13 Gifts

by Wendy Mass

  “Not exactly,” I reply. “Mom? Maybe you’d like to tell him what it is?”

  She drops down onto her knees, right on the grass.

  “Molly!” Dad says, rushing to her side. “Are you all right?”

  “Where did you get that?” she asks. Her voice sounds like it’s coming through a very long tube. “Did Polly give it to you?”

  “I don’t actually know her name,” I tell her.

  “Long brown hair? Very pretty? Probably hates me?”

  I nod. “That’s her.”

  “Your old friend from school?” Dad asks, kneeling beside her. “I know you two fell out of touch, but why would she hate you?”

  Mom looks at him, her eyes bleak. “You never noticed that we stopped talking once you and I started dating?” He shrugs. “Not particularly.”

  She stares at him for a minute, then rolls her eyes in my direction, as though I’m supposed to commiserate with her on the cluelessness of guys. I don’t show any expression, and she stares back down at the grass.

  “I knew one day we’d have to have this conversation,” she says. “It might as well be now. My guilt has only been getting worse.”

  Dad reaches out to take her hand. Now I roll my eyes. Wait till he hears that he only wants to comfort and love her because she tricked him into it.

  “Whatever it is, Molly, you can tell us,” he says.

  She gently pulls her hand away from his, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. “One day, back in eighth grade, I was at Polly’s house after school. I overheard her grandmother on the phone, bragging about how her granddaughter was about to snag a boy. I remember she said good genes run in that family. They’re tall and sturdy. Good stock.”

  The corners of my mouth twitch at that one, but I quickly stop myself.

  “Anyway, she said how Polly had bought something from Angelina D’Angelo. A love potion.” She cringes as she says the words, unwilling to even look in Dad’s direction. He starts to laugh, but Mom’s story is about to get a lot less funny. “I knew exactly who Polly would be using it on, and I knew exactly where she’d have hidden it. A few days later, I snuck in when I knew no one would be home — no one locked their doors in Willow Falls back then. Probably still don’t. Anyway, I took the bottle.”

  At this point in the story, Dad looks down at the bottle he’s still holding. “This?”

  She nods miserably. “Then at the eighth-grade dance, I brought the boy I liked a cup of juice and he drank it.” She pauses here and waits for Dad to catch up. I watch as realization dawns on him, slowly at first, then with a sudden burst of understanding.

  “Me?” he asks, letting the bottle slip from his grip onto the grass.

  Mom bites her lip and forces herself to look at him. “Saying I’m sorry doesn’t cut it, I know. I couldn’t risk Polly snagging you.”

  He rocks back on his heels. “Polly liked me?”

  She nods. “And I knew you liked her. And I trapped you into a lifetime of loving someone you didn’t want to love. At first, when we were young, it didn’t bother me much. Then as we got older, and Tara came along, the guilt started to eat away at me. What right did I have to play with people’s lives like that?”

  No one answers her. She reaches out for me and tries to pull me down. I stay standing. She sighs and says, “But on top of all that, and maybe the worst part, is that Angelina knew I’d taken it. She chaperoned the dance that night, and she saw me pour the purple liquid into a cup. She didn’t try to stop me, or to make me pay her for the potion, but she warned me that if we had a child one day, that child would pay the price of my betrayal.”

  My knees buckle and I join them in the grass. “What?”

  “She said that when our child turned thirteen, he or she would have to come work for her to pay off my debt. Alone. I agreed, because when you’re thirteen, how can you even conceive of having your own child? It seemed a lifetime away.”

  I place both hands on the ground, willing myself not to topple over.

  Mom grips Dad’s leg. “That’s why I didn’t want to come back here after college. I thought if we moved away, Angelina would forget about all this. And for a year or two, I put it behind me as we settled into our life. Soon Tara was born. I was so in love with this baby, I actually congratulated myself on stealing the potion. Otherwise I wouldn’t have her.

  “I had one month of pure joy with the man that I loved and the baby who I treasured more than anything on the planet, until a silver rattle arrived from Willow Falls. The card inside the gift box said simply, Looking forward to meeting Tara in thirteen years.

  “So we moved again. And again, she found us. So we just kept moving. I always made sure our phone number was unlisted. I made sure our address wasn’t online anywhere. I tried to keep Tara close, never letting her be with strangers, always making sure I knew where she was and how to reach her. But somehow, Angelina kept tracking us down. I thought we’d finally shaken her this last time, but then that telegram arrived and —”

  Dad sits up straight. “That wasn’t about your job?”

  Mom shakes her head. “It was my final warning. Tara was almost thirteen and it was time to pay my debt. But how was I supposed to get her to go to a place we’d never even taken her before? And to send her alone, when I’d barely let her out of my sight for thirteen years? I called Bethany — who of course knows nothing about the love potion, or my arrangement with Angelina — and she said she’d love to have her for the summer. So that was a relief. Then I booked the train, since she had to arrive alone. But I still had no idea what explanation to give.” She turns to me. “And then you handed me the solution on a silver platter. You got suspended from school. So I bumped up the dates with Bethany and told her you’d had a bit of trouble and would be arriving early. I changed the train, and, well, here you are.”

  My whole body is literally shaking with disbelief and shock at all the things she’d kept hidden for so many years. Out of all the things she just told me, one shines like a beacon through the thick web of lies. “So it was you? You’re the reason I’m here in Willow Falls?”

  Mom doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. “I can’t believe it!” I cry out. “She was right after all!” The last thing I want to do is laugh, but I can’t help it. It’s just all so crazy.

  “What’s funny about this?” Mom asks. “Who was right about what?”

  “Angelina! She said after the play I’d find out why I was here, in Willow Falls. I told her I knew exactly why, but she said I didn’t. Guess she was right about that!” Then I fall silent again. The whole story doesn’t make sense. Angelina didn’t come find me and make me do work for her. I was the one who went into her shop. I think back to the order of things. The chain of events started because I needed money. If I’d kept the money my parents had given me, I wouldn’t have needed to sell anything. But how could Angelina be sure I’d need money? There was only one person who had the opportunity to take my wallet. She was short, she was wide, and she wore a ton of makeup that would cover any blemishes or birthmarks shaped like talking animals. How could I not have seen it before? “The woman on the train!”

  Mom nods miserably. “I almost fainted when I saw her. It took a few seconds to recognize her under all that makeup and the dark wig.”

  “Wait,” Dad says, “you’re talking about the woman with the first-class ticket?”

  “She stole my money!” I say, in amazement. I didn’t lose it after all. Or my phone, or Mom’s iPod! “That’s how she got me into her store. She made it seem like it was my choice, when it never was.”

  “Tara, I’m so incredibly sorry about everything. I know I’ve disrupted your life over and over with the moves, and by being so overprotective. But I love you so much and I only wanted to keep us all together. Has your time here been awful?” Mom cringes in anticipation of my answer.

  I consider telling her yes, but what good would that do? “It was really hard in the beginning. But I made some good friends, and that m
ade it better.”

  Her whole body relaxes. It relaxes to the point that tears start pouring down her face. “You can’t imagine how relieved I am to hear that.”

  “Well, then,” Dad says, wiping away Mom’s tears with his giant hand, “you’re going to be relieved to hear this, too. Polly was a nice girl, and pretty of course, as you said. But I only liked her because she gave me her math homework.”

  In between gasps of breath, she asks, “Really? You’re not just saying that?”

  “I’m not just saying that,” he says.

  She attempts a smile, but it slips away. She looks down at the grass again and waits until she can get her tears under control. Then she says, “I’m glad I didn’t make you lose out on being with Polly. But there’s still no excuse for what I did. And don’t say you love me in spite of it, because that’s just the love potion talking. We’ll never know if you ever would have loved me without it.”

  “That’s true,” he says. “If I actually drank it.”

  “What?” we both yell.

  “I was a thirteen-year-old boy! You think I’m going to be seen at a dance drinking bright purple juice? It would stain my teeth! I was trying to impress the ladies.”

  “But … but I saw you drink it!”

  “You saw me take it, then you saw me point out the full moon, then you saw me drink an empty cup.”

  “But … what happened to the potion?”

  He shrugs. “I poured it into the fountain.”

  Now it’s Mom’s turn to have the full-body shakes. She actually looks like she’s convulsing. Dad and I both reach out to her and she collapses in our arms, sobbing. I start crying, too, and Dad joins in. We’re crying so hard that I don’t register the opening and closing of car doors until Uncle Roger says, “Now, that’s what I call a family reunion!”

  The three of us look at each other and start laughing so hard we start crying all over again.

  After I change my tear-soaked clothes, I stand in front of the bathroom mirror. There’s no denying it. I feel different. I even look different. My dark eyes have more depth to them, like I can see further inside, and further outside, too. Knowing the true story of my life — and my mom’s life — changes everything. My anger’s gone; I think I cried it all out. All that’s left is the understanding of what Mom tried to do for me for all those years. And it’s nice to know that she wasn’t always so perfect — far from it. I might have tried to steal a stuffed goat, but she stole her best friend’s future husband!

  Aunt Bethany stores some of her extra makeup in the medicine cabinet, and for the first time in my life, I think it might be nice to put some on. After watching Bettie, I know what to do. Or I thought I did, until the mascara winds up on my nose instead of my eyelashes. I wash everything off except for the shimmery lip gloss that makes my lips feel really soft.

  Mom’s waiting for me in the hall when I get out. She’s wearing fresh clothes, too. Her face is still very blotchy. She lifts my arm so that the red bracelet slips down a little toward my elbow.

  “I thought that looked familiar,” she says.

  “What, this old thing? I’ve had this forever.”

  She smiles. “Have you, now?”

  “Okay, it’s yours. I found them when I was looking for jewelry for Aunt Bethany. Emily had the other one but then I had to trade it … actually, it was for the bottle. Polly took it.”

  She looks alarmed. “Polly?”

  I nod. “She saw it on Emily’s wrist and asked for it.”

  “Huh,” Mom says, letting my arm fall. “I wonder what to make of that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They used to be ours. Mine and Polly’s. They were friendship bracelets. After the, ah, incident, she slipped hers into my locker.”

  I shrug. “I’m sure she didn’t know it was the same one. She doesn’t know I’m your daughter.”

  Mom’s eyes fill with tears again. “It was terrible what I did to her. And she wasn’t the only one who lost out; I lost my best friend. How many of those does someone get in a lifetime? Not many, I’ll tell you. That’s why I always tried to tell you how important friendship is.” She sighs. “I know moving so much didn’t give you much of a chance to find that out.”

  “Hey, if it makes you feel better,” I tell her, “Polly doesn’t hate you anymore. She said once she got married and had Sara, that she —”

  “Wait, what? She has a daughter named Sara?”

  “Yes. She’s four years old, I think.”

  “I can’t believe it,” she says, and the tears spring back again. But this time she’s smiling, too. “When we were little girls we loved it that our names rhymed. We promised when we had our own daughters we would name them rhyming names, too.” She laughs. “And we did!”

  “That’s really weird.”

  “What a strange coincidence,” she says, shaking her head.

  “There are no coincidences in Willow Falls,” I tell her.

  She smiles. “Maybe not.” Then she says, “What’s that? Is someone singing?”

  I listen for a second, and then I hear it, too. I motion her back into the bathroom with me and we look out the window. “It’s David, in the pool hole. His bar mitzvah is tomorrow, and he likes to practice down there.”

  “It’s really beautiful,” she says, opening the window wider.

  I step next to her and look out. “I know.”

  She turns to look at me. I can see her smiling from out of the corner of my eye, but I don’t turn. “The lip gloss looks pretty,” she says.

  I smile. We stand there listening for a few more minutes. As great as he was in the play today, it still doesn’t compare to how he sounds in the backyard. It’s too bad the bar mitzvah isn’t outside. And then it hits me! Why can’t the bar mitzvah be outside? Could I possibly pull it off in time? “Mom, I have to go make some calls, okay?”

  “Of course,” she says, closing her eyes as David slides effortlessly into Shalom Rav.

  Emily has changed out of her costume and is already back at her desk like she didn’t just star in a play and have a Broadway producer invite her to audition. I have to laugh. “That was fast.”

  She turns around and I laugh again. She hasn’t taken off any of her stage makeup. She grins at me. “I’m planning on keeping it on for the bar mitzvah tomorrow and the premiere.”

  “I don’t think it works that way,” I tell her. “You’d have to sleep sitting up!”

  “It’s not like I haven’t done that before.”

  “True! Hey, I know you and Rory and Amanda were planning something for my birthday tonight, but I have another idea….”

  It’s almost eight o’clock by the time we pull into Apple Grove. The sun is still lingering above the horizon, turning everything grainy, like a sheet of gauze is stretched over the world. Emily climbs out of the backseat easily, only because she’s used to it and knows the best angles. Dad turns off the engine. “A thing of beauty,” he says, stroking the dashboard.

  “You heard what Uncle Roger said. Don’t get too attached.”

  He sighs.

  “Are you sure you can get out?”

  He had to move the seat back as far as it would go in order to fit in the first place. Mom took Aunt Bethany’s SUV to Polly’s house. She said she was going to stop at the diner first to get bubblegum ice cream to bring with her. Apparently the smiley-face tradition started with them.

  Dad tries three times before he figures out how to shift his body in the right position in order to get out of the tiny sports car.

  “Jimmy!” Rory’s dad calls out, striding over to us. They shake hands, then embrace.

  “Wow,” Rory says, “your dad’s tall!”

  “Yup.” I look around the grove while the men slap each other on the back. “Where’s Amanda?”

  Rory points to the end of the row of trees. Amanda is kneeling behind the last tree, which is also the largest tree. And by large, I mean it’s taller than my waist, but not as tall as my
shoulders. “It’s impossible for her to be here without tending to her trees,” she explains.

  “Hey, Tara,” Dad says. “Did I ever tell you I used to be in a band?”

  “Some other time, okay, Dad?” I pull Rory away and we run over to Emily, who is climbing on top of what I can only assume is a huge stack of folding chairs. I lift the blue tarp. Yup, folding chairs!

  “All of these fit in the back of your dad’s truck?” I ask, looking over my shoulder at the truck with the words A PUZZLE A DAY KEEPS THE BLUES AWAY printed on the side.

  “We took two trips. And Leo’s dad dropped off the podium. He snagged it from the conference room at his office.” She points to a large wooden podium, which looks like it will be big enough to hold all the things David will need. Before we drove out here, I’d checked online to see what you need for an outdoor bar mitzvah, and learned there has to be a Torah, a rabbi, ten people over the age of thirteen, and something called a tallit, which I found out is like a white shawl with fringes that the bar mitzvah boy wears, and a yarmulke, which is that little round hat like a beanie that I know David has because he wears it sometimes when he’s practicing. The ten people part is easy, and I’m assuming the rabbi will have all the other stuff.

  Amanda comes over and hands a rake to each of us. “This is for loose grass, dirt, things like that. I wish we had time to plant more grass….”

  “It’s going to be fine,” I promise her. “Once the chairs are out and the podium’s set up, and we’ve cleaned the fountain, and the lights are on the trees, no one will notice the ground.”

  “Still,” she says, her face crinkling with concern. “I want it to look perfect for Bee Boy.”

  “Hamburglar,” Rory and Emily insist.

  “David!” I exclaim.

  “David’s a boring name,” Amanda says, “it’s Bee —”

  “No, I mean David’s here!”

  They whirl around and we all watch in horror as David strolls up the path from the mall. I can see his mom’s car parked in the closest parking lot, which is where all the guests will park tomorrow. I had tried to call her before we left the house to tell her our plan, but there was no answer. David sees us and stops short in surprise. Then he hurries over. “What’s going on? What are you guys doing here?”