If You Only Knew (9780698139541) Read online

  “Well, I don’t cry in school.” I dried my hands on the bottom half of her towel.

  She smiled. “Just wait till the hormones kick in.” Devin has the best smile in the family. I’ve tried imitating it in the mirror but mine is big and goofy-looking.

  “What does it feel like, when they kick in?” I asked, following her up the steps to our room.

  “You’ll know. You won’t recognize yourself.”

  “Yikes. Really?”

  “Where were you today?”

  “CJ Hurley’s.” Then I decided to try something out, see how it sounded. “She’s my best friend.”

  “Yeah?” Devin sat down on her bed and crossed her legs. “Since when?”

  Um. “Recently,” I answered. I pulled on my baggiest shorts, Devin’s old green ones. “What did you do?”

  “Did Colette tell you what she did?” Devin asked.

  “No.”

  Devin smiled. “Never mind, then.”

  “Come on!” I hate not knowing stuff.

  “I promised not to say,” Devin said, shrugging. “But after she came home, Anne Marie took us all over to Sundries for school supplies.”

  “You didn’t go with your friends?” I asked.

  Devin shook her head. “Mommy gave us money.”

  “She gave me some to go with my friends tomorrow,” I said. “Anne Marie didn’t say anything to me. Did you guys get pizza after?”

  “Yeah.” Devin smiled her little half-smile. “You could’ve come.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said, digging in my closet for my tennis racquet. The whole family used to go for school supplies together, and then Mom would take us for pizza, after. It was a total free-for-all, everybody with lists and packs of pens. One time they left me there by mistake, and I didn’t even notice, I was so busy examining erasers. I loved the whole excitement of it, like these blank notebooks were a fresh start, and if my sisters helped me choose, I would be able to look down at the fading blue of my spiral later in the year like during a tough math quiz and remember Anne Marie thought this was a good notebook. It gave me courage or at least company. But then last year, my sisters got too old and wanted to go with their friends. I didn’t want to seem like a baby, so I made a whole thing of going with my friends this year, but I definitely would’ve gone with my sisters today, if I knew they were all going together. CJ and I were just hanging around in her backyard. At the time it was fun to me, but I didn’t realize I was missing everything at home.

  “I’m sorry,” Devin said. “Don’t be sad.”

  “I don’t care.” I leaned farther into the closet so Devin wouldn’t see how disappointed I was.

  “You’re not wearing that, are you?”

  She was pointing at my sweatshirt, I saw when I looked up. I explained, “It’s Big Blue.”

  “You get very attached to things,” Devin observed.

  I pulled out my racquet and a can of balls. “Only some things. Feel how soft Big Blue is.”

  She held up her hand. “Thanks anyway. I guess when I was your age I got attached to physical things, too. It’s like a pre-boy stage.”

  “You’re so mature.” She’s a whole twenty-two months older.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” She shrugged. “You’re not going over to bother Tommy again, are you?”

  “He needs work on his serve.” Tommy Levit and I have been hitting off his garage all summer. “Why? What are you doing?” I didn’t want to miss more.

  “You ought to play a little hard to get, don’t you think?”

  “He’s my buddy.” I sat down on my bed, wondering, Does she know that I’ve been thinking about Tommy more than usual?

  “You know you flirt with him.”

  “I do not!” I insisted. Everything is the same. I refuse to go boy-crazy like my sisters, just because Tommy has deep dimples. Just because I get distracted by how cute his face is, lately. “It’s not flirting, it’s joking,” I told Devin. “We’re friends.”

  “That’s what I mean, you let him be just friends. Where does that get you?”

  “I don’t want to get anywhere. Except outside, to practice.” I retied my shoe to avoid Devin’s eyes. Maybe I really do want more privacy. I can’t even have feelings to myself without somebody spying on them.

  “Then the hormones definitely haven’t kicked in.” Devin sat down next to me and started to French-braid her hair.

  “Whatever.” On my way out, I asked, “Is that a pimple?”

  “Where?”

  I could hear her scrambling over to her mirror before I reached the stairs. Serves her right. Sometimes I am not as nice a person as I should be. I looked for Colette to find out what she had done but I guess she was Out, her favorite place to go, wherever that is. Probably her skanky boyfriend’s.

  To get to Tommy and Jonas’s house, you just cut across our backyard, climb the fence, and cross their grass. On my way, I wondered if maybe I do have a best friend, and it’s Tommy. There’s no commitment, like CJ was saying, but Tommy and I rag on each other all the time, and when I’m with him I’m always in a good mood, although nervous, lately, too. But even the nervous is in a good way.

  Mrs. Levit answered the door and yelled to Tommy that I was there. I waited in the front hall. She smiled at me but didn’t say anything. I smiled back and then looked at my racquet head balancing on the toe of my sneaker. Mrs. Levit was holding hands with herself. When I looked up, she was still smiling at me.

  “How are you?” I asked, to be polite.

  “Not so great,” she said. “I have cramps.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible,” I said.

  “You’re telling me.”

  I looked up the steps for Tommy, but he was slow as always. I hate getting trapped in his foyer like this. “Did you go to the doctor?”

  “No.” Mrs. Levit sighed. “It’s menstrual.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Do you get cramps, Zoe?”

  “No,” I said quickly. Every time I see Mrs. Levit she tells me about her period. It gives me the creeps. My mother can’t even say period at the end of a sentence. She says Point; the other kind she just calls That Time.

  “You’re lucky, then,” Mrs. Levit said. “My uterus . . .”

  “Tommy?” I yelled.

  Tommy jumped down to the landing and said, “Hey.”

  “Want to hit?” What I was thinking was, Get me out of here.

  “Yeah. Hold on.” He ran back upstairs, then yelled, “Ma? Where are my sneakers?”

  “In the mudroom,” she answered. “So anyway . . .”

  “I can wait outside,” I suggested.

  “Are you excited for seventh grade?”

  “Not so much,” I mumbled.

  “I don’t blame you. What a rough time.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I don’t know why I thanked her. Sometimes I just say thank you when it seems like somebody should say something.

  By the time Tommy got outside, I was already in a good volley with myself. He sat on the curb and waited.

  “Did you get school supplies yet?” I asked him, mid-backswing.

  “No.”

  Forehand. “I’m going tomorrow with some people, if you and Jonas want to come.”

  “OK.”

  “I don’t go with my sisters anymore.” I caught the tennis ball and tossed it to him. He stood up and walked to the crack we use as a baseline. Before he finished his toss, I asked, “Who’s your best friend?”

  He served.

  “Out,” I said.

  “Yeah?” He ran for the ball and caught it near the bushes. “Jonas, I guess.”

  “Oh.” Jonas is his twin brother, so I said, “Obviously. But I meant, anybody else?”

  He lined up his toe again. “Not really,” he said, and tossed. His serve went
in that time.

  We hit for a while, until it got dark, then sat down on his sidewalk curb again and picked at our blisters. “Well,” I said when I was done with mine. “See you at the bus stop tomorrow.”

  “Yup.” He stood up and headed toward his house.

  “Tommy?”

  He spun around. His black-brown eyes moved up my body, from my sneakers to my bust to my face. I quickly sat down on the curb, because my fingers and toes started prickling the way they did right before I fainted last year as stitches were being removed from my chin. Whoa. When did he turn so cute?

  “Did you think that was weird, yesterday?” I managed to ask.

  “What?” He pushed the sweaty dark hair off his forehead, leaving a smudge of dirt up his face. I mean, he put a worm on my head in kindergarten. I helped him with his soapbox derby car for Cub Scouts. I know about his mother’s menstrual problems. He’s practically my brother. But now when I think about the time he kissed Morgan Miller in his tree house last year, I imagine it was me. I wouldn’t break up with him for kissing.

  “What?” he asked again.

  “That I played catch with you guys? Instead of staying with the girls?”

  “No.” He made a face like, What a stupid question. That’s what I like about him. He’s very no-bull. I guess he gets that from his mom.

  “Just wondering.”

  “Because you’re not, like, a girl,” he said.

  “Really? I’m not?” I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult. “Well, won’t my dad be psyched.”

  “No,” he said. He twirled his grip in his palms so the racquet spun. I taught him how to do that in July. “Like, you don’t care how you look, and stuff.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I pulled my ponytail tighter. I don’t think about how I look all the time, it’s true, but I do care. Of course I care.

  “In a good way,” Tommy said. “Like, you’re not all whispery. You’re more like one of the guys.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Just wondering.” I rested one foot on top of the other. When Devin does that, she looks cute. I wanted him to notice me, differently. That I’m not totally one of the guys.

  “Besides, you have a better arm than most of us.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I tried to flash him one of Devin’s half-smiles, slowly spreading across my face, slyly like she does it. It felt sort of fake, though, and ended up turning into just my own smile, showing too much of my gums, probably.

  He smiled back. “But your forehand wobbles.”

  “In your dreams,” I answered.

  He ran toward his door, grinning that sarcastic grin of his.

  On my way back over the fence, I scraped my leg, and the blood made tracks through the dirt on its way down to my sock. I tried to decide if it looked tough or just gross. Why should I care if my leg is all scabby for the first day of school? I bent down to inspect it and ended up just spacing, sitting in my yard.

  I’m one of the guys, he said. Well, I’ve always felt like it’s a lot better to be a tomboy than a priss. I can’t go back on that now.

  Some things I guess I do keep private.

  three

  Seventh grade. My eyes popped open—I didn’t want to be last in the shower and freeze. I jumped up and made my bed in one motion. Who cares what Devin says? Just because seventh grade was the worst for her, I decided, doesn’t mean it will be worst for me.

  I grabbed my towel and ran down the hall. I was halfway naked by the time Anne Marie opened the bathroom door.

  “Come on,” Anne Marie tried.

  “Sorry.” I turned on the water and stepped into the shower. Nice and hot. I let myself enjoy it for a second, then made it cooler so Devin, who’s always last in, wouldn’t be an icicle on the first day of school.

  “You know,” said Anne Marie, “this is my last first day.”

  “What?” I knew without looking that she was sitting on the toilet seat, her towel folded in her lap. It’s almost always between me and Anne Marie for second shower (Dad gets up in the dark), and whoever loses sits on the toilet and talks.

  “The last first day of school I’ll be here,” she said. I had heard her fine the first time. I’d never considered it before—this was the last first day of school all the Grandon girls would have together, because next year Anne Marie would be away at college.

  “Yeah,” I said. I kept my eyes closed so no soap would get in while I rinsed.

  Usually we talk straight through, but she didn’t say anything else, and I didn’t, either. I decided to put off thinking about how different next year will be without Anne Marie, who really runs things around here. I can’t deal with more than one trauma at a time. Right then I had to get ready for the first day of middle school alone.

  I turned off the water and grabbed the towel Anne Marie shoved in for me. While I dried myself and she showered, I asked, “Was seventh grade your worst year?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “Um . . . eighth, I think. Yeah, eighth.”

  “How come?”

  “Oh, everything. Pimples. Remember my chin?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thank you. Plus I was all jagged edges, and life felt so fragile. I was, like, barbed wire, and life was like panty hose I tried to slip through, but it was always catching on me. Maybe I should write a poem.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You should.” She won English student of the month twice last year. She’s very deep and poetic. I wasn’t sure what she meant; I’m just regular. Besides, I haven’t worn panty hose that much.

  “Plus Bay made starter on soccer, and I sat on the bench,” she added.

  “You didn’t play?” I was surprised.

  “Barely,” she said. “And my little sister got MVP. Ugh. Be glad you’re not in eighth grade.”

  “I don’t remember you sitting on the bench,” I said.

  She turned off the water. I pushed her towel in past the shower curtain. “How could you remember?” she asked, taking the towel. “You were a baby.”

  We walked back down the hall to our rooms. My black jeans were a little tight from the dryer but the scab on my knee was pretty gross-looking, so shorts were out. I like to wear pink on the first day of school because it seems like a friendly color, so I took out Devin’s old oversized pink T-shirt, which I’d been saving. I do care how I look.

  I combed my hair, sitting on the bed to fight the knots (and stretch out the jeans), and thought about what Anne Marie had said. I was a baby. I wondered how much else I had missed. I hate missing stuff. But then I smelled French toast so I stopped thinking. I jammed my feet into my sneakers and skidded down the steps. Devin was hitting her snooze again.

  “Save some for me,” Bay yelled from the shower.

  “No way!” Anne Marie yelled, right behind me. My dad makes amazing French toast. He’s a baker and totally obsessed with bread. Anytime we go on a vacation, it’s always to some place with brick ovens or yeast.

  I was on my second piece and Bay had just finished her first when Colette drifted down. She filled a glass with water and sat in her seat next to me. Dad plopped a big piece of French toast onto her plate.

  “No, thank you,” Colette said.

  Dad’s smile stiffened a little. “I made it special, on my best barley bread. Good start to your first day.”

  “I’m on a diet,” Colette said, sipping her water. I bent my head down and ate a huge hunk of French toast and thought, No, no, no.

  “You are not going to school until that French toast is eaten,” Dad enunciated. His fists were on the table, with the spatula gripped tight in one of them. I didn’t dare look up at his face.

  Next to me, Colette leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her tight T-shirt. Her words, like Dad’s, get superarticulated when they’re starting one of their fights. “Fine,” she said, chiseling
each sound, “then I won’t go to school.”

  “Morning!” Devin ran into the dining room upside down, flipping her head to gather her wet hair into a ponytail. “Mmm, yum.” She flipped up, kissed Dad on the cheek, grabbed a plate, and forked a slice of French toast. “What time is it, A.M.?”

  The rest of us were staring at our plates, not moving, but Devin either didn’t notice or pretended not to. Anne Marie looked down at her watch and mumbled, “Eight minutes.”

  “I WANT YOU TO HAVE A GOOD START TO YOUR DAY!” Dad screamed. “I mean it!” He slammed the spatula down on the table and stormed off toward the stairs, with Elvis, a blur of black Lab, right behind him. Dad tells on Colette to Mom, who thinks he should relax. We listened to him stomping up toward their bedroom.

  “Well,” said Devin. “And what a Good Start it is.”

  I tried not to smile because you just never know how Colette will react, but across the table, Bay cracked up. Anne Marie and Devin both started giggling, and when I dared look at Colette, there was a smile fighting its way onto her face, too.

  “I’m not eating it,” she said, struggling to stay serious.

  “He didn’t say you had to eat it,” Anne Marie murmured.

  “Yes, he did,” said Bay.

  “No.” Anne Marie finished chewing and wiped her face on her napkin. “He said you’re not going to school until that French toast is eaten.”

  “That’s what he said,” I agreed.

  Bay stuck her fork into Colette’s French toast and brought it over to her plate. She cut it, tossed half onto my newly emptied plate, and said, “Hurry.”

  “But I . . .”

  Before I could finish saying I was totally stuffed on two huge pieces, Bay said, “Shut up and eat.”

  “Well, I’m not lying,” said Colette.

  “Why do you have to make such a point of it?” Devin asked. “Say what you need to, and get on with your life.”

  Colette looked at Anne Marie. We waited.

  “Just avoid the question,” Anne Marie said as she cleared her stuff into the kitchen. That seemed to settle it, pretty much. Anne Marie is like the junior mom of our house so she makes the rules; only Dad ever appeals her decisions to the real Mom.