“Mom,” I said, “I could not live next door to reindeer and a refrigerator.”
“I agree,” Mom replied. “Anything else, Ms. Keller?”
The real estate agent consulted a book. “We-ell,” she said after a few moments, “there is something bigger in your price range and in a nicer neighborhood, but —”
“Let’s see it,” interrupted Mom.
So we drove to a house not far from the one we’d just seen. And as soon as we’d gotten out of the car, Claudia cried, “I know this house! It’s right behind Mallory’s! Look through the backyard, Stacey. See? There’s the back of the Pikes’ house.”
I looked. I could even see the triplets fooling around with a bat and ball.
“I thought someone lived here,” Claud said to Ms. Keller. Then she whispered to me, “The people were really weird and the Pike kids used to spy on them.”
“That couple moved out awhile ago,” Ms. Keller told us.
“Gosh, they didn’t stay very long,” mused Claudia.
From the outside, the house didn’t look bad. A little weird, maybe, but in pretty good shape except for a few small problems like a loose brick in the front steps and a crooked shutter.
“How old is the house?” Mom asked, as Ms. Keller unlocked the front door.
“Turn of the century. Actually, probably a little older. Eighteen-eighties.”
“Eighteen-eighty,” I whispered to Claud. “Pretty old.”
We stepped into a dark hallway. The house smelled musty, the air was stale, and a thin layer of dust covered everything.
“It has the typical old-house problems, but with just a little work, you can see that it would be a lovely home. Not too big, not too small, and plenty of attractive old features.” Ms. Keller showed us a bathtub resting on claw feet, a bedroom with dormer windows, and a kitchen with appliances that appeared to be about a thousand years old.
“They all work, though,” Ms. Keller informed us. Then she added, “At least for the time being.”
Mom looked at me. I shrugged. It was kind of a neat house, but still …
“I’ll give you my answer within a week,” Mom told the agent.
Dawn was on the phone with her brother Jeff when Claudia and I called her from the Kishis’ house. Since the Schafers have call-waiting, Dawn put Jeff on hold and spoke to us for a few moments.
“You’ll never guess where I am,” I told her.
“Where?” asked Dawn.
“In Stoneybrook. I’m over at Claud’s. Mom and I were up here house-hunting today, and Mom drove back to New York, but she said I could spend the night here and take the train home tomorrow.”
Claud took the phone from me then and added, “BSC slumber party at my house tonight. Can you come?”
“Sure!” exclaimed Dawn.
“Great. Be here around seven.”
Dawn had to get back to Jeff then, so Claud and I hung up and began calling the other club members.
What an unexpected weekend this had turned out to be. First house-hunting, and now a slumber party, just like in the old days! I couldn’t believe Mom had let me stay in Connecticut. (But I was happy knowing I would return to New York the next day.)
* * *
Promptly at seven o’clock, the Kishis’ bell rang. “That must be Dawn,” said Claud. “She is always exactly on time. See? My digital clock says seven on the nose.”
It was Dawn at the door. She was quickly followed by Jessi and Mal. The five of us settled ourselves in Claud’s room with hoagies and salad. We had a real feast. Then Claud and Mal attacked a package of Oreos (hidden in the closet), Jessi delicately took a single Oreo (she watches her weight to stay in shape for dancing), and Dawn and I passed up the junk food. We braided each other’s hair instead.
At eight-thirty the Kishis’ bell rang again, and soon we heard feet pounding on the stairs.
“Kristy’s here!” said Claud, giggling.
The rest of us smiled. No one else can thunder up a flight of stairs quite the way Kristy can.
“Hi!” cried Kristy. “Hi, you guys! Hi, Stacey!” Kristy is not much of a hugger, but she opened her arms and we hugged anyway. “I’m so glad to see you!” she said. “Did you find a decent house? I’m starved.”
Kristy can be hard to keep up with.
“You’re starved?” said Claud. “You were sitting at the Rodowskys’ at dinnertime. Didn’t you eat there?”
“I ate part of a hot dog when I fed the boys, but that was it. I was so busy cleaning up after Jackie that I didn’t have time to eat anything else.”
I sat back down on the bed with Dawn and we began working on each other’s hair again, while Jessi and Mal experimented with Claudia’s makeup and nail polish.
“What did Jackie do tonight?” I couldn’t resist asking.
“Squirted his hot dog across the kitchen the second he bit into it —” Kristy began, grinning.
“He bit into the kitchen?” said Dawn.
“No, the hot dog!”
“The hot dog bit into the kitchen?”
We all started laughing.
See? This is what I love about my friends up here. They’re so … natural. They don’t spend every second of their lives trying to impress each other. Sure, they talk about boys sometimes, and they care about how they look (well, some of them do), but those things aren’t the focus of their lives. With my friends in New York (except for Laine) all they do is talk about who’s dating whom, where they went, what they ate, and what they wore. Or who’s going skiing in Aspen, or who’ll get the best tan in Bermuda over spring vacation.
“Do you want something to eat?” Claudia asked Kristy.
“Anything,” she replied desperately.
“There’s half a hoagie left over,” said Claud. “I’ll go get it for you.”
Claudia left the room, and Kristy sat in her favorite place, the director’s chair. She didn’t bother with the visor, though, since we weren’t having a meeting.
A few moments later, Claud returned with not only the hoagie, but Mary Anne.
Another happy reunion followed, and then the seven of us got down to serious slumber-party business. First, we took Mal and Jessi’s lead, and all painted our nails. I painted my fingernails with sparkly pink polish. Then I painted my toenails with clear pink polish and added a green dot in the center of each one.
“Who’s going to see your toes?” asked Kristy, who would only go so far as to paint her fingernails with clear polish.
“Me,” I replied. “I like to look good for myself.”
Dawn grinned. “You’re the most important person to look good for,” she informed us. “I always dress to please myself.”
“Speaking of that,” said Kristy, “you know what Alan Gray wore to school last Wednesday?”
“Oh, lord,” moaned Claud, burying her face in her hands, apparently remembering.
“What? What?” I asked.
“A hat with an alligator on top of it, and when he pulled this string, the alligator’s mouth opened and closed, and its tail waved back and forth.”
We were laughing again. That’s another thing I love about these friends. We laugh a lot. We’ve done our share of crying together and being scared together, but mostly when I think of us as a group, I think of the laughter.
“How is old Alan Gray?” I asked. Alan is the bane of Kristy’s existence. He’d like her for his girlfriend, but he’s so immature. Besides, Kristy likes Bart Taylor, the coach of Bart’s Bashers.
“Don’t ask,” was Kristy’s reply.
“Okay. Let me try another question. How’s Emily?”
Immediately, Kristy softened. She just loves her new little sister, I can tell.
“I’ve got pictures!” exclaimed Kristy. “I almost forgot. I brought them over just for you. I can’t believe I nearly left them in my knapsack all night.”
The seven BSC members crowded together on Claudia’s bed.
“See? There’s Emily all dressed up to go see Watso
n’s parents. And there she is playing peek-a-boo with Nannie.” (Nannie is Kristy’s grandmother, her mother’s mother, who lives at the Brewer mansion and helps take care of the kids and the house.) “Oh,” Kristy went on, “and there’s Emily dressing up in my clothes. Look, my Kristy’s Krushers T-shirt is like a dress on her!”
Kristy had about a hundred photos of Emily Michelle. Well, not really, but it took us awhile to look through them. When we were done, we changed into our nightgowns, spread sleeping bags on the floor of Claud’s room, crawled inside them, and began to gossip. Every now and then, somebody would get up, go into the bathroom, brush her teeth, return to her sleeping bag, and drift off to sleep.
At last, only Claud and I were awake. The lights were off in her room, but each of us knew the other wasn’t asleep yet.
“Stace?” whispered Claud.
“Yeah?”
“Remember how awful it was when you first found out you were moving back to New York?”
“Yeah.”
“We tried to figure out a way for you to stay here.”
“Yeah.”
“And I said you were my first and only best friend.”
“I remember.”
“Well, you still are. You always will be. Whether you live here or in New York or — or in Nepal.”
“Nepal!?” We put our hands over our mouths to muffle our giggling. “Thanks, Claud,” I said. “You know what? I feel like you’re my sister.”
I fell asleep happy — and guilty. Because for all the fun I was having, and as close as I felt to Claud and my other friends, I couldn’t wait to get back to New York the next day.
New York, I admitted to myself, was Home.
Back to New York City, back Home. I was in school again. I hung around with Laine. I stepped gingerly around our group of friends at school. I baby-sat for Grace and Henry. I watched Mom and Dad read the real estate pages of the paper.
And I missed Stoneybrook. How could that be? New York was Home, but all I could think of was Connecticut, Claud, and the BSC.
One night Dad came home late to announce that he’d found an apartment. Mom and I were in the kitchen. Supper was over and we were drinking tea. I was doing math homework (my easiest subject), and Mom was making a list of pros and cons about the house in Stoneybrook. She couldn’t make up her mind about it, and I wasn’t being much help. I had decided to stop saying anything about where I wanted to live or whom I wanted to live with. This was a feeble effort at keeping Mom and Dad together. I thought maybe I could be uncooperative enough to make them rethink the stupid divorce thing.
I was wrong.
Dad strode into the kitchen, smiling. “I found a place, Stacey,” he said, as if Mom weren’t sitting just three feet away from him. “You’ll love it, I know. It’s in an older, smaller building, it has lots of charm, and just like I promised, there are two bedrooms — one for me, one for you. Here take a look at the ad.”
Dad handed me a miniscule piece of paper that he’d cut out of The New York Times.
I frowned at it. Wb fp. So exp. Pre-war bldg. Brk wls. I looked at Dad. “Woodbug fup? So expee? Pre-war bulldog? Bark wools? Where are you going to live? In Wonderland?”
Dad laughed. “No. That means a wood-burning fireplace, southern exposure — in other words, lots of sunlight — and a pre-war building with several brick walls. Believe me, you’ve never seen anything like it.”
“And you’ve already taken it?” asked Mom in a strange voice.
“Yup. Well, I’ve paid two months’ rent. I just have to sign a few papers tomorrow.”
“Where’s the apartment, Dad?” I asked.
“The East Sixties. East Sixty-fifth Street, to be exact.”
“But I’ve never lived on the East Side,” I said.
“Well, you can experience it now,” Dad replied.
A horrible expression crossed Mom’s face. Mine, too, but for a different reason.
“You want to live with your father, Stacey?” cried Mom, at the same time I said, “You mean you’re really, really going through with it? You guys are really getting divorced?”
For a moment, no one knew what to say. Then we all began talking at once.
Dad said, “You knew our decision was final, Anastasia.”
Mom said, “I thought you’d want to go back to Stoneybrook, Stacey.”
I said, “I thought I could live wherever I wanted. You said that was up to me. Besides, I didn’t say I was going to live with Dad, just that I’ve never lived on the East Side.”
Then Dad said, “East Sixty-fifth Street is just inches away from Bloomingdale’s.”
And Mom said, “Don’t bribe her. That’s not fair.”
And I said, “I thought this was just a phase you two were going through.”
And Mom said, “Take your insulin, Stacey.”
And Dad said, “Don’t hound her.”
And I said, “I hate you both,” and ran to my room and slammed the door.
* * *
The next day was Saturday. Dad went to a real estate office to sign some papers, and then to a gigantic hardware store that carries everything from nuts and bolts to refrigerator magnets. He said he needed some things for his new pad.
His new pad. He actually said that.
I stayed at home with Mom, feeling horribly guilty about those words that had slipped out of my mouth the night before: “I’ve never lived on the East Side.”
I sat in the kitchen with her again while she looked at the paper. I was trying to write an English composition (the teacher had said to write about what you know, so I was writing about parents who can’t keep their marriage vows), but concentrating was difficult with Mom on the phone every two seconds.
It was especially difficult when I heard her say, “Hello, Ms. Keller?”
Right away, my ears perked up.
“This is Mrs. McGill,” Mom went on. “Yes…. Right…. Well, I know it’s been a week, and I’m calling to say that I just can’t make up my mind about the house. It is a lovely old place, but it will probably be expensive to keep up, and … Well, I know…. I know. So I wanted to tell you that I guess you better start showing the house again. If I decide I want it, I’ll call to find out if it’s still available, and if it isn’t, I’ll understand…. Okay…. Yes…. All right. Thank you. Good-bye.”
“What did Ms. Keller say?” I asked.
“That the house’ll probably be snapped up in a second.”
“Oh.”
My mother returned to the paper.
“Mom?”
“Yes, honey?”
“How come you can’t make up your mind about the house in Stoneybrook?”
“I guess because it’s too big for one person. If I knew what you wanted to do — I mean, where you wanted to live —”
“So get a smaller house,” I said. “One with just two bedrooms. The old house has four.”
“I didn’t see any nice smaller houses.”
“Oh, yeah.” I remembered the refrigerator and the reindeer.
“I think I’ll look on Long Island,” said Mom, rattling the paper as she turned pages.
Long Island? When I visited her there, I wouldn’t know anybody. She had to move to Stoneybrook, I thought.
I flipped to the back of my composition book and tore out a fresh page. Then I made a list of pros and cons. One list was for staying in New York. The other list was for leaving New York and going back to Connecticut. Here is what my page looked like:
I took a look at my list. I didn’t have to look at it very long to see the decision I was going to make.
“Mom?” I said. “Can you call Ms. Keller back right now?”
“Sure. But why?”
“Just to make sure no one snapped up the house in the last fifteen minutes.”
Mom gave me a questioning look but dialed the phone anyway. She spoke briefly to Ms. Keller, then cupped her hand over the phone and raised her eyebrows at me.
I took a deep breath. “Ask
her if you and I can move into it.”
Mom’s eyes filled with tears, and in a wavery voice, she told Ms. Keller that she’d take the house after all. Then they began talking business, and I tuned out. All I could think of was what I would tell my father when he came home.
* * *
Dad returned late that afternoon. He’d been putting shelf paper in the kitchen cabinets of his new pad.
“Dad,” I said, “I have to talk to you. In private. Can we go to my room?”
“Of course, honey.”
Dad followed me to my room and sat next to me on the bed. How, I wondered, could I possibly say what I had to say? My father and I love each other, and now I was going to hurt him. He had stayed with me during hospital visits. He had helped me learn to give myself insulin injections. He had bought me dolls and dresses and taken me to my first Broadway play — Annie.
“Dad,” I began, already knowing I was going to cry, “I made a decision today. I’m going to Stoneybrook with Mom. She took the house we found last week.”
My father just nodded. I don’t know whether he’d expected the news or not.
“You said it was up to me,” I whispered.
Dad nodded again. His Adam’s apple was moving up and down.
“I knew it. I knew I’d hurt you,” I said.
“Oh, Stacey. I’m, well, I guess I am a little hurt,” Dad told me. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. But I’m not angry. I’m just going to miss you an awful lot. That’s all.”
“I’ll visit,” I promised him, wiping away the tears that were dripping down my cheeks. “Every other weekend. Or maybe all summer. We’ll work something out.”
“I know we will.”
I handed Dad a Kleenex and took one for myself. Then we hugged each other and cried and cried.
“Hey, Mom!” I shouted. “We need more packing cartons!”
“Run to Gristede’s,” Mom called from the living room. “See if they have any. Sometimes they have the ones with tops.”
Run to Gristede’s. Run to Gristede’s. If I had a dollar for every time I’d been to that grocery store asking for cartons, I’d never need to baby-sit again in my life.