“I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.” I feel tears burning at the back of my throat, and I can’t take anymore, so I turn and run out.
“Hayley!” Marco shouts. I hear his footsteps behind me, and feel him grab my arm. The hallway is still crowded with students going to classes, and a few people stare as I try to shake off my friend. “Let go.”
Marco places his hands on my shoulders. “Hayley, what did you just do?”
“Just say thank you,” I tell him. “Okay? You know you can never pull your grade up from a zero. I can.”
Marco shakes his head.
“You were never going to tell him, anyway,” I whisper.
“I would have,” Marco insists. “I was about to.”
I look him dead in the eye. “Then why didn’t you?”
The question hangs there between us for a moment, dark and ugly. Here it is — my Meghan Moment. I’ve finally said it.
“I don’t care,” I say at last, because I can’t think of anything else. Marco’s hands fall away from my shoulders.
I walk away from him, and he lets me.
“Are you okay?”
I feel a gentle tug at my elbow, and when I turn, I see Meghan standing there, watching me with a worried expression. “What’s wrong?”
The tears do strangle me then, and I have to struggle to force words out. “Everything” is all I manage to say. “Marco and Devon and my dad and even Artie — just … everything.”
“Yeah, I heard about Devon and Trina. Sorry.”
“You said you thought he liked me!”
She winces. “It’s kind of hard to tell with Devon. Don’t you think? I mean, I think maybe he’s kind of flirty with everyone. I think even the lunch ladies have a crush on him.”
I sigh.
“Come on,” Meghan says, pulling my arm. “I want to show you something.”
I’m like a limp rag — too boneless to resist — as she herds me to the stairwell. “Where are we going?” I ask as I follow her up two flights of stairs.
“One more,” Meghan says.
“To the roof?”
“Yep.” She touches the red bar on the door that reads FIRE ALARM WILL SOUND.
“Wait!”
Meghan ignores me, and the door is silent as it swings open.
“You’ve done this before.”
“Yep,” Meghan agrees as she leads me out onto the black roof. Beyond us is a blue sky. A stiff breeze blows by, making me shiver. Meghan walks to the small overhang at the edge of the roof. She sits down on it.
“You’re making me nervous,” I tell her.
Meghan laughs. “As usual.” She waves at me. “Come here.”
“Are you going to push me over?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
I walk over. When I look down, I can see the center courtyard dotted with clumps and clusters of students. I can see Artie and her new friends on the steps almost directly below us. I see Marco’s soccer friends. After a moment, he joins them. I’m high above them all; it’s easy to imagine that they’re dolls, or pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that I need to put together.
Meghan follows my gaze, and her eyes land on Marco. “You told me once that I don’t know what Marco’s life is like. You’re right. But I know that it’s probably really complicated. And I know that he cares about you and doesn’t want to make you miserable.”
I shiver a little and hunch inside my sweater. I’m not dressed to be outdoors. It’s lunch period — everyone else has grabbed their jackets.
Meghan’s gaze shifts to my face. “Still, he’s got his life, and you’ve got yours. You can’t fix everything for him.”
“No.” My voice is a whisper, and it nearly disappears on the wind.
“Everyone looks so small from up here.” Meghan looks up at the white clouds on the blue sky. “And I guess we look small from up there.”
“You mean, like, from God’s point of view?”
“I’m talking about perspective, Hayley.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Meghan purses her lips and folds her arms across her chest. “‘Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.’”
I think about that for a moment. “Bumper sticker?” I ask.
“Of course — I have zero deep thoughts of my own. But I’m thinking about Artie, too. I have no idea what her life is like, either, or why she’s acting like a stone cold …” Meghan shrugs. “I don’t know — stone. And I have zero clue what’s up with your dad, except that his brain isn’t really where it’s supposed to be right now, you know? But I do know that it sounds like your dad has a lot going on in his life and Artie is totally jealous of you. And I think they’ll probably both get over it.”
I remember the day Artie confessed to me that she had a crush on Marco. But Marco was never as close to Artie as he was to me. He even kissed me once, but that’s a whole other story. At first, I didn’t believe that Artie was jealous of me. But in my heart, I know that Meghan is right. You don’t just turn on a friend that way for no reason at all.
Maybe all of that stuff with Devon was just her way of trying to get even.
Now I really feel sorry for her. For both of us. Our friendship is over — and for what? “What if they don’t get over it?” I ask.
“Life goes on,” Meghan says. “This stuff will all pass, one way or the other. I swear, Hayley, in ten years, you probably won’t even remember how miserable you were, or anything else about this day.”
The bell rings, and I watch the little people below me start to trickle toward the front double doors. In a few moments, I’ll have to walk back down the stairs, rejoin them. But, right now, I feel light, like I’m closer to the sky than the ground. I look over at my friend, who is watching me with a sweet smile on her face. Her blue eyes are laughing, and — suddenly — I realize that I’m happy to be up here with her, free from the drama below. “You’re wrong, Meg — I will remember this day,” I tell her, and I mean it.
“Hayley?” Mom’s dark eyes are on me the minute I walk into the café. “I got a call from one of your teachers — Mr. Carter?” She comes out from behind the counter. “Let’s sit down.”
She leads me across the Tea Room to the table by the window. We sit down, and Mom gazes at me, like I’m a puzzle she can’t quite solve.
I feel myself shriveling under her gaze. “What did he say?” I manage to squeak out.
“That you cheated. In math?” Mom shakes her head. “I told him that he must have made a mistake, but he said that you admitted it?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“What he said — I cheated.”
Mom nods, her eyes never leaving my face. I can’t hold her gaze, though. I look down at the table and run my fingertip over a chip in the wood. “Do you want to tell me more about it?” she presses.
“Not really.”
“That wasn’t really a question, Hayley. What happened?”
I took a deep breath. “I let Marco copy my test.”
“So you’re both getting zeroes?”
“No — I told Mr. Carter that I copied off of Marco, so I get the zero.”
“Hayley — why?”
“Because Mr. Carter hates Marco. He wants to see him fail.”
“But Marco cheated —”
“I cheated, too. I let him copy my answers.”
Mom turns her face toward the window and looks out. Finally, she turns back to me. “Look, Hayley, I’m grounding you again. You’re already in trouble at school, so I’ll give you a break at home — one week.”
I nod. It’s more than fair, really.
“I know that Marco is your good friend,” Mom goes on. “But this doesn’t make sense. You have to protect yourself a little.”
“I know.”
“You can’t just do what Marco wants.”
“I know.”
“Now this is going to affect your grade.”
“I know.” I’m thinking that i
f I keep agreeing with her, maybe she’ll stop talking.
“Hayley, I thought you learned this lesson in third grade —”
And that’s when I shove back my chair. “Look, Mom — you’re right. I know you’re right. But I —” I shake my head, because I don’t know how to explain what I’m feeling, or why I did what I did. I just did it. That’s all.
As I walk toward the stairs at the back of the café, the sweet smell of cinnamon washes over me like a deep, warm wave. How can something smell so wonderful when I feel like pieces of my body are about to fall off and scatter across the wooden floor?
Mom is right. I should’ve learned my lesson in third grade. Marco got me into trouble then, too.
Sarah has always had a thing for fire trucks. I have memories — early memories — of her pointing out fire trucks, explaining their different parts and how they work, talking about how firefighters locate a fire. Fire hoses can spew water at a pressure of almost three hundred pounds per square inch — did you know that? Sarah knew it.
Whenever she got nervous, or bored, or whatever, she liked to go find a fire truck. She would even sometimes leave the special classroom she was in to go looking for them. They don’t seem too relaxing to me, but Sarah always calmed down once she was at the fire station.
One day, when we were in third grade, Marco went looking for Sarah during recess. He couldn’t find her anywhere. There was a substitute teacher that morning, and Sarah was usually freaked out by new people. When Marco asked the sub where Sarah was, the teacher said she had gone to the bathroom. Well, Marco knew that wasn’t true, because Sarah was terrified of the sound of the toilet flushing. There was no way she would go by herself.
Artie and I found Marco sitting under a tree, digging in the dirt with a stick. When he saw us, he stood up. “Come on,” he said.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To the firehouse.”
“Won’t we get in trouble?” Artie wanted to know.
Marco scowled at the teachers, who were huddled in a corner of the asphalt, chatting. “They won’t even notice we’re gone, believe me.”
In the end, Artie didn’t go, but I did.
It was only five blocks to the firehouse, and we ran the whole way. We were half a block away when we saw Sarah. She was standing near the open garage door, talking to herself. I knew that she was reciting everything she knew about the truck.
We had almost reached her when a police car pulled up, looking for Sarah and us. The officer took us to the police station and called our parents. Marco and I were terrified, but Sarah really seemed to enjoy the ride. I guess a patrol car is almost as exciting as a fire truck.
I found out later that our teacher had noticed when Marco and I failed to show up in the classroom after recess. And that Artie was the one who told her where we went.
Remember that fight Artie and I had in third grade? When she didn’t talk to me for a week? This was that fight.
I mean, I understood why Artie told on us. What we did was wrong. But Artie never understood why we had gone after Sarah in the first place. Artie never understood how much Marco loved his sister, or that he would have done anything to make sure she was safe.
But I understood it.
I guess people do the wrong thing for the right reasons sometimes. Or maybe that’s just what we tell ourselves.
Soft yellow light pours like butter across the concrete in front of the café. I’m tired, but glad to be back at the Tea Room. I made fifty cake pops for the musical and only have three left. I did what I said I would, and now I can forget about Artie and Devon for a while.
It’s Friday night, and the café is busy as I walk in through the front door, holding the almost-empty box. Gran looks up from the register and smiles. Someone in a dark coat is sitting on a stool at the counter. He turns, and I see that it’s Marco.
I hesitate, suddenly unable to move forward.
“Need help?” Marco asks. He walks over to me and reaches for the box.
“I’ve got it,” I tell him, and I grab it away. But Marco is already holding it. We get into a silly little tug-of-war over the box.
“Please,” Marco says finally. “Let me.” I look into his large, dark eyes, then look down at the floor.
“All right.” I give him the box, unsure whether I’ve just given in or whether it’s okay to let him help.
He stands there, arms wrapped around the cardboard. “Um, where do you want this?”
“You can just put it in the back, in Mom’s office. But take the cake pops out.”
Marco nods and disappears in the back as I shrug off my jacket and step up to the counter. It’s a little strange to be on the customers’ side.
“Did you enjoy the play?” Gran asks as she sets a plate before me. She has placed two of her famous petit fours at the center.
“Not really.”
“Ah,” Gran says. She nods like she understands perfectly, which she probably does. She smiles as Marco returns, and then she bustles off to help a customer.
Marco flops onto the stool beside mine. There is a scone on the plate in front of him, but he’s still wearing his coat, which makes it seem like he’s about to jump up and run out the door at any moment. “I did it,” he says.
“Thanks,” I tell him.
“No, I mean — I told Mr. Carter what happened. That I cheated, that it wasn’t you.” He stares into my eyes. “I told him after school today.”
I look down at my plate, unsure what to make of this. Instead, I study my petit fours. One of the tiny cakes is decorated with a red flower. The other is chocolate with a zigzag of vanilla. They’re beautiful and perfect.
Marco seems to need to fill up the silence. “I told him that I was really desperate to get a decent grade on the test because I didn’t want to get kicked off the soccer team, and I told him that you’d been trying to help me understand fractions, but then I just copied off of you….” His voice trails off. “I told him all that. And I can tell your mom, too, if you want.”
“I already explained the whole thing,” I say. I push my plate away. Suddenly, I can’t bear to chew up those perfect petit fours. I stand up and fold my coat over my arm. “I’m a little tired,” I say, and start to walk away.
“Hayley?” Marco calls.
For a moment, I consider pretending that I haven’t heard him. I really don’t have the energy to talk more right now. But he calls again, “Hayley?” and I don’t want him to come after me. I turn to face him.
“There’s this art exhibit downtown. Sculptures of giant Twinkies. Do you — do you want to go? Together, I mean.”
I’m not sure, but in the end, I say, “Okay,” because — really — I guess I never can say no to Marco.
“You’re coming, aren’t you?” Chloe hovers in the doorway to our bedroom, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
“Why are you asking?” I ask as I peer out the window. I’m seated at my desk, and I look down at the Lexus that has just pulled up in front of the café. Dad is double-parked. He has the hazards on, even though there’s an open parking space half a block away. Maybe he can’t see it, though. I can see everything from my window.
“It won’t be fun without you.” Chloe shoves her fists into her coat pockets.
I imagine poor Chloe, sitting in the car with Dad and Annie, trying to act cheerful and pretend that nothing is wrong. She really thinks that it’s her job to make everyone happy. “I’m coming,” I tell her.
Dad is standing by the car as we walk outside. He and I haven’t really talked in a few days, and I give him an awkward side-hug that feels almost accidental.
“Good to see you, Hayley,” Dad says.
“Hi, Dad.”
Chloe is peering into the front seat of the car. “Where’s Annie?”
Dad is wearing aviator-style sunglasses, so I can’t really read the expression in his eyes when he says, “I thought it would be just us today.”
Chloe’s face scrunche
s up. “Why?”
“Because I wanted some time with my girls.”
We climb into the car. I sit in the front beside Dad, Chloe sits in the back. Dad grips the steering wheel and pulls into traffic. We pull up to a stoplight, and I realize that I have no idea where we’re going. “What’s the plan?”
“I thought we’d just head over to my apartment. Maybe watch a DVD or something,” Dad says. “Cook dinner together.”
That thought hangs in the car for a moment, like a wonderful scent. Just us and Dad, watching a movie. “That sounds good,” I say, but it really sounds more than good to me — it sounds perfect.
Dad looks at me so long that the car behind us honks. Neither of us realized that the light had turned green. Dad puts his foot on the gas and pulls through the intersection. “Listen, Hayley,” he says at last, keeping his eyes on the road. “There are a lot of things I would do differently, if I could. I’m … trying.”
Silence fills the car, and I wonder if my dad has just apologized to me. I think so. He reaches out his hand, and I interlace my fingers in his. He keeps the other hand on the steering wheel. We drive like that for a while.
“What are we making for dinner?” asks a small voice from the backseat.
“I don’t know,” Dad admits. “I don’t really have anything in the house. Let’s go to the food co-op. What would you girls like?”
“Can we have steak?” Chloe asks, suddenly brightening.
“And baked potatoes,” I put in.
“Sure. We’ll make a salad, too. What should we have for dessert?” Dad grins as he asks this.
“Cupcakes!” Chloe shouts from the backseat.
“I guess I’m in charge of that,” I say.
Dad pulls his fingers away from mine as he changes lanes. He flips on the radio. It’s the local station — the one he and I used to listen to all the time at home. They play a random mix of music, from folk to funk. Right now it’s an alternative song that I’ve heard a couple of times.
“Change the station, please,” Chloe announces. She prefers pop music.