I peeked into the hallway and watched Dallas follow my sister into the family room. They sat next to each other on the couch. They sat so close that their arms were mushed up against each other.
I went to my room for a while. I looked out the window. It was raining.
I stood up and walked back to the family room. I leaned against the doorway with my hand on my hip. Lexie and Dallas were watching a DVD. I didn’t say anything, so Lexie reached for the remote and paused the movie. “May I help you?” she asked.
I examined Dallas. I wanted to know why Lexie had said he was hot when she was talking to Valerie the day before. He didn’t look like much of anything to me except maybe a poodle. That’s how curly his hair was.
“I just wanted to meet Dallas,” I replied. I knew my parents had met him once before, which was why they were giving Lexie and Dallas their privacy now. If they hadn’t met him, the five of us would have been sitting in the family room together.
“Pearl, Dallas. Dallas, Pearl,” said Lexie, and unpaused the movie.
I waved at Dallas anyway and he waved back. I thought he had kind eyes. My big sister had chosen a nice boyfriend.
I said to Dallas over the movie sounds, “My sister isn’t talking to me.”
“What? What on earth do you mean?” Lexie was suddenly at attention. She paused the movie again. Then she stood up and put her arm across my shoulder. “Pearl’s very young,” she said to Dallas. “She exaggerates.” Then, seeing the disgusted look on my face, she added, “She has a wonderful imagination, though. Everyone says so.”
Dallas smiled at me.
“By the way,” Lexie continued, “I really like your outfit, Pearl.”
Translation: I’m glad you’re not in your underwear and frog slippers, Pearl.
I went into the kitchen. Mom and Dad were still reading and drinking coffee. The rain was still falling.
“Can I invite Justine over?” I asked.
“No, but you may go to her apartment,” said Dad.
Well, that was no good. I wanted Justine to meet Dallas. She had a lot of questions about boyfriends.
I carried Bitey into my bedroom. “Bitey,” I said, “you are my boyfriend, so I should probably kiss you.” I looked at his little spotted cat lips and made a decision. “I’ll just kiss you on the top of your head.” I leaned over to kiss Bitey’s head and he swatted my face.
I wondered if Lexie and Dallas had ever kissed.
I went back to the family room. The movie was still playing.
This time when I stood in the doorway Lexie said, “Hi, Pearl! What’s up?”
“I was just wondering if—”
From behind me Mom said, “Hello, Dallas. It’s good to see you again. Would you like a soda or anything?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Littlefield,” replied Dallas politely.
My big sister had chosen a nice and polite boyfriend.
I trailed into the kitchen after my mother. I crouched down on the floor and looked to see if anything interesting was under the stove. I used a coat hanger to slide out three of Bitey’s dusty plastic balls, the ones with bells inside.
My boyfriend chased plastic balls.
“Pearl?” said my father. “Don’t you know what to do with yourself?”
“I want to invite Justine over.”
“I already said that you may go over there, but that she may not come over here.”
I heaved an enormous sigh and went back to my bedroom.
I sat around some more and then I picked up Bitey and carried him, flailing and meowing, to the family room.
Dallas smiled when he saw us. “Well, who’s this?” he asked.
Lexie paused the movie again and said sweetly, “Pearl just adores our cat, Bitey, don’t you, Pearl?”
“I named him,” I announced.
Lexie smiled indulgently at me and said quietly to Dallas, “She wasn’t even born when we got Bitey.” Then she raised her voice to its normal level. “It’s fun to pretend things, isn’t it, Pearl?”
I narrowed my eyes at my sister. I was absolutely 100% positive that the silent treatment wasn’t over and that Lexie was just putting on a show for her boyfriend. I was also absolutely 100% positive that Lexie wanted to get back to the movie, but that she didn’t want to say anything mean to me in front of Dallas.
I set Bitey on the floor and returned to my room.
Maybe, I thought, I could help Dallas get to know Lexie better. I felt that he needed to know the real Lexie, not the sweety/fakey one who was sitting next to him in the family room. This was when I remembered where Mom and Dad had put some of Lexie’s and my baby things. I rummaged around in the linen closet in the hall until I found the box labeled LEXIE. I had looked through it many, many times (it was more interesting than the much smaller box labeled PEARL), and I knew just what to show Dallas.
A few minutes later I was standing in the family room once more.
“How nice. Pearl’s back,” said my sister, and she paused the movie.
Dallas looked at me pleasantly, and I held a plastic bag toward him. “Did you ever see this?” I asked.
I think that right at that moment Lexie realized what was in the bag, but she was too late to do anything about it. I had already opened the bag and was pulling out a grimy piece of blue fabric.
“This is Lexie’s baby blanket,” I said. “His name is Snuffy.”
“Pearl!” shrieked my sister, leaping to her feet.
“Snuffy’s kind of disgusting, isn’t he?” I asked Dallas.
Snuffy was actually revolting. He looked like he’d never been washed, and he had a crusty yellow stain on one corner. I held him up by two of the clean corners and turned him around so Dallas could inspect both sides.
“Over here,” I continued, as if I were taking Dallas on a tour, “is a thin patch where Lexie used to rub him with her thumb while she was asleep. And this hole is from when she got him caught in the elevator doors. Mom said she yelled so loudly that the doormen could hear her at the bottom of the elevator shaft. And”—I leaned in close to inspect something on the binding—“I don’t know what this brown stuff is.”
Dallas wrinkled his nose.
“Pearl!” my sister yelled again. Then, “Mom! Dad!” Before my parents could rush into the room, Lexie had grabbed Snuffy from me and stuffed him into the bag. “You are so going to get it,” she said in a voice that reminded me of a snake.
“What is going on in here?” asked my father.
“Look what Pearl did!” cried Lexie. Her calm, reasonable voice had vanished. It had been replaced by a more familiar enraged one.
“What?” asked both of my parents. They couldn’t see Snuffy since he was back in the bag.
“She made Dallas look at Sn—at my baby blanket!”
Both of my parents turned their eyes on me.
“Pearl,” my mother said in a warning voice.
But Lexie interrupted her. Her calm, grown-up tone was back. “Mom, let me talk to her, please. Dallas, will you excuse me?”
Lexie stood up all cool and regal and took me by the hand. She led me into the hall and down to my room. When we were standing inside my doorway, she just looked at me for a moment. Then she said, “I am no longer speaking to you,” and left the room, striding away in her purple shoes. I didn’t think the silent treatment had been over in the first place, but whatever.
I flopped on my bed. I could feel tears filling up my eyes but I ignored them. Instead I looked through my desk drawers until I found the chart I had made comparing Lexie and me.
I studied it. There was nothing on the chart that was pro me. Not one single pro Pearl item. Lexie was better than me in every way.
That was not right.
I thought and thought and thought.
Finally I added a line at the end:
Lexie Pearl
Stuck up yes no
I stared at the new line. It didn’t make me feel any better, and I knew why. Because it wasn’t true. Lexie
was not stuck up. In fact, that was one of the things the Emmas liked about her. I had heard them say so. Furthermore, Lexie had lots of interests. She had won awards for being good in some of her interests, like gymnastics. She was a good student too and mostly got As and had won awards for citizenship and math, etc., etc., etc. She did all those things and she wasn’t stuck up either.
I erased the line from the chart. I wanted the chart to be accurate. But I wouldn’t be satisfied until I could be as good as—or better than—Lexie at … something.
6
One evening at the end of September I wandered into the family room and announced, “I’m bored.” My parents looked up in alarm. That is not something they like to hear. It makes them nervous. In the past when I’ve gotten bored I have:
1. given Bitey a haircut
2. given myself a haircut
3. dropped eggs out the kitchen window
4. annoyed Mrs. Mott by barking outside her door
“Bored?” repeated my father. “What have you done?” His eyes jumped to my hair.
“Nothing,” I replied. I flopped down between them on the couch. “What are you guys doing?”
Each of my parents was holding a book. “Reading,” said my mother.
“Oh.”
“Why don’t you read?” suggested my father.
I shrugged. “I don’t like to read.”
My parents sighed. “You have so many lovely books,” said Mom. And I thought it was nice of her not to point out that I hadn’t even read the last one she’d written.
I shrugged again. “Not everyone likes to read.”
“How about playing a game?” asked Dad.
I shook my head.
“Do you have any homework?” asked Mom.
I did, but it was Friday. “I’ll do it on Sunday,” I told her.
My parents glanced at each other.
“What’s Lexie doing?” my father wanted to know.
I wasn’t sure. I had just walked by her room, and hanging on the closed door I’d seen both the NO PEARL sign and the NO UNDERWEAR VISITS sign (her version). Clearly, I wasn’t welcome. “I think she’s busy,” I said.
“How about starting an art project?” asked my mother.
An art project sounded like fun, but I had another fun idea in mind: a sleepover with Justine. There was just one problem. Since Justine was so young, the last couple of times she’d slept over my mother had ended up walking her back to her own apartment in the middle of the night. The first time it was because Justine had had a bad dream about a bus, and the second time it was because Justine had woken up and couldn’t go back to sleep and then she had started to cry because she thought Bitey was in the room (he wasn’t), and because she didn’t want to eat bekfrixt at our house in the morning. Bekfrixt = breakfast.
I was about to say no to the art project, but suddenly I changed my mind. “Okay!” I said. “That’s a good idea. See you later.”
I left the family room in a hurry, ran by Lexie’s door with all its signs (I could hear her talking on the phone on the other side of it), and made a dash for my art supplies. I keep them in the bottom drawer of my desk. I have markers and paints and colored paper and rubber stamps and inkpads, and a lot of decorations like glitter and sequins and ribbon, and also googly eyes in case I need them for an animal face. I looked through the papers for a minute or two before I finally chose one that was a nice shade of lavender. I folded it in half to make a card. On the outside I stamped a flower over and over with red ink and then I made a border of green glitter around the edges. I drew some bees among the flowers. I added ZZZZZZ here and there like the bees were buzzing. When I was satisfied, I opened the card and wrote inside:
Dear Justine,
You are cordally invited to a sleepover.
Where? In my room.
When? Right now.
Why? For fun.
I really really really hope you can come.
Love,
Your fiend,
Pearl Littlefield
I put the card in an envelope and tiptoed past the family room. I had almost reached the front door when my father called, “Pearl? What are you up to?”
“Um … I’m going to Justine’s.”
“What’s that in your hand?” asked Lexie from behind me.
I jumped. I hadn’t heard her door open.
“Nothing.” I’m not supposed to invite Justine for sleepovers without checking with my parents first. And I knew they would say no.
“Pearl? What are you up to?” asked my father again.
I slid the invitation behind my back. I was about to reach for the doorknob when the telephone rang.
“I’ll get it!” I cried, but my father got there first.
“Yes?” he said. Then he frowned. He stood up and began scrabbling through some stuff in the drawer of the telephone table. “Excuse me, can you repeat that?”
“Paul?” asked my mother, and she sounded alarmed.
My father cradled the phone against his ear and whispered, “I need paper and a pen.”
Mom ran into her office. While she was gone, Dad sank onto the couch and said, “And the doctor told you what? … But how long ago was this? … I can be there in an hour or two … . You’re where now? In the emergency room?”
When I heard the words “emergency room” I began to feel a little scared. I think Lexie did too. She edged toward me until we were standing side by side in the family room. The invitation slipped from my fingers, but no one noticed.
Mom returned with a pad of paper and a pen, and Dad took them and began writing furiously. At last he said, “All right. Thank you so much, Will. I’ll see you as soon as I can get there.”
Will. I glanced at Lexie. Will was Daddy Bo’s neighbor, the one who had gone on the field trip with him. If Will was calling Dad and talking about emergency rooms and doctors … I reached for Lexie’s hand and she squeezed it.
“Dad?” I said the moment he’d hung up the phone.
Mom and Lexie and I were standing in a line in front of the couch. My father looked at each of us. “That was Will Henderson,” he said. “Daddy Bo had a fall a couple of hours ago. He’s in the hospital.”
“Had a fall?” my mother repeated. “Is—?”
My father interrupted her. “He’s going to be all right. He broke his shoulder and he’s pretty black and blue, but he managed to call for an ambulance, and Will rode with him to the hospital. They’re still in the emergency room. I told Will I’d get there as soon as I can.” Dad grabbed his coat and his keys and headed for the door.
“Don’t you want to pack a few things?” asked Mom.
Dad shook his head. “I’ll be back tomorrow, I’m sure. And I can sleep at my father’s if I don’t spend the night at the hospital.”
This was exciting. Like a show on TV. It was a true and honest emergency.
“I’ll call the garage and tell them you’re on your way to pick up the car,” said Mom.
“Thanks.” Dad sprinted into the hall.
I don’t remember the last time I saw Dad run, since he’s an economics professor and not like the other dads I know, such as Justine’s who does something with computers and wears blue jeans and is always going to the gym.
Mom phoned down to the basement of our building, where there’s a garage, and that’s where we keep our green Subaru. “Sorry to give you such short notice,” she said to Raymond, who’s in charge of the garage at night, “but Paul’s on his way to get the car.”
“It’s an emergency!” I shouted into the phone, and Mom waved her hand at me.
“He’ll be bringing it back tomorrow,” she added.
I ran to Justine’s and rapped on her door: knock, knock-knock, knock-knock-knock. When Justine answered I said, “We have an emergency at my house! Daddy Bo fell and had to go to the hospital in an ambulance, and Dad’s driving to New Jersey to meet Will at the hospital. He’s not coming back until tomorrow.”
Justine’s eyes grew larg
e. At first I thought she was impressed with our emergency, but then I saw that Bitey had escaped into the hall and was stalking toward us. “Go home!” I called to Bitey, but cats never listen. “Well, anyway,” I said to Justine, who was already bathed and in her nightgown, “I’ll talk to you again tomorrow when I know more.”
“Okay.” Justine closed her door quickly.
I scooped Bitey into my arms and carried him home. The first thing I saw was Justine’s invitation lying on the floor. I set Bitey down and threw the invitation away. I didn’t need it. I certainly wasn’t bored anymore.
“Mom? Can I help you with anything?” I asked.
My mother had just picked up the phone. Probably she needed to make some important calls to inform people of the tragedy. She looked shocked that I had offered to help.
“It’s an emergency,” I reminded her, “and Dad is gone. I thought you might need help with …” Well, I wasn’t sure with what, but people always bustle about in these situations, and I wanted to be a part of things.
Mom sat down on the couch with the phone in her hand. “Thank you, Pearl. I appreciate that. Let me see. You could go into my office and get my address book. I need to see if I have Will’s cell phone number written down there. Oh, and then you could get the calendar from the kitchen. I may have to cancel a few things this weekend.”
“Okay.” I felt very important as I collected the address book and the calendar and brought them to Mom. I noticed that Lexie was once again in her room, probably calling all her friends on her own cell phone to tell them what had happened.
“Anything else I can do?” I asked Mom when she had finished with her calls.
“I can’t think of anything. Not yet. We need to hear from your father first.”
I got ready for bed then. I was just coming out of the bathroom when the phone rang. Mom answered it by saying, “Hi, Paul. Are you already at the hospital?” So I knew it was Dad on his cell phone.
“Daddy Bo is going to be fine,” Mom told Lexie and me later. “He’ll stay in the hospital for a few days, but Dad will come home tomorrow. He can fill us in on everything then.”