California Girls!

  “Jeff’s a Deadhead?” said Stacey, giggling.

  “Apparently,” replied Mr. Schafer.

  Who were the Grateful Dead? What was a Deadhead? I never did find out because Jeff came back into the living room then, looking disappointed, and saying, “Claudia, it’s for you.”

  For me? Who would call me here? The only people I’d given Dawn’s number to were my parents.

  If they were calling to check up on me, I would kill them.

  I picked up the phone in the kitchen. “Hello?” I said. (Thank goodness I didn’t say, “Hello, Mom.”)

  “Claudia?” said an unfamiliar voice. (A boy’s voice.)

  “Yeah?”

  “This is Terry. Um, I met you on the beach … ?” (His voice trailed off in a question, as if he weren’t sure I’d remember him.)

  “Oh! Oh, hi! Hi,” I stammered. And then (darn it) the next words out of my mouth were, “How did you get this number? How did you know where to find me?”

  “Your friend Stacey ran into me on the beach today. She gave me the number. Anyway, I was wondering. Would you like to go out with me tomorrow? We could have lunch and see a movie or something.”

  I was floored. I could barely think. “Well … well, sure,” I said.

  “Great. Just give me your address, and my mom and I will pick you up at noon. Then she’ll drop us off at this mall. It’s got a wonderful Italian restaurant, some movie theaters, and other things. Do you like Italian food?” he asked.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed. I still hadn’t quite grasped what was happening.

  “Terrific. I’ll see you tomorrow at noon,” he said, when I’d told him where the Schafers live.

  “Okay,” I replied. “ ’Bye.”

  I hung up the phone and marched into the living room. “Stacey,” I said. “Can I see you for a minute?”

  Stacey looked a little wary. “Sure….”

  We walked into Dawn’s bedroom.

  “That,” I began, “was Terry. The guy—”

  “I can’t believe he called so soon!” Stacey interrupted. “Wow!”

  “Stacey. You had no right to give Terry the Schafers’ number. You had no right to butt into my business.” I was furious.

  But Stacey’s wariness had turned to delight. “Oh, this is so great! Are you guys going out? We have to plan what you’re going to wear.”

  “Stacey—”

  “Come on. Where are you going? And when?”

  “We’re going to an Italian restaurant for lunch tomorrow. And then I think we’re going to a movie.”

  “Perfect,” said Stacey, who began to paw through the clothes in my suitcase.

  “It’s not perfect,” I countered. “I don’t know what to say to him. He’s too smart. I don’t know anything about—”

  “You talked to him for hours yesterday,” Stacey pointed out, holding up a wildly patterned sundress.

  “Yeah, and we ran out of conversation. He said everything that was easy enough for me to understand, and I said everything that I thought would be difficult enough to interest him.”

  “Oh, Claud,” was Stacey’s response. “Here. Put this on. I want to see you in it.”

  * * *

  At five minutes to noon on Wednesday, I was standing at the Schafers’ front door. I was wearing the sundress.

  I was a nervous wreck.

  Promptly at twelve o’clock, a light gray Toyota pulled up in front of Dawn’s house. I wished desperately that somebody — even that rat Stacey — were there to say good-bye to me and to wish me luck. But Stacey was off surfing with those friends of hers again, Mary Anne had just left to sit for Stephie, Jessi was at the TV studio visiting Derek Masters, and Carol had driven Dawn, Kristy, Jeff, and Mal someplace.

  So I composed myself, shouted to Mrs. Bruen that my ride was there, and walked sedately to Terry’s car. He held open the back door and slid in after me. I didn’t really know what to say, but Terry’s mother saved the day. She kept asking questions about Connecticut, my family, and my school. At last, she turned the car into the parking lot of a huge mall. (Not the same mall that Dawn and Kristy and I had gone to the day before.) She drove to the back entrance of a restaurant called The Grotto.

  “See you at four,” she said.

  “Okay, Mom. Thanks!” Terry replied.

  Four? Four o’clock? I thought. What were we going to do for four hours? (I soon found out.)

  Terry led me into the mall so we could enter The Grotto from the front. We were seated at a table for two and handed menus. Right away, I began to panic. The menu was in Italian! Luckily, before I got too panicky, Terry said, “You know what’s really good here? The fettucini Alfredo.”

  Fettucini Alfredo. I could deal with that. So I ordered it. Somehow we got through lunch. I don’t even remember what we talked about. I’m sure that — whatever it was — it was really boring for Terry. Anyway, after lunch, Terry said we might as well make an Italian day of it and go see this foreign film that was playing at one of the theaters. It was called Il Tantorino Day Buono Godo. No, not really. I don’t have any idea what it was called. The title was in Italian, and Terry said it so fast I couldn’t really catch it.

  Okay. So we go into the theater, sit down, the movie comes on, and the entire thing is in Italian. If you wanted to know what was going on, you had to read the English words that were written across the bottom of the screen. Well, not only couldn’t I read fast enough to catch all the words, but the story made no sense to me. It was just a lot of people bicycling around the Italian countryside. Twice, I had to pinch myself so that I wouldn’t fall asleep.

  After the movie, Terry and I walked around the mall, window-shopping until four o’clock. Terry kept talking about the movie, but all I could say was, “Yeah,” and, “I know,” and, “You’re not kidding.”

  Terry looked impressed. He thought I’d understood the movie. That was something, I guess. At least I hadn’t mentioned art or Nancy Drew books or anything like that all day.

  When Terry’s mom finally dropped me off at Dawn’s, I ran inside, hoping to find someone I could talk to — and also planning to kill Stacey. But the only people there were Mrs. Bruen, Jeff, and Carol. My friends were out.

  “How was your date?” Carol asked me. She was sitting outside. I joined her.

  I tilted my face toward the sun. “It was okay.”

  “Just okay?”

  “I’m not good enough for Terry,” I blurted out. “I’m not smart enough. And our interests are so different. What do you think I should do? I feel like I’m playing a game with him. You know, letting him think I’m smart.”

  “Well,” Carol said thoughtfully, “I know people who change to please—”

  “What’s going on?” interrupted Dawn. She and Kristy stepped through the back door and sat down with Carol and me.

  “I was just telling Claudia,” said Carol, “that some people try to change their behavior or their personality in order to make a relationship work—”

  “That’s stupid!” exclaimed Dawn before Carol could finish.

  But I thought it sounded like good advice. Anyway, I was sort of doing that already.

  Well, Kristy has come through. For once, she’s not making me write up a sitting job for our club notebook. Why? I’m not sure. Maybe because the kid I’m sitting for is really a client of the We Kids Club. Or maybe because she’s having too much fun out here to bother with the notebook.

  Anyway, I arrived at Stephie’s a little before noon. (Mrs. Bruen pointed out her house to me.) I’d been wondering why Stephie’s father was frantically lining up sitters when he works full-time, and Stephie’s mom died right after Stephie was born. Why didn’t he have some sort of permanent arrangement for Stephie?

  It turned out that he did. Stephie was being raised by her father and a nannie. The nannie was sort of like Mrs. Bruen. I mean, she didn’t live at Stephie’s house. But she came over early in the morning and stayed until after dinner five or six days a week. She did some co
oking and cleaning while Stephie was at school, but the rest of the time she was like a mom to Stephie. However, it just happened that while Stephie was on her school vacation, her nannie got called away. Some sort of emergency or family problem. So Stephie’s dad was lining up sitter after sitter until the nannie came back.

  When I rang the Robertsons’ bell that day, a girl who looked like she was maybe sixteen or eighteen opened the door.

  “Hi,” she said. “Are you Mary Anne?” (I nodded.) “Oh, good. I’m Lisa Meri, Stephie’s morning sitter. Come on in.” I entered a house that was similar to Dawn’s. It was all on one level and Spanish. The rooms were arranged in a square around a center courtyard. Almost every room faced into the yard.

  “Stephie?” called Lisa. “Mary Anne’s here.” Lisa Meri turned to me. “Stephie hasn’t had her lunch yet. She’s feeling a little shy today. I think it’s because of all the baby-sitters. She also said she wasn’t hungry, but try to get her to eat something later.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “Stephie!” Lisa Meri called again. (No answer.)

  “As long as she’s not coming,” I began, “can I ask you a few questions about Stephie’s asthma?”

  “Sure.” (I decided I liked Lisa.)

  As we walked toward the kitchen, Lisa said, “Do you know what asthma is?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “It’s when you can’t breathe because your — bronchial tubes start to close up?”

  “Right,” said Lisa. “And different things trigger asthma attacks for different people. Sometimes attacks are brought on by too much activity. Some are due to allergies and hay fever. Sometimes they’re related to emotions or emotional problems. That’s usually when Stephie gets an attack. Plus, an attack can come on for no reason at all. I mean, you can be sleeping and get an attack. What I’m saying, I guess, is that Stephie can do pretty much whatever she wants. Just be sensitive to her feelings. And remember how shy she is.”

  “Okay.” That shouldn’t be a problem. Apart from the asthma, Stephie sounded a lot like me.

  Lisa Meri and I were in the kitchen by that time. Lisa showed me Stephie’s inhalator and how to use it. She also showed me where her pills were kept. Then, “Stephie!” she called again. “Come out of your bedroom, please! Mary Anne’s here.”

  When Stephie still didn’t appear, Lisa walked me down a hallway to Stephie’s room. I looked inside. It could have been my old bedroom. It looked much too young even for someone Stephie’s age. A row of pink bunny rabbits had been stenciled under the ceiling. On her curtains were more pink bunnies. (Also on her lampshade.) The pictures on the walls were of storybook characters — Little Bo Peep and Mother Goose and Peter Rabbit and Babar, the elephant.

  Stephie was sitting on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest. Next to her was a copy of The Secret Garden.

  “Stephie, this is Mary Anne,” said Lisa patiently. “I’m going to leave now, and Mary Anne’s going to stay with you until your father comes home.”

  “Okay,” said Stephie in a small voice.

  “See you tomorrow!” called Lisa, and as she was leaving, she whispered to me, “Don’t worry. Stephie will be fine.”

  I gave Lisa the thumbs-up sign. Then I slipped into Stephie’s room. I wanted to sit with her on her bed, but I didn’t want to seem too forward, so I sat in an armchair instead. Stephie didn’t even glance at me.

  “You know what?” I said. “My room used to look pretty much like yours. My dad decorated it for me.”

  “Your dad?” repeated Stephie with some interest. “How come your mom didn’t help?”

  “I don’t have a mom. She died when I was little.”

  “Same with me,” said Stephie.

  “You know what else? My dad was really strict with me. He made up all these rules I had to follow and he even picked out my clothes every day.”

  “Really?”

  I had Stephie’s interest by then, so I sat beside her on the bed. I picked up The Secret Garden. “I read this book. I loved it.”

  “Me, too! I mean, I’m not finished with it, but I like it so far.”

  Stephie turned so that she was facing me, and I looked at her neat brown pigtails and her dark eyes. She could have been me a few years ago.

  “Does your father have rules about eating?” asked Stephie.

  “He used to,” I replied. “Things have changed now, but he sure used to.”

  “Hey, Mary Anne!” (Stephie was really perking up.) “You want to go bike riding? You could ride my dad’s bike, I bet.”

  Bike riding? I was afraid of triggering an asthma attack, but all I said was, “Oh, I’m sorry. I can’t ride boys’ bikes.” (This is true.)

  “How about roller-skating?”

  “I think it’s too hot to skate,” I said lamely.

  Stephie looked disappointed. “Well, could we walk to the park? There are trees in the park,” she told me. “We’d be cool.”

  “I guess so,” I replied. And then I added, “We could take a picnic lunch with us. Lisa said you haven’t eaten yet.”

  “Okay!” Stephie leaped off her bed. And I swear, I thought she was going to have an asthma attack on the spot.

  She didn’t, of course. She simply grabbed up The Secret Garden and led me to the kitchen, where we made sandwiches and lemonade. We packed them into a basket along with paper cups and napkins, and Stephie’s inhalator and pills. Then we set off for the park. With each step Stephie took I was sure she was going to start wheezing. But she was fine.

  In the park we sat on a grassy spot in the shade of a tree. We ate our sandwiches and drank the lemonade. (I was careful to save some lemonade in case Stephie had an attack and needed to swallow a pill.) When we finished eating, Stephie wanted to play on the swings or the slide, but I told her she needed to digest her lunch first. So we talked some more.

  “My dad,” I said, “used to have a rule that I couldn’t use the phone after dinner unless I was talking about homework.”

  “My dad,” said Stephie, “will only let me have friends over to play if he knows their parents really, really well.”

  “Wow,” I replied.

  “Mary Anne?” said Stephie. “I like you.”

  “I like you, too,” I told her, smiling. “And now we better go home. We have to put our picnic things away. Maybe we could read some of your book.”

  “Okay!” agreed Stephie.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon quietly. When Mr. Robertson returned, Stephie greeted him happily, but she seemed subdued. “Daddy? Can Mary Anne baby-sit me again?” she asked him. “I really like her.”

  “Stephie,” replied Mr. Robertson, “it isn’t polite to ask questions like that in front of the person about whom you’re speaking.”

  “All right, Daddy.”

  “But yes, Mary Anne can come back.”

  “Oh, thank you!” said Stephie.

  “Yes, thank you,” I added.

  You know what? When I returned to Dawn’s house I found that Kristy had changed her mind about something. I had to write up my sitting job after all!

  Boy, was this morning ever hectic! We all went off in different directions. First, Derek and his father picked up Jessi to take her to the TV studio. Then Stacey left to go surfing. Mary Anne was getting ready to sit for Stephie Robertson, and Claudia was a wreck. She was going out to lunch with Terry, and I have never seen anyone so nervous. Jeff went over to Rob’s house — and then Carol appeared.

  “Oh, boy!” I exclaimed. “I wonder where we’ll go today. That beauty museum was dibbly fresh.” (In case you’re wondering, dibble, fresh, distant, and stale, are words my friends and I use a lot. They all mean really cool, except for stale, which means awful or unfair.)

  Kristy and Dawn were the only ones who didn’t have plans so they agreed to come with Carol and me. I could see that Dawn was not happy about this, but at least she decided to go. (Before, she’d said she couldn’t even stand to be in the same car with Carol.)

  “W
hat do you guys want to do today?” Carol asked as she bounced into the house. (She has an awful lot of energy.)

  Dawn spoke up immediately. “Stars’ homes. Beverly Hills. Hollywood. You can’t come to California and not look around for, like, Lucille Ball’s house.”

  “Lucille Ball’s house?” shrieked Kristy. “You mean we can see where she used to live?”

  “Sure,” replied Dawn. “Lots of other famous people, too.”

  Lucille Ball’s house sounded interesting, but there was something I wanted to do a lot more. “Remember that mall we passed on the way to Hollywood yesterday?” I asked everyone. “That really huge one?”

  “Yes,” said Kristy warily.

  “Well, could we go there instead?”

  “Mal,” exclaimed Dawn, exasperated.

  “Think of it this way,” I said. “Mary Anne will kill us if we go on a star tour without her. She’ll kill us.”

  “That’s true …” agreed Kristy.

  “And Washington Mall in Connecticut is nothing like the one we passed. This one advertised an ice-skating rink and video parlors and twelve movies and—”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” said Dawn. “Carol, do you know how to get to that mall?”

  “I think I remember,” she replied. “Is that what you really want to do today?”

  “Yes!” I cried.

  “Yeah,” said Dawn and Kristy.

  “Yeah,” spoke up another voice.

  We turned around. There was Jeff, looking glum. “Me and Rob had a fight,” he said pathetically.

  “Over what?” asked Carol.

  “Over which one of us is the biggest Deadhead.”

  Carol put her arm around Jeff. She was smiling. “Oh, come on,” she said. “You know you’ll patch that fight up pretty quickly. Let’s get going.”

  So we squeezed into Carol’s car and soon we were at … the mall.

  “Ah,” I said. “Just imagine. Skating, eating, buying clothes.” (I didn’t say anything about buying makeup, but I sure thought about it.)