Claudia and Crazy Peaches

  Jessi pumped her fist in the air. “Yes! Plan B is off and running!”

  Jessi broke the good news about the Natalie Friendship Campaign at the next BSC meeting. All of us congratulated her. It was my turn to sit for Natalie on Saturday and I must say, I was totally amazed. She never once asked me about being her friend. (Normally she would have mentioned it at least four times.)

  In fact, after Natalie had finished the celery-and-peanut-butter snack her mom had left for her, she carried her plate to the sink and asked, “Is it all right if I invite Becca and Charlotte to come over and play?”

  “Yes, of course.” I was delighted.

  “Let’s call them right now.” Natalie ran to find the phone book. “Would you help me look up their numbers?”

  I was glad that the Friendship Campaign was going so well. And I wanted to make sure it would be a long term success. Suddenly, I had an idea. “I’ll look up the phone numbers,” I said, “but first you and I need to have a talk.”

  “About what?” Natalie asked.

  “About friendship.” I took Natalie by the hand and led her to the couch in the living room. I found some brightly colored construction paper in my Kid-Kit, and spread it out on the coffee table. “I think we should write down the rules of friendship.”

  “You mean, like the Ten Commandments?” Natalie asked, wide-eyed.

  “Sort of,” I said, holding back a giggle. “But we’ll make up these rules ourselves.”

  “Oh, I like that.” Natalie reached for one of the colored markers in my Kid-Kit. “How do we start?”

  “Well, first let’s write on our paper, ‘A good friend is,’ ” I suggested. “Then we’ll fill in the blank.”

  “Okay.” Natalie squinched one eye shut and concentrated on her lettering. As she wrote she spoke the words out loud. “A good friend is … nice.”

  “Good rule!” I said. “Now it’s my turn. A good friend knows how to share.” I wrote my rule neatly below Natalie’s entry.

  “That’s really important,” Natalie said, looking down at my sentence. “I know some kids who never share their toys.”

  “There are all kinds of ways to share. Isn’t taking turns sharing?” I asked Natalie. “And letting someone else go first, or letting someone else be captain?”

  “Oh. Yes.” Natalie was probably thinking very hard about her afternoon with Shannon, when she had insisted on being first and the boss of every game they played. She bent over the paper and printed, “A good friend is never bossy.”

  “That’s a great one, Natalie.” I patted her on the shoulder. “It’s easy to be bossy, isn’t it?”

  Natalie nodded. “Sometimes I’ve been kind of bossy.”

  “Really?” I tried to act surprised.

  “But I’m not going to be that way anymore,” she added.

  “Maybe we should add to our list that a good friend listens to other kids.”

  “You mean, like when they want to play something that you don’t?” Natalie asked, cocking her head.

  “Yes. A good friend would listen to her friends’ suggestions and maybe take turns, playing their game first before her own.”

  “That way everybody wins!” Natalie said. “How do you spell ‘listens’?”

  I told her (or tried to), and then while she wrote, I studied our list, thinking about my friends and what I like about them. “My friend Mary Anne is really good at being kind and saying nice things, even when her own feelings are hurt.”

  “Did you ever get your feelings hurt?” Natalie asked.

  I nodded sadly, thinking about Peaches. “And then I’ve said things that I wish I hadn’t. It only made me feel worse.”

  “Me, too,” Natalie said. “I’m going to write, ‘A good friend never calls people names, or hurts their feelings.’ And underline it.”

  “That’s worth underlining twice,” I said, reaching for a bright red marker.

  While I was adding another line, I decided to write, a good friend admits when she’s made a mistake.

  “And a good friend says she’s sorry,” Natalie added.

  “That’s right,” I murmured. “And she lets bygones be bygones.”

  We drew decorations around the edges of the page. I chose fish and seahorses. Natalie made spirals and sunflowers. Then we tacked our completed list of friendship rules on the bulletin board in the Springers’ kitchen. Here’s what it said:

  Natalie and I proudly read our rules out loud. Then I gave her a big hug and said, “Come on. Let’s go call Becca and Char.”

  About ten minutes later, Becca and Charlotte were cutting across the neighbor’s lawn with jump rope in hand.

  “Ready to jump rope?” Becca called.

  “I’m all set,” Natalie replied as she raced out to join them in the driveway. The three girls quickly settled the question of who would turn the rope and who would jump. Then they tried to pick a chant.

  “I want to do Fudge, Fudge, Call the Judge,” Natalie announced firmly.

  All I had to do was clear my throat, and say, “Nat? Remember out list?”

  Natalie’s eyes widened. “Oh, right.” She turned to Becca and Charlotte. “Which rhyme do you guys want to do?”

  They took a vote. First they’d do Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear and then they’d do Fudge, Fudge, Call the Judge.

  After Natalie got past that awkward moment, I didn’t have to do anything. I sat on the front steps with my sketch pad and watched the girls have fun. Natalie did step on the rope once and deny it, but a quick glance in my direction reminded her of our sixth rule — a good friend admits her mistakes. Quickly, she said, “Maybe I did step on the rope after all. Sorry, you guys.”

  I was pretty proud of Natalie. And Charlotte and Becca seemed to be viewing her differently, too. As they were leaving Charlotte asked, “Is it all right if we come back Monday?”

  “Sure,” Natalie said. “And maybe next week I can check out this book of jump roping rhymes from my school library.”

  “Someone wrote a book about jump rope chants?” Becca asked.

  “Yeah,” Natalie said, tugging at her saggy sock. “It’s called, Easy, Ivy, Overs.”

  “I hope you can find it,” Charlotte said enthusiastically. “It would be fun to read.”

  “I’ll go to the library first thing Monday morning,” Natalie replied. “That way we’ll be sure to have it that afternoon.”

  “See ya, Nat!” Becca and Charlotte sang in unison as they skipped down the street.

  “See you guys!” Natalie waved until they were out of sight. Then she turned to me and sighed, “That was one of the best days I ever had.”

  “It’s nice to have friends, isn’t it?” I said, draping my arm around her shoulder and walking her back to the house.

  “It sure is.”

  After Mrs. Springer returned, I shuffled through the leaves back to my house. On the way home, I did a lot of thinking. About friends. And about Peaches. I realized how much her friendship meant to me.

  I kicked at a pile of leaves and thought, “I could have just said no when she asked me to do things. I didn’t have to shout at her.”

  I had just been frustrated about school and I’d dumped all of my anger on her. I realized that I had not been nice (rule #1 on the list) and I had hurt her feelings (rule #5).

  An apology was definitely in order (rule #7). I resolved to find Peaches and tell her how sorry I was the minute I got home.

  Remember that tingly feeling I had before Peaches’ first phone call? The one that told me something was going to happen? Well, I felt it again, as I walked up the steps to my house. Only this time it didn’t feel so good.

  “Hey! Where is everybody?” I called as I opened the front door. The Volvo wasn’t in the driveway. Both cars were gone from the garage, and there were hardly any lights on in the house. “Peaches? Mom? Anybody?” I shouted.

  I heard a loud sniff from the kitchen, so I headed that way. The tiny light shone from above the stove. A figure was sitting in the
half darkness with her hand on the phone.

  “Janine?” A knot had formed in my stomach and it was getting tighter by the second. “Is something wrong?”

  Janine raised her head to look at me. I could see a tear stain on her cheek. “Oh, Claudia! It’s so sad.”

  “What?” I practically shouted. “Tell me. What’s sad?”

  “Peaches lost the baby.”

  “Oh, no!” I gasped. “When did it happen? How?”

  “Peaches was all by herself this afternoon when she started to feel bad. She knew something was wrong, so she called Russ. He got here at the same time that I did and rushed Peaches to the hospital.”

  “Do Mom and Dad know?”

  Janine nodded. “They’d gone out to lunch but I phoned them at the restaurant and they hurried over to meet Peaches and Russ at the hospital.” She gestured to the phone and added, “Mom just called and told me the news.”

  “Poor Peaches.” My eyes started to burn with tears. “And poor Russ.”

  “They wanted this baby so badly,” Janine said, almost to herself. “I don’t know what went wrong.”

  Suddenly I had this really terrible thought. I had been rotten to Peaches, and she had been seriously upset with me. What if all of that emotional turmoil had made her have a miscarriage? Then it would be my fault. I slumped down in a chair and put my head in my hands. “Oh, no. Oh, this is just too awful.”

  Janine and I sat in the darkness for at least an hour. Mostly we were quiet. Now and then we talked a little, about how unfair life could be. My insides ached. I wanted to tell Janine my fear — that I might have been responsible for the miscarriage — but the thought was too awful to even say out loud.

  Finally Mom and Dad came home. When Janine and I heard their car turn into the driveway, we hurried to the front door. “Is Peaches all right?” I asked, fearing the worst.

  Mom nodded grimly. “She’s out of danger, but the doctors decided to keep her at the hospital overnight for observation. Russ feels certain that she’ll be able to come home tomorrow.”

  “How’s he handling this?” Janine asked.

  “Russ is coping,” Dad replied. “Of course, he’s sad about the baby, but mostly he’s worried about Peaches. So he’s staying with her until visiting hours are over.”

  “Do they know why this happened?” I asked in a tiny voice.

  Mom shook her head. “We’ll know more later.”

  I wanted to confess to Mom that I knew what had happened, but I didn’t have the courage. Instead I sat in the living room with everyone else. The silence was horrible. No one knew what to do or say. Mom and Dad didn’t even take off their coats but just sat there, thinking. Every now and then Mom would murmur, “I suppose I should make some dinner.” Then Dad or Janine would say, “I’m really not very hungry.” And no one would move.

  Finally Russ came home, looking pretty tired. His eyes were red and puffy, which meant he had probably been crying. When he saw us sitting there, he said, “I think you could use some good news.”

  “Do you have any?” I managed to ask.

  Russ took off his coat and held it in his lap as he sat on the arm of the couch. “The doctors say that Peaches is absolutely fine, and that this … this was just one of those things. They feel certain that we can try again.” Russ stared at his coat. “Though I think we may wait quite awhile.”

  Mom and Dad looked at him and murmured, “We understand.”

  I still had that knot in my stomach. I knew it wouldn’t go away until I talked to Peaches. The night was long and bleak. Russ was too restless to sleep. Somewhere around eleven o’clock he put his coat on and drove back to the hospital. “I just want to be there if Peaches wakes up,” I heard him explain to Mom.

  I tried to sleep, but tossed and turned all night. The awful things I’d said to Peaches echoed over and over again in my head. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the baby.

  Late Sunday morning Russ brought Peaches back from the hospital. Mom met her at the front door. They didn’t say much, but held each other tight. Dad told Peaches how sorry we all were, and she nodded that she understood. Janine and I stood in the background waiting for a chance to say something.

  “I think you ought to rest now,” Russ said to Peaches, ushering her toward the den.

  “Yes, of course,” Mom said. “We’ll get out of your way.”

  “If you need anything,” Dad said, “just —”

  “I know,” Peaches cut in. She looked at us and smiled weakly. “Thanks, everybody. Don’t worry, I’m all right.”

  And then they went into the den.

  We all went through the motions of acting like everything was normal but, of course, it wasn’t. Mom and Janine went into the kitchen to make lunch, and Dad took Russ to the drugstore to have a prescription filled. I knew Peaches was resting and I shouldn’t disturb her, but I didn’t know when I’d have another chance to talk to her alone. I tiptoed toward the den and peered inside.

  Peaches was lying on her side on the couch, hugging a pillow in her arms. Russ had tucked a blue-and-green afghan around her legs. I saw that her eyes were closed and I started to move away, but I must have made a noise because she opened them and smiled.

  “Hi, Claud,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  My voice cracked and Peaches sat up gingerly. “Claudia, are you okay?”

  I couldn’t hold it in any longer. The words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush.

  “Oh, Peaches, I am so sorry! It was all my fault.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If I hadn’t been so selfish and terrible, you never would have gotten upset.” I threw myself into Peaches’ arms and sobbed. “I know I made you lose the baby. I’d do anything to take it all back.”

  Peaches wrapped her arms around me and held me tight. For a long time we just cried about the lost baby. About our friendship. About everything.

  “Oh, Claudia, my Claudia,” Peaches murmured as she stroked my hair. I closed my eyes. She sounded and felt like Mimi. Sweet, comforting Mimi. “You must understand. This wasn’t your fault. It was nobody’s fault.”

  “It wasn’t?” I asked, still holding tight.

  “No. It was nature’s way of saying that something was wrong. Even though it doesn’t seem that way now, it was probably for the best.”

  Her voice caught a little when she said those words, and I realized that Peaches was trying to convince herself that they were true.

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “Before all of this happened, I was going to apologize to you —”

  “You don’t need to apologize,” Peaches cut in.

  “Yes, I do,” I said, firmly. “You see, I realized how important your friendship was to me and that I hadn’t been acting like a very good friend. In fact, you were right when you called me a sulky teenager.”

  “Oh, Claudia, I only said that in anger.”

  “I know, but you were right to be angry. Wait here.”

  I gestured for Peaches to stay seated on the couch. I ran to my room, taking the stairs two at a time. I opened the door to my closet. There in the corner was the baby blanket.

  “See?” I said, bursting back into the den a minute later. I held up the knitting needles, with the two inches of lavender blanket still attached. “I was knitting this for the baby. I worked on it even after our fight, so how angry could I have been?”

  “Let me see that,” Peaches said softly.

  I handed Peaches my knitting project. It hardly looked like a blanket. More like a skinny scarf.

  “Mary Anne has been teaching me,” I explained. “And … well … Mimi taught Mary Anne.”

  Peaches took the needles and yarn and hugged them gently to her chest. Then she looked at me with moist eyes. “Mimi would be very proud of you.”

  I nodded, feeling a giant lump forming in my throat. “I’m going to keep working on this blanket. When it’s finished, it will be for the next baby.”

  When I said “next ba
by,” Peaches wrapped her arms around me again. “Thank you, Claudia,” she said, barely choking out the words. “I hope there will be another baby.”

  “There will,” I said through my tears. “I just know it.”

  Our month with Russ and Peaches came to an end that next Saturday, the day they moved into their new house. Bohren’s Movers transported all of the furniture they’d had in storage, but we helped move everything else.

  It looked like a parade, with both of our cars following Russ as he drove slowly over to their new home in his station wagon, once again loaded down with boxes and pillows.

  Janine and I rode in the backseat of Mom’s car, clutching baskets filled with fruit and food supplies.

  “Their house looks like something out of Better Homes and Gardens,” Janine commented as Mom pulled into the driveway. “I mean, look! A perfect Cape-Cod-style house with a white picket fence, big backyard with a climbing tree and huge front porch. All they need is a dog and —”

  Janine paused and I finished the sentence for her. “Kids.”

  She smiled weakly at me. “Yes, kids.”

  It was really sad, looking up at their perfect family home. They had bought it with the baby in mind, and now there was no baby. Mom had canceled the order from Baby and Company, so the nursery would sit empty. At least for now.

  Peaches led us on a tour of the house, pausing every few minutes to call more instructions to the movers. “Put the big bed in the master bedroom upstairs. And the sleeper couch goes in the room next to it,” she said as we inched past a man in green overalls struggling to carry a large mattress up the stairs.

  “I like a house with light,” Peaches said, gesturing to the tall windows. “And this one has plenty.”

  She opened the door to the room next to the master bedroom. We peered inside at a bright corner room with gleaming hardwood floors.