Get Real (5 page)

“Take a deep breath,” I say.

Jil inhales air from the tips of her toes all the way to the top of her head, then exhales for longer than the greatest singer on earth could possibly hold a note. Finished with that, she opens her mouth and starts a run-on sentence that would give Mr. Trimble, my English teacher, convulsions. Information spews out of her in one long speed report. It's as if Jil's suddenly the star witness at some trial of the century, but with a time limit.

“Okay,” she says. “First, she wanted to know if it was really me, and I said yes, and she asked me again, and I said yes, only louder, and then she asked if my parents knew that I had called her, and I said no, and that made her kind of nervous. Major hesitation and her voice went real jittery. But then she got herself together again and asked me more stuff, and then she started talking about missing me, and loving me, and wondering about me, and I said me too, I'd been wondering about her—”

No, she didn't, I think. If she'd said “me too,” I would've heard that. She just thinks she said “me too.”

—“and she wants to meet me, but she says I
have
to tell my parents, and guess what?” She looks up at me, all excited—no more tears. “I can bring a friend. That's you, of course. And she lives about sixty miles away, in Greensboro, but we're going to meet here, in Durham, at Southpoint Mall, beside the big fountain. From there we'll pick one of those little outdoor tables, sit down, and get to know each other. Saturday, at three.”

Suddenly, I'm excited too. My parents are my parents, so I have no idea what it feels like to know that there's someone else out there who, in some ways, is more your parent than your parents, but in most ways, isn't your parent at all. That has to be weird. And Jil's happy, so I'm happy. And she's going to tell her mom and dad, who always let her do anything she wants, probably even this.

“Jil,” I say, my grin just as big as hers, “this is so awesome!”

Then I remember the part about bringing a friend. Do I want to go with her? Yes. No. Maybe.

Mostly no. I picture a scene that's super emotional. Or awkward. What if we run out of things to say?

But I can't let her go alone. What if her mother is some kind of weirdo? Would Jil be safe? Will I be safe? I'll ask the Lewises what they think. They'll know.

“When are you going to tell your parents?” I ask.

“Never,” says Jil.

*   *   *

We had a huge fight after that, and now I'm sitting in my room, the one where the plaids totally clash with the stripes, and wondering if I'm a good friend or a bad friend. I told Jil I wouldn't go to meet her mother unless she told her mom and dad about it. She said I was a wuss and a traitor, and how could I ruin the most important thing that has ever happened to her in her life?

I got mad and said, “You're crazy—you know that? You have the best parents in the whole world.”

“They're okay,” she'd said.

“Okay! Okay? Are you kidding? They're great! I would trade with you in a second.”

“So, trade,” she said.

“Yeah, right.”
I laughed. “I'd like to see you survive one day in my junky, cluttered, shoddy, shabby house.”

“It's not any of those things,” Jil sputtered. “It's comfortable.”

Was she kidding? “It's the most mega-messy house on earth!” I'd shouted.

“It feels lived in,” she answered, so calmly that it annoyed the heck out of me.

“
Your
house is elegant,” I said, irritated, but meaning every word.

“Stifling,” said Jil.

“Neat,” I argued.

“Sterile.”

I gave up then. It wasn't until I got home that I realized we'd somehow stopped comparing our parents and had begun complaining about our houses instead.

So now, I want to march back over there and explain to her how warm and friendly and loving her parents are. And she'll say mine are warm and friendly and loving too. And I'll say, “Yeah, but yours are normal. They take trips, play tennis, and vacuum. They have friends and a piano and do regular stuff. My dad quotes poetry and reads moldy books. My mother mucks around in swamps, collects dustballs the size of cows, and watches the weather channel like it's
Sex and the City.
”

But it's nine o'clock and I know my parents won't let me go back out. I don't want to call or e-mail. This needs to be face-to-face. It's that important.

So I stretch out on my bed and think about the birthday party that Jil's about-to-be-replaced parents gave her when she was ten. It was a Pixie Slumber Party, just for girls, with invitations delivered on rolled-up parchment paper printed with fancy, curly writing, tied up in satin ribbons the color of emeralds.

We all wore beautiful, slippery, soft nightgowns that Mrs. Lewis had found on sale somewhere and let us keep. As soon as the sun went down, the Lewises put real flowers in our hair, gave us magic wands, fairy flutes, and maps of Pixieland, which turned out to be Jil's uncle's farm. Three snow-white ponies led us in a procession to the top of a hill, where we swirled and danced, caught fireflies, and ate fairy berries and melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cupcakes made to look like toadstools covered in frost.

It was magic.

For
my
tenth birthday, my parents suggested I invite friends over to cut dirty raw potatoes into weird shapes, ink them, and stamp them on T-shirts. “Tater T-shirts” they called them. It was something they'd learned from their tie-dying years.

I told them about Jil's moonlit pony party, and Mom said, “Amazing.”

Dad said, “How extraordinarily whimsical. We could do something like that. Let's call it
A Midsummer Night's Dream,
and act out scenes from Shakespeare, and—”

“Potatoes will be fine,” I'd said.

*   *   *

Now, I roll over and think about going to sleep, but it's still only nine o'clock. Should I start one of my new library books?

Yesterday, after English class, I'd asked Mr. Trimble if he knew any good books about faraway, exotic places.

Jil's parents have taken her to a million cool places: New York, Hawaii, Mexico, Switzerland. My parents never go anywhere, not because they can't afford to—they can—but because they'd just rather stay home. Dad says books will take me anywhere I want to go.

Once, he gave me
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen, and it took me to England. I loved it, but I would never tell him that.

So Mr. Trimble asked me if I'd ever read Mark Twain's travel journals.

“Fiction,” I told him. “I want fiction, preferably by authors who haven't won awards and aren't famous.” What I'd meant by that was that I wanted a book a kid would like, not one a teacher would pick.

Then he asked me if I'd read any Batchelder Award books, and I answered, “Never heard of them,” and he said, “Try them. They're set in foreign countries. It's an award for great books that have been translated into English but were originally published in another language.”

It still sounded suspiciously teacherly to me, but since I was never going to get to Italy or Africa or China any other way, I decided to give one a try.

I creep over to my bookshelf and stare at the three books I'd picked. I'd chosen three, not because I thought I'd actually read three books in the two weeks before they'd be due back at the library, but because if I hated the first one, I'd have a couple of spares to fall back on.

Carefully, I pull out
Samir and Yonatan.
I like to arrange my books from tallest to shortest so they look neat on the shelf. The flap says it's about an Israeli boy and a Palestinian boy who become friends in spite of their differences. What I do not need right now is a book about tough friendships. I slide it back into its slot.

The other two are
The Thief Lord,
which sounds exciting and takes place in Venice, and
The Shadows of Ghadames,
which sounds like it might be boring, until I read the front flap again and remember that it's about a girl who wants to travel with her father but she's stuck at home because girls in her country aren't allowed to go anywhere, not even out their front doors. The only way she even gets to see the city that she lives in is from her rooftop.

I pull it out from the shelf, then slide all the other books over to fill in the gap. Clearly, here is a girl with problems worse than mine. I decide to read it, hoping she'll get to travel after all, and I'll discover how she manages it. And because I want to know what an African city in Libya looks like from a rooftop.

By the time I read two chapters, I decide that I need to be stronger.

Tomorrow, when Jil calls and says,
Dez, you have to help me,
for the first time in my life, I'm going to say no.

Chapter Seven

I feel like such a fool.

Jil did call, just like I knew she would. And begged me to go with her to the mall to meet her mother. I said, “Not unless you tell your parents.”

At the time, saying that had made me feel great, in spite of the fact that I could be losing Jil's friendship forever.
And
access to normal parents and a piano.

But I thought I might be saving her from a possible psycho. And keeping her from hurting her parents. I also figured she would never go alone.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

She went. And guess what? Her mom's a perfectly nice person. No knife hidden in her purse. No crazy twitching or babbling. Just a small woman with blond hair like Jil's.

And
when she got home, Jil told her parents everything.

And
according to Jil, they weren't hurt at all.

I wonder if that's true.

Anyway, she was so excited that she even forgave me for being a jerk. She called later that night, just to tell me how great her new mom was. And that she was short, just like her. They even had the same blue eyes.

“Dez!” Jil had exclaimed. “She looks like me! And guess what? I've got a sister! A half sister. She's ten and her name is Penny and her nose turns up just like mine. We haven't met yet, but I saw her picture.”

I figure the main reason she ended up telling her parents was because she wanted to spend the night with Mom-2 and meet the new sister, and no way could she invent a good enough plan to pull that off without her usual accomplice—me.

“What do you call her?” I asked.

“Mom.”

“What do you call your old mom?”

“Mom.”

“Doesn't that get confusing?”

“Not to me.”

I hesitated, not sure I should bring up the next thing on my mind. “Was your dad there?” I asked anyway.

“He's gone. Split for Alaska or somewhere before I was even born.” Jil said this as calmly as she might have mentioned that they happened to be out of bananas.

“Does Penny have a dad?” I asked in a way that I hoped sounded concerned, because I was concerned.

“He died.”

“Oh.”

What I really wanted to hear were details about how her parents had taken all this great news, because, no matter what Jil claimed, I imagined them pretty hurt.

“What'd your parents say?” I whispered. I hadn't meant to whisper, but somehow my words slipped out that way.

“They were supportive!” exclaimed Jil, excited again. “Super supportive, even,” she added.

I pictured her cradling the phone between her shoulder and her ear so that she could extend her hands out, fingers spread in convincing celebration. Did I believe her? I wanted to, because the thought of the Lewises being sad or hurt made my throat ache.

“They want me to be happy, Dez! They understand that I need to know.”

“That's great, Jil!” Maybe it
was
true. I was amazed. So amazed that I blurted, “But aren't they really mad at Mom-2?”

“Who? What? Dez! Don't call her that.”

“Sorry,” I apologized. “I didn't mean anything bad by that, honest. But, hey! I've got to call her
something.
How will you know who I'm talking about?”

“Oh,” said Jil, then proudly added, “Jane.”

“Jane?”

“That's her name. Jane Simmons. But ‘Mrs. Simmons' sounds wrong somehow. Too proper. So call her Jane.”

I hate it when you can't see a person's face, but Jil sounded as if she were relaxed and smiling again, so I took a chance and repeated my original question. “Okay. It's Jane. But, Jil, don't your parents want to strangle her?”

She laughed.

I relaxed and resumed breathing.

“No. Because I let them know how she'd refused to meet me unless I told them. I confessed that I'd lied to get her to come to the mall.”

“And they're okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

“They're fine, Dez. Honest. They met and talked with Mom. They're going to let me visit her.”

“They should win the Parents of the Year Award. You know that, don't you?”

“I guess.”

“You
guess
!?” Now
I
was annoyed.

“Dez, don't start.”

“Sorry. Can I go with you sometime?”

“I think for a while it should just be me. Okay?”

“Sure.”

*   *   *

So I had stuck to what I thought was right for
nothing.
Everything turned out fine, and I missed meeting her mom. For
nothing.

I can't wait to meet Jane. And Penny.

Jil can't stop talking about how cool they are. Jane lets her stay up late, put sugar on Cocoa Puffs, and she and Penny hang out at the mall all day.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Lewis is teaching me to play the piano. I can go there and practice, even when Jil's not home. So everybody's happy.