Counting Thyme (15 page)

I caught up to Lizzie in the hall. She wasn't crying, but she was close to it. When I tried to talk to her, she ran into the girls' bathroom and hid in one of the stalls.

“Don't listen to them,” I said from the other side of the door. “They're just being jerks.”

She sniffled. “That's not it.”

“Look, they can be mad all they want, but it's not like Mr. Calhoun already gave Emily the part. He just said she had a great shot. Maybe he says that to everyone.”

There was a long pause. Then Lizzie said, “They're right, you know. Emily's the one who belongs onstage. I can't sing like her.”

“Who says you can't?”

“Well, Rebeccah, for one.”

“She's just kissing up to Emily. She'll make the best Wicked Witch of all time, but trust me, she's a total jerk. She'd say anything to make Emily happy.”

I heard Lizzie sigh. “She didn't go to school with us before. But when we got here, everything changed. She's around all the time now. This is so stupid. I should just tell them I'm not doing it. I can't sing in front of other people like that, anyway.”

There was no one else in the bathroom, which gave me an idea. “Try it,” I said. “Sing something for me right now.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Well, you can't just hide in there all day. Let me hear what you can do. I bet you're great.” I hadn't planned on saying any of that. It just came out.

The door opened slowly. Lizzie pushed her glasses into place. “Are you serious?”

“Why not?” I walked over to the bathroom door and leaned against it so that no one could come in. “It's just us. Go for it, and I'll tell you if you should try out for the show.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears and pressed her hands against the sides of her head for a second. Then she shut her eyes and started singing. It was the same song that Emily and Rebeccah had sung in the cafeteria—“We're Off to See the Wizard”—and yet it wasn't the same song at all. Lizzie started out quiet, but when she hit the word
because
—
because, because, because
 . . .
because of the wonderful things he does
—the notes stretched out and filled up. Her voice turned the bathroom into a concert hall. I could see Dorothy skipping down the yellow brick road. It was like I was there.

She sang the final line, and the word
Oz
hung in the air. Then she opened her eyes. Her hands were shaking as she adjusted her glasses.

“That was amazing,” I said, and she blushed so hard, her freckles disappeared.

She shook her head. “It's just the acoustics in here. The way the ceiling curves would make anyone sound great.”

I laughed. “That is so not true. Forget Emily and Rebeccah. I think you should do it.”

“I want to,” she said, although she looked almost sick at the idea.

“Then it's settled. You're trying out.”

She finally smiled, and we walked back to class together.

SOMETHING NEW

ON MY WAY OUT OF THE BUILDING THAT AFTERNOON, I FELT A
tap on my shoulder. It was Jake. “Hey,” he said as kids streamed past us.

“Hey.” I'd seen him during the day, but I hadn't known what to say after our talk at Emily's party.

“Can I show you something?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

He led me back around the corner and opened the door to the music room. It was empty, except for the rows of chairs circling the piano. Our footsteps echoed, which reminded me of walking into a hospital late at night. Big and open and strangely quiet without people around.

“Hold on,” he said. Then he ran to the back of the room, opened a storage locker, and came back with a sleek black case under his arm. Inside was a glossy guitar with a swirly red-and-brown body. He lifted the guitar.

“Hold on,” he said again, as though I might vanish any second. Little did he know, I was so nervous, my feet felt glued to the floor, like I was in one of those dreams where you can't walk no matter how hard you try.

He strummed once. Twice. Then he played a short song, no longer than a minute. The notes were soft, the rhythm quick and even. It made me think of Dad playing blues records back home.

When Jake finished, he set the guitar back in the case.

“That was great,” I said, because obviously I should say something. He'd played a song for me. It occurred to me that maybe he had
written
the song for me, and my mouth dried up.

“You think?”

“Yeah, I really do.”

He smiled. “Cool. It's a cover of a famous song. Well, a cover of a cover, technically. My dad used to play this song a lot, too. This is his guitar. I brought it in so I could practice to surprise my mom.”

His mom.
The truth was a mix of relief and disappointment, along with a fresh wave of embarrassment at being disappointed. Luckily, Jake didn't seem to notice me blushing away. He was running his fingers over the guitar. As I watched him, I thought of how his father had probably touched that same wood a million times. It seemed impossible that someone could just die one day and never come back.

“She's going to love it,” I said. “My mom loves homemade gifts, and that's way better than any clay dish I've ever made.”

“I bet you do all right,” he said, and I explained how I really had absolutely no touch when it came to forming clay into useful objects. Mine always came out tortured.

He put the guitar away, and we walked out together.
Thankfully, when Mrs. Ravelli saw us, she became very interested in the bushes next to the steps.

“See ya,” Jake said. Then he bounded down the steps and headed in the opposite direction. But at the corner, he turned around and waved good-bye.

On the way home, Mrs. Ravelli fixed a sharp eye on me. “I see you have a new friend, yes?”

“Sort of.” I dodged a pile of flattened cardboard outside of a bodega, which I'd learned meant corner market. They were like grocery stores combined with delis, only in a fraction of the space. We were on our way to a drugstore near the subway. Mom had asked Mrs. Ravelli to grab some toilet paper. Leave it to Ravioli to have a favorite place to buy
toilet paper
, specifically.

“
Vai, bambina,
” Mrs. Ravelli said, and I slowed down. She placed her gloved hand on my arm. “It is not easy, being new,” she said. “Many years ago, when I was a girl, not as young as you, but still a girl, I was new. New to New York. To the country.”

She waved her hand at the stores, the street, the sky. “All of this, it was new. And so I know what I am talking about, you see. I know.” She patted my arm. “You do good, Thyme. Is important to make friends. And a handsome one at that.” Her eyes twinkled, and I thought I would die of embarrassment.

“Soon, new friends are old friends,” she said. “Then you are not so new anymore.”

She meant well, but the idea settled strangely in my mind.
With every person I helped, with every conversation I had, I was making ties. Ties to school. To New York. That wasn't what I wanted, but it was happening anyway.

We walked past a smooth mound of untouched snow. There were little patches like that here and there along the streets, perfectly intact, as though everyone in the city had agreed to save them. The sun cut through the clouds, and the snow transformed into a beautiful, diamond-crusted slope. I ran my mitten across the surface, leaving a blobby trail behind.

“Wow. It's so sparkly.”

“New York, she is beautiful in the winter,” Mrs. Ravelli said, and I looked at the street. Though the road was gray with tire tracks and slush, the trees above were still edged in white. The streetlights, the signs, the awnings lining the storefronts—everything was dusted with a fine coating of snow, like powdered sugar. As though New York had transformed into Candy Land overnight.

“It's hard. Everything is so different here,” I said. Although I could've said everything is so different
now
. Things hadn't really been the same since Val's diagnosis. Everything had changed. Not just where I lived.

“Yes. Yes, it is all very, very different,” Mrs. Ravelli said. “For me, it was the food. No one knows how to cook a good
paste
here!” She winged her arms this way and that, as though this was the biggest travesty ever.
Paste
was Italian for pasta. It sounded like
poss-tay
. And Mrs. Ravelli took her
paste
seriously. “Still. I tell you. The people, they told me, go to Little Italy. You will see. There, they make good
paste
. But no! Is
no good. That is why I make for you,” she said, touching her finger to my cheek. “You must make for your own, Thyme. Don't wait for nobody else. You make for yourself, and it will be the best.”

That sounded nice, but I wondered if it was possible. Could I really just make life the way I wanted it to be? Did that mean cashing in my time slips and heading home? Or could it mean something else, like the warm feeling that tugged at my heart when Lizzie smiled at me. That wasn't a feeling I wanted. But it was there, beneath everything else—the promise of something new.

We turned the corner, and the sweet, burnt smell of nuts greeted us. That's when I saw the purple robe up ahead. As we got closer, I knew it was him.

Mr. Lipinsky was on the sidewalk, looking up at the bus sign. And he wasn't wearing a coat, even though it was so cold, my hands were going numb inside my mittens. Mrs. Ravelli spotted him, too, and made a beeline to the bus stop. She touched his arm to get his attention.

“I was looking for the 101,” Mr. Lipinsky said. But according to the map on the sign, the M15 stopped on our block, not the M101. “Jerry's not doing so hot.” I thought of all the mail we got, for a Jerry Richards.

“They said to take the 101 . . . I swear it stopped here.” He waved a hand dismissively at the sign. “They didn't make this all so confounding back in my day.”

“Let us help you home,” Mrs. Ravelli said, reaching for his arm.

He pulled back. “I don't need your help. I need to see my friend.” He looked around like he was confused about where he was.

“I see.” Mrs. Ravelli lifted her bags. “Then perhaps you help me, yes?”

Mr. Lipinsky's brows pinched together, but he couldn't say no. Not to Mrs. Ravelli.

We walked to our building together, with Mr. Lipinsky grumbling about bus schedules the whole way. But when we got to his apartment, he unlocked the door and led us inside without another word.

Mr. Lipinsky's apartment was like a museum. In addition to the Broadway posters, the walls were covered with framed Playbills and tickets stubs. There was even a feathered headdress in a big glass case. His floor plan was exactly the same as our apartment upstairs, but with all of the theater stuff everywhere, it was a whole other world.

Mrs. Ravelli got him settled into a worn leather chair in the living room and waved me over. “Talk to him while I fix the tea. It will make him happy.”

I wasn't so sure about that, but I sat on the edge of a wooden chair opposite Mr. Lipinsky anyway and listened to him complain about his home being invaded, while his bird squawked in response. She was sitting on a perch inside a giant domed cage in front of the windows. The cage had to be at least five feet across, with bells and toys tied to the bars here and there. When Mr. Lipinsky stopped talking for
a minute, the bird flew across the cage, wrapped its talons around the brass bars, and stared at me like she was waiting for something.

“Let her out,” he ordered.

“What?”

He waved his hand at the cage. “It's a simple lever, on the door there.”

I looked at the door, which was two feet tall and easy enough to open. If you wanted to.

“Don't be a ninny,” Mr. Lipinsky said. “She needs her exercise.” Then he looked right at me, his gray eyes sharp again, though his white hair was as messy as ever. “Please,” he said. Or at least I think that's what he said. The word was so soft, I might've imagined it, but the idea that he may have asked nicely was enough.

I walked over to the cage. “Easy, girl.”

Mr. Lipinsky grunted. “Her name is Sylvie.”

“Hey, Sylvie,” I said, and the bird surprised me by whistling, loud and clear.

“Where did she learn to whistle like that?”

“My wife taught her. Now quit stalling and let her out.”

I pulled the latch, and the bird launched through the door. I ducked on reflex, like that could possibly save me from being attacked. Next to me, Mr. Lipinsky made a weird coughing sound. I opened my eyes and saw that he was laughing.

“Sylvie,” he called, and the bird landed on his arm. “Sylvie, this is . . .” He raised his eyebrows at me.

“Thyme. With an H-Y.”

He nodded. “This is Thyme,” he said to the bird, who cocked her head at the sound of his voice. He looked at me. “Thyme, this is Sylvie. If you hold out your arm, she'll fly to you.”

“Maybe next time.”