“There’s no such thing as a dumb fantasy,” Rachel said. “Besides, every girl needs a fantasy boyfriend. Isn’t that why you have that stupid poster over your bed?”
“But if I had to choose one boy to dance with at the Ground Hog Day dance I wouldn’t choose Benjamin Moore. I would know that Benjamin Moore isn’t going to be there!”
Rachel shook her head at me. Her eyes had turned very dark. “I have never … ever … seen anyone act so pre-menstrual in my life! Even Jessica doesn’t get as tense as you.”
“You know,” Alison said, looking me up and down, “I think Rachel might be right this time. You look really puffy and my mother says that’s a sure sign.”
I didn’t tell Alison that the reason I look puffy is that I’ve gained weight. And I didn’t tell Rachel that if I’m acting tense it’s for reasons that have nothing to do with getting my period.
“You better start carrying your equipment around with you …” Rachel said, “just in case.”
“Imagine getting it at school!” Alison said. “What would you do? Where would you go?”
“I’d go to the nurse,” I said. “And she’d give me a pad.”
“Stephanie doesn’t worry about things like that,” Rachel said.
“Why should I?” I asked. “Worrying is just a waste of time!”
When I got home I found Mom at the kitchen table folding laundry. Bruce and I had come back from L.A. with our suitcases full of dirty clothes. We hadn’t washed anything while we were with Dad. I sat down at the table and Mom pushed the basket of clean clothes toward me. “Rachel says I’m acting pre-menstrual,” I told her, as I folded a T-shirt.
Mom hooted. “Sometimes Rachel is just too much!”
“You can say that again!”
“Did you tell her I went to Venice?”
“No.”
“Have you told her about Dad and me?”
“No … there’s nothing to tell.”
Max Wilson
“Want to see what Jeremy gave me for Christmas?” Dana asked at the bus stop on Monday morning. It was freezing, with snow expected, and we were stomping our feet, trying to keep warm.
I’d never seen Dana look prettier. She was wearing a fuzzy white hat and her cheeks were rosy from the cold. She held out her arm and shook her wrist. “It’s his I.D. bracelet. See … there’s his name.”
The bracelet was too big for Dana so she had threaded a small chain through the links. I ran my finger over the letters spelling out Jeremy Kravitz. “It’s really nice,” I said.
“What’d you give him?” Alison asked.
“I gave him my favorite pin. It’s a small gold dove. He wears it on his …” Dana blushed, then paused as she looked around, but there was no one else listening. “He wears it on his underpants,” she whispered, “but nobody knows so don’t say anything, okay?”
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “The three of us know how to keep a secret.”
The bus came along then and as soon as we were seated Rachel said, “How does she know?”
“Know what?” I asked.
“Know that he actually wears that pin on his underpants?”
“I see what you mean,” I said.
Alison, who was sitting in the row in front of us, started to giggle.
“And does he wear it pinned to his waist or his butt?” I asked.
“Or someplace else?” Rachel said.
“Oh, no …” Alison said, “that’s too disgusting!”
“Besides,” I said, “wouldn’t that hurt?”
By the time Jeremy Dragon got on the bus we were laughing so hard we just about fell off our seats as he passed us. “What’s so funny, Macbeth?” he asked. Sometimes he calls the three of us Macbeth as if we are just one person. He didn’t wait for us to answer, not that we would have been able to, anyway. He walked to the middle of the bus where Dana was saving a seat for him.
When Alison and I got to homeroom we found a substitute teacher at Mrs. Remo’s desk. She was cleaning her glasses, a routine she repeated about twenty times before the last bell rang. Then she stood and introduced herself. “Good morning, class,” she said, in a high-pitched voice. “I’m Mrs. Zeller. This is my first day as a substitute teacher.”
Admitting that was a real mistake! Notes started flying across the room.
“I used to teach,” Mrs. Zeller continued, “before my children were born, but I taught in high school, not junior high.”
That did it. Everyone began to laugh out loud.
Mrs. Zeller looked around, trying to figure out the joke. She didn’t know she was it. “I taught in Ohio,” she said, “not Connecticut.”
Now we were roaring, as if that was the funniest line in the history of the world.
Mrs. Zeller fiddled with the blue beads around her neck, tucked a loose strand of hair back into place, then tugged at her skirt and looked down. She probably thought she was losing her underwear.
“Well …” she said, “I guess I have to tell you the bad news. Mrs. Remo’s father passed away over the holidays so she’s going to be out all week.”
A hush fell over the room. I never even knew Mrs. Remo had a father. I hardly ever think of my teachers as regular people with families and lives outside of school. I wonder if they ever think of us that way. I wonder if they know that sometimes kids can’t concentrate in class because of what’s going on at home. I’m lucky that I can put my family problems out of my mind while I’m at school. I looked over at Alison. She was clutching her favorite stone. I thought back to that day right after Thanksgiving when Mrs. Remo had shouted at Alison and me, then kept us after school. Rachel had said, Maybe she didn’t have a good holiday. Rachel could have been right.
Amber Ackbourne, who had been laughing harder than anyone before Mrs. Zeller told us the bad news, was crying now. Her shoulders shook and she sounded like a sick cat. I thought how weird it is that one minute you can be having the greatest time and the next … wham … just like that everything changes.
The door to our homeroom opened and a tall boy walked over to Mrs. Zeller. He handed her a yellow card and said, “I’m Max Wilson. I’m new.”
Amber Ackbourne blew her nose and pulled herself together.
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Zeller said, her hands fluttering around her blue beads. “A new boy. What do we do about new people, class?”
Eric Macaulay called, “Give him a desk.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Zeller said, “of course. A desk. That would be a good place to start. Why don’t you find a desk, Max, and make yourself at home. I’m a substitute and this is my first day, so I don’t know the ropes yet.” She sounded less nervous than before.
Max walked around the room looking for a desk. When he didn’t find one he said, “Excuse me, but there’s no desk.”
“No desk,” Mrs. Zeller said. “What now?”
“Give him a chair,” Eric Macaulay said. “Then you can ask the janitor to bring up another desk. A big desk because this guy is tall.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Zeller said. “That’s very good advice. What did you say your name was?”
“Eric Macaulay.”
“Well, thank you, Eric, for being so helpful,” Mrs. Zeller said.
Max found a chair and sat down.
“Now, Max …” Mrs. Zeller said, “why don’t you tell us something about yourself … something to help us get acquainted with you.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Max said.
“There must be something,” Mrs. Zeller said. “Tell us where you came from and about your family.”
Max sat low in his chair, his legs stretched straight out in front of him. He was wearing black hi-tops. “I’m from Kansas City,” he said, looking into his lap. “That’s in Missouri. There is a Kansas City in Kansas but that’s not the big one. My father got transferred up here so that’s how come we moved. I’ve got two sisters and a brother. My brother’s older than me and my sisters are younger. That’s about it.” His voice cracke
d on every other word. “Oh yeah …” he added and this time he looked up. “I was thirteen on New Year’s day and I like basketball.” He smiled. He looked good when he smiled.
He had short brown hair, hazel eyes and a nose that was too big for his face. Mom says people have to grow into their noses. She says sometimes it takes until you’re thirty. That’s a long time to wait for your face to catch up with your nose.
“That was very interesting, Max,” Mrs. Zeller said.
Eric Macaulay waved his hand and called, “Mrs. Zeller … how about if I introduce the rest of the class to Max?”
“What a good idea, Eric,” Mrs. Zeller said.
I loved the way Eric was doing his Remarkable Eyes number on Mrs. Zeller. He walked up and down the rows of desks saying our names, then giving each of us a title. Peter Klaff was Mr. Shy, Amber Ackbourne was the National Enquirer and Alison was Miss Popularity. When he came to me he rested his hand on my head. I squirmed, trying to move away from him. “And this is Stephanie Hirsch,” he said, “also known as Hershey Bar, also known as El Chunko.”
El Chunko! I didn’t wait for another word. I shoved my chair back and stood up so fast it toppled over. “And this … in case you’re wondering …” I said, pointing at Eric, “this is the Class Asshole!”
Everyone laughed like crazy for a minute, then the room fell silent again. Mrs. Zeller looked right at me and said, “I’m going to forget I heard you use that word in class … but I never want to hear it again. Do you understand?”
I wiped my sweaty palms off on my jeans. “Yes,” I said.
Then the bell rang and everybody rushed off to their first period classes.
At lunchtime the first one of us to reach the cafeteria gets on line and buys three cartons of milk. Today it was me. But Alison met me at the cash register. “Eric didn’t mean anything, you know,” she said. “It was just his idea of a joke.”
“Some joke!” I walked across the cafeteria in a huff.
Alison followed. “Please don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you. I just don’t see how you can like him.”
“Mom says there’s no accounting for taste,” Alison said.
“I guess this proves she’s right!”
The three of us share a lunch table with Miri Levine, Kara Klaff and two other girls. Eric Macaulay, Peter Klaff and their friends sit two tables away from us. Today they also had Max Wilson with them. I set the milk cartons down and took a seat with my back to the boys. Rachel sat opposite me. “Who is that guy?” she asked.
“What guy?” I said.
“That comely guy with Eric and Peter.”
“What’s comely?” Alison asked.
“Attractive … good looking … cute …”
“You think he’s cute?” I said.
“Yes,” Rachel said, “very.”
“Then why didn’t you just say so in the first place?” I asked.
“Because I like the way comely sounds,” Rachel said. “I think it suits him.”
“His name is Max Wilson,” Alison told her. “He’s new … he’s in our homeroom … he’s from Kansas City.”
“The one in Missouri,” I added, as I opened my lunch bag and spread out a tunafish sandwich with lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise, a bag of Fritos, two doughnuts and an apple.
“He’s in my Spanish class,” Alison continued, “and he couldn’t answer one question. He’s a complete airhead.”
“I’ll bet he’s at least 5′8″,” Rachel said, staring.
“Did you hear what Alison said?” I asked. “She said he’s a complete airhead.”
“You can’t judge a person’s intelligence by how he behaves in one class on his first day at a new school,” Rachel said.
“Especially if he’s a comely new person,” Alison said.
“Oh, right,” I added, “especially if he’s really comely.” Alison and I laughed and laughed.
Rachel pushed up her sleeves. “Sometimes the two of you act like complete airheads!”
El Chunko
Aunt Denise gave Mom an exercise tape for Christmas. When Mom got home from work on Monday night, she put on shorts and a T-shirt, shoved the tape into the VCR and jumped around doing something called Jazzercise.
I made myself a snack of rye bread slathered with cream cheese, then curled up in my favorite chair in the den and watched as Mom huffed and puffed her way through the tape. Mom is shaped like a pear, small on top and wider on the bottom. She says there’s nothing you can do about the way you’re built. It’s all in the genes.
I draped my legs over the arm of the chair and devoured the rye bread as Mom lay on her mat doing some kind of fancy sit-ups to an old Michael Jackson song. Mom copied everything the Jazzercise leader did. When the leader asked, Are you smiling? Mom smiled. When she asked, Are you still breathing? Mom shouted, “Yes!”
“You know what Eric Macaulay called me today?” I asked Mom.
“What?” she said, without missing a beat.
“He called me El Chunko … so then I called him an asshole.”
I expected Mom to give me a lecture about using unacceptable language at school. But instead she said, “You have gained weight, Steph. Why don’t you join me … Jazzercise is fun!” She was on her hands and knees raising one leg to the side, then the other. Each time she did, she groaned.
“It doesn’t look like fun,” I said.
“It’s not as bad as it looks.” She was panting so hard she could barely talk.
When that number was over the Jazzercise leader applauded and said, Give your glutes a hand!
Mom sat up and applauded, too.
“Where are your glutes?” I asked.
“Back here,” Mom said, grabbing the lower part of her backside.
“Oh,” I said.
The next day Mom brought home a digital scale. When she stepped on it her weight flashed across the screen in red numbers. “You’re next, Steph.”
“No thanks.”
“Come on …”
“I said no thanks!”
“Look,” Mom said, “I know you don’t want to talk about this but I’m concerned about your health. I need to know exactly how much weight you’ve gained since the school year began.”
“A few pounds,” I said. Actually, I had no idea how much weight I’d gained. The school nurse weighs us the first week of school but other than that I haven’t been near a scale.
“Stephanie,” Mom said, sounding very serious, “get on the scale.”
“Not with my clothes on.”
“Okay … then get undressed.”
“Not in front of you.”
“I’m your mother.”
“I know! That’s the point.”
“Then get undressed in the bathroom … but hurry up.”
I could tell Mom was losing patience with me. So I went to the bathroom, took off all my clothes, wrapped myself in a towel, then ran back to Mom’s room and stepped on the scale.
“Stephanie!” Mom said, as the numbers flashed.
“This scale is at least ten pounds overweight,” I told her.
“No, it’s not. It’s exactly right. I’m calling Dr. Klaff in the morning. We’ve got to do something about this.”
“Don’t call Dr. Klaff!” I said. I could just see the Klaff family at the dinner table talking about me. Stephanie Hirsch has gained quite a bit of weight, Dr. Klaff would say.
And Kara would say, I’m not surprised. I’m at her lunch table and she’s been pigging out since Thanksgiving.
Then Peter would say, I used to like her, but that was before she turned into El Chunko. Now I’m not so sure. I don’t even know if I’m going to dance with her at the Ground Hog Day dance.
Then Kara would say, But Peter … if you don’t, who will?
“I want Dr. Klaff to recommend a sensible diet,” Mom was saying, “not one of those fad diets that ruins your health.”
“Who said anything about a diet?” I asked.
&nb
sp; “How do you expect to lose weight without a diet and exercise?”
“I don’t know.”
That night after dinner Mom cleaned out the pantry. She got rid of every cookie, pretzel and potato chip. Then she attacked the freezer, pulling out the frozen cakes and doughnuts. “From now on,” she said, “it’s carrot and celery sticks for snacks.”
I watched as Mom packed all the goodies into a shopping bag. “What are you going to do with them?”
“I’m taking them to Aunt Denise’s house. Howard and his friends can have it all.”
“Don’t you care about his weight and health?”
“Howard is as thin as a flagpole,” Mom said.
“I’m going to starve,” I said. “I won’t have enough energy left to exercise.”
“You’ll have more energy than you do now,” Mom told me. “Wait and see.”
That night I stood naked in front of the full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. It was steamy from my bath, but I could see enough. My breasts were growing or else they were just fat. It was hard to tell. Maybe if I lost weight, I’d lose them, too. My glutes were pretty disgusting. When I jumped up and down they shook. The hair down there, my pubic hair, was growing thicker. It was much darker than the hair on my head. My legs weren’t bad but my feet were funny-looking. My second toes were longer than my big toes.
“Stephanie!” Bruce called, banging on the bathroom door. “I’ve got to go.”
I put on my robe and opened the door. “It’s all yours.”
“I can’t breathe in here,” he said, fanning the air. “Why do you have to steam it up every night?”
“Steam is good for you,” I told him. “It opens your pores.”
“Where are your pores?”
“You’ll find out when you’re my age.”
Flings
The phone rang just as we were finishing dinner the next night. It was Dad.
“How’s school?” he asked me.
“Fine.”
“How are Rachel and Alison?”
“Fine.”
“How’s the weather?”
“Cold with a chance of snow.”