Thirteen Plus One (9 page)

“Gail says it’s abandonment issues,” Cinnamon said. “Lucy Blare thinks she’s got bulimia.”

“Lucy Blare is an idiot,” I said.

“True dat,” Cinnamon said. “I was like, ‘Lucy, Dinah’s not bulimic. She’s
chubby.’ ”

I gaped at her. I flung out my hands to say
What?!

“If she was bulimic, she’d be throwing it all up,” Cinnamon explained. “Hence, no calories. Hence, not chubby. Get it?”

“You do know how wrong that is, right?” I stated. “On so many levels?”

Cinnamon pushed a French fry into her mouth as a single piece, from tip to end. She drew out her finger with a pop.

“Go see her,” Louise suggested.

I looked at her from beneath my bangs.

“I’m not saying cut class,” Louise said. “Just, after school. And instead of
you
talking, let
her.”

She made sense. It ticked me off.

“Think Sandra would take us?” Cinnamon asked me. “Probably,” I said reluctantly.

“Can I come?” Louise said. Cinnamon and I shared a glance.

“Maybe it should just be me and Winnie,” Cinnamon said. “But, um, we’ll tell her ‘hey’ for you.”

 

Dinah lived in a white brick house with yellow flower boxes. The flower boxes were one of Dinah’s favorite projects to care for, and I couldn’t count the times I’d basked in the sun on her front steps as she moved from blossom to blossom with her big-spouted watering can.

Dinah hadn’t planted this year’s flowers yet.

Cinnamon rang the doorbell. “Remember,” she instructed me, “be cool.”

“I’m always cool,” I replied.

“Well, be kind,” she elaborated.

I’m always kind,
I almost said, but stopped myself.

She rang the bell again, then rapped on the door.

“Coming!” we heard Dinah call. There were thunky footfalls, and she opened the door. She was pale, and her eyes were puffy.

“Oh,” she said when she saw it was us.

I hesitated, then stepped forward and hugged her. Cinnamon joined in so that we made a Dinah-sandwich.

“Hey there, troublemaker,” Cinnamon said, giving her a noogie. “Got a smoke for your old bud Cinnamon?”

Dinah smiled wanly. “No. I’ve got Diet Sierra Mist, though.”

Cinnamon gagged. She had Sierra Mist issues, and Diet Sierra Mist in particular. But we followed Dinah into her kitchen, where she served us drinks and Veggie Booty, which was like cheese puffs, only not at all, because it was made from spinach and kale.

“You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?” said Cinnamon, who had Veggie Booty issues as well.

“No, not trying to kill you,” Dinah said listlessly. “You don’t have to eat it.”

Cinnamon grabbed the bag. “Fine, fine, I’ll eat it.” She popped a handful into her mouth, leaving the next move to me.

“So, um ... how’re things?” I said.

Dinah’s eyes found mine. Her expression made my heart lurch, and I had the sudden and awful feeling that
I
had done something wrong. Me, and not Dinah. But why would I think that?

“Do you guys ...” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Do y’all ever ...”

“Do we ever
what
?” I said, my heart pounding.

Tears welled in Dinah’s eyes, which made tears spring to
my
eyes. “Do you ever feel
lonely
inside? Like ... there’s a great big gaping hole where your ribs are?”

I
did
know that feeling. I knew it well, though I was startled to hear it described so perfectly.

“And it comes out of nowhere?” I said. “Yes. But it makes no sense, because I have
y’all
... so why should I feel lonely?” I shifted uncomfortably, but pressed on. “I mean, what do I have to feel sad about?”

“I get that feeling, too,” Cinnamon said. I turned to her in surprise. “But it’s not behind my ribs. It’s more ...” She cleared her throat, as if a piece of Veggie Booty, or something else, was clogging the works. “It’s more inside my heart. And when it comes, it comes. And all I can do is ride it out.”

Dinah reached over to squeeze Cinnamon’s hand, but Cinnamon jerked her hand away. She shoved it back in the Veggie Booty bag and grabbed a fresh handful.

“No, don’t,” Cinnamon said, making a weird laugh sound. “Who said life was easy, right?”

I swallowed. I asked Dinah, “So you’ve been feeling lonely?”

Silence.

I forced myself to look at her, to honestly and openly look at her ... and that was all it took. Her chin trembled, and her story came pouring out. Or rather, her confession. Except instead of
I did this and this and this, it was I am this and this and this.

She was weak, she said, for getting sucked into Mary’s lies. She was dumb for not telling anyone what was going on, especially me and Cinnamon. She was ashamed that her dad had to be called in to talk to the counselor. And finally, she was really really
really
sorry for making such a mess of things. For being so stupid and needy.

“Dinah, no,” I said. “You’re not stupid.
Mary’s
stupid. It’s her fault, not yours.”

My response seemed to frustrate her, or maybe deepen her despair. She rubbed her forehead. “But do y’all accept my apology?”

“For not telling us about the great makeup scandal?” Cinnamon said. “Dude, we’re all human.”

“I don’t mean that,” she said. “Do you accept my apology for being
me
?”

“Stop,” I said desperately. It was getting harder to shake the feeling that
I
needed to be apologizing, too. For something. I didn’t know what. Or maybe I did, but I didn’t want to go there?

Admit it vvhen you’re wrong.
That was one of my goals for myself ... but it was hard.
So
hard.

“You don’t have to apologize for who you are,” Cinnamon said with rock-solid certainty. “None of us is perfect.”

“But I’m supposed to be the good girl,” Dinah said.

“Oh, Dinah,” I said. I recalled Louise’s analysis of the situation, and I just felt worse. I drove my fingernail repeatedly into the pad of my thumb.

“Only I don’t
want
to be,” Dinah went on. “Not always.” She trained her eyes on me. “I don’t want to be the girl who does embarrassing things, or wears the wrong pants, or says things that make you say, ‘Oh,
Dinah
.’”

My stomach cramped.

“I don’t want to be the girl you pat on the head, Winnie.”

This was it.
This was why I’d been afraid. And now that it was out in the open, I bore down so hard on the flesh of my thumb that I could feel the bone.

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad,” Dinah said. “It’s just ... I don’t want to be that person anymore.”

I felt myself turn bright red.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Dinah pleaded.

Cinnamon glanced from Dinah to me. When I failed to respond, she said, “Uh ... I sure don’t. Will one of you please explain?”

Dinah kept her eyes on me. I could feel the weight of her need. But I dropped my gaze, while inside my rib cage, my heart tried to beat its way out. I wanted to flee, or tell Dinah she was full of crap, or burst into tears so that she and Cinnamon would feel sorry for
me
and worry about
me.
And if doing so kept them from seeing the real me? That would be fine, especially if the real me was someone who patted her friend on the head and said, so condescendingly, “Oh,
Dinah.”

Understanding dawned on Cinnamon’s face. Maybe she absorbed it from the air, or, more likely, she finally put the pieces together.

“Oh my god,” she said to Dinah. “You went to the Dark Side to prove you weren’t Winnie’s pet?!”

I shrunk from the ugliness of it. When I peeked to see Dinah’s reaction, I saw her shrink, too.

“Never mind, of course not,” she said, her resolve crumpling. “I’m so stupid.” She thwacked her head. “So!
Stu
pid!”

It cracked the shell inside of me. I got up and went to her, tears rolling down my cheeks, and made her scooch over so I could share her chair. My pulse was racing, because sometimes I was insanely awkward when it came to showing people I cared about them. Especially when that person was mad at me.

But I looped my arms around her anyway and said, “You goof.”

Her shoulders shook, and shame engulfed me as I realized I’d done it
again.
She’d shared something big and scary, and I’d patted her on her head
again.

“No,”
I said. “I mean,
yes,
but ...”

Cinnamon stared at us, lost all over again. She actually wasn’t blameless herself; she and I probably egged each other on with the whole “Oh,
Dinah”
business.

Not probably. Definitely.

I’d been friends with Dinah for longer than I’d been friends with Cinnamon, however. Today, right now, the person who needed to apologize was me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Dinah’s shoulders shook harder. I
hated
how awful I felt, how sunk in the mire, but I pressed on.

“I’ll work on it, okay?” I said. “I do know what you mean—and I’ll try to do better.”

“You don’t have to,” Dinah said thickly.

“Yes, I do,” I said. “I was wrong, and ... and I stand corrected.”

“Okay,” Dinah said. She laughed, only with a gulp added in. “Um, thanks.”

Cinnamon regarded us like we were nuts. “Y’all are nuts,” she said.

This launched a fresh wave of tears for both of us. Happy tears, though.

“No, seriously,” Cinnamon said.

We kept right on being mush pots, sniffling and giggling, until Cinnamon thwonked the table with her palm.

“Moving on,” she said authoritatively. “Can we talk about Mary, please? Now that y’all are all lovey-dovey again?”

I rested my chin on Dinah’s shoulder blade. Her skin was milky white. “I don’t know. Dinah, do you
want
to talk about Mary?”

“It’s so embarrassing,” Dinah said.

“Excellent,” Cinnamon said. “I love it when people who aren’t me embarrass themselves.”

“Oh, fine,” Dinah said. She exhaled. “Remember yesterday, when I was so upset about turning Mary in?”

“Yeah,” Cinnamon said.

“Well, today Ms. Perkins called and said she wanted to share some stuff. It’s private, which means I’m not supposed to tell. So you guys can’t, either.”

Ms. Perkins was our eighth-grade counselor, which meant that whatever she told Dinah was probably juicy.

“It’s not Mary’s first time,” Dinah said. “To, um, do stuff, and then make someone else take the blame.”

“No way,” Cinnamon said.

“She’s extremely adept at manipulation,” Dinah said in the manner of someone repeating a direct quote.

“Like the Black Widow!” Cinnamon said. “Omigod, Mary is my new hero!”

Dinah shoved her.
I
shoved her.

“I still have to take responsibility for what I did,” Dinah said. “But Ms. Perkins said to see it as a life lesson.”

“So the times I saw you with Mary,” I said, “and she was all, ‘Don’t tell, don’t tell,’ she was ... what? Asking if she could put the stuff she’d stolen in your locker?”

“The first time it was because she was late for hip-hop club,” Dinah said. “She didn’t say
what
she was putting in my locker. She just said, ‘Can I?’”

“And of course you said yes,” Cinnamon said. She grabbed the bag of Veggie Booty, tilted her chair onto its back legs, and started munching.

“And then when I saw what it was—”

“Which was what?” Cinnamon asked.

“A bunch of Urban Decay eye shadows, obviously new. But I didn’t think anything of it.”

“Urban Decay,” Cinnamon said. “Nice.”

“So when did, like, the red flags go up?” I asked.

“When she wouldn’t take any of it back. She was like, ‘You keep them. They’re for you.’ ”

“Can anyone say ‘random’?” Cinnamon said.

“And then she kept putting
more
stuff in my locker. She knew my combination, so—”

“You gave her your combination?” I said. “Dinah!”

“This was before I knew! I told her my combination that very first time, when I thought she just wanted to put her school stuff somewhere until hip-hop was over.”

“Why didn’t you get a new lock?” I asked.

“Well ... because that would have been rude.”

Oh, Dinah,
I almost said. I clamped my mouth shut.

“So when this pile of makeup grew,” Cinnamon said. “This
mountain
of expensive products—was
that
when you realized something fishy was going on?”

“She pretty much took over my whole locker,” Dinah confessed. “I didn’t have room for my books anymore.”

Cinnamon’s laughter barked out.

“Cinnamon!” I said.

“I did tell Mary that I wasn’t happy about what was going on,” Dinah said. “I thought about gathering all the makeup and putting it in her locker, but—”

“Let me guess,” Cinnamon interrupted. “She wouldn’t give you her combination.”

Dinah looked sheepish.

I groaned.

“So it turned into this awful, weird mess,” she said. “I
wanted
to tell y’all, but Mary begged me not to. She kept saying it would be the last time, that she would get help, that she’d talk to Ms. Perkins ...”

“But she never did,” I finished.

“And then ... well ...”

Cinnamon raised her eyebrows.

Dinah’s voice grew smaller. “Yesterday she asked if she could copy my humanities homework—”

“Oh,
nuh-uh,
” I said. Dinah and I had the same teacher for humanities, though at different periods, so we were both doing the same lessons. “The assignment on Kohlberg’s stages of moral development?”

Dinah’s cheeks turned pink.

“Too perfect,” Cinnamon said, cracking up. “Cheating on the old moral development assignment.”