The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away (12 page)

“You’re not weird either!” Marylin exclaimed. “I can’t believe you’d even say that.”

Rhetta looked up from where she was sitting, her back against Marylin’s closet, a bottle of black nail polish in her hand. “I’m a preacher’s kid, I dress all in black, and I’m in a bowling league. If that doesn’t say ‘weird,’ I don’t know what does. It’s not a big deal. I like being weird.”

“Well, anyway,” Marylin said, deciding to ignore Rhetta’s weirdo claims for the time being, “I have plenty of friends.” She sat down on her bed and opened a bottle of pink polish. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to paint her nails black, not that her mom would ever let her. Only she didn’t really think she was a black-nail-polish girl at heart. In general, Marylin preferred the happy colors—pink,
yellow, baby blue, spring green. Life was depressing enough without having depressing nails.

“Uh, no, you don’t,” Rhetta said. “You’re known by a lot of people. In fact, I’d say almost every kid at school knows who you are. But just because they know you doesn’t mean they’re your friends. Really, what you need to do is dump the cheerleaders, make up with Benjamin, hang out with Kate and me, and then join a group. Like the Girl Scouts, maybe. Are we too old to be Girl Scouts?”

Marylin leaned back against her pillow, her knees pulled toward her chest, and began painting the nails of her right hand, which she was sort of terrible at, since she was right-handed. “I wanted to be a Brownie, but my mom had this rotten Brownie experience when she was a kid. Her troop leader made them do chores, like at her house. So she sort of discouraged me from signing up.”

“Why don’t you come to youth group with me?” Rhetta asked, blowing on the freshly blackened nails of her left hand. “It’s not
churchy at all, and everyone’s nice. And the best thing? Only a couple of the kids go to our school, and they hardly ever come, anyway. So it would be like this fresh start for you. We wouldn’t tell anyone you were a cheerleader or on Student Government. They’d get to know you just for who you are.”

“But what if who I am is a cheerleader?”

Rhetta looked at Marylin for several long moments before speaking. “Marylin? In all honesty? You’re not a cheerleader anymore. I think they’re making that pretty clear.”

Marylin took in a deep breath through her nose and slowly let it out. She stared at her toes, which she’d always thought were strange-looking. She kept hoping that one morning she’d wake up and they would be totally different, the big toe the biggest, the little toe like a nice, plump peanut. But every morning they were exactly the same, crooked and uneven. Just like her life.

I’m not going to cry, she told herself. I’m totally, completely not going to cry.

But she cried anyway.

Friday morning on the bus, Kate sitting beside her, Marylin thought about what Rhetta had said. Marylin was popular, but she didn’t have many friends, and look at who her real friends were! Kate and Rhetta were great, but they weren’t exactly normal. She guessed if she wanted to add another weird friend to the list, she could count Kate’s friend Lorna.

Look at who your real friends are. Had Marylin really ever done that before? She went over the list carefully. Rhetta. Kate. Benjamin, maybe. Okay, and Lorna. That was it. How could that be? She was popular! She was pretty! How could she have only four real friends, and three of them weren’t even normal people?

The bus pulled into the Brenner P. Dunn Middle School driveway. Marylin looked out the window at all the kids streaming through the open front doors. Really? Not one of them was her friend?

She turned to Kate. “I think I need to join a club. Maybe meet some new people.”

“And quit cheerleading,” Kate added. “Put that on your to-do list too.”

“Could we focus here?” Marylin asked. “First, I think I’ll sign up for something. And maybe I’ll get to know some kids on Student Government a little better. There’s just never time during the meetings to talk.”

“How about Marguerite Holmes?” Kate asked. “She seems nice.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Marylin said, looking at Kate. “I’m surprised you even know who she is, though. I mean, she’s pretty, well, mainstream.”

“I am an observant human being,” Kate said, sounding the tiniest bit offended. “I know who people are, even the so-called mainstream ones.”

As it just so happened, Marguerite Holmes’s locker was almost directly across from Marylin’s, and Marguerite was there, pulling out books, when Marylin came down the hall.

“Hey, Marguerite! Are you ready for Student Government on Monday?” Marylin called in her best friendly, middle-school-cheerleader/Student-Government-rep voice. “I think we’re
finally going to vote on the spring dance decorations!”

When Marguerite looked up and saw that it was Marylin talking to her, she didn’t exactly look happy. She looked a little irritated, to be honest, like she didn’t have time to deal with people like Marylin. Had Mazie gotten to her, too? Or was Marguerite the type of person who just naturally looked down on cheerleaders, even cheerleaders who were also Student Government representatives?

“It’ll probably be the same thing as always—streamers and balloons,” Marguerite said, turning back to her locker. “It would be great if we could do something different for a change.”

“I totally agree,” Marylin said. “It would be good if we had a more specific theme, not just ‘spring dance.’ I’m not saying this is a great idea, but we could do something like
Alice in Wonderland
. Or is that dumb?”

Marguerite shrugged. “It’s not that dumb. I don’t know if it’s exactly right, but I get where you’re going.”

“Maybe we could eat lunch together today,”
Marylin suggested, smiling her best middle-school-cheerleader/Student-Government-rep smile. “Brainstorm a few ideas?”

“Sure, why not?” Marguerite said with a nod. “It would be good to go into Monday’s meeting prepared.”

Easy-peasy, Marylin thought as she crossed the hall to her locker. This making normal friends was a piece of cake. And when she opened her locker door to see that someone had dumped french fries and the remains of several cheeseburgers on top of her stuff, well, she was in such a good mood that she only cried a little bit. Just a few sniffs and a swipe of her eyes, and she was done.

Hanging out with nice girls was interesting. Not that Kate and Rhetta weren’t nice. They were two of the nicest people Marylin knew, in their ways. Kate’s kind of nice was gruff and maybe a little too much on the honest side, but it was nice all the same. Rhetta’s niceness was true-blue nice that just happened to be buried under layers of black clothes.

But Marguerite Holmes’s niceness was of the no-nonsense, straightforward variety.

“I’m only allowed three activities at a time,” she told Marylin at lunch that day. “So right now I’m doing Student Government, horseback riding, and Service Club. I can’t believe I got voted Student Government secretary this year. That’s like a whole other activity, though I wouldn’t tell my parents that.”

“You’re doing a great job,” Marylin told her sincerely. “Being secretary is a lot of work.”

“It really is!” Marguerite said, suddenly sounding more enthusiastic. “But it’s surprisingly fun. It makes me feel like I’m really contributing to the school, you know?”

Marylin nodded. She did know. She also knew that if Mazie were listening to this conversation, she’d be rolling her eyes like crazy. Mazie was not the least bit interested in contributing to the school. She was more interested in what the school could do for her.

“Is this a private club?” Benjamin stood at the end of the table, holding a brown paper bag. “Or can anybody join?”

“What are you doing here?” Marylin asked, trying to sound nonchalant about it. She couldn’t believe Benjamin was actually talking to her! “You don’t have B lunch.”

“I missed A lunch because I was at the dentist,” Benjamin explained as he sat down next to Marguerite. “Mrs. Parker said I should just take B lunch, and she’d get me out of algebra.”

Mrs. Parker was the school’s administrative assistant, and as far as Marylin could tell, the most powerful person in the building.

Benjamin smiled at Marguerite. “Be prepared to do a lot of minutes-taking on Monday. It’s going to be a long meeting.”

“My mom’s letting me bring her laptop,” Marguerite told him. “I might audio-record, too, just to make sure I don’t miss anything.”

While Benjamin and Marguerite discussed what was on the agenda for Monday night’s Student Government meeting, Marylin looked around the cafeteria. When she’d sat with the cheerleaders, she’d never looked around. Cheerleaders didn’t look; they were looked at. It was sort of more interesting to look, Marylin thought
now. You could learn a lot about the social world of Brenner P. Dunn Middle School by observing life in the cafeteria. The athletes and cheerleaders sat at the centermost tables. The geeks and losers and outcasts were dotted around the edges in groups of one, two, and three. Marylin looked around for Kate and Lorna, but they’d already left, probably to go to the audio lab. Marylin didn’t know how she’d classify them. They weren’t geeks and they weren’t losers. What was that phrase her mom had used the other night at dinner, when they’d been talking about life without computers or electricity?
Off the grid.
Kate and Lorna were off the grid.

Marylin shivered. She would never want to be off the grid. But sitting here with Benjamin and Marguerite, two smart, friendly people who actually cared about doing some good in the world, well, it wasn’t so bad. If the cafeteria was like a tree stump and you counted rings, Marylin’s table would be in the third ring from the center. Looking around, Marylin took note of the other third-ringers. There were more Student Government reps, some chorus kids, a
table of cross-country runners. Lots of band kids. People talked and laughed as they ate. Some kids were studying, and three tuba players were good-naturedly throwing food at one another.

It’s not so bad here, Marylin thought as she dipped her spoon into her hummus. The question was, could she live here? Would people still think she was special and important?

“Do you need a ride Monday night, Marylin?” Marguerite asked. “Because I don’t think I live that far from you. I remember from when I had to enter in everybody’s addresses for the official Student Government record.”

“That would be really nice,” Marylin told her. “That way my mom wouldn’t have to drag my little brother along when she dropped me off. He gets really cranky about having to come with us when my mom drops me off places. He thinks he’s old enough to stay home by himself.”

“My mom still won’t let me stay home by myself,” Marguerite said. “It’s embarrassing, especially since I’m the oldest.”

“I’m the oldest too, and my mom makes me babysit whenever she has to drive someone somewhere,” Benjamin told them. “I’ve got four brothers and sisters, and it takes forever to load everyone into the van.”

“My little brother backed our van down the driveway yesterday!” Marguerite exclaimed, laughing. “He’s only three!”

They spent the rest of the lunch telling stories about dumb things their brothers and sisters had done over the years. As they stood up to take their leftover stuff to the trash, Marylin suddenly had a strange feeling. She couldn’t put her finger on it. It was a butterfly sort of feeling, a spring morning kind of thing.

And then it hit her: She’d gotten all the way through lunch without crying. Not only that, but she actually felt sort of happy, like maybe her life wasn’t falling apart after all.

She looked out the cafeteria window, where there were a few kids hanging out on the benches in the student commons. Turning toward Benjamin, she said, “I think a school
garden’s a good idea. You’re right, it wouldn’t take much money to get it started.”

Benjamin grinned at her. “Seeds are cheap.”

The three of them walked toward the exit. “You know, Marguerite, if we did an
Alice in Wonderland
theme, my parents could help us,” Marylin said, this brilliant idea suddenly occurring to her. “My dad used to be this big theater guy in college, and my mom loves painting stuff.”

“I was wondering, do you think we should do
The Wizard of Oz
instead?” Marguerite asked. “Or is that too creepy?”