Little Divas (9 page)

I heard Rikki groan under her breath.

“Sure they would.” Daddy winked at me. “That’d be the neighborly thing to do. Right, girls?”

Mrs. Anders beamed. “Shall we?”

The Anders house was big like Daddy’s, but it was blue with white shutters and had a brick walkway up to the front door. Except for neatly labeled boxes scattered throughout, the inside was hollow.

The floors were all hardwood, and most of the walls were painted a pale yellow. We walked upstairs, and Mrs. Anders gently pushed open a bedroom door. The walls in there were yellow, too, but a brighter shade. The person who’d lived here before sure must’ve liked yellow. It was the perfect house for Mrs. Anders, I thought, such a happy color throughout. I couldn’t imagine that there was a single day in her life when Mrs. Anders wasn’t smiling, she seemed
that
happy.

The girl who’d gotten out of the passenger side of the Volkswagen was sitting in the middle of the floor with her back to us, her legs folded and her face buried in a book.

Mrs. Anders’s perky voice seemed too loud in the silence and too delighted for the somber mood in the room. “Golden, honey!”

“Hmmm?” The girl didn’t even bother to look up.

“I’d like you to meet your new friends. Turn around, okay?”

Rikki rolled her eyes at that. There was no
way
she was going to be friends with this girl, and I knew it. I could tell that Rikki did not like Mrs. Anders thinking that we were already friends with her daughter, but for some reason I didn’t mind so much.

Mrs. Anders said, “I just know you three will get along great.”

The girl glanced up then, but she just stared straight ahead at the wall.

“Honey,” her mother insisted. “Turn around, now. I’d like you to meet Cassidy—she lives right next door—and her cousin Rikki. You’ll be going to school with them. Right, girls?”

“Right,”
I said quickly.

Golden finally turned around.

She was very pretty, and I imagined that if she smiled she’d be even prettier. Her skin had an olive glow, and she looked just a little older than us. But perhaps that was only because of the shiny pink lip gloss she was wearing.

A slit of a smile appeared on Golden’s face, but in the next second her round cheeks deflated again. She ran her fingers through her hair and ruffled it a bit before she said in a low voice, “Hey, Rikki. Hey, Cass.”

And with that, she turned back around. She looked down and turned a page in the book she was reading.

I thought that was so cool, the way Golden felt free to give someone she’d just met a new nickname, the way it had so easily rolled off her tongue, no second thoughts, just like that.

I hadn’t forgotten how Mrs. Anders had mentioned to Daddy that she was divorced, and that her kids were still “adjusting.” A part of me wondered if maybe Golden’s parents used to argue a lot too.

I wasn’t opposed to the idea of staying awhile longer and getting to know Golden, but Rikki was tapping her foot again. She was irritated and ready to go, so we said good-bye and left. I’d have to find a reason to come back and talk to my new friend later.

nine

A couple of
days passed, but I couldn’t forget about my parents’ betrayal. So, when Mary took Rikki and me to Jacobson’s to look for bathing suits, I told Daddy we were going to the library. Hey, he’d kept things from me, so maybe it was time that I do the same.

It should’ve been a fun day, but Rikki was having a fit. “Forget that,” she said to me as she flipped through some hangers, shaking her head back and forth. Then she stopped, cut her eyes at me, and glared with such intensity that it made me want to back away from her. Usually only the laws of Aunt Honey and Uncle Lance made Rikki
this
angry, so I knew I’d messed up.

Rikki said, “Just because she’s your stupid little neighbor doesn’t mean you have to be nice to her, Cassidy. This
ain’t
TV.”

I had only seen Golden twice since the day she moved in, and both times her hair had been in a messy ponytail, her bangs hanging sloppily over her eyes like her brother’s. Each time she’d been alone. I thought she might be lonely.

Yesterday I’d been sitting on the porch reading a Judy Blume novel when I saw her come out of the house and run down to the mailbox at the curb. I wanted to say something to her, but she grabbed the mail and hurried back into the house so quick that I didn’t have a chance.

This afternoon, while I was sitting on the porch waiting for Mary and Rikki to come pick me up, I saw her again retrieving the mail. I made it over to her just as she was walking back up the driveway. She was sorting through the envelopes.

“Hello,” I said.

She looked up, but didn’t smile. “Oh.” She nodded and blew the hair out of her eyes. “Cass, right?”

“Cass.” I smiled. “Right.”

She thumbed through the mail and held up a flat blue envelope that was covered with lots of stickers, mostly puppies and horses. Quite a few stamps were in the upper right-hand corner. “My pen pal,” Golden informed me.

“Oh?”

She nodded. “She lives in Italy. We send perfume with our letters.” She held the envelope up to my nose to smell, and I did. It was a soft scent, pretty and delicate like a flower garden.

“That’s nice,” I said, and inhaled once more before she took it away. “Very nice.”

“I sent her Exclamation last month,” she said.

“My cousin Mary has that!” I said.

“It’s so cool.”

“I know,” I said.

I didn’t know what else to say after that.

Golden tapped the envelope. “Her name is Isabella. She’s fourteen. I wasn’t sure if she’d gotten my new address yet. How old’s Mary?”

“Sixteen.”

Golden nodded. “I have a sister who’s sixteen.”

“Cool!” I said. “We can introduce them. I’m sure Mary would show her around school and stuff.”

“Oh.” Golden shrugged. “Well, my sister doesn’t actually live with us right now.”

Golden looked over at her house, like she’d much rather be inside than continue talking, so I changed the subject.

“Rikki’s on her way over,” I said. “We’re going shopping.”

“That’s cool,” she said dryly.

“For school clothes,” I told her.

“Nice,” she said with forced enthusiasm.

“And bathing suits,” I added.

For the first time Golden’s face lit up. “Really?”

“Do you swim?”

“We had a pool at our last house. And the house before that.”

“How many houses have you lived in?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Four. But who’s counting?”

“Well, our friend is having a pool party,” I said. “He’s going to King too.” Darwin, I was sure, would be nice to Golden.

“Cool,” she said, and even smiled a bit this time.

I didn’t even think about consulting with Rikki first. It just came out. “Wanna come?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said. “When is it?”

“Next Saturday. I’m staying the night at Rikki’s afterward. My aunt Honey and uncle Lance are unbelievably strict, but all we have to do is tell them that you want to go to church with us on Sunday, and I bet we can convince them to let you spend the night too.”

But now, in the middle of the “Miss J.” department at Jacobson’s, Rikki was throwing a fit. Like it would just ruin her life to be nice to someone for a change. She couldn’t believe I’d asked Golden to join us, and now she was threatening to never speak to me again. She went to the other side of the clothing rack, still fussing, still slamming hangers around.

She said, “That girl doesn’t even bother to comb her hair.”

Mary overheard Rikki and a look of annoyance crossed her face. Uncle Lance had gotten Mary a cell phone—in case of road emergencies only—but yeah, right. Mary had been talking nonstop to her best friend, Dierdre, for at least a half hour now, going on and on about how much fun she and Archie had had talking on the phone the night before. She told Deirdre to hold on a second.

“Rikki,” Mary said, “Cassidy’s right. It won’t kill you to be nice to the new girl. Now would you please just pick out a suit?”

Rikki ignored Mary, who went back to talking on the phone, and said to me, “It needs to be just me and you at that party, Cassidy. Remember? The way things work best. Now can we please just shut up talking about that messy-haired girl?”

With that, we were done discussing Golden.

Rikki picked out a suit the same color as her skin, creamy, coffee colored and soft. She fell in love with it as soon as she saw it on the hanger, but once she tried it on, she
had
to have it.

“Everyone’s gonna think you’re naked,” Mary said after finally hanging up with Deirdre.

“Like they can’t see these ties hanging down off my shoulders,” Rikki said. “Ain’t nobody that blind.”

“I know, but—”

“You said
whichever
ones we want,” Rikki reminded Mary.

“I know, but—”

“Well, I want it.” Rikki’s face was set.

“It’s just the color…” Mary countered hesitantly. “It looks too much like your skin.”

“Well. It’s the one I want,” Rikki said.

If Uncle Lance could have seen his daughter right that very second, he would have had a fit. He would have laid holy hands on the salesperson for allowing that suit to be sold in their store, then he would’ve given Rikki—all three of us, probably—a sermon on sinful desires.

But the swimming suits were top-secret gifts from Mary, and none of us would ever tell.

Mary looked at me. “And what about you, kiddo?”

I had my own money, so Mary really just needed to buy one for Rikki, but Mary insisted on buying my suit too. She was proud of her earnings from making ice cream sundaes and those delectable flurries with the crushed Snickers, and she’d said that she liked spending money on us.

I held up a lilac suit with satin ruffles on the top that I’d been eyeing and tried to glance at the price tag, but Mary took it from me before I could.

“This,”
she said as she eased the suit from my hands, “is a splendid choice, Cassidy. A ladylike color. And it’s so demure, just like the princess who’ll be wearing it.”

Mary has the graceful vocabulary of a poet much older in years. Mundane words, she always says, are repulsive, absolutely
lazy.

“Mary,” Rikki said, “it’s not like I really
care
if you don’t like mine. Just so you know.”

A faint smile appeared in Mary’s eyes. “I like yours, too, Rikki. It’s a little risqué,” she said. “But who cares? It’s fun.”

Mary was excited to pay for those suits. I could see it on her face, like there was something satisfying about having such authority.

“Look,” Rikki said to me as Mary exchanged small talk with the sales clerk. “All I’m saying is what if she embarrasses us?”

Apparently Rikki had decided that we could get back on the subject of Golden.

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “How would she do that, Rikki? She’s nice. She even has a pen pal in Italy.”

“And I thought you said you didn’t want to go to Darwin’s party in the first place?”

“Well, I do,” I said. “I just don’t want to see Travis.”

Rikki thought for a moment. “What if she snorts when she laughs?”

“She won’t,” I moaned. “Come on, Rikki.”

“What if she wears an ugly suit?”

I sighed. “She won’t.”

“What if she stinks?”

“She doesn’t,” I said. “She wears Exclamation. Like Mary.”

“Well, what if she talks too much?”