True to Form

  All along the sidewalk the same trees and houses I passed on the way here look different now. Washed, though there is not a cloud in the sky. Which is blue so pure you think your eyes might be making it up.

  MY GOODNESS!” Ginger exclaims.

  “Yes,” I say, shyly.

  “What have you done?”

  “I just cleaned up a little.”

  “A little!”

  It is Saturday afternoon. My father is playing golf and Ginger has just come back from the hairdresser and the grocery store. Her hair is sprayed stiff like a helmet in the Jackie style; they are going out tonight. She puts two bags on the kitchen counter, her eyes wide and almost crying like Queen for a Day. “It is just shining in here!” She turns around slowly, notices the glass full of wildflowers in the center of the table. “And a bouquet!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She comes up to me, smiles, and gives me a big, long hug, which smashes my face bad but you don’t want to tell the person. “You didn’t have to do this!”

  “I wanted to.” I check discreetly to see if the cartilage in my nose is still in the same place. Yes.

  Ginger sits down at the table, crosses her legs, leans back, and puts her hands behind her head. She looks like Dagwood on the couch, only sitting up. “You know what? I’m going to sit right here and just admire this kitchen.”

  “Well . . . ” I say.

  “What?”

  “Maybe you should look other places. Like the bathroom.”

  Ginger sits still for a moment, not understanding, and then she smiles like wives do when their husbands hand them a jewelry box-sized present at Christmas. And then she goes down the hall, me right behind her and the dogs right behind me; they know something special is up. Ginger goes into the bathroom and claps her hands together. “Look at this! It’s better than Mrs. Webley!”

  When Ginger claps her hands, Bones sits down, his ears risen up to alert status. As for Bridgett, she has squeezed past us to sniff around, thinking there must be steak scraps scattered on the floor to cause this much commotion.

  “Thank you so much, sweetheart,” Ginger says. I feel like moving my foot around on the ground, like TV people just before they say, Aw shucks. Instead, I tell Ginger I have to go to the Wexlers’, and I leave her standing in the bathroom. Wait till she notices the Venetian blinds. She will pass out from joy, her mouth a little smile under her X eyes. In my mind’s eye I see Father Compton, sitting behind his desk with his fingers laced over his belly, happy and nodding. Maybe God, too. Why not? It seems to me that when it comes to religions, we’re all just making it up anyway.

  IAM ALMOST ASLEEP WHEN THE phone rings, waking me up. I look at the clock: ten thirty. I guess my father and Ginger are still out; no one is answering.

  I go out into the hall, pick up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Katie?”

  It is Mrs. O’Connell.

  I sit on the floor, my back against the wall. “Yes?” I should have said, Yes, ma’am.

  “Is Cynthia with you?”

  “ . . . No.”

  “Well, I wonder if you know where she is.”

  “No. No, ma’am, I don’t.”

  She sighs, impatient. “Well, I just don’t . . . She’s been gone since after dinner. I didn’t even know she’d left. We had an argument, and she . . . Katie, do you think you could help me find her?”

  I stand up. “I’ll ride my bike over.”

  “No. I’ll come and get you.”

  I pull on my jeans and a blouse, write a quick note to my father, and wait at the door. When I see the shine of headlights I run to the driveway and climb in Mrs. O’Connell’s car.

  She doesn’t look at me. But she says, “Thank you,” and I say, “It’s okay.”

  WE START BY DRIVING UP and down the streets of Cynthia’s neighborhood. Mrs. O’Connell said Cynthia took her bike, so we go for several miles in every direction. Neither of us sees anything.

  Finally, Mrs. O’Connell pulls off at the side of one of the streets. “I’m going to have to go back and tell her father. We’ll have to call the police. He doesn’t even know she’s gone. He’s working in his office down in the basement. I told him I was running out to the all-night market to buy milk.” She turns to me, stares for a long moment. She starts to say something, then stops.

  “I know,” I say, and I think I do know. I think what she wants to say is how much she loves Cynthia, how she couldn’t stand it if anything has happened to her, how much she regrets having done anything that might have caused Cynthia to leave. If that’s what she’s saying, I know how she feels.

  She puts the car in gear, starts driving again.

  I look out the window, wonder about how this has come to be, that I am driving around in the dark with Cynthia’s mother, looking for her. I wonder what happened that Cynthia ran off like this. I wonder if she got so angry she felt like killing her mother again. And then, suddenly, I know where she is. I even think I know how she is sitting, her head resting on her folded arms. “You know, there’s one more place we can try,” I say.

  Mrs. O’Connell looks over at me, hope.

  “But you can’t come. I’ll tell you where to take me, but you’ll have to wait in the car.”

  “I will.”

  I can’t believe it. She agrees, just like that. No questions asked. Except for one. “Which way?” she asks, and I tell her.

  CYNTHIA IS AT THE HILL, just as I suspected. She is not sitting like I thought, though. Instead, she is standing, her back to me. When I call her name she jumps, then turns around quickly.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She says nothing.

  “Your mom is worried about you. We were driving around, looking for you.”

  Again, nothing.

  “She called to see if you were with me. I said I’d help her look. I thought you might be here. Are you thinking about the fight you had with her?”

  Cynthia just stares at me.

  I swallow. “Or about the fight we had?”

  She looks away from me, rubs one arm with the other.

  “Cynthia? Are you going to talk to me?”

  She doesn’t answer. There is nothing that makes you feel stupider than when someone won’t acknowledge the fact that you’re talking to them. Everything you say sounds so ridiculous.

  “I just want you to know I’m so sorry about the things I said about you. I don’t know why I did it.”

  Nothing.

  “Well, actually, I guess I do know.”

  She won’t look at me, but I can tell she’s listening.

  “It was because I wanted to be friends with them. I wanted to be popular, and I thought if I were friends with them, I would be. You know how we always talk about being popular, how good it would feel.”

  Nothing.

  “Right?”

  She sighs, the tiniest sound.

  “I guess doing that to you is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done. I wish I could undo it, but I can’t. So I wish we could at least talk about it. Could we?”

  Nothing. It is so quiet I swear I can hear my watch ticking on my arm. “Cynthia? I want you to know I didn’t tell your mother where the hill is. She’s a block away. I’ll take you to her if you want.”

  She takes a step toward me, then stops. “Listen, Katie, I have to tell you something. I don’t think I can ever forgive you. I’ve thought about it a lot. I don’t think I want to see you anymore, ever.”

  I swallow, nod. “This way,” I say, and start walking. Once I turn around to look at her to see if she has changed her mind. But she stares straight ahead, wheeling her bike beside her, not seeing me. Not wanting to.

  IAM THE STUDENT AND HENRY is Miss Linda. This is his latest. He is Miss Linda, the school teacher, dressed in an apron and with a scarf draped over his head, and I must sit on the stairs and answer his questions. When I get one right, I can advance a step up. When I get one wrong, I must come down one. Henr
y thinks he is hysterical, and so do his brothers. They wanted to put lipstick and rouge on him, but he wouldn’t let them. But he doesn’t mind talking in his high, lady voice and keeping one hand on his hip and wearing his mother’s big rhinestone clip-on earrings. His brothers won’t be students, but they sit on the hall floor watching, cheering if I miss an answer and booing if I get one right. So far the only ones I’ve missed are baseball questions. As if I would know Roger Maris’s batting average. I have made up a rule that there can be no more sports questions, so the game should be over soon.

  “How many feet are in a mile?” Henry asks.

  “Five thousand, two hundred, and eighty,” I say. A step up.

  “How many planets?”

  “Nine.”

  “Which one is closest to the sun?”

  “Mercury.” Two more steps to go.

  “How do dogs air-condition themselves?”

  “By panting.”

  “Baby questions!” Mark says. And he comes up to whisper in Henry’s ear.

  “Do snakes have lungs?” Henry asks, and I say, No, because of course not.

  “Wrong!” Henry says, and I sit still for minute, then say, “Show me.”

  “No way,” David says. “She’s trying to cheat.”

  “I am not,” I say. “I’ll stay right here. You show me where it says snakes have lungs.”

  They stand there, thinking, and then there is the sound of a car horn. Their parents are home. Everything is so different between the Wexlers now. At first Mrs. Wexler acted sort of shy and guilty, but now she is just better. She looks like she had a good long nap.

  Henry quick takes off his costume, handing the earrings to me to put back on his mother’s dresser. The best part of baby-sitting is when the parents come home and you can just be a kid again. Who gets paid and then walks out the door, free.

  AT KEVIL’S JEWELERS is a pair of beautiful earrings which I believe are opals. They have a milky sheen that changes from blue to pink and they would look good with anything, jeans to a frilly white formal. I have enough money saved to buy them. But first I am just staring at them with the stomachache of longing, as I have so often done. This makes the buying better.

  “May I help you?” the salesman asks. He is a tall, thin, older man, who has a smile that is like a little frown below a nose that is smelling something bad. He thinks I’m just that annoying girl again, getting fingerprints all over his case. Imagine his surprise when I tell him I want to buy those earrings and that I have all the cash right here in an envelope in my purse.

  “Yes,” I say. “I would like to make a purchase.”

  “I see. And what is it that you would you like to buy?”

  I point to the earrings. “Those, right there.”

  He pulls them from the case and shows them to me, but he holds them so I won’t touch. He sniffs, not the kind like when you have a cold, but the kind when you are just a snob. “These are rather expensive.”

  “I know exactly how much they are. I’ll take them.”

  “Well!” He is so pleased with himself, although he has done nothing. He puts the earrings in a box. “Any gift wrap?”

  I start to say no, but then I think Why not? “Yes, please,” I say. This will be a present from me to me. I will leave the earrings on my desk to look at for one week, and then I will open them. “Why, thank you!” I will say to myself.

  “Don’t mention it,” I will answer.

  “Why don’t you try them on?” I’ll say.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” I’ll answer, and then regard myself in the mirror, Grace Kelly.

  “Pink paper or white?” the man asks.

  “Pink,” I say. Which is Cynthia’s favorite color. And the idea that I guess has been there all along steps out from behind the bushes. Surprise, it says.

  WHEN I GET HOME, I pull the phone as far as it will go, which is not far. I dial Cynthia’s number, then pull the receiver into my bedroom and close the door on the cord.

  “Hello?”

  Thank goodness, at last it is Cynthia herself.

  “Hi,” I say. “It’s me.”

  Silence.

  “It’s Katie.”

  “I know.”

  “I was wondering if we could get together for just a minute,” I say.

  “I told you, I—”

  “Just for a minute. Suppose I come over after dinner, some time around—”

  “Can’t.”

  My stomach does a little flash of anger. “You mean you don’t want to.”

  “Even if I did want to, I couldn’t. Tonight is Girl Scouts, your favorite.”

  “Well,” I say, and nothing else comes to me to say.

  “Okay, so . . . ’Bye.”

  “Wait. Cynthia. Are you just always going to say no when I call you? Can’t we just get together and talk? I’m sorry, okay? I’m really sorry. I just want to—”

  “I don’t want to be your friend anymore, Katie. It’s just too . . . I don’t want to. I don’t feel like I could ever trust you again. And anyway, we won’t really be seeing each other anymore, you’ll be going to a new school, with new friends.”

  “They’re not my friends.”

  “That’s funny. It sure didn’t seem like that.”

  “But see, that’s why I want to get together. I just want to explain.”

  I hear a car door slam. Ginger, home from wherever she was. I speak quickly. “Let’s just make a time to get together, how about tomorrow night we go to a movie or something?”

  “I’m sorry, Katie, but no.”

  “Come on, Cynthia!”

  “I have to go.”

  She hangs up. I can’t believe it. I lie on the floor, the phone against my chest. I hear Ginger calling me and I want to roar at her like a monster.

  Instead, I come into the hall, put the phone back, and then go out into the kitchen, where Ginger is getting things out of the refrigerator, getting ready to make dinner. “Leigh called while you were gone,” Ginger says. “She wanted to know if it would be all right if she dropped by.”

  I shrug.

  “I told her yes; I hope that’s all right.”

  “I guess.”

  “Katie?”

  “I’m just going to take a walk,” I say. “I’ll be home for dinner.”

  Hearing me say the word “walk,” the dogs look up hopefully. I might as well bring them—all you do is put their leashes on and they act like they’ve won the sweepstakes. They’re lucky they can’t talk. All they ever do wrong to each other is bite, and then presto, it’s over.

  I WALK FAR OUT INTO the fields, then let the dogs loose. They get busy right away, sniffing everything, running around. I wonder what they smell. You can tell the scents are all different: Sometimes they just take a little whiff and keep on running; other times they stop dead in their tracks and sniff forever. And sometimes they sniff very delicately, their lips drawn back a bit, as though they’re saying, Ewww, this smells awful, let me smell it some more. That’s something about dogs you have to accept: The worse it smells, the better they like it, and they will roll in it if you let them. When you have bad breath they want to kiss you.

  I sit in some long grass, watch for a while to see if I can find some ants working. The thing about watching ants is, you see some order and elegance to the whole works. And also is it a time of you wondering who is higher, really.

  But there are no ants. There are no grasshoppers, either. There is just me and the thought of Cynthia. Thinking of her used to be a comfort and now it is a problem. How will I ever solve this? Maybe there are things too big to say sorry for.

  When I was about five, my mother read me a story about a little girl who had a bracelet that told her when she was thinking about doing a wrong thing. It would stick her like a pin, and then she would know not to do it. I used to wish I had a bracelet like that, because I was so interested in doing the right thing. I was a very sincere little kid. And then I grew into the me I am now, and now feels like I am
at a carnival of dazzling lights and rides and barkers making all false promises that sometimes I can’t help believing. If, on the night of the party, I’d had a bracelet like in the story, it would have been sticking me like a porcupine. But what’s really scary is, I think I would have ignored the pain. Or I would have taken the bracelet off, Never mind, I’ll handle this.

  For the first time, I let myself fully imagine what it must have been like for Cynthia to hear me say those things. How she must have come up to the bathroom door all happy and excited like she’d been, and then she heard me say I had to bring her, and then she heard me say the rest. She must have felt so embarrassed and also panicked to look around and see that she was stuck there. And the thought of her own house, even with her crazy mother, must have seemed so comforting. I think of the dignified way she asked to use the phone, the straightness of her back going up those basement stairs, and I think of how I watched her go. I remember now so clearly what I was thinking. I was saying to myself, Oh well, I’ll lose her but look who I’ll have instead. And even though Father Compton has said my sins are forgiven, I know they’re not really. Because I didn’t say the biggest sin, which is this: Not only do I feel bad about Cynthia getting hurt, I also feel bad because I don’t belong to that group any more than she does. What if they had accepted me in the real way? Would I still have wanted to be friends with Cynthia, even part-time? I wonder. And in my unsureness is such shame.

  I rest my head against my raised knees, searching for the warm salt smell of skin. I find it, but it does not provide the comfort it usually does. It comes to me that I have hurt myself along with Cynthia, and that is what Father Compton meant when he asked who else did I betray. Inside me was the shimmering truth of how I really am and what I really believe, but I acted against it without even thinking, and now it does not shimmer so much. Now it is dark and hard to find. When you realize that for your whole life you will have to be so careful making choices, it can make you feel tired. That is certainly how I feel; I am just so tired.