Claudia and the Sad Good-Bye

  Tentatively, we tried it on, like a dress we weren’t sure we wanted to buy. It seemed to fit okay. So we sat in the den with our food, and Mallory said that the weekend before, one of the triplets had secretly stuck a target on the back of Claire’s T-shirt and gleefully spent Saturday shooting things at her. We laughed.

  Then I said, “Hey, Stace, Dorrie Wallingford is going out with a freshman in high school!”

  “No!” cried Stacey, with a gasp.

  “Well, I’m leaving,” said Logan, who always leaves when we start talking about boy-girl things.

  Slowly the other club members left, too. They couldn’t stay all afternoon. But Stacey was the last to leave. Her mom very nicely let the two of us have a long visit.

  “I put Mimi’s portrait in the attic,” I confessed to Stacey.

  “That’s okay,” she assured me. “Maybe you’ll take it out again someday.”

  “It was like she was watching me or something.”

  Stacey nodded, but I don’t know if she really understood what I meant.

  I didn’t dwell on that, though. Mrs. McGill came into the den then and said that they really did have to start home.

  So Stacey and I hugged and hugged, but when she left, we found that we could not say good-bye.

  Back to school.

  Usually I hate going back to school after a weekend or a vacation or even after I’ve been out sick for a few days. But this time I practically couldn’t wait to get there. I was tired of people dropping by our house and not knowing what to say about Mimi. I was tired of flowers and sympathy cards. And I thought that if I saw one more pound cake I would barf. I, the junk food addict, had had enough cake and cookies for the first time ever.

  All I wanted was something normal — a day like last Tuesday when Mimi was still alive, which was less than a week ago. I wanted to walk to Stoneybrook Middle School with Mary Anne, open the side door, which we sometimes use because it’s close to my locker, saunter through the halls, look for the other club members or maybe for Dorrie Wallingford or Ashley Wyeth or some other friend, and hope that a boy would notice my outfit and smile at me.

  That was not exactly what happened.

  Mary Anne and I reached school and we separated because she needed to go talk to her English teacher. So I walked to my locker alone. Then, since the first bell wasn’t going to ring for about ten more minutes, I sort of toured the halls. I was itching for friends, gossip, boys, anything normal. But something weird was going on.

  No one would talk to me. No one would even look at me.

  I saw Dorrie down a hall on the second floor and waved to her. She turned and walked in the other direction, pretending she hadn’t seen me. I know she was pretending. It was obvious.

  Then I practically bumped into Ashley Wyeth.

  “Hi!” I cried.

  Now, I know Ashley’s mind is usually on another planet, but I can always bring her back to earth for a conversation.

  Not this time.

  All she did was sort of mumble, “Oh, hi,” and walk away.

  She didn’t say, “It’s good to have you back,” or, “I’m sorry about your grandmother,” or even just, “I missed you.”

  I didn’t want a lot of sympathy about Mimi. Frankly, I wanted to forget the past five days and the fact that she was dead. But Ashley could have said something … couldn’t she? Even, “Here’s all the homework you missed,” would have been better than, “Oh, hi,” and walking away.

  But Ashley wasn’t the only one who did things like that. It went on all morning with the kids I hadn’t seen since Tuesday.

  I couldn’t wait for lunch, which the older members of the BSC always eat together. If nothing else, they would talk to me.

  “What is going on?” I exploded as soon as we were settled at our usual table. I told them about Dorrie and Ashley and the morning. “In the halls, people look away from me,” I added. “They look at the floor, the walls, their books, everywhere but at me. It’s like I’m a leper. Wait a sec…. Did my nose fall off or something?” I put my hand up to my face and felt around for it. “Nope. Couldn’t be that. My nose is still there.”

  We giggled. Then Dawn said, “Maybe the kids just don’t know what to say. They do know how close you and Mimi were. It’s almost as if one of your parents had died. Maybe they think anything they say won’t be enough. Or that it will sound stupid.”

  “Maybe they think you’ll get too much attention,” spoke up Kristy. “You know, your teachers will say, ‘Take your time making up your work,’ and stuff like that.”

  But it was Mary Anne who said quietly, “Maybe they’re afraid something like this will happen to them now. They see that people you love do die.”

  We grew silent, thinking about that. Finally, Logan broke the ice by saying, “Well, Claudia’s not catching!”

  I might as well have been, though. The rest of the week wasn’t much better than Monday had been, although by Friday, some kids would at least look at me. Maybe in a way, this new problem was good. I know that sounds funny, but it was something to help keep my mind off Mimi. And I was looking for any distraction I could find. I concentrated on my art — my stop-action painting — and baby-sitting and even my schoolwork. Often, I did my homework without being told. I don’t think I did it very well, but at least I did it — usually. When I couldn’t concentrate, I painted or called Stacey or thought about Corrie or about how weird the kids at school were being.

  Sometimes I forgot that Mimi was dead. Like, one morning, I woke up to the smell of coffee and thought, Mimi’s already in the kitchen. And one afternoon I was in a card store and suddenly thought, almost in a panic, Mimi’s birthday is only a week away and I don’t have a card or a present for her. Each time, the awful truth would then blaze its way back into my brain.

  Other times, I wouldn’t be thinking about Mimi at all, and her memory would come crashing back to me. Those times were the most inconvenient, because I wanted to forget, not remember. Once, I was listening to the radio, and a song was playing and there was a line in it about a gentle person or a gentle life or something like that, and it brought Mimi to mind right away.

  I only let myself cry for a couple of minutes, though.

  Boy, was I glad when Saturday rolled around. I’m always glad to see the weekend, but now Saturday also meant the art class and Corrie and all the other kids. Mary Anne and Corrie usually arrived early and around the same time, so I would let Corrie help Mary Anne and me set things up for the lesson. We were still working on the papier-mâché puppets.

  That morning, Corrie arrived before Mary Anne did.

  “Hi, Claudia,” she greeted me at the door. I always get the feeling that Corrie is more excited than she sounds. Like she’s holding back, afraid to let people see how she’s really feeling. I wondered what Corrie thought would happen if she let go a little bit.

  “Hiya!” I said, giving her a quick hug.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Corrie. She had been very concerned ever since Mimi died.

  “I’m fine. I really am,” I replied, even though I wasn’t. But I didn’t feel like talking about Mimi. I just wanted to work on the puppets.

  Corrie looked relieved.

  Mary Anne showed up then, so the three of us set out the partly finished puppets, the paint, the papier-mâché, and the odds and ends and scraps. The kids were at all stages with their puppets, some still applying layers of papier-mâché, other beginning to paint on faces.

  The rest of the kids trickled in and soon we were hard at work.

  “You know what it’s time for you to do today?” I said to Jamie.

  “What?”

  “Pop your balloon.” (Once the papier-mâché is dry, you stick a pin in the bottom of the balloon, then pull the balloon out through what will be the neck of the puppet.)

  “Oh! Oh, goody!” For some reason, popping the balloons seemed to be everybody’s favorite part of the project.

  Marilyn had been the first and she had actual
ly squealed with happiness.

  Mary Anne had grinned at me after that class. “You’d have thought Marilyn had died and gone to …” She’d trailed off, blushing. “Sorry,” she’d mumbled.

  Now Jamie popped his balloon with great glee.

  “Okay, you’re ready to paint your puppet’s head,” I told him. “But be careful. Remember that papier-mâché is fragile. Your puppet’s head is hollow.”

  Jamie nodded solemnly.

  “What color are you going to paint him?” asked Gabbie, who had painted the face of her Cabbage Patch doll a pale shade of blue.

  “Green, what else?” replied Jamie.

  “How are you doing, Corrie?” I asked, as Mary Anne and I walked slowly around the table, checking on things.

  “Fine, thank you,” she replied politely. She held up Nancy Drew. “See?” She was working slowly and carefully. She’d even brought along two Nancy Drew books so she could use pictures of her heroine as models.

  I don’t like making comparisons between kids, and any comparison between Corrie and this group would have been unfair since Corrie was the oldest student, but I have to say that Corrie’s puppet was far and away the best one in the class. It was better than most nine-year-olds would have made.

  “It’s better than I could do,” Mary Anne whispered to me.

  When class was over, the materials put away, the puppets propped up to dry, and the children — except for Corrie — gone, she and I sat out on our front steps and waited for her mother. We weren’t talking, and I caught Corrie smiling a private smile.

  I tickled her and she giggled.

  “What was making you smile?” I asked her.

  “My puppet,” she replied. “I love it. I am going to give it to my mother. Not for any special occasion. Just to please her. I know it will please her.”

  And Corrie smiled happily again.

  Kristy’s visor was on. Her pencil was over her ear. She was sitting ramrod straight in my director’s chair.

  You guessed it. Time for another club meeting.

  “Order, please,” said Kristy, and the rest of us settled down.

  It was a Wednesday, so there were no dues to collect.

  “Any club business?” asked Kristy.

  “I move that I find my bag of Cheetos,” I said, and everyone giggled.

  I was pretty sure it was under my bed, so I lay down on the floor and began searching around among shoe boxes and things. I remembered hiding Mimi’s portrait under there temporarily, but put the thought out of my head right away. I was getting pretty good at that lately, even though I seemed to feel more tired than I’d ever felt in my life.

  Maybe I was coming down with the flu. Or leprosy.

  “Here they are!” I said, emerging triumphantly with the bag.

  “That’s club business?” asked Kristy.

  “It is when we’re all starving,” I told her.

  Luckily for me, the phone rang then.

  We lined up one job, the phone rang a second time, and we lined up another job.

  The meeting hit a lull, so I asked Kristy, “How’s Emily?”

  Kristy looked rapturous, like a woman with her newborn baby. “Oh, she’s wonderful!” she exclaimed. “She’s learning to speak so fast. Of course, we’re all teaching her, so she’s got nine teachers. Even Andrew goes around the house with her, pointing to things, and saying, ‘Book, Emily. Say book.’ or ‘Pen. This is a pen, Emily.’ I’m not sure how much Vietnamese she could speak, but she’s sure learning English fast. Guess what her favorite word is?”

  “What?” asked Mallory.

  “Cookie,” replied Kristy. “And she usually gets one when she says it.”

  “I hope you’re not going to spoil her,” said Dawn.

  “We’re trying not to. Anyway, I don’t think Nannie will let us. I am so glad she moved in instead of some housekeeper. At first, I thought a housekeeper would be good. I thought she would make my bed for me and stuff, but we all decided it would be a little weird having a stranger live in our house. Besides, Nannie was tired of living alone, and I don’t blame her. She’s too vivacious. She needs people around her. So the arrangement works out perfectly. We cleared out the room we would have given the housekeeper, gave it to Nannie instead, she moved her things in, and now Nannie takes care of Emily while Mom and Watson are at work, and the rest of us are at school. After school, us kids are on our own as usual, because Nannie has a million and one things to do: bowling practice, visiting friends, you know.”

  “It’s so funny to see the Pink Clinker parked in Watson’s driveway,” spoke up Mary Anne.

  “I know.” (The Pink Clinker is Kristy’s grandmother’s old car. She really did have it painted pink, and it really does clink around a lot when she drives it, but it seems to be in good shape.)

  Kristy knows her grandmother as well as I knew Mimi, although I’m not sure they’re as close. Nannie’s husband has been dead for quite awhile, and Kristy hardly ever sees her father’s parents. (I don’t know what she thinks of Watson’s parents.)

  “Hey,” said Mallory suddenly, “Mary Anne, what’s going on with your father and Dawn’s mother?”

  I thought Mal was being a little nosy (even though I was dying to know myself), but Mary Anne and Dawn just looked at each other and grinned.

  “Mom is not seeing the Trip-Man as often,” Dawn replied gleefully. (Mrs. Schafer has been dating this man nicknamed Trip, whom Dawn can’t stand and calls the Trip-Man.)

  “And Dad doesn’t see anyone but Mrs. Schafer,” said Mary Anne with a grin.

  “I don’t get it, though,” said Dawn, frowning suddenly. “Our parents are perfect for each other. Mary Anne and I have always thought so. So why don’t they just get married?”

  “I guess it isn’t that easy,” pointed out Kristy. “Look at how long Mom held off before she agreed to marry Watson. She didn’t want to make another mistake. She’d already had one bad marriage.”

  “Dad didn’t,” said Mary Anne.

  “But my mom did,” said Dawn. “Maybe it’s better that they’re waiting.”

  Just then the phone rang and Corrie’s mother called. Mallory arranged a sitting job for me and then asked, “How is Corrie these days?”

  I’d written a lot about her in the notebook, so the other girls (I mean, besides Mary Anne) were aware of Corrie and her problems.

  “You know, I actually think she’s a little better,” I replied. “Don’t you think so, Mary Anne?”

  Mary Anne nodded.

  “She still doesn’t say much, but I almost take it as a good sign that she seems so attached to me. At least she feels comfortable with somebody. When we first met, she hardly spoke to anyone at all.”

  “She barely said two words to me the couple of times I sat for her and Sean,” said Dawn. “I’m glad she feels she can talk to you.”

  I nodded. “It was like something just clicked between us. You know how that happens sometimes? There are people you’ve known a long time and you know you’re never really going to like. And there are people that you meet and grow to like. Then there are people you meet and you like instantly. Click! That’s pretty much the way it was with Corrie and me.”

  Mary Anne nodded. “You’re right. And it is good for her. I mean, to see that it’s okay to get close to people, that they’re not all going to treat her as casually as her mother does. I just hope she doesn’t get too attached to you, Claud.”

  “If she does, you’ll handle it,” spoke up Dawn. “Remember when Buddy Barrett got so attached to me? I talked to his mother and everything worked out eventually.”

  “I hardly ever even see Mrs. Addison. She drops Corrie off and picks her up so fast she’s just a big blur,” I joked.

  Dawn smiled.

  And Kristy said, “Anyway, we usually do seem to solve our sitting problems. And when we don’t, the kids do it themselves. Think of the times they’ve come through. Charlotte Johanssen was pretty attached to Stacey, but when Stacey moved, Charlott
e handled it.”

  “Boy,” said Jessi, “I’ve got a problem I wish I could handle. I’ve heard there are going to be auditions for the ballet Swan Lake at the Civic Center —”

  “Are you going to try out?” squealed Mal, before Jessi could finish.

  “Well, that’s the thing. Even if the auditions are open to the public —”

  “You’re not the public,” Mallory interrupted again. “You go to a fancy dance school in Stamford. Stoneybrook’s Civic Center —”

  “— is pretty important,” said Jessi, interrupting Mal this time.

  (The rest of us were turning our heads from right to left, left to right, as they spoke.)

  “In fact, the productions at the Civic Center,” Jessi went on, “are practically off-off-Broadway. Anyway, even if I were allowed to audition, would I really want to? And would my parents let me?”

  “Why wouldn’t you want to?” I asked.

  “Because I’d be competing with professional dancers. Or near-professional dancers, anyway,” Jessi replied.

  “Don’t you want to be professional one day?” Mal asked.

  “Ye-es …”

  “Then I think you ought to start competing,” I interrupted. “Mimi always said — well, she didn’t exactly say it this way, but she said something that meant, ‘Give it all you’ve got.’ Otherwise you’ll never know what you’re culpable of.”

  “Capable of,” Mary Anne corrected me.

  “Whatever.”

  Jessi nodded solemnly, but Mal’s face broke into a grin. “Mimi,” she said dreamily. “Remember the time she didn’t want to go to that county fair with your family, Claud, so she pretended she was sick? Just like a kid who doesn’t want to go to school.”

  “Mm-hmm,” I replied shortly. I stared down at the bedspread.

  Silence. Dead silence, so to speak. I had brought the discussion to a screeching halt.