If You Only Knew (9780698139541) Page 10

  “Oh, not you, too,” she said.

  “Why? Who else has a headache?”

  Mom shook her head. “It’s the beginning of seventh grade. I’ve seen this four times already.”

  I didn’t move while Mom pulled my shades. “I can’t even have a fake headache all to myself?” I asked her.

  “Rest up,” Mom said on her way out. “It’s only September.”

  I stayed in bed all day, listening to the thunk-thunk-thunk of Tommy hitting a tennis ball against his garage door.

  twenty

  Our breath made little clouds on the display case in Sundries. Mrs. Dodge waddled over and asked, “Yes?”

  In a confident voice, CJ said, “We’d like to see those rings, those two, please.”

  Mrs. Dodge touched the green and gold shiny one. CJ and I shook our heads. She touched the silver matte-finish one with the big fake diamond hanging off, and we shook our heads again. Finally she touched one of the silver rings with the knot in the middle, plain but beautiful no matter what Devin thinks.

  CJ and I nodded, together.

  Mrs. Dodge took her gnarled finger off the ring and closed the display door.

  “We want them,” CJ protested.

  “Wait a while,” Mrs. Dodge said. She reached under the counter and slid open what sounded like a cardboard door.

  “We’re ready today,” I explained. “Really.”

  Mrs. Dodge shook her head and said, “I heard you. Relax.” She pulled out a plastic Baggie full of silver knotted friendship rings. Spilling maybe a dozen of them out on the black velvet rectangle, she said, “Find your size, girls.”

  I spread them out and we looked. “So many,” I said. Not that I thought the two in the display case were the only rings like that in the whole world, but a Baggie-ful under the display—Olivia could come in anytime and buy one if she wanted, too, and Roxanne, even Gabriela. Even Morgan.

  “Doesn’t matter,” whispered CJ. I felt like she had read my mind. She picked up one ring and slipped it onto her finger. It was so big it slid right off when she tipped her hand. I picked it up and tried to wiggle it on, but it barely got over my first knuckle.

  I dumped it onto the rectangle and said, “Oh, well.”

  “Oh, well,” she said back. We laughed and kept looking.

  We found one to fit each of us. The ring was lighter than I had expected it to be. This is it, I thought. Something of my own. This is what I’ve been wanting. I smiled at CJ, but then had to look away. I’d expected to feel completely happy, I guess, and I couldn’t, not quite, not completely.

  “This is what I’m putting in the paper bag,” I said, touching the ring with my thumb. “Myself in a sack.”

  “Oh, I haven’t put anything in yet, have you?”

  “No,” I lied. “Nothing yet.”

  “I’ll put my ring in mine, too, OK?”

  I shrugged. “Sure. I’d feel stupid if you don’t.”

  “Great,” CJ said. “This, and a toe shoe, and what else? You could put in, maybe, a tennis ball.”

  “I’m not that into tennis anymore,” I said. “I don’t just think about sports.”

  “I know.” She twisted her ring around, admiring it. “Sorry. That’s not what I meant.”

  “It’s OK.” I twisted my ring, too. This is what I wanted—to be chosen. Best friends. This friendship ring. Every time I get what I want lately, I burst into tears. To avoid that, I asked CJ, “How was ballet?”

  She lifted her left leg and pulled it up with her hand, up over her head.

  “Wow. Do you have any bones in there?”

  She lowered her leg, smiling. “It was good, really good.”

  “That’s great,” I told her, “that you’re feeling better about it.”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. Mrs. Dodge shrugged and turned away. “I can’t decide what to do and I’m not even sure if it’s my choice. I have to talk to you about it later. She knows my mother.”

  “OK,” I whispered back. I wanted to be helpful to her. She seems so far away sometimes, with her own life I know nothing about. My best friend, I almost bragged to Mrs. Dodge. We’re best friends; we chose each other. “So. Did Tommy call you yesterday?”

  “No,” she said. “I couldn’t stop thinking about him, all day. Well, except during dance class. But the whole way home, I was like, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. You’re lucky; you’re so sane.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Good ol’ sane Zoe.” Sure. Like I spent the weekend thinking something other than Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.

  “Seriously,” CJ protested. “It’s what everybody loves about you—you’re so . . . balanced.”

  “Me?” I asked. I laid out my crumpled dollars for the down payment.

  “You’ll have to come in each week with two dollars, at least,” Mrs. Dodge said, scooping up my money.

  “No problem,” answered CJ, paying hers.

  “No problem,” I agreed. “It’s worth it.” Did I need to convince Mrs. Dodge? Or who?

  We each read the small type on an installment agreement. It felt so official and serious, like I should call a lawyer to look it over for me. Well, it is important; CJ had said so and I felt exactly the same. It’s a commitment.

  I watched my new ring bob as I signed my name next to the X. Before I passed the contract back across the counter, I underlined the rounded letters of my signature. There it is. That’s me, I thought—just a little less pointy than the Zoe Grandon on Tommy’s note, the one thing I’d put into my brown paper bag so far. But of course I’d never bring it in like that. Myself in a sack is obviously much more than a boy who put a worm on my head in kindergarten likes me. Liked me. Whatever. Please.

  I’ll take the note out when I get home, I thought, and find ten funny, reasonable things to replace it. A piece of French toast might be funny, a fraying shoelace, my jam-packed phone book with everybody in my whole grade’s number and birthday filled in, this ring. Maybe I’ll keep the note for a little while, though. I’ll just hide it in the bottom of my sweatshirt drawer until I’m ready to throw it away.

  Turn the page

  to read the first part of

  CJ’s story!

  Please, Please, Please

  one

  My mother has a very complex relationship with cows. Also with me. She grew up on a dairy farm, doing thick-booted chores in poop and milk drippings before dawn, fantasizing, while she mucked, of escaping to dance like a swan in the spotlight at Lincoln Center. Three days after her seventeenth birthday, instead of buying a dozen eggs and a jar of apple butter, she kept walking and used her grocery money plus what she’d hoarded over the years for a bus ticket. She never got onto the stage at Lincoln Center, but she did wait tables across the street for a few years, taking ballet classes and watching performances from the back with standing room tickets scraped from her tips. One night, the man standing beside her asked if she’d like a cup of coffee after. They got married, moved here, decorated the kitchen with a cow theme, and had me who might someday dance in the spotlight at Lincoln Center.

  The only cows I know are pot holders and ceramic spoon handles. Milk comes from a carton, and I’m allergic to it. But every morning, my mother wakes me up before dawn to do my stretching, and although I don’t fantasize about standing in poop instead, my mind does wander.

  My mother is very proud of me.

  I’m just like her.

  two

  I started ballet six years ago, and from the first day of class, I was obsessed. Outside of the ballet studio, I was just a gawky, frizz-headed, stuttering first grader; once class started, the work was hard but clear—straighter, longer, higher, slower. Grace. Ballet made sense to me like nothing else in the muddled, rushed world. I just knew how to do it. My brother, Paul, was two and already talking, so smart and cute like he still is, like Mom, so different from me.
Dance class meant no words for an hour, relief. I was nuts for it—I listened only to ballet music and practiced until my legs shook. Ballerina, I used to say to myself, falling asleep. Ballerina.

  But now I’m in seventh grade—maybe my favorite musician shouldn’t be Tchaikovsky anymore. Maybe I should be eating cookies, even slouching occasionally, or crossing my legs (which I never do—it works against turn-out)—enough adagios, I think sometimes; I should be trudging with my friends though the mall on a Saturday, eating Gummi Bears, wearing a Boggs Bobcats soccer jersey with number five on the back. But then I lift myself up onto the tips of my toes and imagine waiting in the wings for my entrance. It’s hard to know which I want more.

  I came up here to my room after dinner tonight to try to figure it out. I told Mom and Dad and Paul I couldn’t play catch with them because I had to work on my project for school tomorrow, but instead I’d stopped thinking and was just forcing my turn-out up on pointe, pressing the backs of my knees toward each other, listening to the beautiful clock-clock sound my brand-new toe shoes made tap-tapping against my wood floor.

  My door opened and almost slammed me in the face. Mom.

  “Ooo!” she said, at the same time as I said the same exact thing. “Phew,” she breathed, her hand up near her long, graceful neck, like whenever she’s nervous or startled. “So? How’s it going?”

  “Good,” I said. “Fine.” I stood in fifth position flat on the floor. Mom smiled down toward my feet, at the toe shoes I wasn’t supposed to be trying on before getting my teacher’s OK. “I just, I . . .”

  “I always did that, too,” Mom said. “How do they feel?”

  “Perfect,” I said. We had just bought them a few hours earlier, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the cool pink satin.

  She smiled. “Great. They look so beautiful.” She stood behind me, her fingertips gentle on my waist, and we looked at me in the mirror—my new pink leg warmers over pale pink tights, my new skinny-strap leotard, maroon, because now I’m in performance level. “I’m so proud of you,” Mom said. “Level Three.”

  I balanced my head light on my shoulders, eyes steady and front. Not everyone gets invited up to Level Three.

  “It really shows all the work you’ve been putting in is paying off.”

  “Maybe,” I said, letting myself smile for a second. “I can’t do soccer, though.”

  “I know,” Mom said. “That’ll be hard, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I said, lowering myself down to flat feet. “Not, not that I’m any good at soccer, but . . .”

  “But any time you go against the crowd, it’s hard,” Mom agreed.

  “Mmm.” I rolled my head around to loosen up my neck.

  “Well, when you get to be a Polichinelle this winter, and when your career blossoms like Darci Kistler’s did . . .”

  “If,” I corrected, looking at the poster of Darci Kistler on my wall, daring to wonder for a second if I could ever have a career like hers. If I could, would it be worth giving up stomping around with my friends in the mud after school and taking the late bus home? Five dance classes a week is so much. Four days a week. It really means I can’t do anything else.

  Mom kissed my hair. “I have every confidence in you.” She went over and sat down on my bed, her posture, as always, perfect but relaxed. I sat on the floor and pulled off my toe shoes, nestled them carefully inside each other, and slipped them into their white mesh bag. My mother looks like a young Jessica Lange—soft curls, soft features, soft eyes; casual but glamorous at the same time. I don’t look like any movie stars. I look like my dad—deep-set eyes and a little blotchy.

  As she straightened my pillows, Mom asked, “So? What are you putting in besides your toe shoes?”

  My project for school, which I was supposedly working on, is to choose ten things that represent who I am and put them in the paper bag Mrs. Shepard, my English/social studies teacher, gave out Friday. Bring Yourself in a Sack, Mrs. Shepard called it. Of course the first thing I thought of was my new toe shoes. I hadn’t gotten much beyond that with fifteen hours left before school tomorrow. There was a lot else on my mind.

  “Um,” I said, trying to think. I’m not a really quick thinker. “Well . . .” I slipped the toe shoes inside my Sack, on my desk.

  Mom waited patiently. When I started going to Speech in first grade, Mom and Dad learned to wait patiently without helping or encouraging or even nodding.

  “My ring,” I said, holding up my left hand. My new friendship ring had slipped a little to the side, so the knot was hiding against my pinkie. I fixed it.

  Mom came over and took my hand in hers. “Let me look at it again.”

  Of course, she had already inspected it thoroughly, as soon as she picked me up from getting them with my new best friend, Zoe Grandon, this afternoon. “It’s so beautiful,” Mom said again, just like she had this afternoon. I didn’t mind, though. Every time I look at it, that’s what I think, too. It’s so beautiful.

  I asked Mom, “You really think so?”

  “Definitely,” she said, wiggling it on my finger with her thumb over the knot. “I like that it’s so strong-looking, like a boat knot—what’s it called?—nautical, like you would tie with a really strong rope to hold a boat to the dock, but at the same time, it’s delicate, the silver, so feminine.”

  I smiled at the ring. “Mmm-hmm.”

  “You must be so happy,” Mom said softly. “I’m happy for you.”

  I nodded.

  “Who chose it, you or Zoe?”

  “Both,” I said. “The other, other rings were too, I don’t know—fancy. This one is just . . .”

  “Perfect,” Mom finished for me.

  “Exactly. Yeah. So, I’ll put in my ring, and . . .”

  “Really?” Her eyes were open wide, like she was trying to look all innocent, but I knew what she was thinking.

  “Zoe is putting hers in her bag,” I explained. “She’d feel pretty stupid if I didn’t.”

  “Uh-huh,” Mom said, biting her lip.

  “You . . .” I tried not to get angry.

  “What?” she asked, like she didn’t know.

  I stamped my foot. “You . . . you’re the one who-who-who didn’t want me to be best friends with Morgan anymore.”

  “C J!”

  “What? You, you never even liked Morgan at all, you were so happy I was getting to be best friends with Zoe, and now, what? You don’t want me to?”

  “I didn’t say anything!” Mom protested.

  “Why can’t you just be happy for me?”

  “I am happy for you.”

  “But?”

  Mom shrugged. “I was just imagining how Morgan might feel.”

  “Morgan?”

  “She thinks she’s still your best friend, right?”

  “That’s, that’s not . . .” She was right, Morgan had no clue that Zoe and I had bought these rings together today.

  “So how will she feel, sitting there in English when you and Zoe . . .”

  I slapped my hands against my thighs, wishing I could explain or get her to stop saying that, at least.

  She shook her head, bouncing her soft curls from side to side. She is so beautiful it really ticks me off sometimes.

  “You just, you . . . fine. Fine!” I yelled. “You don’t want me to put my ring in?”

  “That’s not what—”

  “Fine! I won’t. I won’t even wear it.” I pulled the ring off my finger and threw it down onto my floor. It clanked, bounced, and rolled under my bed.

  “C J,” Mom said, reaching toward me.

  I pulled away. “What? Does that satisfy you? You don’t want me to play soccer, you don’t want me to have friends, you don’t want me to have any best friend except you, that’s what I think!” I never talk to her like that. She looked as surprised as I felt, standing
there absolutely shaking with I don’t know if it was fear or rage or what.

  “What?” she asked, her hands up like surrendering. “I didn’t . . .”

  I punched myself in the thigh. “You always keep saying I’m your best friend!”

  She shrugged. “You are.”

  “How do you think that makes me feel?” I yelled.

  “Good, I hope.” She smiled a little, tilting her head.

  “Yeah, except, you know what?” I asked her, starting to cry. “You’re not in seventh grade! So what am I supposed to do at lunch?” I held onto my head, which felt like it might blow up.

  “C J, I think it’s great that you have other friends. Really. It doesn’t take away from us. I have other friends, too—Aunt Betsy, and Dad, and . . .”

  “Yeah, but. . . .” It’s really hard to argue with Mom. She agrees with you, which turns a person around so much, you forget what your point was. But I wasn’t giving up this time, for once. “And then, then”—I wiped my eyes quickly with the heel of my hand—“then you keep saying how Morgan isn’t a real friend to me.”

  She opened those beautiful green eyes so wide again. “I do not.” My dad says he fell in love with her the minute she laid those beautiful green eyes on him.

  “You do so!” I stamped my foot again. “You say it.”

  “C J.”

  “All the time, you say it, you know you do! You make that face when I ask can she come over!”

  “Morgan is here all the time,” Mom protested.

  I wiped my runny nose on my sleeve. “But you make that face,” I said, and when she looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about, I wanted to smash her. “Don’t! You know you-you-you bite your lip and you say, ‘Well, if you want to.’ Right? You know you say that!” I imitated her voice. “‘Well, if you want to.’”

  Mom breathed out hard. She couldn’t deny it.

  “Right?” I asked. “And now when I’m finally like, OK, fine, so I’ll be best friends with Zoe, who you think is so great, it’s still not enough! I get friendship rings with Zoe, and you-you just, you don’t even want me to put it in my bag! What do you want from me?”