Our family doesn’t practice any particular religion. Our dad’s Jewish and our mom was raised in the Russian Orthodox church, but she says she’s an atheist. So every year Michaela and I get a mix-and-match combination of Christmas and Hanukkah, and neither of us is sure if we believe in heaven or hell. Michaela always says, “I can’t imagine either.”
But I think I have a clear picture of what hell might be:
Freshman-year gym class.
About two hours after the Social Studies, I’m lying with my cheek and my belly against the cold gymnasium floor. All around me, kids in ugly polyester blue shorts and orange T-shirts are doing push-ups, pumping up and down like soldiers in training, while Coach Shreve paces in front of us, barking out commands. His voice bounces off the tiled walls and his sneakers squeak.
I’m doing pretty well in school so far. My homework is always complete, I answered an important question in English yesterday about a William Butler Yeats poem, and last week my French teacher told me I had an impressive working knowledge of the language. (I wanted to tell her that I had a working knowledge of French curses, thanks to the great Claude Durand). Gym has been my one stumbling block.
I wonder why it is that when I’m dancing, my body does what I tell it to, but here, in gym class, I become ungainly and unruly. It’s like my boobs, which strain against the too-tight T-shirt they issued me on my first day, are in the way, and my limbs get stiff and stubborn. Over lunch yesterday, I asked Michaela if she ever felt the same, and she said, “I wish my boobs got in the way.” Michaela’s completely flat, but on her, it looks good — model-y. And then she said that since she was a senior, nobody took gym seriously; the girls stood around chewing gum and comparing their weekends while the boys shot hoops, and their teacher — not Coach Shreve — pretended not to care.
The squeaking of Coach Shreve’s sneakers gets louder so I know he’s getting closer. In the next instant, he’s standing right over me.
“Katie, Katie, Katie,” he says.
I lift my head from the floor. “I can’t do push-ups,” I explain unnecessarily.
Coach Shreve’s dark eyes look concerned. Last week, in the locker room, Susanna Baker, who eats at the Ninth Grade Popular Table with Rebecca and Sullivan, whispered, “Coach Shreve is so hot he makes me sweat” and then she fanned her underarms, which I thought was kind of gross. All the other girls laughed, though. When I told Michaela the story, she burst out laughing and said, “Oh, Katie, you take things too seriously.”
“Let me tell you how I feel about the ‘C’ word,” Coach Shreve tells me now.
I look up at the round clock above the gigantic Tigers mural, and see that it’s time for him to send us to the locker rooms. “Everyone, please go shower!” Coach Shreve booms, and then adds, in a lower voice, “Except for you, Katie.”
I wonder when my Buddha-rubbing luck is going to start kicking in. Yesterday, when I was closing my window for the night, Emmaline happened to be closing hers at the same time. She smiled at me, and called out, “We need to have tea again sometime!”
I almost asked her, “Why were you crying on Friday?” but that didn’t seem like the best thing to yell between our two houses. Instead, I said I’d love to. Then I wondered if Emmaline herself ever rubbed the Buddha’s belly, because she didn’t seem like the luckiest girl to me.
Everyone thunders past me on their way to the locker rooms, and Coach Shreve sits down beside me, his legs crossed Indian-style. I prepare myself for the worst.
“Katie, do you know what my ex-wife used to say to me?”
Okay, that I was not prepared for.
“Um, no …” I struggle to sit up.
Coach Shreve stares off into space and rubs his chiseled jawline. “Her favorite word was ‘can’t.’ ‘No, Timothy, I can’t make this marriage work.’ ‘Timothy, I can’t be happy with you.’”
I look around to see if there are any witnesses. Can someone call the Too Much Information Police?
“Do you know where that attitude lands you, Katie?”
“Um, no …” Those two words seem to be serving me well.
“In divorce court,” Coach Shreve replies. “And eating alone in your kitchen for the rest of your life.”
“Coach Shreve, I think the bell is about to ring,” I say. And, you know, last time I checked, I’m not a licensed therapist.
“Sorry.” Coach Shreve’s head snaps back to me. “I mean to say that thinking ‘can’t’ all the time won’t get you very far, Katie. Now why don’t you be a sport and try showing me a solid push-up now that your classmates aren’t around?”
Buddha comes through for me then, because the bell shrills. Coach Shreve still makes me show him my halfhearted attempt — I collapse on my belly anyway — and then tells me to practice at home. I nod and scuttle away, trying to pretend like his out-of-the-blue personal-life confession didn’t freak the bejeezus out of me.
People are a lot more private in the city.
The locker room is empty when I get there, save for Susanna Baker, who is blow-drying her hair and doesn’t need to rush anyway, since there’s always a spot for her at the Freshman Popular Table. I speed-shower, dress, and tear toward the cafeteria, knowing Michaela will be irritated if I keep her waiting for too long. Plus, though we’ve been lucky about snagging our two-person table every single day, I’m not sure if it’s officially “ours” yet — The Wilder Sisters’ Table — the way each class’s Popular Table seems to have an invisible RESERVED sign.
I imagine sitting down with Michaela, telling her You’ll never guess what Coach Shreve said to me, and hearing my sister’s shocked laughter. But when I enter the cafeteria, I don’t spot Michaela’s long neck or flowing light-brown hair. With a flash of relief, I see that our table is available, so I make my way through the thick of students and trays, and sink into a seat.
It’s strange that Michaela isn’t here by now, but maybe she got held up in Physics lab. Perhaps she’s having a moment with her partner, Cecil Billings? I smile at the thought, then pull out my brown bag lunch. As I unwrap my lox-and-cream-cheese bagel (Dad drove all the way to a supermarket in Burlington, Vermont, this week because he had a craving for lox), I feel a spark of worry. Is Michaela purposefully staying out of my way because I pressed her too much this morning?
I check my cell phone, and when I see no missed calls or messages, I stand up and gaze around the cafeteria. I spot Autumn’s older brother, sitting with a group of guys, and I glimpse the table where Autumn typically sits with her girlfriends, though Autumn herself is not there. No Michaela. It could be that my sister’s getting the hot lunch — she made a point of telling Mom not to prepare a bagel for her this morning. “Everyone knows that bagels outside of New York City suck,” Michaela stated plainly.
I’m craning my neck to get a look at the hot lunch line, when someone pulls out the chair across from me.
“Do you mind?” Autumn asks, her voice just shy of hesitant. She gives me a questioning smile as she sets down her tray.
“No, um, I …” Between Sullivan and Coach Shreve and now Autumn, I’m really eloquent today. “It’s just … that’s my sister’s seat,” I finally explain. Then I realize how silly I sound. “But go ahead,” I tell Autumn, meaning it. “Michaela can pull up an extra seat when she gets here.”
As Autumn and I both sit down, I realize we’ve completed a new step in our dance; now, it’s permissible for us to hang out at lunchtime. I wonder about the group of girls Autumn usually eats with — Camping Club friends, I’d bet — but I’m too distracted by Michaela’s absence to ask Autumn any questions.
“Are you looking for your sister?” Autumn asks me as my eyes zigzag across the cafeteria.
“Yeah. She’s normally here way before I am.”
“Well …” Autumn replies, slicing her meatball in half with her fork. “I think I saw her over there….” Autumn waves to a table not too far away, by the wall of windows. A crowd gathered in front of that table splits, and I
swallow hard.
It’s the Senior Popular Table, and there’s Michaela, comfortably sandwiched between Heather and Lucy, as if she’s been sitting with these girls every day. She’s stabbing at the cafeteria salad with her fork and laughing at something Faith is saying — laughing the way she usually laughs at my impersonations of Svetlana. There are also boys at the table today — Anders, his two friends from that day on the lake, and another guy wearing a football jersey. I’m jealous of the others, that they get to enjoy Michaela’s warm presence.
Hurt rises up in me as I stare at my sister. Had she been waiting for an opportunity to ditch me at lunch so she could chill with her new group of friends? I lived for our lunches together and I thought Michaela did, too. How could I have read my sister so wrong?
“Oh,” I say to Autumn as if the sight of Michaela at the Popular Table isn’t making my body quiver with sadness. “Thanks.” Then I look down and take a huge bite of my bagel.
Ouch. My jaw aches. The bread is stiff and tasteless, somewhere between cardboard and rubber. Michaela was right. As always. Which makes me even more pissed at her.
“What is that pink stuff?” Autumn asks as she leans forward to study my food.
“It’s lox,” I reply, thinking, Should I walk up to Michaela now and confront her? Wait until we’re home?
“Like … keys and locks?” Autumn asks, and I reluctantly focus on her again.
“No, no, it’s fish — smoked salmon,” I answer impatiently.
And then I realize, looking across the table at my new maybe-friend, that Autumn truly doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what lox is! This idea is so strange and funny that I can’t help but giggle, my mind off Michaela for a moment.
“Smoked salmon?” Autumn’s eyes widen, and she shudders. “Ew, Katie, that’s disgusting!”
“It’s not, it’s delicious,” I laugh, putting down my bagel. “What’s disgusting is this bagel. Is there any place to get decent bagels around here?”
“I’m sure there is,” Autumn replies, reaching across the table and lifting up the bagel slice to better inspect the lox. “Actually, there’s this bakery not too far from my house called Bread and Roses, and I think …”
“Oh, my God, Katie!” Michaela appears at my side like a whirlwind. “I’m so sorry, babe, I didn’t know if you were coming to lunch at all today —”
I hate that she called me babe.
“You could have texted me!” I snap, not wanting to get too riled up in front of Autumn, who has suddenly busied herself with her meatballs.
“I had to stay after class and” —Michaela glances back at her new table — “the girls invited me to sit with them, and you weren’t around — so —”
“I got here as soon as I could!” I protest.
I can tell Michaela is struggling to hold back a big-sister sigh as she glances at Autumn. “Hi,” she says, smiling her genuine Michaela smile. “You must be Autumn. Katie’s mentioned you. I’m Michaela, her sister.”
“I know who you are,” Autumn says, and I wonder if she means those words to sound as loaded as they do.
It’s when Autumn and Michaela are greeting each other that it hits me: I, too, was eating with a friend today. And when I wasn’t fuming over Michaela, I was actually having fun. I guess there’s no written rule that says that my sister and I must spend every single waking minute of every single lunchtime together. Not that Michaela and I ever get bored with each other, but maybe it’s good for us to mix now and then. “Healthy,” as Mom would say in her practical voice. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
Our mom is fond of sayings.
Looking up at Michaela now as she makes small talk with Autumn, I experience the weirdest sensation. It’s as if my sister is drawing away from me, shrinking and shrinking like the city skyline when we drove away from home, until she is out of sight.
“What’s wrong?” Michaela asks, putting her hand on my shoulder.
I touch her hand with mine. “I’m fine,” I say. “Are we walking home together today?”
“Of course!” Michaela says, looking almost offended — as if any other possibility would be outrageous.
As Michaela glides back to the Popular Table, I watch her for a moment, then turn back to Autumn. “So, the bakery near your house …” I say.
Autumn studies me in her quiet, thoughtful way. I can tell that she wants to address the Michaela situation, but she also knows this might not be the best time. So instead she smiles and says, “It smells like heaven. They might have good bagels there.”
“I should check it out sometime,” I say, giving up on my own bagel and putting it back in the bag. “Where do you live?”
“Not too far from you, actually — right off Frog Croak Road,” Autumn glances at her food. “Maybe … since it’s close by … would you want to come over to my house this weekend? The Camping Club is camping out on Mount Elephant from Saturday night into Sunday, but I’m free on Saturday during the day….”
I feel my heart swell. I’m invited to Autumn’s house! If that’s not a friend move, I don’t know what is. And despite the overalls Autumn is wearing, and despite her belonging to the Camping Club, knowing that she’s probably my first friend in Fir Lake makes me grin.
I can’t wait to tell Michaela.
“Welcome to Casa Hawthorne,” Autumn says when I arrive on her doorstep Saturday afternoon. She gestures with a flourish as I step inside the warm entrance hall. “I know it’s not a penthouse on Park Avenue, but …”
“Eeeek!” is my response. A large, furry creature is panting in my face, its jagged nails digging into my chest, and its enormous tongue attempting to slobber —
“Ralph Waldo, Ralph Waldo, down boy!” Autumn yells, pointing to the floor as if this might help. Magically, it does, because the creature — a gargantuan St. Bernard — gets down on all fours and stares up at me, his tail wagging so hard it bangs into Autumn’s legs.
“He likes you!” Autumn exclaims as I struggle for air.
The only one of my friends who’s ever had a dog was Sofia Pappas, and hers was a nervous, yappy little dachshund who zipped from one end of her apartment to the other (her parents eventually took the dog to a pet therapist, which is actually quite common in the city). Trini has a fat cat that naps all the time, and a few goldfish have floated in and out of my childhood. But an in-your-face, wild-and-free mountain dog like Ralph Waldo seems specific to Fir Lake.
“Go on, Ralph Waldo, go play out back,” Autumn says, patting Ralph Waldo on his rump, and the dog obeys, galloping through the house and presumably out the backdoor to the yard, where I pray he’ll stay. Forever.
“You’re not a dog person, huh?” Autumn asks me with a grin as I unbutton my peacoat with stiff fingers. My cheeks are frozen from the short walk, and I can barely feel my feet in my cute gold-buckled flats.
“Let’s just say I haven’t spent a lot of time around animals,” I respond, hoping to sound diplomatic even though I’m considering calling a doctor to make sure I didn’t catch rabies.
“Ralph Waldo means no harm, I promise,” Autumn assures me as she takes my coat.
“Uh-huh,” I say, studying the framed portrait of the dog that hangs in the entrance hall, alongside an embroidered square with the words Nature always wears the colors of the spirit — Ralph Waldo Emerson stitched into it. At least now I know where the dog got his weird name.
“So describe your old apartment for me,” Autumn instructs as she hangs up my coat in the hall closet. “You know, I’ve never been to New York City….”
“Really? I’m shocked,” I tease. When Autumn doesn’t answer right away, I worry that my comment offended her. But then she whirls around, laughing appreciatively.
“I know, I’m such the wide-eyed ingenue,” Autumn says as we walk through her living room. I wonder what ingenue means, but I don’t want to seem stupid by asking. Autumn’s living room is decorated in shades of forest green and nut brown, so it still feels like you’re
outdoors even when you’re inside. There are tons of science books bursting out of the plastic shelves, and paintings of woodland creatures on the walls. It’s kind of ugly, but welcoming at the same time.
“Well, our apartment wasn’t a penthouse, and it wasn’t anywhere near Park Avenue,” I say, sitting gingerly on the arm of Autumn’s couch. I’m still expecting Ralph Waldo to fly out at me at a moment’s notice. Autumn flops onto a green La-Z-Boy, and listens intently. “We lived in the East Village. Our kitchen fit two people at most, and there was only one bathroom. My sister and I shared a bedroom, too.”
“Wow, I would go crazy if I had to share a room with someone,” Autumn says. “I need lots and lots of space. Or maybe that’s just what I’m used to.”
“Is anyone else home now?” I ask, tipping my head back to see the second landing.
“My dad’s on campus — he has office hours on Saturdays,” Autumn replies. “And Jasper is probably holed up in his room, reading. As always. Hey,” Autumn adds, getting to her feet. “Let’s go to the kitchen.” I notice that there’s no mention of a mom. In my house, my mother’s presence is like a storm — loud and strong and impossible to ignore. “I have a surprise for you,” Autumn adds. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving.” Whenever I spent the day at Trini’s apartment, we rarely ate together. I guess that’s not what ballerinas do.
“Good,” Autumn says as we step inside the kitchen. “Because guess what I picked up at the Bread and Roses bakery this morning?”
“Autumn … did you get bagels?” I cry, impressed. The kitchen, like the living room, is green and brown, and there are so many plants along the windowsills that it looks like a small jungle. Plus, there’s a white cat snoozing on the counter. How many creatures live in this zoo?