Lucky (9 page)

He swerved the car into the Food Emporium parking lot, yanked hard to the right to pull across two parking spots like a slash, and slammed on the brakes. I grabbed onto the door handle. He is normally a highly cautious, safe driver. I turned to ask him if he was crazy but I didn’t have to because it was obvious that he was. There were practically flames shooting out of his eyes at me.

“No,” he growled. “I am not happy. I am not happy at all. Your mother is going through probably the worst time of her life and are you thinking,
Gee, how can I be supportive of the woman who has given me everything I’ve ever wanted, as soon as it pops into my head? The woman who has worked her ass off all her life so that I can live in this cushy heaven with every desire instantly fulfilled?
No. Instead of thinking of her for a change, it’s all about you! Four hundred forty dollars for a dress you’ll wear once? At fourteen years old? And a sarcastic, snide mouth—
are you happy
?”

My mouth dropped open. Was he seriously mocking me?

“It hurts me,” he went on. “It disgusts me that these are the values my kids have. To see my daughter pout and feel sorry for herself that she can’t get any overpriced designer gown she pleases—are you kidding me?” He slammed the palm of his hand hard into the rim of the steering wheel. “Am I happy? That I am raising a spoiled brat? No, Phoebe, I am not happy. Not happy at all.”

The windshield wipers were squeaking back and forth. The rain had stopped. He turned them off.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, slumping farther down.

He took a deep breath and then another.

I started crying. “I don’t care about the dress.”

He twisted his hands on the steering wheel.

“You really think that I’m like that? A spoiled brat?”

“I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

I shook my head. He hadn’t said
No, sweetheart, of course I don’t think you are a selfish, self-centered spoiled brat.
He was just sorry he let it out. I could feel myself shivering. I didn’t care. I watched the raindrops chase one another down my window.

“It’s going to be okay, Phoebe. We just all have to be…thoughtful.”

I nodded. Thoughtful. “We’re not, like, poor, though, right?”

He didn’t say no right away, like I expected. I had been afraid he might laugh at the stupidity of that question. Suddenly I was afraid because he didn’t. “I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen. I do know that right now we are not in any position to be spending thousands of dollars on this extravagant party you and your friends have cooked up.”

I stared at the window, placing mental bets on the left raindrop to beat the one next to it. “So now you’re canceling my party?”

“Phoebe,” he said. “I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but—”

“My graduation party?” I looked at him. He was totally serious. He tilted his head sideways, sympathetically. I felt my mouth drop open in disbelief.

“You can’t!” I yelled. “It’s all planned, the place, the DJ, the invitations! Everybody in the whole grade is looking forward to it. My friends are counting on me!”

“So am I,” he whispered. He looked at me, narrowing his dark eyes. “So are we.”

“Fine,” I said, sinking down inside myself.

“Maybe we could have a party at home. A pool party—everybody could come over after graduation and—”

“No!” I shouted. I took a deep breath to calm myself down, so he wouldn’t go off on me again. “Not gonna happen. Please don’t.”

He nodded. “I’ll call Kirstyn’s parents,” he said quietly. “I’ll just let them know we’re sorry, but this isn’t something we can do right now. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

“You said I could do this party,” I grumbled. “You and Mom both said yes already! And now you want to call all my friends’ parents and say,
Oops, sorry, we’re poor
?”

“I don’t think I’d put it quite that way,” he said.

I shrugged, not looking at him. “Let me tell my friends. Okay?”

“I really think it’s my job, not yours, Phoebe.”

“Please?” I begged him. “Please. It’s my party, my friends.”

“Of course,” he said. “But it’s not your responsibility to—”

“Yes it is!” I yelled. “I’m part of this family, and I’m not a baby or a spoiled brat, Daddy, no matter what you think. You can at least let me, after you tell me I have to, whatever, do my share, can I please at least be given half a chance?”

“If you’re sure you want to handle this on your own…”

“I am,” I said, sounding more sure than I felt. “Please.”

“Okay,” he said again, staring out the front window. “Okay. I love you. You know that, right?”

I shrugged and turned away. My raindrop, the one on the left, had gotten stuck, clinging stubbornly to its spot on the glass, as the other one zigzagged down, down, down. I rested my hot forehead against the window and closed my eyes.

F
IRST THING
M
ONDAY MORNING
, Ms. Alvarez knocked on my desk, where I was resting my head, and asked me for the draft of my graduation speech. I cleared my throat, stalling. I was so tired, my brain was in slow motion.
Think!
I had already said, Friday morning, that I was still working on it, not ready to show it yet, and she had told me to work on it over the weekend but not be such a perfectionist—after all, it was only a draft.

“Forgot to bring it in…” I managed, vowing silently to start working on it soon.

“Are you feeling ill?”

I tried to smile.

She bent close and asked, “That time of the month?”

I shrugged. What a nightmare, the mustachioed homeroom teacher was hovering sympathetically, three inches from my face. Even worse, based on my unwilling sample whiff of her breath, she was a smoker.
Bleh!

“I’ll bring it in tomorrow, Ms. Alvarez.”

“I’ll look forward to reading it, dear,” she murmured, and, thankfully, plodded back toward the front of the room. I sunk into my chair. Just what I need, on top of everything else—to write a speech summing up our middle school experience. Great. How about,
Everything was perfect until recently?

At lunch we sat in our usual clump. All the other kids gathered closer than they needed to, pretending they weren’t listening in for scraps of info about the party to then shoot around in rumors and wannabe insider gossip. The five of us leaned close to whisper. Our notebooks open, we nodded like a bunch of bobbleheads. I wasn’t even sure what I was agreeing to. There was a buzz, a hum, under everything; I couldn’t hear. Like I was looking through the wrong end of a telescope, my friends seemed strangely far away, though there they were, right beside me at the lunch table as always.

On our way outside, after smiling randomly at a couple of girls who complimented us as we passed, I saw a penny in the hallway. I lurched down to grab it, feeling hopeful for the first time all day that maybe I could get some luck back. Kirstyn grabbed my wrist. “Was that heads up?”

“What?”

“The penny. I think it was heads down.”

“So?”

“That’s bad luck.”

“Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day you’ll have good luck,” I said. “There’s nothing about heads up.”

“Trust me.” She still had a death lock on my wrist.

“Okay.” I dropped the penny. “It’s just a superstition anyway; it doesn’t really work.”

“If you say so,” Kirstyn said, shaking her head sadly. “It’s too late now. You picked it up. Bad luck.”

I kicked the penny to the side of the hall.

“Hey, so are you coming to East Hampton with us this weekend?”

“Who’s us?”

“Gabrielle’s family. For their Memorial Day party. Earth to Phoebe! Didn’t she ask you this morning?” She leaned into the heavy door to push it out. The sunlight smacked us and we both whipped out our sunglasses.

“No,” I said, putting mine on. I still had to squint anyway.

“Well, I’m pretty sure she was going to.” She looked at me. “Seriously. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” I said.
How much do I hate it when people tell me not to worry?
“But, um, I just, the thing is…”

Luke’s hand splayed out beside mine on the door. We all three walked through it together. Kirstyn elbowed me. I shrugged at her.

“What aren’t you worried about?” Luke said.

“Ungh,” I said back.

“Anything,” Kirstyn said. “You know Phoebe. She
never worries about anything! Right, Phoebe?”

“I guess,” I mumbled.

“So anyway, Luke,” Kirstyn said, more cheerfully than I’d heard her speak to (or about) Luke in forever. “What are
you
doing Memorial Day weekend?”

He glanced at me. “Not much. How about you?”

Kirstyn smiled. “We’re going out to East Hampton with Gabrielle’s family. Have you been to their place out there?”

“No,” he said. I felt kind of squashed between them as we headed up the hill in the bright sunshine.

“It’s amazing. Her parents have fabulous Memorial Day parties.”

“You’re going to East Hampton?” Luke asked me.

“Um,” I said.
No, I’m going with you to dig in dirt!

Kirstyn threw her arm around me. “You gonna miss her?” she asked Luke flirtatiously.

He blinked twice and said, “No.”

Kirstyn made a pout and yanked me away. “Come on, Phoebe.”

I let her drag me away, toward the upper field, and didn’t look back. I tried not to think of how familiar this feeling was, like I was one of those chocolate bunnies you get for Easter that, when you bite its ear, you find out the whole thing is hollow and shattering to bits in your fingers. Like I’d felt the last time Kirstyn led me away from Luke, the first full day of school last year.
Don’t think about that! Ancient history!

“I see what you mean,” Kirstyn was saying. “I mean, he’s still a little, you know, sweet, but he does have a very kissable mouth. You may as well make use of it, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, crumbling, shattering, myself. “You know those hollow bunnies, and you bite them and you thought they were solid but they’re not?”

“Gabrielle says the party is ‘Hamptons casual,’” Kirstyn whispered. “But it’s Saturday night so that definitely means dresses, don’t you think?”

“I guess,” I said. Maybe I hadn’t said anything and just thought I had. Maybe I was suddenly getting deep and annoying.
Lighten up!

“Do you have something new?”

“Yeah,” I said, lightly, brightly, fakely. “I think so.”

“While we were at Neiman’s we got a few things.”

“Great!”

She looked at me quizzically for a second. I had never noticed before how hard it is to strike the exact perfect level of light and bright. I shrugged casually and tipped my head up to the sun. “What did you get?”

“Oh! A bunch of cute things. I don’t know what your mom meant—there were so many dresses! I tried on that green one, remember you clipped a picture from, I think,
Seventeen
? Green with straps up like this?”

“Teen Vogue,”
I whispered, trying to stay upright on grass that felt like it had started to liquefy.

“With the tight waist, full skirt—”

“I remember it,” I managed to say.

“Well, it was right there, hanging by the desk! It’s so cute but it makes me look a little dumpy, so we got that one and also a white with black—did you see that one? With the slit?”

I nodded, though I really couldn’t tell what she was talking about anymore.

“Well, we brought them both home and…” I had completely stopped being able to hear her. She had my dress, and another, to choose from, hanging on the bar of her closet. And I was about to drown in the grass of the upper playground.

“Don’t say anything to Zhara and Ann,” I did catch.

“About what?”

“About this weekend. You know, going to Gabrielle’s. We don’t want them to feel bad or anything.”

“Maybe she could invite them, too,” I suggested, my voice far away from my mouth. “Maybe that could be fun, you know, all five of us, like last year….”

Kirstyn rolled her eyes. “Sure. Last year was fine, but I mean, we’re going into high school now. It’s like, you know? They’d just feel uncomfortable, really. There are going to be all these boys there from the city, all Gabrielle’s parents’ friends’ kids, including you-know-who.”

“Miles?” I could hardly believe I was actually participating in the conversation. Miles was Gabrielle’s boyfriend from camp. I’d never met him but I’d seen his picture.
That’s it, keep up,
I told myself.
Light, bright, casual—stay with it. You can do this.

Kirstyn nodded. “With some of his buddies, so—who knows!” She squeezed me closer. “Make sure you don’t bring your green-and-white bikini.”

“The Calvin Klein?”

“It’s so—middle school. No offense. But, you know? Don’t you have some less, you know,
sporty
suits? These guys are in tenth grade. In case they come over during the day, you don’t want to seem like a baby.”

I shook my head. No, I didn’t.

Kirstyn leaned close and whispered to me. “We have to make it seem like we hook up with tenth-grade boys all the time, no big deal. This is gonna be so great, don’t you think?”

I nodded. Great. I turned around to scan the field but didn’t see Luke anywhere. William was coming up the hill behind us. He smiled at me. I couldn’t tell if it was a
you-made-out-with-my-best-friend-you-dog
smile, or a
my-best-friend-likes-you
smile, or just a
hello
smile. I smiled back, a
whatever
smile, I hoped, rather than a
trying-not-to-puke
smile.

“You okay?” Kirstyn whispered.

“Sure. All good.” We were almost at the back fence, because it turned out we had kept walking. How odd everything was. Oh, hello, there’s my hand, beside my head, waving to Gabrielle, Ann, and Zhara, who were sit
ting near the fence along with half the other girls in the school and some of the flirtier boys.

“You seem a little…”

“What?” I asked.

“Off.”

She waved casually at a couple of seventh-grade girls from the track team who were watching us. They smiled big cute braces smiles, then huddled up to whisper to each other. William walked straight over to them.

“No, I’m on,” I assured her.

“What?”

She scrunched her face; I smiled and shrugged. She bared her teeth at me. I shook my head; nothing caught. I showed her mine and she shook her head, too, then scrunched her nose at me again. It was kind of like a dance. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the girls shoving William on his shoulders. He laughed. They all looked like they were having a whole lot more fun than I was, that’s for sure. I couldn’t shake the peculiar feeling. I kept thinking, through a fog,
Wait—that’s me, it’s supposed to be me, the one in the middle of the fun. There’s been an error, me here stressed, outside.

“Um, Phoebe?” Kirstyn leaned close and whispered to me, “Listen. No big deal but I overheard my mother telling my father that your mother’s check bounced. You know, for the party?”

“Bounced?” I asked.

“You know, when the bank screws something up so they think there’s no money in your account and won’t pay it? My dad was like, so just redeposit it, the bank must have screwed up.”

She looked at me quizzically. I closed my eyes behind my sunglasses. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I heard my mouth say, miles away.

“Obviously,” Kirstyn said. “I just—”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just…if…never mind.”

Bridget Burgess, sitting on the grass nearby, looked up at us with her hand shading her eyes. Her face was a mask, no expression; she was wearing Allison’s purple top and my yellow shorts. Kirstyn turned to me and whispered, “If she dressed less tacky, it’s weird but I think Bridget Burgess would actually be kind of cool-looking. Don’t you? In a trashy-cool way?”

All I could manage was a shrug.

“Anyway,” Kirstyn whispered, linking her arm through mine. “My mom is finally picking up the invitation proofs today. I can’t wait to see.”

“Mmm,” I said.

“She said she’ll get two, one for you to bring home, too, after she picks us up from track. Okay? Won’t it be fun if we have tenth-grade boyfriends at our party? I mean, you promised it would be great, but seriously. Right?”

“Yeah,” I said, plopping down onto the grass between
Zhara and Gabrielle. My head was spinning.

“What?” Ann asked.

“Nothing,” Kirstyn said.

Ann frowned and picked some grass. I knew just how she felt but there was nothing I could do to help, because right then Gabrielle stood up and yanked Kirstyn by the belt loop and said she had to ask her something.

They stood a few feet away and I saw them trying not to look at me as they whispered. I tugged at the grass myself until the bell rang ending lunch.

Kirstyn, sweet and apologetic, grabbed my arm to walk down the hill, whispering, “I’m so sorry, Phoebe—I totally messed up. Don’t be mad at Gabrielle. She’s totally sorry and so embarrassed but it turns out her parents are limiting her so unfairly for the weekend because her brother is coming with friends from college.”

Gabrielle caught up with us. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I really wanted you to come….”

I managed to smile. “Oh, of course,” I said. “I mean, no problem. I totally understand.”

At our lockers, Kirstyn whispered, “Are you mad?”

“Not at all,” I answered. “I don’t really care, to be honest.” Because, really, I didn’t. I didn’t care about anything, it turned out. If I could feel anything, I might have felt surprised to feel nothing.

“It has nothing to do with you,” Kirstyn assured me. “Don’t worry.”

If one more person tells me not to worry this month I may have to kick them in the teeth,
I thought, but I just said, “I know. I’m not worried.” Clearly it had nothing to do with me. None of it did. I had lost track of myself somewhere. Who this girl was, walking beside Kirstyn down the hill, not being invited, not allowed to have her graduation dress or even a party, frowning in the sharp May sun—I had no idea. She wasn’t me, obviously. I barely recognized her.

“You okay?” Kirstyn asked me. If there was a tiny little gloat under Kirstyn’s sweet embarrassment, I tried to ignore it.

“All good,” the girl beside her, who she thought was me, said.