The Summer Before

by Ann M. Martin

  "Are they from you guys?" I asked.

  Mom shook her head. "They're all things that came in the mail."

  Aha! The mail. I wished I could have seen their outside wrappings to check for a retum address from Califomia, but Mom had thrown away the I packages they'd arrived in.

  I reached for the smallest present.

  "That's from Aunt Colleen and Uncle Wallace," said Mom as I began to open the card that was taped to the box.

  The card read "Happy Birthday to a Favorite Niece." Inside the box was an absolutely beautiful necklace that would look stunning on Claudia.

  The next gift was from my aunt Theo and uncle Neal. It was a sixteen-month softball calendar.

  My godmother had sent me a card that read "Nothing fancy, nothing funny, just a little spending money," in which she had enclosed a twenty-dollar bill.

  There were other cards from other relatives, a bracelet from Watson, a baseball cap from my cousin Robin, a book from my grandmother, another book from my mother's college roommate.

  "This is so much fun," I said at last, when I was stuffed with coffee cake and had piled my gifts and cards on the windowsill.

  "Oh!" said my mother suddenly. "I just remembered. There's something else for you. Now, where did I put it? "

  She left the kitchen and retumed with a large envelope.

  My hands began to tremble as I opened it.

  '*'It's from everyone at work," said my mother cheerfully as I withdrew the oversize card that had indeed been signed by about thirty of Mom's coworkers.

  I tried not to let my disappointment show. After all, there was still the party that evening. Who knew what might happen then - or in the hours before then?

  Later, after Mom had left for work, I carried my loot to my room. I was sorting through it when the doorbell rang and I heard Charlie yell, "Kristy! Claudia's here!" Then I heard feet pounding up the stairs, and there was Claudia.

  "Happy birthday!" she cried. "I'm really sorry I can't come tonight."

  "That's okay. I understand." But I didn't really.

  Claudia thrust a present at me. "This is for you."

  "Thanks!"

  She had wrapped the box in pink-and-turquoise paper that I think she had made herself and tied it with sparkling silver ribbon. "This is so pretty," I said. I removed the paper carefully. Inside was a nail polish set.

  "See?" said Claudia. "You can paint little decorations on your nails. That booklet shows you how. It includes designs for flowers and stars and hearts and rainbows. All sorts of things."

  "Wow." Boy. "Wow. Thank you."

  "You're welcome!"

  When Claudia left, Sam poked his head in my room. "What's that?" he asked. He picked up the nail polish set. "Is this what Claudia gave you?"

  I nodded.

  He snorted. "Does she know you, or what?"

  I laughed. But I was pleased that Claud had remembered my birthday. She'd made a card for me, too, and that pleased me even more. I imagined her across the street, sitting at her desk, surrounded by her markers and papers and fancy scissors and punches, creating a card and wrapping paper just for her old friend.

  The aftemoon of my birthday passed v-e-r-r-r-y slowly. When I saw the mail truck from my window, I dashed outside and waited by our box for Nancy, our letter carrier. As I had hoped, there were more birthday cards among the bills and catalogs she handed me. Three more, in fact.

  One from the Pikes, signed by all the kids.

  One from the Newtons.

  One from the Goldmans.

  I added them to my stash and told myself that the best was yet to come.

  Exactly how slowly could a day go by? I arranged my cards on the desk in my room. I started writing my thank-you notes. I watched as Frankie's mother pulled up at the Kishis' to take Claudia to the Evans family barbecue. At long last, l/Iom's car tumed into our driveway. I pressed my nose to the screen in an effort to see whether my mother was the only person in the car.

  She was.

  She climbed out, carrying a large cake-size box.

  I met her downstairs.

  "Party time!" said Mom.

  Mary Anne arrived a few moments later, and before I knew it, she and Sam and David Michael and I were sitting on the back porch, laughing and talking, while Mom and Charlie started the grill, Louie sitting at strict attention at Charlie's feet in case a whole hamburger should suddenly fall to the ground.

  The phone rang and I answered it in a hurry.

  "Happy birthday!" said a deep voice. "So, how does it feel to be twelve years old?"

  "Watson?" My heart, which had been beating fast, slowed to an annoyed crawl. "Well, you know..." I tried to think how to answer that stupid question and finally said, "Thank you for the bracelet. I really like it. It was very thoughtful of you."

  I hung up the phone, and while we were waiting for the burgers to cook, Sam said, "So, everyone, what was your most memorable birthday?"

  "The time Mom dropped my cake," said David Michael promptly.

  "The year we were in Florida on my birthday and we went to a spring training game," said Charlie.

  "The year my dad hired a magician to come to my party," said Mary Anne.

  I was half listening to the conversation. The other half of me was calculating time (in other words, what time Dad might show up if he had left Califomia in the moming) and trying to figure out if any of the presents Mom had brought outside were from someone other than the people on the patio.

  "Kristy?" said Sam. "What was your most memorable birthday?"

  I shook myself. "Oh," I said. I usually found it hard to answer a question like that, but suddenly I had an answer. "My fifth birthday. Remember? That was the year when no one could come to my party. Weinvited Mary Anne and Claudia, of course, and a bunch of kids from my preschool class. And not one single person could come. Everyone was either away on vacation or busy. And I'd been just desperate for a real party - one with games and goody bags and everything. Plus, Dad had said he knew this farm that could provide you with a pony for two hours, so all the party guests could go on rides around the backyard. But one after another, the parents phoned and said their kids wouldn't be able to come. I remember crying when the last parent said no.

  "But Dad told me not to be sad. He said something special was going to happen anyway, and sure enough, at lunchtime on my birthday, I found a note on my plate. I couldn't read it, but you and Dad helped me," I said to Mom.

  "I remember that!" Sam exclaimed suddenly. "The note was a clue. The first clue in a birthday scavenger hunt!"

  I nodded. "Dad had made a clue for each of my presents. The last clue led me into the backyard, and that was where I found the pony. Not to keep, of course. But a pony to ride, just like I had wanted. So I had a party with you guys" (I nodded to Charlie and Sam) "and a pony. It wasn't exactly the party I had imagined, but when I saw that pony standing under the tree," (my gaze shifted to an elm tree, under which, seven years ago, a brown-and-white pony had stood, stamping its feet impatiently) "I thought Dad was..." I wasn't sure how to finish the sentence. I was going to say that I'd thought he was magic, but I didn't want to hurt Mom's feelings.

  Luckily, David Michael interrupted to ask, rather indignantly, "Where was I?"

  "You weren't bom yet," Sam told him.

  "Oh," said David Michael.

  Everyone looked at me again. I looked back at the elm tree.

  Mom cleared her throat.

  Charlie checked on the grill.

  "Well," said Mary Anne.

  When the food was ready, we ate at the picnic table. Afterward, Mom waited until darkness was falling before she served the cake, and that was why I saw the first meteor of the evening just as I blew out the candles. That must be a good sign, I said to myself. What could be better than making a birthday wish, blowing out candles, and seeing a shooting star all at the same time?

  I tackled my gifts with renewed hope - and an eye on the back door.

  My gifts were lovely. Dav
id Michael had made me a lanyard at his elementary school playground program.

  "You can use it for a key chain," he told me proudly.

  Sam had bought me a copy of the Guinness Book of World Record, Charlie had gotten me a new softball, Mary Anne had had a special jersey made up for me (I almost cried when I opened it, but I am not really a crying sort of person), and my mother gave me a watch.

  "Mom!" I exclaimed. "This is -"

  I was about to say that it was too expensive and that we couldn't afford such things, but she waved her hand and said, "I wanted my special daughter to have a special present."

  I started to reach for the next gift when I realized that there weren't any more. I had opened them all. I looked over my shoulder. Surely Dad would stride in now, right now. lt would be the most dramatic moment for his arrival. But Mom got to her feet, yawned, and said, "We'd better get cleaned up." My brothers began to help her.

  l looked at the back door again, and then at Mary Anne. I didn't have to say anything to her. She sat down next to me on the bench and put her arm across my shoulders.

  That was how my birthday ended.

  "I thought these stupid meteors were going to bring us good luck," said Kristy sullenly as we sat on her patio with the remains of her birthday dinner scattered around us.

  "You did? Really?" I replied.

  "Well, I don't know. I guess I didn't. But I thought maybe they could bring... something."

  "You mean your father."

  Kristy shrugged.

  "You really thought your father was going to come, didn't you?" I pressed.

  "I didn't know if he'd come, but I wanted him to. I hoped he would."

  I reached out and plucked a candle from the edge of her cake. I licked the frosting off of the end and said, "You know, every year I wish my mother could somehow spend my birthday with me. When I was little, I used to pretend she was right there but invisible, watching me open presents and play games and take the first bite of cake. Now I just wish I could have a conversation with her. You know, tell her what's been happening and how school's been going. Nothing earth-shattering. Just... stuff."

  "I try to do that with Dad. That's what I tell him about in my letters. Just stuff. But he didn't even get the last letter."

  "It's weird," I said. "We take something as nice as a birthday and we ruin it by wishing for something impossible."

  "Dad could have come," Kristy said fiercely. "It wasn't impossible." Then she softened. "When I picture my father, I picture him as he was the last time I saw him. How do you picture your mother?"

  "The way she looks in that photo in Dad's bedroom," I replied. "Their wedding photo. So when I imagine her at my birthday parties, she's always in her white gown with the veil and the flowers."

  Kristy smiled. Finally, she said, "Well, I have my mom and my brothers, and you have your dad."

  "And we have each other," I added.

  "Yup," said Kristy.

  Later, when I was getting ready for bed, I looked out my window. I checked Kristy's window across the way to see whether she was awake. She wasn't. At least, her light wasn't on.

  I turned my eyes to the sky, but I didn't see any more shooting stars, so I slid under the covers and thought about the next day, which would be Kristy Day. As bad as I felt for my friend, I couIdn't help also feeling excited about the event I had planned - although I was disappointed that Claudia wasn't going to be part of it.

  A few days earlier, not long after the embarrassing aftemoon at Jamie Newton's, I had seen Claudia sitting alone on her front stoop, so I had joined her. "Are you waiting for Frankie?" I had asked, first thing.

  "I'm not always waiting for him," she'd replied in a tone of voice that indicated extreme irritation.

  For heaven's sake. It wasn't as if I had already asked her this question a billion times. I'd considered saying something equally rude back to her, but I'd wanted to invite her to Kristy Day, and figured it was better not to get off on the wrong foot with the conversation.

  I'd shrugged my shoulders. Then I'd said, "So, next week is Kristy's birthday."

  "I know. I'm really sorry I can't come to her supper."

  I'd nodded. "But I'm planning something for the next day. Something special just for Kristy, called Kristy Day."

  Claudia had smiled. "Very original."

  I'd smiled, too, and tried to figure out how to explain the event without mentioning Kristy's secret hope that her father would remember her birthday. In the end, I'd sort of skirted the issue by saying simply that since Kristy wasn't going to have a party this year I'd thought we should plan some kind of surprise for her.

  "And since you can't come to her supper, maybe you could come to Kristy Day. I know that would make her happy."

  Claudia had brightened. "Really? You want me to come?"

  "Of course."

  "When did you say Kristy Day is? The day after her birthday?"

  I'd nodded.

  And Claudia's face had fallen.

  "I'm going to the beach with Frankie and his family that day," she'd said. "If I'd known about Kristy Day, I never would have said yes."

  Huh. So what, exactly, had been so annoying when I'd asked earlier if she was waiting for Frankie? It had seemed like an entirely reasonable, sane question, since apparently she was always doing something with Frankie or waiting to do something with him. Or with his family.

  I didn't lose my temper very often, but when I did... watch out. I'd thought about the injustices of this particular conversation and I could feel my temper bubbling to the surface. I'd been about to say, "So enlighten me. Why were you insulted just now when I asked if you were waiting for Frankie?" But then I'd tumed and caught the look on Claudia"s face, and I'd closed my mouth.

  "I'm really sorry," Claud had said. And she'd certainly looked very, very sorry. Which had been nice but also sort of confusing. I'd thought she wanted to spend every waking moment with her boyfriend. But apparently not. Maybe this summer, this summer during which Claudia seemed to be shooting away from Kristy and me, was as hard on her as it was on us.

  Maybe she missed us.

  "That's okay," I'd thought for a moment. "Hey! We could hold Kristy Day some other time." But then I'd shaken my head. I'd had a feeling Kristy would need her day as soon as possible after her birthday, that she would need immediate cheering up.

  "No. Don't switch things around for me," Claud had said.

  And so I hadn't.

  Now it was the night before Kristy Day, and Kristy did indeed need her big day. I willed myself to sleep.

  When I woke in the moming, it was to sunshine and a sky as clear and blue as a lagoon (not that I'd ever seen a lagoon). I leaped out of bed, ate breakfast in a hurry, and phoned Mrs. Pike to make sure it was still okay for me to borrow her house and yard and kids.

  "Come on over," she said.

  I walked to the Pikes' house, carrying two grocery bags. They were packed with construction paper, crayons, markers, empty egg cartons, a box of macaroni, glue, glitter, pipe cleaners, a package of Popsicle sticks, empty soup cans, and a roll of butcher paper. I had been saving the soup cans and the egg cartons since I'd gotten the idea for Kristy Day. I had bought the rest of the things with the last of my money. (I needed some more sitting jobs.)

  The fastest route to the Pikes' took me directly past Kristy's house, and I sincerely hoped she wouldn't catch sight of me and my overloaded possessions. I stared straight ahead, struggling with the bags, as if, by not looking at the Thomases' house, Kristy couldn't spot me.

  When I finally tumed onto Slate Street, the Pike kids, all eight of them, were waiting for me in their driveway.

  "Hi, Mary Anne!" they called.

  "We're ready for Kristy Day!" added Vanessa.

  "Whatever that is," said Nicky.

  "Didn't your parents explain it to you?" I asked. I'd had a long conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Pike.

  "Maybe. I don't remember."

  The kids followed me into their backyard
, where I set the bags on the patio.

  "Kristy needs some cheering up," I began. "And -"

  "Why?" interrupted Margo. "Why does she need cheering up?"

  Mallory nudged her sister. "That's none of our business," she whispered loudly.

  Margo looked unconvinced, so I said, "You know how sometimes you have a bad day? Well, Kristy has had a lot of bad days this summer, and I thought she would feel better if we made a special good day for her. Kristy Day. We can tell her how much we like her, and we can make her some presents. We're even going to have a parade for her."