The Goodbye Time (5 page)

Chapter Twelve

You can probably guess what happened next. On Monday morning Katy didn’t meet me at our usual place. I waited and waited, but she didn’t come. I kind of knew she wouldn’t, but I stood there waiting anyway. Then, at the very last minute, just before the late bell, I ran to homeroom. Mrs. Baumgarten wasn’t there, and I could tell from the noise that something big was going on. Kids were yelling and a lot of them were laughing, though not in a funny ha-ha way. I entered the room and right away saw Kendra in the middle of the crowd. She was sort of squeaking, and her face was as red as the cherry jam we’d put on our crepes. It looked like she’d been crying.

I glanced around and Katy was there, leaning against the blackboard, not hollering at anyone. Behind her, you could still see the words only partly erased:
KENDRA PLAYS WITH BARBIE DOLLS
.

My first thought was Wow, what if they knew about Katy and me and our game? They’d probably write it all over school.
KATY AND ANNA STILL PLAY HOUSE
. I mean, that’s what it was, when you think about it, only instead of a regular family, we played—well, you know who we played. It was ten times worse than Barbie dolls; we’d be laughed out of the school. I looked at Katy to see if she was thinking the same thing. She met my eyes, then looked away like she didn’t know me. It felt like I’d been slapped.

Then all of a sudden Mrs. Baumgarten marched into the room. The laughter and yelling—everything—stopped, like the noise had been blasting from a radio someone had just snapped off. We froze like statues as Mrs. B ran her eyes over each of us. She let the silence sit awhile. Then, in a voice that was calm but furious, she said, “I’ve never been so mortified. The fifth-grade class. The class about to graduate. I enter the school and hear you from the office—with all the other teachers there—worse than a kindergarten class.” She paused for effect so we all would feel embarrassed. Then, tight-lipped, she said, like we really disgusted her, “Now get to your seats. All of you. And not another sound.” We all looked down and shuffled to our desks, feeling like total worms.

Katy sat right in front of me, but even as we moved to our desks, she refused to catch my eye. I sat there looking at the back of her head, which I know so well, with its big fat braid and the little hairs that slip their way out around her neck. It’s darkish blond, almost a little silvery, and I couldn’t imagine not seeing it there. I wanted to fiddle with the braid, but of course I couldn’t do that anymore, and I missed it so much, I wanted to cry. From across the room Michael was looking at me. I wondered if he knew what I was thinking. But probably not. And I didn’t think I wanted him to.

Mrs. B made us write a paragraph explaining what happened and then list five things we could have done to “avert” the problem, instead of what we did. She always made us write stuff like that. I, of course, hadn’t done
anything,
because I had been standing outside waiting for Katy. I wanted to tap her and ask what exactly had happened, but she hadn’t been at the party, so she wouldn’t have known about seeing Kendra’s Barbie dolls in the shoe box. If she could have told me what she knew and if I could have told her what I knew—well, with both our parts together, the story would have been complete. It really stank not being able to talk to her. And it only got worse as the day went on.

At lunch, for instance, she sat with a bunch of girls she didn’t even like. Everyone knew we were having a fight, which made me feel ashamed. In the schoolyard afterward I got up my courage and went over to where she sat reading a book. Other kids were watching, but I walked right over anyway. Let them stare if they want to stare, I thought.

“Katy,” I said. She just looked at the book.

“The least you could do is talk to me.” She just kept looking down at the page. “That book must be very interesting.”

“It is,” she said, not moving.

“I’m sorry, Katy. For whatever I did.”

“You don’t even know. See, that’s the problem, Anna.”

“Tell me, then. I want to know.”

“If I have to
tell
you, what’s the point? I mean, how can you be so dumb?”

“And how can you be so
mean
?”

“You’re mean
and
dumb,” she answered, then slammed the book shut and walked away. I stood there stunned. Everyone was watching, and I felt the tears starting to well in my eyes. I bit my lip as hard as I could to keep them back. Then I sat on the bench that Katy had left. All around, people were laughing and playing games. It seemed like a movie without the sound. I could see their faces, their smiling mouths, but somehow I couldn’t hear them. Everything was blurred. Then out of the blur came Michael’s voice.

“Hi,” he said. He was standing right there in front of me, though I hadn’t seen him until that very second. “That was stupid this morning, wasn’t it?” he said with a little shrug.

“I missed it,” I said, “but I guess it had to do with the Barbie dolls in Kendra’s room.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It was Nancy who wrote that on the board.”

“And she’s supposed to be Kendra’s friend.”

“The whole thing’s stupid anyway. Who cares if she plays with Barbie dolls? Sometimes I play with my Matchbox cars.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, sure. And I wouldn’t care if anyone knew. I roll ’em around and pretend I’m a tiny guy driving them through my room.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Are you going to write it on the board? ‘Michael plays with Matchbox cars’?” I laughed at that, and then he said, “I bet everybody in our class plays with toys—I mean, once in a while, I bet they do.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I still have my stuffed animals. I don’t play with them exactly, but I still want to keep them, that’s for sure. And sometimes I guess I talk to them.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” he said. Then, in a more serious voice: “What’s up with you and Katy? I saw you trying to talk to her.”

“I wish I knew.” I was too embarrassed to tell him more. Like the fact that she’d called me dumb and mean.

“Did you have a fight or something?”

“Like I said to my brother the other day, she’s the one that’s fighting with
me.
I don’t know what I did to her. And now she’s mad
because
I don’t know what I did.”

“She’s probably upset about bringing her brother to that place.”

“Yeah, I know. It upsets me too. But I didn’t make it happen. I feel terrible for everyone.”

Michael sat down beside me. “I was like that too with a lot of my friends—like Katy, I mean. After my father, you know, died. I didn’t want to see anyone. I don’t know . . . it just made it worse, everyone trying to comfort me. I told my friends to just get lost.”

“Did you call them dumb and stupid too?”

“Yeah, I did. I told Billy Tisch to take a hike. I told him he was an idiot, all happy and laughing all the time.”

“That’s what Katy thinks about me. That my life is so great that I couldn’t understand
her
life even if I wanted to—which she doesn’t think I do.”

“When bad things happen, everyone says stuff like that.”

“How did you and your friends make up?”

Michael looked down at the toes of his dirty sneakers. “I don’t know. It just sort of happened naturally. I went away and time went by, and when I came back everything was better. I guess it just takes time.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I told him. That was the same thing Tom had said. But I didn’t want to wait. Katy wasn’t going to New Jersey. I’d be seeing her in school every day, and seeing the back of her head and her braid hanging down and wanting to touch it, and I couldn’t wait for time to pass. I needed her to be my friend—right away. Like
now.

Chapter Thirteen

Two nights later my mom came home with our graduation dresses. All pressed and clean, sealed in the plastic dry cleaner bags, they looked brand-new and special. She hung them up on the outside of my closet the way Kendra’s mom had hung her big fancy dress from France. And in her cheery, high-energy voice she said, “They both look lovely. Yours is really sweet, you know.”

“Great,” I said, the way you talk when you’re totally bored. I was doing my homework on my bed, surrounded by my animals.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, Anna. Tell me.” She pushed my legs over, making room for herself at the edge of my bed.

“Nothing’s wrong. Except Katy doesn’t want the dress.”

“Doesn’t want it?”

“No. She told me so on Saturday.”

“But you didn’t see her on Saturday.”

“When I called to find out why she wasn’t here, she told me she didn’t want it. She said her mom was taking her to Macy’s to buy the most expensive one.” I stopped talking then, because my voice sounded weird and cracky and I didn’t feel like crying again. My mom reached out and touched my hair.

“Have you spoken to Katy since Saturday?”

I swallowed hard. “She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“You mean not at all?”

“She told me I was stupid and don’t understand what her life is like. She thinks my life’s so perfect, but she never thinks that
my
brother’s also going away, and yes, I know, it isn’t the same, but he won’t be here like he used to be and no one can say he will!” It was hopeless trying not to cry, and I guess I just gave into it. It was going to happen anyway. My mom slid closer and took me in her arms. I let her do it. I needed someone to hold me awhile.

For a couple of minutes she didn’t talk, except for saying “Poor little Katy” against my hair. Her mouth felt warm and I kind of wished she’d keep it there. But after a while she pulled away. She reached for a tissue from the box on the table next to my bed and started to dab my tears.

“Katy’s not angry at you,” she said. “She’s angry at life. At the terrible things that happen. That her brother is ill. That her family can’t take care of him. That they had to put him in a home.”

“But why is she taking it out on me?”

My mom seemed to think this over. Then she said, “Maybe she’s taking things out on you because she knows she can. She has to lash out at someone, and she’s chosen you because she knows you’ll forgive her in the end. She trusts you with her anger, knowing that you’ll still be her friend.”

I looked at my mom. What she’d said didn’t make much sense to me. How could Katy know I’d always be her friend if I wasn’t all that sure myself? Why couldn’t she yell at Kendra or someone she didn’t like as well?

“Katy’s very confused right now. Her emotions are all mixed up. When someone seems angry, Anna, it’s usually because underneath it all, she’s hurt. You have to let Katy feel what she feels. In a little while, she’ll come back.”

“But what if she doesn’t?”

“Oh, Anna, she will. I promise. And you have to be there waiting, even though she’s hurt you.”

“It stinks,” I said. “Everything stinks.”

“Things are difficult,” said my mom, “but the truth of it is they made the right decision. Things will be better for everyone. Sam will be safe and so will the girls. Katy’s mom will have more time to spend with them. You’ll see, Anna. It’ll be fine.”

I wiped my face with my sleeve. “One good thing for sure is that now Bug Eye sleeps in another room with all her creepy fairy stuff. And Katy can have a room of her own.”

“They’ll probably get along better now. Katy might even stop calling her sister Bug Eye.” My mom passed me a tissue so I wouldn’t keep using my sleeve.

“Things will work out. I know they will. Just be patient. Give it time.” She smiled at me. “By the way, your brother isn’t going away from you. He’ll always be part of—”

“Yeah, I know. He told me.”

“He told you?”

“Yeah. That I’m never getting rid of him. That he’ll always keep on bugging me, no matter where he lives.”

“He told you that?” I nodded. And my mom’s whole face got funny. Now
she
was the one about to cry. She reached for a tissue and then got up. “Go wash your face. We’re having Chinese for dinner. I’m not in the mood to cook.”

Chapter Fourteen

Well, things didn’t happen the way my mom had predicted. I mean, Katy didn’t come out of her mood. No matter how patient I tried to be, she still refused to talk to me. And I guess she went back to Macy’s with her mom, because she never came to pick up her dress, even when graduation was only two days off.

Life without Katy wasn’t much fun. I started hanging around with Tyesha and Yolanda. They were nice enough, but all we ever did was watch TV and look at pictures in Yolanda’s sister’s
Seventeen
magazine. Oh, and talk about their periods. They didn’t seem to care that I hadn’t had one yet and felt a little left out. They just kept complaining about their cramps and their headaches and how they felt like crying all the time. That much, at least, I had in common with them: the part about wanting to cry all the time. The thing about their complaining was that it really seemed more like bragging. Like they were so big and mature now. They liked to talk about Kendra too and how she wasn’t so high and mighty now that the whole world knew she still played with Barbie dolls. Yolanda said she probably had a whole other bunch of shoe boxes in her closet filled with My Little Ponies.

Even though I hadn’t gotten my period yet, they thought I was cool because Michael Trefaro had kissed me. I’m not all that proud about telling them, but I needed something to make me less of a little kid. And the kiss really worked. They kept asking me all about it. Like what it was like and if I had felt his teeth on my face or any drops of spit. I must have described it a hundred times.

The weird part was that Katy didn’t start hanging around with other girls. She was friendly to people, but she didn’t do things after school. She just went home right away to hang out in her new and private room, I guess.

In my own room I put my dress in the closet but left Katy’s red one hanging on the door. Sometimes at night while I was lying in bed, I’d look at it and pretend Katy was inside it, sort of floating in the air. I’d imagine her arms and legs dangling out. And then I’d picture her head sitting on top. And she’d be talking to me about Bug Eye or about her new room. Sometimes I’d imagine her telling me about visiting Sam at Fern Brook. She’d describe the place and tell me how he was doing. How excited he’d been about the gummy worms they’d brought him, or some new pajamas or the snack-sized boxes of Cheerios. In all my imaginings things were going really well with Sam, and Katy was smiling and her blond hair with the silvery parts was blowing in the breeze.

On the night before graduation my parents made a special dinner for me. Anka came, and my mom made a fancy rack of lamb with those little paper booties on it. My dad popped open some champagne and everyone got to have some, including me. Then he made a toast about New Beginnings, and everyone knew it was also about Tom. I was starting middle school, but he’d be starting college soon.

Looking across at Anka, I had the feeling that she was thinking more about New Endings than New Beginnings. And I guess I was too, now that graduation was the next day and Katy was gone and Michael was leaving the following week. Why do people say New Beginnings when they really mean the opposite? I don’t know. But I think they ought to stop. My mom’s dinner was really good, but thinking about the stuff I was thinking about made it, well, a little less good. Every time I swallowed, it hurt.

After dinner all of us helped clear the table; then my mom sent us back to the dining room so she could fix dessert. Anka, Tom and my dad were talking about some ancient war where the Roman troops used elephants. I was sitting there feeling sorry for the elephants who had to fight a war they didn’t start or have anything to do with when the doorman called on the intercom in the kitchen. My mom picked it up. We could hear her talking for a while in this muffled way, and then she came out to the dining room. She looked at me.

“Katy’s here to pick up her dress.”

Everyone was quiet. Then Tom sprang up. “I’ll get her a chair.”

“I’ll put out a plate,” said Anka.

And my dad said, “I’ve missed having Katydid around.”

My mom spoke in a quiet, very serious voice. “All of you, stop. I know you’re glad to see her, but don’t make a great big fuss. In fact, I bet Anna wants to just take Katy straight to her room and give her the dress.”

I looked at my mom. “That’s probably best. She might feel weird.” So everybody calmed down and I left the dining room and closed the doors behind me. My heart was really pounding. It was like it had jumped straight up from my chest and was sitting in my throat. I heard the elevator door and Katy’s feet on the tiles in the hallway. I took a deep breath and opened the door.

She looked really small standing there in her little skirt and T-shirt with two long braids hanging down in front of her.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” she said. We were practically whispering, but it seemed like we were yelling in the empty, echoey hall.

“Come on in,” I told her, opening the door.

“Is your family all here?” she asked me. I could tell she felt uncomfortable.

“They’re in the dining room,” I said. “I shut the doors, don’t worry.” She glanced around, avoiding my eyes.

“Like I said, I came for my dress. Gem is waiting for me downstairs.”

“Sure, okay. Let’s get it.” She followed me through the living room and down the hall to my room. Once inside I said to her, “There it is. It came out nice.” She looked at it but didn’t touch it or anything.

“I lied about the Macy’s dress. My mom can’t afford an expensive dress. Especially now with Sam away. The hospital’s expensive, and she has to pay for part of it.”

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s okay. I mean, most of the time he seems okay. But some days he cries when we have to leave.”

“That’s really sad.”

“I know. But the nurses tell us he doesn’t cry for long. He forgets about us pretty fast.”

“That’s good, I guess.”

“It’s really good. And by the way, my mom was really grateful—that your mom helped find the dress, I mean. She wasn’t insulted like I said.”

“You didn’t say that.”

“I sort of did. Anyway, it wasn’t true.” I probably should have figured that out. I mean, Katy’s mom is more than nice. I remember kind of thinking that when she gave Sam’s room to Bug Eye instead of keeping it for herself.

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

“Or your fault either,” Katy said.

“Maybe it isn’t anyone’s fault.”

She smiled at me. “Anyway, the dress looks really beautiful. I bet it’s nicer than Kendra’s dress.” Both of us turned to look at it.

“Remember the day we bought it?” she said. “You were Aunt Mimi and I was Clarissa shopping for a prom dress.”

I smiled. “Yeah. We were talking with our accents and my mom started talking that way too.”

Katy laughed. “She had no idea what was going on.”

“It was funny,” I said. “And the people in Macy’s thought we were from England.”

“I missed you a lot,” Katy whispered suddenly. “I’m sorry I was so mean to you.”

“It’s okay,” I told her.

“No, it’s not. And it isn’t true that you couldn’t understand things. You understand a lot.”

“But I didn’t realize how big it was—Sam going away to Fern Brook—till I thought about Tom going away to college. And it isn’t even the same with Tom. We can write and talk and send each other e-mail.”

“But still and all, he’s going away. He isn’t going to live at home.”

For a second we were quiet; then I said, “So you want to be friends with me again?”

“I always wanted that,” she said. “I can’t explain why I did what I did.” She kept looking at me, not moving her eyes. Then she said in a very soft voice: “There’s just one thing—I can’t play anymore. I don’t know why, but I know I can’t.” I let the words sink in.

“It’s okay. I don’t think I can either.”

“Really, Anna?”

“Yeah. It’s like something happened inside of me. Or maybe it’s a lot of things. Sam and you. Graduation. Michael’s father’s dying. My brother going away to school.”

“Everything’s changing, isn’t it?”

“Everything but us. I mean us as friends. Promise that won’t ever change.”

“I promise,” said Katy. “Cross my heart.” At the same exact second, both of us moved and tumbled into each other’s arms. It happened so fast that we bumped our heads together, and it hurt so much we started to laugh, and we laughed so much we started to cry—and Katy and I were friends again.

It’s August now, and middle school begins in a week. Michael Trefaro moved to New Jersey right after graduation. He wrote me a letter and I wrote back to his new house on Willow Avenue. But after that he never wrote back.

When Katy and I made up, I told her, of course, about the kiss.

“Wow,” she said. “So what was it like?” The way Katy asked me was different from the way Yolanda and Tyesha asked. I mean, it wasn’t like she was asking for herself—so she could imagine herself getting kissed—but like she really wanted to know how it was for
me.
How
I
felt and if
I
liked it and would ever want to do it again. Then she said it was weird to think of me doing something she hadn’t done yet, but she was happy for me anyway. I told her I would feel the same. I mean, if something happened to her that hadn’t happened to me. And then we decided that we won’t get our periods until it’s time for both of us to get them. That we’ll get them on the very same day. We made a pact, the Period Pact. We told ourselves if we really put our minds to it, we can make it happen, we really can.

Graduation was fun, and we had a party afterward in Kendra’s big apartment. She made sure we all went to her room and didn’t see any Barbie dolls, even in the closet, which she’d left wide open so everyone could look inside.

Two weeks ago Tom went off to Harvard. We drove him there and stayed for the weekend doing stuff in Boston. Then on Sunday we left him in front of the big tall gates. Waving goodbye, seeing him there squinting in the sunlight like someone in a photograph, I could only imagine how Katy must feel every time she leaves Sam at Fern Brook and goes away for another week.

Katy and I, of course, will be going to Central West Side Middle School, where we will be in a lot of the same classes. We see each other every day, and she still has dinner at my house a few times a week. Sometimes now I stay over at her house too. Her room is cool. She painted it red, and there’s not a fairy doll in sight. As a matter of fact, when Bug Eye moved to the other room, she got rid of all her fairy stuff. Now she’s just into soccer, and the pictures hanging on her walls are of her and her teammates running around or holding up their silver trophies.

Once in a while I go with them to visit Sam. We take the ferry, and sometimes we bring sandwiches. It’s a little sad, but honestly, he seems okay. He’s thrilled when we bring him candy, and I found out they make gummy everything—not just worms, but all kinds of insects and even mice. Katy’s mom seems happier too. Sometimes on the ferry ride, I look at her face, her cheeks all rosy in the wind, and I see how pretty and young she is.

Katy and I are better friends than ever. I think I finally get it now, my father’s New Beginnings thing. What he meant was that to have a new beginning, something has to end. Which is just what happened with Katy and me.

Sometimes we talk about what’s ahead. How after middle school we’ll go to the same high school and after that to the same college. If we ever get married, it will be to guys who are best friends like us, and we’ll live in the same building and have parties on the roof and take trips together. And if we ever have kids, we’ll wheel them around together like the moms we see on Broadway with their strollers. And our kids, of course, will grow up together and be best friends like us. It’s fun to think about stuff like that.

Sometimes, though, I have to admit, I miss the way we used to play. Me being Aunt Mimi and Katy being Johnny. And sometimes—it’s strange—once in a while I just miss
us,
Katy and Anna, those girls who played and are gone now.