundred twenty,” I say.

  Mr. G fires question after question, and I answer them faster than I knew I could. I feel made of math. He presses the button on the stopwatch.

  “Fifty-six seconds. We have our speed round specialist.” Mr. G hands me the stopwatch like it’s a blue ribbon. Everyone claps except Sage, our alternate.

  I walk back to my desk thinking maybe I’m a factorial. All the things that have happened to me before get multiplied inside my heart, and make up who I am.

  40 Writing on the Wall

  I sleep over at Jac’s on Thursday. It’s just the two of us tonight. School-night sleepovers always feel different from normal ones, maybe because it’s harder to convince our parents to let us do it, or maybe because I have to pack my textbooks along with my toothbrush. The sun is staying up in the sky longer, so a hazy light filters in through Jac’s living room windows.

  “We need darkness for this,” Jac says. She kneels on the couch and closes the navy-blue curtains.

  “That’s a myth,” I say. “It’s scary whether it’s dark or not.”

  Jac pulls up another episode of the documentary series. I read the title. “A Family Portrait.” Nerves poke at my stomach.

  “Can’t take any chances,” she says.

  “Won’t Ben be mad if we watch while he’s at rehearsal?”

  “It’s not the finale, so it’s fair game.”

  Don’t watch the finale of anything without each other + don’t put guacamole on the nachos = Fundamental Chorday rules.

  I’m out of escape plans. The episode starts. The narrator is an interior designer who moved into an old house to flip it. There was this wall in the house with hideous striped wallpaper that she wanted to tear off. A family portrait was hung on the wall, but the designer didn’t think too much of it. She took it down and used a steaming machine to remove the wallpaper. But the portrait was back on the wall the next morning, except the grandma in the family was missing, like she’d crept out of the picture and into the house. The designer took down the picture again and threw it into the dumpster outside, but the same thing happened the next day. Only this time the sister was gone.