Stacey's Choice

  “You’re what?”

  “I’m — I’m going to have to miss the dinner.”

  “But Stacey, this is important. Besides, you’re my date for the evening.”

  “You could invite someone else,” I suggested. “There’s time.”

  “No,” said Dad, sounding choked up. “That’s not it. You’re all I have. I don’t know anyone else to invite. Just you…. You’re all I have,” he repeated.

  “Maybe if you weren’t a workaholic, there’d be something more in your life. But you’re married to your job,” I told my father.

  Dad gasped, and I realized what I’d just said. I had practically accused him of being responsible for the divorce. I gasped, too. “Dad, I’m sorry,” I cried. “I didn’t mean to say that. Honest. But … but I can’t leave Mom.”

  “I understand,” said Dad quietly.

  I wasn’t sure he did.

  “Look! Look at me, Mary Anne!”

  Laurel Kuhn greeted Mary Anne at the door in a state of great excitement. But Mary Anne couldn’t see anything unusual about her. She looked at her from head to toe, feeling a little panicky. Clearly, Laurel felt she had made some great, obvious change. How could Mary Anne not notice it?

  But before Mary Anne could think of an excuse, Laurel said, “My lipstick! It’s my lipstick!” She was hopping around in excitement.

  In all honesty, Mary Anne didn’t see any lipstick on Laurel, even when she was actually looking for it. “Your lip —”

  “It is mood lipstick,” Laurel went on. “It came in the mail yesterday. It changes color. If you’re angry, it is red. If you’re happy, it is pink. If you’re scared, it is yellow. If you’re jealous, it is green.”

  “Boy. Pretty smart lipstick,” said Mary Anne, who still could not detect any color on Laurel’s lips.

  Mary Anne entered the Kuhns’ hallway then, and said hi to Jake, who’s eight, and Patsy, who’s five. (Laurel is six.) She and Mrs. Kuhn talked for several minutes before Mrs. Kuhn left to run errands. As soon as their mother was gone, the Kuhn kids pulled Mary Anne into their rec room. “You have to see our stuff!” said Jake.

  The couch in the rec room was covered with bottles and jars, pamphlets, cheap toys, and a few things Mary Anne couldn’t identify. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing to one of those unidentifiable objects.

  “It’s Poof,” Jake informed her. “Stain remover.”

  “ ‘It can even remove ground-in dirt and grass stains,’ ” quoted Laurel.

  “And what’s this?” Mary Anne wanted to know. She pointed to a tiny vial.

  “That,” Jake said proudly, “is moondust.”

  “It really came from the moon,” added Laurel. “Some astronauts brought a sack of it back with them.”

  “We are one of only twenty people in the whole world to own moondust,” Jake went on. “We may be famous soon.”

  “That’s moondust?” Mary Anne said to Jake. “Are you sure?”

  “The ad said.”

  “Oh.”

  “Guess how much it cost,” demanded Laurel.

  “Real moondust? Well, it must have been pretty expen —”

  “Seventy-five cents,” Laurel interrupted her.

  “And I gave a quarter,” spoke up Patsy. “We each did. So the moondust is part mine. I will be famous, too.”

  Ding-dong.

  The Kuhn kids raced Mary Anne to the front door. Standing on the stoop were Buddy Barrett and Nicky Pike. Buddy was clutching a brown paper bag.

  “The mail didn’t come yet,” announced Buddy, letting himself through the front door. (As an afterthought, he added, “Hi, everybody.”)

  “I know,” replied Jake.

  “Isn’t the mail awfully late?” asked Mary Anne.

  “Yup,” spoke up Nicky, “but this is great because now we can wait for it…. Hi, everybody…. Gosh, I wonder where the mailman could be.”

  His truck is probably bogged down with free samples and jars of moondust, Mary Anne thought.

  Patsy pointed to Buddy’s paper bag. “What’s in there?” she asked.

  “It is very unbelievable,” was Buddy’s reply.

  “Let’s see!” squealed Laurel.

  “Well, come outside,” said Buddy. “I will show you while we wait for the mailman.” Buddy settled himself on the Kuhns’ stoop. Nicky, Jake, Patsy, and Laurel crowded around him.

  Buddy was just opening the bag when Mary Anne and the kids heard a shouted greeting. “Yo!” Haley Braddock was striding across the lawn, Matt at her side. Behind them trotted Vanessa and Margo Pike.

  “Hi!” Mary Anne called.

  And Patsy added, “Buddy is going to show us something!”

  Buddy’s audience had now doubled in size. He made a great show of unfolding the top of the bag and reaching inside. Then slowly, slowly he withdrew a tiny vial of … “Moondust,” whispered Buddy. “This is actual dust from the actual moon. And an actual astronaut brought it back to Earth on an actual rocketship.”

  Jake’s eyes had widened to nearly the size of tambourines. “Oh, my gosh. You’re one of the twenty,” he whispered. “I cannot believe it.”

  “What?” said Buddy, his brow furrowed.

  “You — you’re one of the twenty people who bought moondust. Did you read that little piece of paper that came with the jar?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Laurel and Patsy and I bought moondust, too. We all chipped in. We are practically related to you then, Buddy.”

  “I guess you are also practically related to us Pikes,” spoke up Margo. “I ordered some moondust, but it hasn’t come yet.”

  Mary Anne noticed that Matt and Haley were signing to each other where they were perched at the bottom of the stoop. Presently Haley turned around and said to the rest of the kids, “Matt wants you to know that he is also your relative. He ordered moondust last week.”

  “This is so weird,” said Jake in an eerie tone of voice. “Who would ever have guessed that most of the moondust owners would come from this very neighborhood?”

  “You guys —” Mary Anne started to say.

  “Hey, there’s the mail truck!” shrieked Patsy.

  “Where?” said Nicky.

  “There.”

  The kids peered down the street. At a corner several blocks away, Mary Anne could just make out a blue shape that might be a mail truck.

  “Let’s go meet him!” cried Vanessa.

  “All of you?” said Mary Anne. “No, don’t swamp him. Why don’t you wait until he’s delivered the mail in this neighborhood. Then you can go from house to house and collect your stuff.”

  This idea seemed to appeal to the kids, although they had trouble waiting. They were not terribly patient. Nicky pulled Margo’s ponytail. Patsy tickled Laurel’s back and told her a spider was running down it. Buddy sang “I’m in Love With a Big Blue Frog” until the other kids couldn’t take it any longer, and Patsy and Laurel put their hands over their ears.

  The mail truck hadn’t quite reached the Kuhns’ when Buddy said, “Okay, can we go to my house now? The mail must be there.”

  “All right,” agreed Mary Anne.

  The kids, all nine of them, took off running.

  “Wait for me!” called Mary Anne.

  Buddy, slightly ahead of the pack of kids, reached his mailbox at the same time as his sister Suzi, who had zoomed across the Barretts’ lawn. They nearly crashed into each other, then grabbed for the catch on the box at the same time. They struggled briefly.

  “I want to open it!” said Buddy.

  “No, me!” exclaimed Suzi.

  Mary Anne put her hands over the kids’. “Open it together,” she said.

  They did. Then they scrambled to grab the loot inside while the other kids watched enviously.

  “It’s here!” cried Buddy.

  “It came!” cried Suzi.

  “What’s here? What came?” asked Mary Anne.

  “My stamp-licker,” said Buddy. (Mary Anne wondered what was w
rong with sponges. Or for that matter, with tongues.)

  “My moondust,” said Suzi.

  Silence fell over the group. At last Haley repeated, “Your moondust?”

  “Yes!” Suzi was ripping into a small mailing envelope, oblivious to the stunned reaction of her brother and friends. She held up the familiar vial. “Here it is! Real dust from the moon! I wonder what this says.” She held a folded piece of white paper toward Buddy. He took it, but didn’t look at it.

  “I know what it says,” Buddy told her disspiritedly. “It says a lie.”

  “Huh?” Suzy was gazing at her moondust.

  Buddy glanced at Mary Anne, then at his friends. Haley shook her head slightly. Buddy considered for a moment. Finally he said, “Never mind. It just tells about moondust, Suzi. That was a cool thing to order.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So, Buddy. Did you get anything else?” asked Mary Anne brightly.

  Buddy looked through the mail again. “Just the stamp-licker, I guess. Come on, you guys. Let’s see what you got.”

  The kids left Suzi and her moondust on the Barretts’ lawn. They ran down the sidewalk toward the Pikes’ house. Mary Anne wasn’t sure, but she had a feeling the kids were moving somewhat more slowly.

  In the Pikes’ mailbox, Nicky found a mustache comb.

  In the Braddocks’ mailbox, Haley found a trial-size tube of ointment guaranteed to erase crow’s feet in seven to ten days.

  In the Kuhns’ mailbox, Jake found a pamphlet titled, “So You’re Going to Cater a Wedding.”

  The kids examined their treasures.

  “This stamp-licker doesn’t work,” complained Buddy.

  “I don’t have crow’s feet around my eyes,” said Haley. “What am I supposed to do with this ointment?”

  “And what are you going to do with a mustache comb?” Vanessa asked Nicky.

  “I could give it to Dad.”

  “He doesn’t have a mustache, either.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Jake threw away his wedding pamphlet. “Now what?” he asked his friends. “What do you guys want to do now?”

  “Order more stuff?” suggested Buddy.

  But they couldn’t. The kids were completely broke.

  While Mary Anne was chasing the neighborhood kids from mailbox to mailbox, I was at home with my mother.

  I was watching her nap. She was not sleeping peacefully. She kept coughing.

  “She had a bad morning,” Mrs. Braddock had reported when I came home from school. “And her temperature is up a bit.”

  “Do you think she needs to go back to the hospital?” I asked, alarmed.

  Mrs. Braddock didn’t seem worried. “No, I think she just needs to sleep. This happens sometimes. She’ll probably feel better tomorrow.”

  “I hope so,” I said. Immediately, I began reconsidering a decision I had just made. The decision was not to decide. I mean, decide between my parents. It had occurred to me that I could take care of both of them. I could leave for New York on Friday afternoon as I had planned, go to the dinner with my father, then come back to Stoneybrook first thing Saturday morning. I would be away from Mom for less than twenty-four hours and I wouldn’t disappoint my father. I was still nervous about leaving Mom overnight, but I could line up people to stay with her then just like I did while I was at school.

  Now, watching her sleep and remembering what Mrs. Braddock had said about her bad morning, I wondered if I really could leave her on Friday night. Then I replayed the horrible phone conversation with my father.

  I sighed.

  And Mom woke up.

  She rolled over and saw me sitting in the chair by her bed. “Hi, sweetie,” she mumbled. She reached for the box of tissues.

  “Hi. How are you feeling?”

  “Better, I think.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I’m actually chilly. I was burning up before, so I threw off the covers.” Mom pulled them over her again.

  “Let’s take your temperature,” I suggested. I found the thermometer and shook it down. “Normal!” I was able to announce a few minutes later. “Maybe Mrs. Braddock was right. You just needed to sleep.”

  “You know what? I think I’m actually hungry,” said my mother.

  “Hey, great! I’ll fix you a snack.”

  Mom ate the snack and then said she thought she might like a cup of tea, so I fixed that, too. And then Mrs. Pike dropped by. While they drank tea together in the bedroom, I called my father.

  My hands shook as I dialed the number of his office.

  “Hi,” I said to his secretary. “It’s Stacey. Is my dad there?”

  “Hold on a minute.”

  When my father got on the line he sounded hesitant. “Stace?”

  “Hi, Dad. Um, listen, I’ve been thinking. How about if I go to the dinner —”

  “Fantastic!” exclaimed Dad.

  “— but I come back to Stoneybrook early Saturday morning. I won’t stay for the weekend, but I won’t miss the dinner, either.”

  “That sounds fair.”

  “I still have to figure out what to do about Mom while I’m gone.”

  “She really can’t stay by herself?”

  “I don’t think she should.”

  Then Dad and I both spoke at the same time.

  “I’ll call a visiting nurse service,” he said.

  “I’ll talk to our neighbors,” I said.

  Click, click.

  “Oh, Dad, hold on. We’re getting another call.” I pressed the call waiting button. “Hello?” (I just love call waiting.)

  “Hello, this is Dr. Becker’s office. I’m calling about Mrs. McGill’s blood tests.”

  “Oh, yes!” I said. “This is her daughter. Hold on. I’ll get right back to you.” I pressed the button again. “Dad? I have to go. That’s the doctor with Mom’s tests.”

  Dad hung up and I talked to the doctor. Then Mom talked to her.

  “It’s pneumonia,” said Mom when she got off the phone, “and only pneumonia. All the other tests were negative.” She smiled at Mrs. Pike.

  “All what other tests?” I wanted to know.

  “Oh, the doctors wanted to be positive about the pneumonia diagnosis. They wanted to be able to rule out a few other possibilities.”

  Boy. I was glad I hadn’t known about that. I would have spent the last three days worrying that the doctors had misdiagnosed Mom and she really did have leukemia or something.

  Mrs. Pike had to leave then. I wanted to talk to her about Friday night. Uh-oh — I hadn’t told Mom about Friday night.

  “Mom?” I said. She was repositioning herself in bed. “I just talked to Dad. This is what I finally decided about the weekend. I’ll go to New York tomorrow after school and come back first thing Saturday morning. How does that sound?”

  “Perfect.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Okay. I’m going to talk to Mrs. Pike. I’ll make sure someone is here with you at all times.” I paused. “Wow, I have a lot to do. I have to pack — I can’t forget my new outfit. I have to talk to the neighbors. Let’s see. I better tell Kristy I won’t be at the meeting tomorrow. Dawn will have to be the treasurer. Oh, and I have to find the train schedule.”

  As you can imagine, the rest of the afternoon was fairly hectic. I remembered that I also needed to catch up on some homework, and of course I had to take care of Mom.

  First things first. I sat at the desk in my room, my math book opened, a fresh sheet of paper in front of me.

  I could not concentrate.

  So I turned on my radio, set my suitcase on the bed, and began to pack. In went the new outfit, in went my nightgown, in —

  “Stace?” called Mom.

  “Yeah?” I dashed into her room.

  “Sorry to bother you, honey, but I need another box of Kleenex.”

  I got her the Kleenex. Then I returned to my packing.

  In went my underwear.

&nbs
p; “Stacey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m really sorry —”

  “Don’t worry about it. That’s what I’m here for.”

  “— but I’ve lost the remote control for the TV.”

  I retrieved the remote control from between the bed and the dresser.

  I went back to my room. And it occurred to me that I should take care of BSC business before I did anything else. So I phoned Dawn.

  “Hi, it’s me,” I said. “Listen, I can’t go to the meeting tomorrow —”

  “You mean you decided to go to New York?” cried Dawn.

  “Just overnight. Just for the dinner.”

  “That’s a good solution.”

  “Yeah, if I can find overnight Mom-sitters. And I have to pack, of course. Oh, and miss tomorrow’s meeting. Which is why I’m calling. Can you get ready to be treasurer for the day?”

  “Sure. No problem. It won’t even be a dues day.”

  “No. Just remember to give Kristy money to pay Charlie. We owe him. And someone might need money to replace stuff in a Kid-Kit. I think that’ll be all.”

  “Cool. See you in school tomorrow.”

  “Okay…. Dawn?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you ever resent your parents for getting divorced?”

  “Lots of times. Why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess just because if Mom and Dad were still together, I wouldn’t be in such a mess right now. I mean about the weekend. If we all lived in New York, then Mom would have been Dad’s date for the dinner, and when she got sick, well, I’m not sure what would have happened, but somehow I don’t think I would have been affected. Not so affected, anyway. Not caught in the middle.”

  “I don’t think I get caught in the middle as often as you,” said Dawn thoughtfully. “But when I do, it’s an even bigger problem because I feel pulled from coast to coast. My decisions involve plane trips and time changes and stuff.”

  “Which would you rather have?” I asked Dawn. “All the fighting before the divorce, or all the problems after the divorce?”

  “Neither.”

  I giggled. “That isn’t a choice.”

  “Oh. Then I choose the right to remain silent.”

  “Daw-awn!”

  “Also, to be completely fair to parents, I would like to point out that not every divorce creates problems. Some work out pretty well.” Dawn paused. “But if a genie ever floated out of a bottle and said I could have one wish? I’d wish that Mom and Dad were still happily married.”