3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows

  Polly held up the socks. The three of them stared at each other for a minute.

  “What's in the box?” Ama asked Jo.

  Jo looked into her box. “I figured I'd return your other stuff,” she said. “Since I was bringing the bandana.” She took out a pile of DVDs, a few bangle bracelets, some books, and a T-shirt.

  “You didn't have to bring all that,” Ama said. She looked at the DVDs. “You love The Princess Bride. I said you could keep that.”

  Jo shrugged. “I doubt I'm going to watch it again. Maybe Bob's old enough for it.”

  Polly too, had brought more than just Amas socks: a mix CD, a hooded sweatshirt, and a pile of Beanie Babies—a chick, a lobster, a fish, a moose, and two bears.

  “Polly, you seriously do not need to return those,” Ama said, shaking her head at the pile.

  “I know, but I just figured …”

  Ama wasn't sure what to say. There was too much to say to say anything. She turned to her closet. “Okay, well … I guess I should give you your stuff back too.” In her closet she found two of Jo's shirts. On her bookshelf she found all of Polly's Little House and Anne of Green Gables books. She'd had them since fourth grade.

  “I'm sure there's more,” Ama said.

  Jo sat on her bed and Polly sat on her floor as she crisscrossed her room, making piles for each of them.

  “Dinner -will be ready in fifteen minutes,” Amas mother called. Those were the only -words in the room. Ama heard her dad's voice faintly from the kitchen.

  Ama finished the piles, and Jo and Polly boxed and bagged them.

  “You guys can stay for dinner. If you want.” As Ama said it, she wasn't sure what she wanted.

  Jo picked up her box, fuller than it was when she brought it. “I can't. I'm meeting Bryn and Kylie and Marie and those guys for pizza.”

  Jo didn't issue any invitations, and Ama didn't expect one. She wasn't friends with that crowd, and Polly certainly-wasn't either.

  Ama looked at Polly. Polly looked uncertain. “Is it just your family?”

  “Grace is coming too.” Grace was Amas lab partner and the only other kid in their grade who'd been invited to take the SAT in middle school.

  “I should probably get home,” Polly said softly.

  Ama walked them to the door and they said good- bye. They said things that friends would say, that they partly meant.

  Have a great trip. Write me. Call when you get back. Tell so-and-so hi.

  Jo said maybe she'd see them at the beach. In past summers Ama and Polly had always gone to visit for some part of it, but she must have known this year they probably wouldn't.

  Ama watched Jo and Polly troop down the hallway to the elevator, carrying their stuff. All their possessions were finally restored to rightful ownership. Under that fact was the nag of the feeling. What little they'd still had of each other they didn't have anymore.

  When did we last visit the willow trees? I don't even know. I might have stopped first. Polly and Ama might have kept going. No, I'm pretty sure Ama stopped too. She doesn't do things for no reason anymore. Polly might have kept going, but I don't know.

  Jo's bedroom at the beach -was painted the same shade of blue- green as her bedroom at home. It had a slightly tattered quilt left over from her grandmother in Kentucky and some second- string furniture brought from the house in Bethesda. She had jars of sea glass along her windowsills, glinting colors both rare and ordinary. She liked this room. She liked the degree of worn- ness that wasn't really permitted at home.

  In the past they'd mostly used this house for -weekends and short vacations, and in the old days Jo had often brought Ama and Polly along. Jo knew her family -was different from most of the other beach families in that way. Most moms brought their kids out for the whole summer -while the dads commuted on -weekends. But after Finn, Jo started going to sleep- away camp for summers, and her parents never came here -when it -was just the two of them. The Napolis had one of the biggest houses on the beach and used it least, and Jo guessed that did not endear them to the community.

  “Who are -we keeping this place for?” she had once overheard her dad ask her mom.

  “For the kids,” her mom had said. “For Jo,” she corrected herself.

  This summer Jo -would have happily gone back to her sleep- away soccer camp in Pennsylvania. She had loved it, but this summer she -was too old to be a camper and too young to be a counselor. Both she and her mom -were set off balance at the idea of her being home for the summer again. That -was how the idea of spending the summer at the beach house had come up. There -were several kids Jo knew here, including her friend Bryn from school. Bryn -was part of the group Jo had begun to hang out -with in seventh grade. Bryn -wasn't the greatest listener, but she -was loyal, and just being her friend put you at the center of the action. Bryn had told Jo there -were a lot of kids from their high school -who came for the summer and got jobs on the board-walk. And Bryn -was the one -who'd told her about the bus girl job at the Surfside. She said it -was one of the few jobs you could get -when you -were fourteen.

  In the beginning Jo thought it was her idea to spend the summer at the beach, but later she wondered if her parents had thought of it already.

  Jo finished putting her things away in her drawers. Before now, her dresser had seemed like a sizable prop—like the dressers in hotels where you never actually put your stuff. This was her bedroom, but she'd never been here long enough to pack very much or really bother to settle in. This time she would. This time she would get bored in this room; she would have beach friends over, she would talk on the phone, she would sit on the floor, she would scuff up the walls, Scotch- tape random quotations and pictures on them. She would fill up the garbage can and leave dirty socks around. She would keep her door closed to shield her mom from the mess.

  It was getting to be dinnertime, and Jo didn't want to stay and eat dinner -with just her mom. If her dad had been there, she wouldn't have wanted to eat dinner -with just him and her mom either, because the two of them -would fight or be silent. She didn't want to eat dinner -with any combination of them, and she didn't want to eat dinner by herself. She pictured herself in a room full of strangers.

  “I'm going to check on my application at the Surfside,” she called to her mother as she walked toward the front door.

  “I thought you were supposed to wait for them to contact you,” her mother said from the kitchen, -where she was Windexing the glass fronts of the cabinets. Practically the entire house was made of glass, and her mother hated smudges and fingerprints.

  “Well, now they won't have to,” Jo said.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” her mom shouted after her. “Polly called.”

  “She did? Did she leave a message?”

  “Just that she called.”

  “All right,” Jo said over her shoulder, and shut the door behind her. Jo hadn't checked her cell phone, but Polly had probably called that, too.

  Jo walked onto the beach from Oak Avenue. She took off her shoes and walked along the water until she got to the northern part of the boardwalk -where the restaurant sat. It -was a big seasonal crab house, popular -with vacationers and day- trippers alike. Most of the -walls -were sliding glass, so you could open them up to the ocean breeze. Tables -were picnic style, -with metal boxes of Old Bay seasoning and rolls of paper towels every few feet.

  She had loved this place -when she -was younger. She remembered the sting of the seasoning on her fingers and the texture of the powdery pastel mints -with the gumdrop center kept in a bowl by the door. She -would often grab the outlaw second handful of mints on the -way out. The first handful tasted good and the second tasted like guilt. She had once confessed it to Father Stickel first thing after her Act of Contrition. He was so good at taking her junior crimes seriously.

  As a family, they never really -went to the Surfside anymore. “Too touristy,” her mom said. Jo didn't understand the big problem -with tourists. Jo liked them. She often felt like one of them, e
ven at home.

  The dinner hour had not yet begun, so she walked straight to the back office. The door -was open and the assistant manager -was playing solitaire on the computer.

  “I came to check on my application,” she said.

  He had longish hair and a lot of pimples, and though she could tell he was tall even sitting down, she could also tell he weighed about as much as she did, -which -was not all that much.

  “I'm Jo Napoli. I'm a friend of Bryn's. She's starting this week.”

  “How old are you?” he asked. He tried to sound suspicious and authoritative, but his voice cracked in the middle of it.

  How old are you? she felt like asking him back, but she stifled it. “Fourteen.” She cleared her throat in a mature fashion. “And a half,” she added, and then cursed herself for it. What a terrible touch. Who over the age of six ever added the half?

  It gave him the upper hand. His pimples seemed to recede. He clicked off his solitaire game. “I'll check your Social Security number,” he said, hands poised over keyboard.

  “It's on my application,” she said, trying to look large. She ran her fingers through her hair, -which seemed to make him nervous again.

  “Jo, you said?” He riffled through a stack of papers. “Your name is Jo? As in Joseph?”

  “As in Jo.”

  “Are you a female?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  He tried another stack of papers.

  “Okay, here you go,” he said, pulling one out. He studied it for a moment. “It looks like you're hired.”

  “I am?”

  “I wouldn't have hired you, but I guess somebody did.”

  “Gee. Thanks.”

  “You're supposed to start tomorrow. You're a busboy.”

  “Bus girl.”

  He brought his solitaire game back to life. “Whatever.”

  Polly had heated up the leftover spaghetti and meatballs from -when she and Dia had gone out to dinner on Sunday night. Polly sat at the little kitchen table, staring at her full plate and trying not to eat it. Her mother's share was still in the pot because she was staying late at her studio again.

  Polly wound up a forkful of noodles and considered them. Models didn't eat spaghetti and meatballs, did they? They mostly ate salads, she suspected. Maybe she could start making salads for her and Dia. If they didn't involve blue cheese dressing or olives of any kind, then maybe Polly could get herself to like them.

  Later that night, lying in her bed, Polly couldn't enjoy Little Women because her stomach -was grumbling and her brain kept abandoning the March girls and jumping instead to thoughts of the Girl Scout cookies in the pantry. She'd bought them from Sasha Thomas, one of the girls she regularly babysat. In fact, Polly had ended up spending all the money she got from babysitting Sasha on Sasha's cookies, because Sasha was hoping to win an award from her troop for most cookie sales.

  Polly finally padded down to the kitchen in her nightgown and ate four Samoas, seven Thin Mints, three Do- si-dos, and one Tagalong, and then she felt like she was going to barf. That was not model behavior, -was it? Well, not unless she actually barfed on purpose. Maybe she should have just eaten her spaghetti at dinnertime.

  Polly wanted so much to talk about her grandmother. She wanted her mom to come home so she could ask if her mom had ever met her grandmother, if she knew anything about her or maybe even had a picture she could show Polly. Some nights Polly didn't mind so much -when her mom came home late and just went right upstairs and fell into bed, but other nights, like this one, she hated it. She had so many questions lined up, she'd actually -written some of them down.

  Polly checked the time. Nine o'clock -wasn't too late. She -wanted to call Jo, but she had called Jo two nights ago and Jo hadn't called back yet. She dialed Jo's number anyway. First the cell, and -when Jo didn't answer, the phone at the beach house. She couldn't help it.

  “Hello?” Jo's mom answered.

  “Hi, Judy, it's Polly. Again. Is Jo there?”

  “Hi, hon. No, she's out-with some friends. I'll tell her you called.”

  Judy sounded sad to her. Polly hoped she -wasn't sad that Polly -was calling too much.

  “Did she get a job?” Polly asked. It seemed sort of pathetic to be getting information about Jo through Jo's mother.

  “Yes, at the Surfside. As a bus girl. She's starting tomorrow.”

  “That's great,” Polly said. For half a second she -was tempted to tell Judy about her grandmother, but she stopped herself. She -wasn't that pathetic.

  Ama stood at the gate in Jackson, Wyoming, in bewilderment. It had been a long and strange day—the third time she'd been on an airplane in her life and the first time alone. It was strange to be going all this way from home only to meet strangers.

  She wondered -whom she would first see from her group. She wondered what they would look like and whether they would recognize her. She wondered, did they have her picture? Did they know she was black? If so, she would not be tricky to spot in this place. She was the only nonwhite person in the whole airport, from -what she could tell. Did they even have black people in Wyoming?

  Her sister had gone so many places on her own that Ama felt she had no right to make a big deal of it, even to herself. Esi had flown to China for the International Mathematical Olympiad when she was thirteen. She'd been to math competitions in Berlin and Kazakhstan by the time she was fifteen, and when she was sixteen she'd moved from home into her dorm room at Princeton.

  Ama spent her -worry on -wondering -what to do about the things in her bag. She knew the trip leaders -would do an equipment check right away, and she didn't -want to bring suspicion upon herself.

  “Ama? Are you Ama Botsio?”

  It -was a nice-looking twenty-something-year-old guy -wearing a T-shirt that said GO WILD! He had sporty sunglasses dangling from a cord around his neck.

  “Yes,” she said, swallowing the -word as she said it.

  He stuck out his hand and shook hers. She felt the bones in her hand being crushed. She couldn't even get through a firm handshake. How was she going to climb up rocks?

  “Nice to meet you,” he said. “I'm Jared. I'm one of your group leaders.”

  “You too,” she mumbled. She gingerly moved her fingers around, trying to reconstruct them.

  “You're the last flight to arrive,” he said, leading her down the corridor. “The rest of the group is out in the parking lot.”

  She expected him to notice that she was staggering under the weight of her gear and offer to help, but he didn't. He sailed along at a rapid pace, holding nothing but a clipboard.

  I will be defeated by the walk through the airport, she thought miserably, watching him get farther and farther ahead.

  Out in the mostly empty parking lot there were a bunch of kids milling around a long collapsible table set up in front of a bus. It wasn't a fancy air- conditioned bus with tinted windows and plush seats where they played movies. It was an old yellow school bus.

  Ama was sweating under the weight of her pack as they approached. She wished she had an extra hand to pat her hair and make sure it was behaving before she met all these people.

  Ama had always felt she had the Jekyll and Hyde of hair. When it was conditioned and ironed and the weather wasn't too humid, she loved her hair. It hung like a smooth and shiny curtain, envied by even her sister. When Amas hair -was being good, she liked almost everything about how she looked. But when it wasn't properly conditioned or ironed or the weather -was bad, it started to frizz and puff. It started to pile up and defy gravity in a terrible way. The longer she left it, the worse it got. And when her hair was being evil, Ama thought every part of her -was ugly. Her eyes didn't get smaller and her neck didn't get skinnier and her ears didn't stick out more just because her hair-was behaving badly, but that was how it felt to her.

  She surveyed the color array of her group and found it nearly all white. There was an Asian girl. She wouldn't suffer over her hair. There was a kid who was possibly Hispani
c. No one besides Ama was black. Or African American, as her teachers preferred to say. She remembered once saying to her second- grade teacher, “I'm from Africa, but I'm just American now.” She hadn't yet realized that “African American” -was how they felt more comfortable saying “black.”

  She was getting a sinking feeling about why she had been placed here. Everybody needed a black, er, African American kid. Who cared if she hated the outdoors and yearned for a library? Who cared if this trip -was totally unsuited to her and she to it? They probably needed a black kid for the pictures on their Web site.

  Jared clapped so loudly that Ama jumped away from him and fumbled her pack. The rest of the group looked over at them.

  “This is Ama Botsio. She's from the D.C. area. So our group is complete now—fourteen of you and three of us.” He gestured to the two other adults with the GO WILD! T-shirts. One was a woman, late twenties, with frizzy sun-bleached hair and pale bug eyes. The other -was an older guy, probably in his late thirties, with a lot of gray in his beard. Ama noticed that their legs were thick and muscled, and their hiking boots looked old and -worn. She looked down at her own boots, new, stiff, and blister- giving. Her legs looked almost comically spindly emerging from them.

  “That's Maureen, that's Dan. We'll let you all introduce yourselves to each other a little later. We leaders are pretty well outnumbered, as you can see, so you're gonna have to go easy on us,” Jared added.

  From -what Ama could tell, this wasn't a huge problem. Jared looked like he owned the place, and the kids looked decidedly uncomfortable. None of them said a word. Away from their friends and forced to wear ridiculous hiking outfits, even teenagers could be docile.

  “Put your packs on the table,” Jared said. “We're going to do an equipment check before we head out. Take your stuff out and put it in neat piles. We'll come around and check the list, all right? Then you can pack up again.”

  Confused and docile, they lined up at the table and began unpacking. Ama felt her palms sweating. She worked slowly and very neatly as the leaders made their -way around the table. She hoped she got Maureen, -who was more likely to be sympathetic about hair—though Maureen did not appear to give much thought to her own hair. Amas hopes sank as Jared appeared. He approvingly ticked off her various ugly woolen things from the list. She held her breath and hoped he would move along the line, but he didn't. He stared at her pack. He seemed to have a sixth sense for equipment fraud.