Husky (6 page)

At one point she looks over and says, “Hey, we're all going over to Ellen's tomorrow, will you come with?” I don't answer, because at first I don't know if she's talking to me. But when I figure it out, I say of course. I have to go. I have to try, don't I? If there isn't any us stuff, what else can I do?

By the time I get up the next morning, Ellen has messaged me at least four
HELP!
s and one
please
. She doesn't want Allegra around either, but I guess she's trying to make an effort for Sophie. I see the messages, but I don't answer. I don't know if I want to go. I keep thinking of what to type back, and then stop. Then she says Hannah asked if I was coming. That's just mean. She knows I can never say no to Hannah ever. Ellen's the worst. The Worst Evah. So now I have to go.

Ellen knows I'll want Hannah there because I'll need a buffer. She has her friend Charlie from soccer camp. Charlie is a nice guy, I guess, but he doesn't really say much, so it's sort of hard to tell. He seems nice and he's almost always smiling. He smiles a lot at me. Everything I
say to him is super funny, funnier than I ever even thought it would be. I never get why Charlie hangs around with Ellen. They're total opposites. Also, Charlie's crazy tall now. In the last few months he grew at least a foot. So now it looks like he's babysitting Ellen when they're around together. He bends his really long neck and listens to all the mean things she barks out the side of her mouth, and smiles and nods. He's the perfect buffer.

Ellen messages again. Charlie asked if I was coming. I guess I am, so I type,
YES
. All Caps. See, Ellen, I can be mean like you. At least on the Internet. 

I need to take a shower. Music today. I'm going to take my time.

After the shower, I get dressed a lot slower than I would any other day. Nanny doesn't even scream up the stairs to tell me to get on with it, and I know she's there, because I hear Jock's TV blasting. She maybe saw how sad I was after Sophie left yesterday, and she's letting me slide along. I could even stay in bed. Maybe I should.

It would be a lot easier.

I'm sitting in my underwear, trying to pick something to wear, but nothing looks right. Not even the new stuff we just bought. Nothing fits the way I want it to, I have nothing to impress Allegra with. Or to even get her not to hate me. Nothing makes me into someone who'd impress Allegra. And I need to, because Allegra, as a popular girl, is somebody who decides adjectives. She's cool and rich, and people know who she is. Not everyone, but most, and most want to either be around her or be like her on their own. Being a
Cool
girl gets you that sort of power. And I'm scared of it. Nothing is working, and I'm starting to sweat.

By eleven, I still don't have socks on and there's a pile of clothes on my floor of every failed outfit. I'm supposed to be at Ellen's by twelve. In Brooklyn in August, it gets too hot to think. You have to wear a uniform of simple and breezy stuff or you'll sweat your face off. And I can't sweat today, I need to be a perfectly nice and funny friend to Sophie. Someone who should definitely be invited to Sophie's birthday makeover. Allegra decides that too.

So I put on extra, extra deodorant, just in case.

When I step through the door, up the stairs comes Nanny's booming voice.

“Ducks, don't you need to be dressed by now? The day's wasting away down here.” I knew it was too good to be true. There's only so much time she would let me waste.

“I'm getting a shower,” I yell back down.

“You've already had one. Now, enough is enough!” Nanny yells back up, but I make it to the bathroom before I can hear the rest.
Enough is not nearly enough when my word could get decided today or I could lose my best friend
, I think with a thousand other awful thoughts as I turn on the water.

I stand in the shower for a long time, thinking about things I should do, or say, who I can be other than myself. How can I make both of them happy? Can Ellen even be happy? It's going to be a big balance that's already getting me nervous. Ellen's not going to handle it well if I'm super nice to Allegra or if I try too hard with her. I know we don't like her, but Ellen knows about adjectives, she's the
one who told me, and she knows how important it is. The water isn't helping.

I have to do something. I'll go to the bakery and get cupcakes and take them over. That's how I'll get Allegra to like me right off and not seem fake to Ellen, because my mom owns the bakery, so of course I'll bring something. It's a nice thing to say sorry for being so late. By the time I get out of the shower and get dressed there're another six messages from Ellen. Three
Where are you
s, two
Get here now
s, and one solid row of exclamation points. And even one actually from Hannah. But I need to head to the bakery and decide what to bring, then go the eleven blocks back over to Ellen's. I definitely will be late and Ellen definitely will be mad. But the cupcakes will help. They'll have to.

I quick-ride my bike down to Sweet Jane because by the time I get everything together, I'll be really late. I'm almost an hour late right now. But riding my bike fast will definitely make me sweat. When I get into Sweet Jane, the air is on, and it's super cold and nice inside, I may have to stay for a bit to chill.

Jules says, “H-ey,” from behind the counter without lifting her head. I ask her if I can make up a box of stuff to take to my friends. She looks at me, almost as if she doesn't think it's really me at first, but then looks down again and says, “I gu-e-ess.” She folds me a pink box for cookies and cupcakes. I go around to the back of the counter and start pulling things from the display, but she stops me with a look.

“He-ey, you've really got to wear a gl-ove when you do that.” Jule looks at her shoes. “Or at le-ast, like, wash your ha-ands.”

“Sorry, Jules,” I say slowly as I reach for the box of rubber gloves.

Chocolate chip cookies, everybody loves them, and a lemon bar, yes, and sugar cookies in different colors, sprinkles make everything look better. And then cupcakes: one for me, Ellen, Charlie, Sophie, Allegra, and Hannah. That'll be nice. That's six, which is a lot, but it's how many I need. A woman at the counter sees me and says, “Those aren't all for you, I hope,” smiling at me, or making what she must think is a smile but is really
more a crimpled-up mouth. It's that smile that's trying to be sweet in the face of something gross. And I think that something gross is me.

“No, I'm going to a friend's house.” And I think that's that, right?

But Crimple Lady starts in again with, “On a day like today? It's beautiful out. You and your friends should be outside. We're not going to have too many of these days left.” And she crimples her mouth again as she pays Jules for her coffee and chocolate croissant. “When I was a kid, we were always outside. You could never make us go inside.” She laughs, and then goes back to her crimple face.

I wish that were still true, I wish she would never come in here. Mrs. Crimples thinks she's being nice and trying to get me to have a good time with the few days of summer I have left before I go back to school, but her crimple is there to let me know that that's not all. She's looking at me and saying to herself,
I bet that fat kid is going to go and eat every cookie in that box and five of those cupcakes easily before he even makes it to his “friend's” house. And Friends! What
Friends? Who likes fat kids anyway? Nobody. Nobody likes fat, lazy kids who eat too much and stay inside, because just being outside in the summer makes them sweat and wheeze through their fat little chocolate-covered mouths
. That's the crimple, and that's the crimple smile. This Crimple Lady thinks she is saving my life, my lonely fat-kid life. And I hate it.

I close the lid of the box and tie it off, both of which Mom has taught me to do really well, so well that now the lady sort of feels like I might work here or something, and that I'm not just some sugar-junkie fat kid. But she can't help herself or her crimple and again she says, “Well, it's a beautiful day, you should get out and enjoy it.”

And I don't know why, honest, because I have never let anything like this slip before, but I say, out loud, “You first.”

Jules's eyes bug out and she laughs like I've never heard her laugh. And the lady sort of fixes her neck and walks out the door with a huff. As soon as she's gone, Jules looks at me, like right at me, with her eyes still huge, and laughs a real laugh again. Her mouth is open almost
as big as mine. But mine is out of shock. I can't believe I did that. What if I start doing that all the time? I can't today. Not with Allegra. Not today.

Jules keeps laughing so hard that Paolo comes out from the back to see what's so funny. Paolo is in just shorts and a tank top, and he's sweating all over the place, but he doesn't care. He's not like me. The sweat doesn't look gross or smelly on him, it just looks shiny. How can the same things be so different on people? And how come he doesn't even care? His nipple is hanging out of the side of his tank top. It's really brown. And I sort of stare at it. So does Jules. It's the thing that stops her laughing.

“What'd you do that's so funny, little man?” he says, making these little punches at me, like he wants to fight or fist-bump with me, but we don't do anything like that, and we never have. We won't. Not when he's sweaty and gross, or even sweaty and shiny.

Jules does her
Paolo is so cool
voice, and starts to tell him what I said, which she says was “So-oo Fu-nnyy-yyy.” But she doesn't laugh anymore, she just smiles at
him. She wants him to like the story the way she's telling it, more than the way I'd tell it, even though I made the story happen.

“You a funny little man, right? That's a good thing for the girls. Girls like to laugh. Right, Jules?” Paolo says.

“Ye-ah, sure,” Jules says, sort of looking down again. She seems upset that the story is about me again.

“You make a girl laugh, little man, you got the first and best smile a girl got to give, and you know you got the goods to get more,” Paolo says, patting me on the back. I know he's trying to be nice, but I kind of hate when Paolo does this stuff. Who was talking about girls or trying to impress them anyway? I mean, that is why I'm bringing these cupcakes and stuff, but it's not like I like Allegra; I just don't want Allegra to hate me, or make fun of me, especially if she's going to steal my best friend. But I don't want to date her. Not everybody is like that, Paolo. Especially not me.

I shrug him off and hope that he hasn't gotten any sweat on me. As I hit the door, Paolo calls out, “I see you later tonight?” I look at him. Why would I see him later
tonight? It's not Sunday, I'm not coming down for the Big Bake. What is he thinking?

But I say, Yeah, and, Bye, trying to get out of there before I get more advice on the ladies or some shiny sweat on myself.

Ellen's is four avenue blocks and seven street blocks away from Sweet Jane. That's how we count everything in New York. Avenue blocks are real wide, and street blocks are short. So it doesn't sound like that much, but it's a lot, especially biking uphill and now with a backpack full of cookies banging against my wheel. I'm glad I wore the extra deodorant.

After I wipe my forehead on a shirt sleeve and take three breaths, slowly, so that I'm not gasping when they open the door, I ring the bell twice. I don't want to wheeze, even though it's crazy hot and anybody would be. I can't start like that. Rosalinda, Hannah's nanny, comes to the door with Hannah chasing after her, and as soon as Hannah sees me, there's her big sound and her even
bigger smile. Hannah wraps her little arms right around me and almost knocks me over.

“We've missed you, Davis,
So
Much,” Rosalinda says. She signs to Hannah, but Hannah doesn't say anything, her arms are around me too tight.

“He can't move if you don't move, Hannah!” yells Ellen without taking her eyes off the video game she's playing with Charlie. Ellen forgets that Hannah's deaf all the time. So she yells just to Yell. Hannah starts to ease up her grip as Rosalinda takes the box from my hands. I can see Sophie peering over the couch and looking at me, and Allegra sitting right next to her, texting, and not even looking up. Charlie looks over from the game and smiles right at me.

“What'd you bring?” asks Sophie.

“Just cookies and stuff from the bakery,” I say.

“Sorry-for-being-late cupcakes? Nice,” says Ellen again without looking away from her game. She just blew something up, so maybe it's better that way.

“Red velvet?” Sophie smiles.

Of course. I always grab a red velvet, out of habit.
Sophie has been my best friend forever, and I know what she likes and what she doesn't, and I know how to make her happy. I wonder if Allegra knows any of this or even cares.

“Oh my God, have you ever had his mom's red velvet cake? It's seriously the best thing ever,” Sophie says, trying to get Allegra off her phone, saying the last words just like Allegra, which is just so strange to even hear, but maybe hearing the sound of the words that way will get her to look up. Allegra doesn't. She just says, “Oh nooo. I'm gluten-free, and it's, like, the worst. The. Wo-orst.”

And Ellen says, “Evah,” out the side of her mouth.

Allegra is gluten-free. Allegra is gluten-free. Allegra can't eat any of the things I brought her, because she'll probably die or something from all the gluten, which I barely even know what that is, but I do know that there is a ton of it in every single thing I brought. I'm a murderer. So now I have to say hello to her with a big I'm sorry, I brought treats for everyone else except you, Gluten-Free Allegra, because I am just sort of an awful person. And fat. And a little sweaty. So sorry I brought the poisonous cupcakes for you, Allegra. Please like me.

Rosalinda unwraps everything and puts them out on plates for us all to look at, even Allegra. Ellen finally looks away from her game to see. And so does Charlie, who stands right behind me and looks down at everything.

“These look awesome,” says Charlie. “Where are they from?”

“Sweet Jane,” Ellen says with her mouth full. “It's the best.”

“Oh, I totally know! My mom got my birthday cake there,” says Charlie, leaning down to tell this last thing just to me. I never noticed just how long his neck actually is, it's bizarre. He could scoop around and look at anything without ever moving his shoulders. So why is he looking at me? And why is his hand on my shoulder?

“Yeah, it's my mom's,” I say and try to smile, a
Whyareyoutouchingme
smile to Charlie.

But Charlie already has a big bite of chocolate cupcake in his mouth and tries to say “Awesome!” with his mouth full, so it sounds like, “
Ooff
whelm!”

Not too Ooffwhelm, Charlie, not today.

Allegra's phone is awesome. So awesome that she
can't look away from it. It's the newest iPhone, and it has everything. Just Like Allegra. It's the phone a cool girl like her would need. And my phone? It's attached to a wall and only gets answered by a screaming Irish woman who yells so loud that the phone on the other end shakes in your hand. Honest. I need to get the rest of that money.

As Ellen and Charlie eat, Hannah's still holding my hand. She does this whenever I come over. She never lets go of me. Ever. I don't really mind, I mean, I do like Hannah, but I just wonder why she's so attached to me. She talks about me all the time to Ellen. She waits for me when I'm supposed to come over. She wants to be around me all the time. Part of me loves it, but the other part always thinks,
Hannah, find somebody else. I'm not that great. I know, I'm around me a lot
. Ellen says that Hannah has a crush on me, but she's five, people don't have crushes then. Some people don't even have them now.

Sophie and Allegra climb over the back of the couch and come to take a look too, but Allegra stays a lot more interested in her phone. Rosalinda passes out plates and everybody kneels up on the table to look as closely as they
can at all the stuff. Hannah does too, still keeping a tight hold of my hand.

“Poor Allegra, you're really missing out,” Sophie says as she grabs the red velvet cupcake.

“It's no big deal. I don't want all that sugar,” Allegra says, still typing on her phone. Sugar! She can't have sugar either. How many ways can I go wrong with Allegra today? Should I go punch her dog or something? This is awful.

I move a little closer to her and say, “I'm really sorry, Allegra, I didn't know. I would have brought you something else. I mean, my mom makes gluten-free . . .” And almost every word I'm saying, just like Sophie said, Allegra mouths back at me. It's small, so she's not making big faces, like she would if she were making fun of me, but really, why else would you do that? And then because she does actually know the words that I am saying, right on cue, she looks up and puts her hand on my arm.

“OMG, Do Not Worry. How would you know that, it's not like we're friends.” And she smiles this big floppy
Ohyoupoorfatidiot
smile at me and goes right back to her
phone. And I look around to see if Ellen or Sophie or Charlie heard it. But so far no one else in the room even noticed what she just actually said to me. Allegra just actually out loud said to me that we are not friends. Just like that. “It's not like we're friends.” Just there. Just out there. And it is true, we're not, but why would you say something like that if this was a person you wanted to be friends with? Allegra just word-punches me right in the gut, and no one even notices. No one. Hannah smiles, and Ellen's eating and heading back over to destroy more evil zombies, and Sophie's loving her red velvet, and Charlie is staring at me, but why? Only Hannah holds my hand and feels it get sort of clammy but just squeezes harder.

You have to love someone like that.

For being cool, Allegra doesn't say much. At least not to me. It's not like we're friends. She's mostly on her phone, and when she sees something funny or cool, she shows it to Sophie and only Sophie. Ellen doesn't notice or care because she's killing things, so is Charlie, but he keeps trying to talk to me. I give him just one-word answers.
I can't get caught in anything long, in case Sophie and Allegra want to talk to me. He keeps asking me how my summer was and if I'm ready to go back to school. I try to keep my short answers happy and interesting, hoping that something will grab Sophie's and Allegra's attention. But so far, nothing. Hannah moves her dolls around on the table, trying to get me in the mood to play, but I can't. I'm not here for that.

After a few minutes, Sophie turns her magazine around to me and says, “Don't you know her?” and hands me the magazine. There's a big picture of Renée Fleming, who's one of my favorite opera singers. I love when Sophie does this stuff. It's my red velvet.

Allegra looks up from her phone, thinking probably that I must be a lot cooler than she thought if I know someone in a magazine. I guess she wants to make sure that I'm not. So she moves closer, just in case.

“You, like,
know
know her?” Allegra says.

“No, she's an opera singer, right?” Sophie smiles.

“She's one of the best,” I say, looking down at Renée, who looks so happy and faraway, which is exactly where
anything happy has to be at this moment, because it certainly isn't here. Not on this couch with Allegra.

“Davis is really into opera. He listens to it all the time. It's pretty cool.” Sophie smiles at me, hoping I will say more, but I don't.

“Isn't it just a bunch of fat people?” Allegra laughs.

“She's not fat,” Sophie says, pointing to Renée.

“And isn't it all in another language, or something?” Allegra asks.

“Well, it comes with a book most times, or at least your records do, right?” Sophie tries again.

“Yes, a libretto,” I say, still looking at Renée.

“So you have to read to listen? That sounds like a lot,” says Allegra, going back to her phone.

“It's like a musical. You use the book just to find out what's going on,” says Sophie.

“My uncles Mark and Phil, they're gay. They took me to see
Wicked
,” says Allegra. And then she looks at me, right at me, and says, “It sucked.” And as quickly as it happens, she's gone again. Back to her phone, far away from here and these losers. Me, in particular.

And that's it, I hate her. Hate her. Forever. I want to put her in Ellen's video game and let Ellen blow her up with all the other zombies. I want to force all the gluten I can get my hands on into her mouth and watch her puke or die or whatever would happen. I want her phone to explode in her face. I want her gone, and I want her gone now. It's not like we're friends. And the “sucked” was all about me. Not
Wicked
. Everyone knows
Wicked
is great. Charlie even tries to defend it, but that's not the point. Not at all.

Hannah stops moving her dolls and grabs my face, pushing it to hers, and smiles her biggest smile at me. Hannah always tries to save the day. But this time, she's too late.