Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life

  My father cleared his throat five times before he managed to say, “We can’t take your money. You earned that.”

  “Pearl and I use the money you earn,” Lexie pointed out. “You always say it’s for the family. Well, so is this.” She edged the bills closer to our parents.

  A tear slid down Mom’s right cheek. Then a tear slid down her left cheek. I felt like crying, too, but for different reasons. I had absolutely nothing to offer my parents.

  I sat on the floor among the dish towels like the useless, jobless, friendless, skill-free, spill-prone person I was.

  Over at the table Mom wiped her cheeks with her napkin, and my father dabbed at his eyes and cleared his throat again.

  I kept my eyes on that pile of $$. I was very curious to find out where it was going to wind up. Lexie gave the bills one more little push, and then Dad pushed them back to her.

  “You keep that, sweetie,” he said.

  “It really is yours,” Mom added.

  A thoughtful expression crossed my sister’s face, like she was thinking about homework, or death. “All right,” she said after a moment, and she stuffed the money back into her pocket. I was shocked. She had given in awfully easily. Lexie had probably staged this scene just to make herself look noble.

  “I’ll keep the money,” Lexie said at last, “but you can stop giving me an allowance. I won’t need one as long as I’m working.”

  “What?!” I cried. Everyone turned around and looked at me. “I mean, that’s really nice of you, Lexie.”

  “Thank you,” said my sister just as both of my parents rose from their seats and put their arms around her.

  “You’re growing up so fast,” Mom whispered into Lexie’s hair. “We’re so proud of you.”

  “This is very, very generous,” said Dad. “I can’t tell you how much your gesture means to us.”

  “So,” said Lexie, “you agree? No more allowance?”

  “We agree,” Dad replied.

  “But once school starts,” my mother said, “your homework comes first. If you don’t have enough time to earn money and keep up with your work then we’ll give you your allowance back, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Probably ours was the only home in which the parents had to beg one of their children to take money from them.

  I carried my plate into the kitchen, stalked down the hall to my room, and mentally slammed the door.

  19

  IX. I finally made up with JBIII.

  During the week of our staycation my scrapbook had filled up nicely with all sorts of interesting observations, notes, photos, drawings, and mementos. Here is what I put in the scrapbook on Monday night after my first day of job hunting: 0

  Here’s what I put in the scrapbook on Tuesday night after my second day of job hunting: 0

  Here’s what I put in the scrapbook on Wednesday night after my first day of doing nothing at all: 0

  Here’s what I put in the scrapbook on Thursday night after my second day of doing nothing at all:

  I had posted my ad in the lobby on Tuesday afternoon. By Friday morning it was still hanging in a clean and tidy manner, while Lexie’s ad was all gray and wrinkled from people fighting to tear off the tabs at the bottom. Only two of her tabs were left, and Lexie spent the better part of each day walking dogs and organizing storage units and burping babies and reminding kids about the commutative property.

  Our apartment had become very, very quiet. My father went on several job interviews. When he was at home, he sat at his desk and researched articles he planned to write. I couldn’t watch TV then because the TV was twelve inches from his computer and the cartoon clangs and boinks bothered him. Mom remained behind her closed office door with the sign hanging, which I think it was a little rude to leave the sign up for so long after she had already made her point about not wanting to be disturbed.

  I made a paper necklace for Bitey that he immediately bit in two, and drew some pictures of Lexie carrying eleven shopping bags since she was so rich, and spent a lot of time staring out the family room windows at the windows of JBIII’s apartment across the street. I never saw any signs of life over there. I was hoping to glimpse JBIII’s head as he walked through their living room. Sometimes I sat downstairs in the lobby and spied on the lobby of the Brubakers’ building. No sign of JBIII there, either. Maybe he was on vacation with his parents. I couldn’t remember what the Brubakers’ vacation plans were.

  Or maybe JBIII was in the hospital, and that’s why no one was at home. His parents were spending all their time with their severely injured son while he recovered from surgery to repair the damage caused by the son’s former best friend, jobless Pearl Littlefield. But that probably wasn’t true. My parents had talked with JBIII’s parents several times and I knew someone would have told me if JBIII was lying in a hospital bed, learning how to feed himself and hold a pencil again.

  On Friday morning promptly at 8:45, my mother closed herself into her office, my father left the apartment dressed in a suit (suit = job interview), and Lexie left with him, on her way to walk Jasper for the Olsons. Breakfast was barely over and already I was bored. I considered snooping through Lexie’s drawers but decided to go down to the lobby instead. Sometimes first thing in the morning, in nice weather, a policeman patrols our block on his bicycle and I always hope to see him get distracted by a flock of pigeons and crash into a fire hydrant. Then I could be the one to shout to John, “Emergency! Emergency! Call nine-one-one!”

  I sat on the bench and looked around the lobby. It was very neat and clean. And dull. Nobody was in the little mailbox room. Nobody was checking the computer display on the front desk. John was busy talking to Etienne. Apparently, there was a problem with Mr. Graves in #10H, who kept leaving his keys in the lock on his door and then phoning down to John and saying the keys were missing and could John please, please organize a search of the building for them?

  Mr. Thompson came in from walking Hammer, and John reached into the cabinet under the desk and pulled a Milk-Bone out of the box he keeps there for Hammer and Jasper and the other apartment dogs. Hammer took the treat delicately between his teeth and carried it to the elevator so that he could eat it in private later.

  I looked outside again.

  The policeman rode by wearing shorts and didn’t go anywhere near a fire hydrant.

  From the desk I heard Etienne say, “He has already called you five times zees morneeng?”

  Mrs. Ledbetter left the building carrying a straw purse over her arm.

  Mr. Berman returned to the building with a cup of coffee from the Daily Grind.

  I was watching Mr. Berman hold the elevator door open for Mrs. Harmer, who was struggling with her pocketbook, a shopping bag, and Matthew in his stroller, when I heard a car door slam. I looked outside again. And there were JBIII and his mother getting out of a cab. I jumped to my feet and watched them walk into their building. JBIII didn’t look too bad. He didn’t even have a cast on his arm. In fact, he was moving pretty quickly.

  * * *

  After lunch that day my father banned me from the family room until I stopped singing a song I had written to the tune of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” that went like this: Lexie is a stuck-up queen, stuck-up queen, stuck-up queen. Lexie is a stuck-up queen, and she’s very mean.

  “Lexie isn’t even here,” my father called down the hall after me as I huffed into my room.

  I sang the song loudly for fifteen minutes with Bitey as my audience and then I returned to the family room. My father eyed me over his glasses, but he didn’t say anything and neither did I. I knelt against the back of the couch and looked across the street at JBIII’s apartment.

  It took me a couple of seconds to realize that JBIII was looking back at me.

  I gave him a little wave, and he waved to me, a much bigger wave. Then he put a finger in the air, signaling me to wait, and disappeared from view. I sucked in my breath and didn’t breathe again until he returned. When he did, he held up a si
gn that read: COME OVER?

  I couldn’t believe it. I grinned, signaled for him to wait, grabbed a piece of printer paper from Dad’s desk, scribbled OKAY!!!! on it, and held it up for my friend to see.

  I wasn’t sure if he meant that he wanted to come over here or wanted me to go to his apartment, but I didn’t wait to find out. I flew down to the lobby and was rushing past John’s desk when I nearly collided with JBIII.

  If JBIII was a girl I might have hugged him, but he wasn’t, so I didn’t.

  For a few seconds we just looked at each other. Finally I said, “Want to go upstairs?”

  He shrugged. “All right.”

  We walked back to the elevator and JBIII pushed the button with his right hand, which was a good sign.

  “So you can feed yourself?” I asked.

  “What?”

  I pointed to his elbow. “You can use your arm okay?”

  “Oh, sure,” said JBIII, as if he had never been knocked down (by me) and been rushed off to a hospital.

  “How long did you have to wear your cast?”

  “Zero minutes. I never had one. Just a sling. And I don’t have to use it anymore.”

  The elevator door opened and we stepped onto the seventh floor.

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “Nope.”

  Huh. I certainly must have a lively imagination.

  We walked into my apartment and down the hall to my room where we sat on the floor, and before JBIII could get one word out, I said, “JBThree, I’m really sorry I ran into you and you got hurt. I felt horrible and I didn’t know what to do. I was even afraid to apologize to you because I thought you were still mad about our fight. The weird thing is that when I was running after you on the dock it was because I wanted to say I was sorry for being so bossy.” I hoped all this would show him how mature I’d become recently.

  “Okay.”

  I also hoped this would be the end of the fight discussion. But it wasn’t.

  “Boy,” JBIII went on, “I was really mad at you. Not about the accident. That was just an accident. But about the other stuff.”

  “Duh. And I was mad at you. But I am sorry I was bossy. I just wanted you to have a good time at WaterWorks. I wanted to make sure you went on all the best rides and ate all the best foods. I guess I was showing off a little.”

  “A little?”

  “Okay, a lot. But after that you really hurt my feelings. It was like you wanted to prove you didn’t need me as a friend anymore.”

  JBIII stared at the wall. “I know. I’m sorry, too.”

  “Do you really still want me to be your friend?”

  “Definitely.”

  “I missed you. I was bored.”

  “I missed you, too.”

  I noticed that JBIII didn’t say he’d been bored.

  “So what have you been up to?” I asked.

  “Well, my parents and I went to Rhode Island to visit my aunt and uncle. And my mom found out about this kids’ computer camp. I went to that every morning last week.”

  That was fine, but what I really wanted to know was whether JBIII had been hanging around with Jill.

  “Huh,” I said. “Interesting. So … do you like Jill?”

  JBIII burst out laughing. “Jill DiNunzio?”

  That was all I needed to hear. I gave him what I think is called a sheepish smile, although I, personally, have never seen a sheep smile, so really it was just sort of an embarrassed smile. “Yeah.”

  “Nope,” JBIII replied. “I do not.” (Here is where Lexie would have said, “End of discussion.”)

  I studied JBIII’s arm, which looked absolutely fine to me. “What happened with your elbow?” I asked at last. “Why didn’t you get a cast?”

  “I just didn’t. The doctor said it wouldn’t do any good, not the way the bone was broken. At first I was supposed to hold it still—that was when I wore the sling—and then I started doing physical therapy and the doctor said I didn’t even need the sling anymore. When school starts I won’t be able to take gym for a while, but that’s it.”

  I thought JBIII sounded just the teensiest bit disappointed and I understood why. After all, it would be pretty exciting to start school with a giant cast on your arm. On the other hand, it would probably be better if the fifth graders at Emily Dickinson Elementary didn’t know that I was the one who had knocked JBIII onto a canoe.

  “What have you been doing?” asked JBIII.

  I told him about our staycation and about the job hunt and how no one wanted to hire me because I was too young, too short, and couldn’t drive, sew, or speak French.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” asked JBIII.

  “Oh, yeah. I don’t have a cell phone, either.”

  “I mean, that you’re an artist.”

  “No one offered me any art jobs.”

  “Did you ask them if they had any art jobs?”

  “No.”

  JBIII shook his head. “The thing about looking for a job is that you have to sell yourself.”

  “Have you ever looked for a job?”

  “No, but…” He trailed off.

  I had the uncomfortable feeling that JBIII might have overheard his parents talking about my father’s search for a job. But I was desperate. “What do you mean, sell yourself?” I asked.

  “You have to tell people what you’re good at and then make them think they need your skill. Look. Pretend you live in this building.”

  “I do live in this building.”

  “I mean, pretend you’re a grown-up in this building, and I come to your door. I’ll be you, okay?”

  JBIII stepped out into the hallway and said, “Ding-dong.”

  I got to my feet. “Hello, little girl,” I said. “If you’re here looking for work, don’t bother. I don’t hire children.”

  JBIII made a face. “Be serious. Just answer the door.”

  “Okay.” I closed my door and opened it again. “Yes?”

  “Hello. I was wondering if you have any stationery needs.”

  “What?”

  “You know. Do you need any notepaper or invitations or greeting cards?”

  “JBThree, what are you talking about?”

  JBIII grinned at me. “I’m getting an idea,” he said.

  20

  X. JBIII and I went into business.

  A. JBIII got an excellent idea.

  At exactly nine o’clock the next morning the phone rang and I jumped to answer it. It was Saturday, and Lexie didn’t have any jobs lined up, so she was still asleep. My parents were in their pajamas, doing their favorite weekend thing: reading the paper and drinking coffee.

  “Hello?” I said, walking the phone into the hallway, as if I had ever in my life gotten an important call that I had to take in private.

  “Hi, it’s me,” said JBIII. “Can you come over?”

  “Right now? Why?”

  “Just come. And bring as much of your art stuff with you as you can carry.”

  “Why don’t you come over here?”

  “I have an idea for a business for us to go into. And we need my parents’ computer and printer.”

  This was interesting. “What’s the idea?”

  “Come over and I’ll show you.”

  I found a shopping bag wedged between the refrigerator and the kitchen cabinet, and I loaded it up with my papers and markers and ink pads and rubber stamps and embellishments and tubes of glitter and rolls of ribbon. I lugged the bag to our family room. “Going to JBThree’s,” I announced.

  “Really?” my mother replied with an astonished smile on her face.

  “Yeah. We made up. I apologized.”

  When I rang the bell at JBIII’s apartment his father answered the door and just said “Hi,” so I knew he thought it was safe for me to be around his son again.

  “Pearl, come in here!” called JBIII from his parents’ office.

  FYI, here’s what JBIII’s parents do: Mrs. Brubaker has a job with a company in Se
attle and does absolutely all of her work from her computer in New York City, except for every now and then when she has to fly across the country for a meeting. And Mr. Brubaker owns a store in a part of Manhattan called Soho, which I have never been to the store because all it sells is lamps.

  I hurried into the office and set my bag on the floor. “I brought everything,” I said. “Well, almost everything. What’s your idea?”

  JBIII gestured to a table that he had set up like a display in a store: Arranged in two neat rows were a box of note cards, a stack of party invitations, some stationery, and a sheet of address labels.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Stuff my mom has bought. Stationery and cards and labels. And guess what?”

  “What?”

  “We could make all those things ourselves. In fact, we could do a better job. You know, make them fancier and more colorful.”

  “We could?”

  JBIII nodded. “And that’s my idea. Made-to-order stationery items. You’ll design them, and I’ll print them out. See?” JBIII sat down at the computer. “I can scan your artwork and then print in color. We’ll get blank paper and cards and envelopes at Steve-Dan’s. Sheets of blank labels, too. Then we’ll ask people what they want and they’ll say, like, invitations to my son’s birthday party. And you’ll go, what’s the party theme? And they’ll go, dinosaurs. So you’ll design dinosaur invitations, which I’ll print out. Then we’ll package the invitations up nicely with envelopes.”

  “And sell them,” I said. “JBThree, that’s brilliant! But about buying the supplies—how will we know how many of each thing to buy? I mean, what if we don’t earn back as much as we spend? Once? On I Love Lucy?” JBIII rolled his eyes, but I ignored him. “Lucy and Ethel went into business bottling and selling salad dressing and at first it seemed like a great idea because they went on TV to advertise their business and they got tons of orders, but it turned out they weren’t charging enough for their salad dressing so they were losing money on each bottle, and Ricky and Fred got really mad.”