BFF* (33 page)

“Besides,” he said, “if I had to sleep in a room with peach walls, I'd puke.” He made a disgusting retching sound, and as I jumped back, he laughed.

When he was gone, I closed the bedroom door, lay down on my bed and cried.

M
om and Dad tried to make Charles's first supper at home a festive occasion, even though being expelled from school isn't normally an event to celebrate. Charles came to the table wearing a T-shirt that said I D
ON'T
N
EED
Y
OUR
A
TTITUDE …
I H
AVE
M
Y
O
WN
. None of us commented. Dad grilled chicken with mustard sauce and Mom made Charles's favorite coleslaw, so full of vinegar it
choked me. But Charles loved it. The sour taste agreed with him.

In the middle of dinner he said, “So I think I'll drop out for a while … maybe get a job or something.”

“That's not an option,” Dad said.

“You have to be sixteen to drop out, don't you?” I asked. “And your birthday's not until November.”

“Aha …” Charles said. “The child prodigy speaks.”

I hate it when he calls me that. It makes me feel as if I've done something wrong, something to be ashamed of.

“It's just a matter of finding the right school,” Mom said to Charles softly.

Charles exploded. “There is no right school for me! Don't you get it by now? I'm allergic to school!”

“Excuse me,” Jessica said. “I've got to pick up my prom pictures before Fotomat closes.”

“Excuse me, too,” I said, shoving back my chair. “I have a ton of homework.”

Charles shook his head. “Those daughters of yours need to be taught some manners,” he told Mom and Dad. “They shouldn't be allowed to leave the table when the rest of us are still eating. If I didn't know better, I'd think it has something to do with me. I'd think they're not really as glad to see me as they pretend.”

“They might be if it wasn't for your attitude,” Mom said.

“Attitude?” Charles said, looking down at his T-shirt. “If we're talking attitude here—”

But Mom didn't wait for him to finish. “Just stop it, Charles!”

“Nell …” Dad said, quietly. “Let it go.”

“Right,” Charles said snidely. “Let it go, Mom. We don't want to upset Dad, do we?”

L
ater, I think we all regretted how badly dinner had gone and we gathered in the living room. “What's this?” Mom asked, examining the red marks on Charles's arm where I'd dug my nails into his skin. They were sitting next to each other on the small sofa.

“Harry,” Charles said, using the cat as an excuse.

“I don't like the way it looks,” Mom told him. “Put some peroxide on it.”

“Yeah … yeah …”

“I'm serious, Charles. It could get infected.”

Charles smiled at me.

Dad perched on the sofa arm, next to Mom, and Jess passed around her prom pictures. As she did, she gave me a private look, letting me know she'd already removed the group shot showing her in Mom's slinky black dress.

“Oh, Jess …” Mom said, studying the pictures. “That shade of pink is perfect on you.”

“Magenta,” I said.

Everyone looked at me.

“Well, it's more magenta than pink, isn't it?” I asked.

“Magenta,”
Charles said, making me wish I'd never heard the word. “Glad to know you're keeping up with your Crayola colors, Rachel.”

Before I could think of something to say back, Dad held out one of Jessica's pictures and said, “Brings back memories, doesn't it, Nell?”

Mom said, “In my day you had to be
asked.”

Dad put his arm around Mom's shoulder and nuzzled her. “If they could see you now, those guys would be eating their hearts out.”

“Good,” Mom said, smiling at him.

Mom isn't beautiful like Alison's mother but she is very
put together
. She wears classic clothes and her hair is always perfect, whether it's loose or tied back. She says grooming is more important than looks. I hope that's true because when Mom was young she was awkward—too tall like me—and had a serious case of acne, like Jess.

“So, Jessica …” Charles said, studying one prom picture after the other. “Do they still call you
Pizza Face
, or is it mostly
Jess the Mess?”

Jessica grabbed the pictures out of his hand. “Asshole,” she hissed. “I wish you'd never been born!” She started from the room in tears, then turned back to face him. “And I hope you get the
worst zits ever. I hope they swell and ooze and hurt so bad you go to bed crying every night!”

“Thanks, Jess …” Charles called, as if Jess had given him a compliment. “I appreciate that.”

Mom ran after Jessica, and Dad said, “Dammit, Charles … we're a family. Could we please try to act like one?”

“I am trying,” Charles said. “It's just that my sisters are so sensitive they can't even take a joke.”

I
lay in bed for a long time that night, stroking Burt and Harry, as I listened to Jess crying in her room. I don't understand Charles. I don't understand how he can be so cruel and hateful.

Unfortunately cystic acne runs in our family. Mom and Dad actually met at a drugstore, buying the same medicated skin cream, when they were first-year law students at Columbia. They started going together right away and were married the week they graduated. Mom says Dad is the first person who ever talked to her about acne. Everyone else shied away from the subject. It made them too uncomfortable.

Until then, Mom never even went out with a guy. Looking back, she says her acne was a blessing in disguise. It freed her to concentrate on schoolwork. She won a scholarship to college and another to law school, and she always graduated with honors. But she never
kissed a guy until she met Dad and she was twenty-two at the time! I'm glad I've already had my first kiss. Not that I'm proud of having kissed Max Wilson, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do.

There are a lot of things in life I consider unfair and cystic acne is one of them. I'm not talking about your basic teenage acne. I'm talking about painful lumps and bumps that swell and distort your face. I don't know what I'll do if I get it. Jess has tried antibiotics but they haven't helped much. Mom is always saying, “It cleared up before my thirtieth birthday,” as if that will help Jess feel better. Imagine waking up every day with your problem right there on your face for the whole world to see! And having to deal with stupid guys calling you
Pizza Face
and
Jess the Mess
.

I consider Jess one of the bravest people I know. She gets up and goes to school five days a week. She has friends. She even manages to have a sense of humor.

W
hen I finally did fall asleep, I tossed and turned and had bizarre dreams. I woke at dawn, sweaty and anxious, so I crept down to the kitchen and made myself a bowl of Cream of Wheat, with just a drop of brown sugar and milk. Whenever I feel my stomach tying up in knots, I eat comfort food—bananas, mashed potatoes, cooked cereal.

I was thumbing through the Sunday paper and feeling better when Charles waltzed in, humming to
himself. “Good morning, little sister,” he sang, as if we were old friends. “Did you get your beauty sleep?” He looked at me, then answered his own question. “I guess not.”

I mumbled a few choice words under my breath.

“What was that?” he said.

“Never mind.”

He began pulling out baking pans, mixing bowls and ingredients from the refrigerator.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“It's Mother's Day, Rachel.”

“I
know
it's Mother's Day.”

“So … I'm going to bake something special for our dear old mom.”

“Since when do you know how to bake?”

He shook his head. “There's so much you don't know about me.”

That was certainly true. I never would have guessed Charles would remember Mother's Day. I thought about the gift Jess and I had bought for her—a subscription to
Metropolitan Home
. Mom's always saying she needs to redo the living room, if only she could find the time. We hope this will encourage her.

I read the rest of the paper while Charles baked. I have to admit, when he pulled a scrumptious-looking coffee cake out of the oven forty-five minutes later, I was pretty amazed. He tested it with
a toothpick, then set it on a cooling rack. The smell made my mouth water.

I watched as he prepared a steaming pot of coffee, poured a pitcher of orange juice, and arranged it all on a tray. At the last minute he plucked a flower from the bunch on the table and set it on top of his cake. Then he took the Sunday paper, including the section I was reading, folded it up and tucked it under his arm. Before he started out of the room, he looked at me. “Impressed?” he asked.

He knew I was, even though I didn't say a word.

A minute later Jessica came into the kitchen, still in her nightshirt, her hair disheveled, her face covered with dark green goo that smelled faintly of seaweed. She yawned.

“What are you doing up so early?” I asked.

“Couldn't sleep.” She opened the refrigerator and stuck her head inside. “I just met our
nightmare
on the stairs.”

“He was bringing Mom breakfast in bed …” I told her, “in honor of Mother's Day!”

“Oh, God …” Jess said from inside the refrigerator. “He's such a hypocrite!”

“Suppose they don't find another school for him?” I asked. “What do you think will happen? I mean, he won't finish ninth grade at Fox, will he?”

“Mom and Dad are smart. They'll figure out something.”

“But I've got to know now!”

“There's no way you can know, Rachel. And worrying about it isn't going to help.” She backed out of the refrigerator and touched her face to see if the mask had hardened yet. It hadn't.

“Does that mean you think he's going to stay here?” I asked.

“It's his home, isn't it?” she said. “Mom and Dad are his parents, aren't they? They can't just
give
him away.”

“Maybe they could send him to live with someone else,” I suggested.

“Like who?”

“I don't know … Aunt Joan? She took him when he was suspended.”

“That was for a week,” Jess said. “Don't get your hopes up.” She stuck her face back inside the refrigerator.

Mom came downstairs, beaming. “Charles baked a fabulous coffee cake,” she said to me. “You've got to try it. It's light and fluffy and the topping's perfect.” Then she noticed Jess. “Jessica, please close the refrigerator. Everything will spoil.”

Jess touched her cheek. This time she was satisfied. The seaweed mask had set, leaving her with a hardened green face and white circles around her eyes. She looked like a green raccoon.

“Maybe I'll get a job as a baker,” Charles said, following Mom into the kitchen.

“That could be a wonderful summer experience for you,” Mom said, “if you don't have to go to summer school.”

“I wasn't talking about a
summer
job.”

“We've already been through that,” Mom reminded him. “Let's not spoil our day.”

“Oh, right!” He thumped his head with the back of his hand. “Today is Mother's Day … a family holiday. I hope my sisters remember that.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “I'll be in my room, practicing.”

“Practicing?” Charles sneered.

“The flute!” I shouted.

“Oh, the flute,” he said. “I thought you had something more exciting in mind.”

“Grow up, Charles!” Jessica said, following me out of the kitchen.

“I'm trying …” he said, “I'm trying ….”

“Maybe you need to try harder,” Mom told him.

“Push, push, push …” Charles said. “That's our family motto.”

Mom ignored him and called after us, “Please be ready by eleven, girls. We're going to see Gram then.”

G
ram is Mom's mother. Her name is Kate Carter Babcock and she's seventy-six. She had a stroke a year ago and has lived at a nursing home ever since.
I get very depressed when we go to visit.
What's the use?
I think.
What's the use of going through a whole lifetime, then winding up like Gram?

Gram can't talk. The stroke affected the left side of her brain. She makes sounds, not anything we can understand, though. They tried therapy for a while, but when she didn't respond they stopped. I don't know if she understands what we say, or even if she recognizes us. I like to think she does.

Today, when we got there, Gram was dressed for company. The nurse had brushed blush on her cheeks, and it stood out against her pale skin in two uneven circles. She sat in her wheelchair, facing the window that overlooks the garden. She had a soft, pastel-colored blanket across her lap. I recognized it as one of Roddy's baby blankets. When he was born, Tarren received so many she brought half a dozen to the nursing home.