Dedication (4 page)

I lift the brittle ends of my hair to my nose, nauseated by the sweet stench of Salon Selectives I’ve sprayed, squirted and squeezed over the last two hours of alternated crimping and curling with Michelle Walker’s mother’s beauty supplies. “My hair is broom straw,” I mutter to Laura as she listlessly raises and lowers the trays of the professional expanding makeup box at this slumberless slumber party.

“God, what time is it even?” she asks, dropping a tube of liquid eyeliner onto the gold-flecked Formica counter of the basement bathroom Mrs. Walker has rigged as her salon. “It’s so bright in here it could be lunchtime.” She squints against the glare from the baseball-shaped bulbs framing the mirror, as if this were a Hollywood dressing room and Mrs. Walker doesn’t primp wedged between a dented Maytag and a badly burnt ironing board.

JenniferTwo wipes off yet another shade and I reflexively lick my own lips at the sight of the prickly irritation spreading around her mouth. “Two forty.”

“Two forty
A
.
M
.?” Laura asks as a wave of exhaustion breaks over the pizza, caramel corn, Coke, and Carvel birthday cake making a gushy mess in my stomach.

“Yup,” she nods, two curlers flapping against her face.

“The movie
must
be done by now.” I flick the
OFF
buttons on the heating devices that have been keeping those of us not wanting to watch the third seventies-era horror video in a row or examine Mr. Walker’s
Penthouse
stash
again,
entertained.

All of a sudden Stephanie Brauer pushes the door open, bouncing in her long T-shirt, knees pressed together. “Movemovemove, I’ve gotta pee!” The sound of a chain saw revving slips in behind her before she pulls the door shut and dodges between us to the saloon-style shutters at the far end of the room.

“Is the movie almost done?” Laura asks, wilting. She rubs her Cleopatra eyes.

“Oops.” I point to the black football player streaks. “Bad move, Bubba.”

She wearily raises her index fingers and takes in their smudged tips. “Crap.”

“Ooh, gross,” Stephanie groans. “Michelle’s dad’s, like, underwear is hanging up in here. Gross,” she repeats over the flushing toilet.

“He moved out and left his underwear?” Laura asks as Stephanie pushes back through the sprung shutters. “That’s so weird. Don’t you guys think it’s so weird?”

While Stephanie retreats to the mirror, Laura holds open one of the doors so the three of us can cram into the toilet alcove. Sure enough, on a white plastic rack over the sink hang five pairs of Hanes boxers, dried stiff.

“C’mon, guys.” JenniferTwo backs out and starts clacking the lipsticks into their plastic slots. “We better put this stuff where we found it or she’ll spaz.”

“Did Michelle know?” Stephanie asks, and JenniferTwo, self-appointed guardian of Michelle, pauses, her hand full of warped hotsticks halfway-shoved in their case. “How?” Stephanie stares intently at Jen’s bent head. “What was the sign?”

“Separate beds?” Laura asks, leaning in. “Separate rooms?”

Ignoring her, JenniferTwo resumes packing the colored foam rods. But Stephanie steps intently over to her. “Did they fight?” The pink band of fabric slips out of her hair. “Did they? Just tell me, Jenny.”

“All the time.”

Sucking in her cheeks, Stephanie nods to herself as she retrieves the band from the floor, wrapping it twice around her wrist. The only sound is the burble of the refilling tank. JenniferTwo clears her throat, “You guys better not tell Michelle I said anything.” She stands up and bores her eyes into each of ours as she goes to open the door. For the first time all night, the sound of bell-bottom-wearing teens mid-slaughter does not bounce off the veneered walls and into our hair-sprayed refuge. Instead, in its place, come the hushed tones of tense negotiation. Stumbling over each other to get out, we follow JenniferTwo across the mess of sleeping bags littering the orange carpet. She steps over the snoring Dunkman twins to where the birthday party is in some kind of standoff in front of the sliding door to the yard. Fully dressed in their identical acid-washed perfection, Kristi and her friends have their backs to the glass.

“So are you staying?” Kristi asks matter-of-factly as she swipes on a coat of iridescent lipgloss and passes it to her friends. Jeanine opens her mouth, but is at a terrified loss. She looks from Kristi to Michelle.

“Spaz,” one of Kristi’s minions gets haughty. “We’re just meeting the boys at the falls to have a smoke, it’s not like we’re having an orgy.”

Kristi cracks up.

“Seriously, guys, you have to be back really soon,” Michelle pleads. “If my mom wakes up—”

“Yeah, sure.” Kristi tugs the door open, letting in the chilly fall night. “Make sure Jeanine has her Pampers on when you tuck her in.”

“Don’t get an ulcer.” Her other minion slides it shut, sealing us in.

As we watch the It Girls disappear outside the arc of the flood-light there is a moment filled only by the snoring behind us. Michelle turns, wild eyed. “I’m so screwed! I’m so totally screwed! It’s my goddamn birthday! And now I’m
screwed!”

“You’re the one who had to invite Kristi,” Laura mutters.

“Thanks!” Michelle spits at her. “Thanks a lot, wench!” She pushes between us, trying to run through the mess of sleeping bags toward the bathroom, but she trips over a Dunkman and we all watch as she flails in slow motion, limbs like a runaway marionette, before hitting the carpet with a slamming thud. Frozen, we stand with our hands over our mouths—is she dead? Dana Dunkman makes a kind of gargle half-snore before rolling over, still out cold. Dazed, Michelle sits up. Laura clamps her hand tightly on her mouth, but her shoulders start to shake as she fights it. I instantly start to giggle. Laura grabs her stomach and drops into a crouch she’s laughing so hard. “Sorry. I know…it’s…not…funny. It’s not.”

JenniferTwo runs to Michelle, helping her up as she clutches her nose, her eyes still wide in surprise. “Ohmygod, she’s bleeding,” JenniferTwo announces. “I bet she has a concussion.”

“Ice,” I manage to get out.

“Get her ice.” Laura wipes her palm across her eyes and stands up.

“You’ll wake my mom if you go up there!” Michelle wails in alarm as a patrol breaks out for the stairs. Someone grabs a pair of ruffled pink socks to stuff against the blood trickling from her left nostril.

“Let’s get her into the bathroom.” JenniferOne helps to lift her up and the group half-carries half-drops Michelle to the other side of the basement.

“Laura,” Jeanine’s voice comes from behind us.

We spin around to see her still facing the black glass, her eyes fixed on the illuminated wedge of leaf-strewn grass. “Let’s go,” she says.

“Duh. We can’t,” I remind her.

Jeanine turns, her face hard. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to Laura. Wipe that stuff off and let’s go meet up with them.”

I look over to Laura, psyched to see her tell Jeanine to screw herself. But she doesn’t. Jeanine tugs off her pajama pants, pulls up her jeans, and pushes her feet into her loafers. “Rick Swartz is going to be there. He’s friends with Jason after soccer camp this summer.” She pulls off her top, her worn training bra, probably her sister’s hand-me-down still on underneath, and, embarrassed, quickly shoves her head through the neck of her sweater. “So come on.”

“Why don’t you just stay, Jeanine?” The uncertainty in her voice makes my chest tight. “You know your mom’ll kill you.”

“I have to.” Jeanine pulls a Kissing Cooler from her pocket and swipes it on, rubbing her lips together.

“No you don’t. That’s only four girls out there. There are, like, thirteen still here.”

“Thirteen who’ll be playing makeup for the rest of seventh grade.” Jeanine’s eyes narrow.

“So, why do you have to do everything Kristi says?” Laura finally asks what she’s wanted to for so long. “She’s not even funny or…I mean, she sat here all night making bored faces in the corner. She’s just…I don’t know. So her mom’s a manager at the mall and she gets to wear designer clothes—”

“She’s fun. A lot of fun. And I don’t want to sit around with a bunch of babies who don’t even talk to boys on the phone playing nurse to Michelle Walker all night. So are you coming or not?”

Laura looks at the floor. “Not,” she says softly.

Jeanine’s face turns the ember color of her hair. “I hope you two will be really happy together. Be sure not to invite me to the wedding.”

“Fuck you,” I say, surprising myself.

“Fuck you both.” She seals the sliding door soundlessly behind her.

Laura holds my stare, her expression stunned. “Wait,” she says. And I ready myself for the moment I have known was coming since the day Laura told me about Jeanine: when Jeanine would realize she’d made the biggest mistake of her life throwing over the best best friend a girl could hope for and she’d want Laura back. The moment Laura would go. Because they have history. They have lower school. They have learning to read and all sorts of things I will never—“Who am I?”

And she face plants onto the nearest sleeping bag.

“Stop,” Laura mouths sternly, tipping me past the point of being able to contain my laughter.

Overtaken, I slam the receiver back down. “Oh, God, I’m gonna pee.” I roll on the raspberry carpet in the doorway of Laura’s parents’ bedroom, where I’ve stretched their phone cord to its limit.

“Katie!”
she moans from the opposite end of the hall, where she’s stretched her brother’s phone to
its
limit so that we can see each other for the First Call.

“I’m…I’m sorry.” I gasp for air. “I don’t know what’s so funny.”

Laura sits cross-legged in her prairie dress as she broods. “Okay, maybe this isn’t a good idea, you being able to see me. Maybe you should go inside the door.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be on the line at all. I mean, why am I on?”

“So you can tell me what I sounded like. And what he sounded like. Like a witness.”

“Witness,” I sigh. “Let’s call Harrison Ford.” I break into another fit of giggles.

“You’re such a dork; I don’t know why I recruited you for this job.”

I take a deep breath and sit up. “Okay. Okay, I can do this. You can do this. Today we call the boys. Go.” I wave at her, putting the receiver back to my ear. “Dial.”

Laura exhales slowly, pointing sternly at me before dialing Rick Swartz’s number. As the line rings my heart speeds.

“Hello? Who’s on the phone?” suddenly Mrs. Heller’s confused voice breaks in.

“HANG UP!” Laura drops the phone, shouting down the stairs. “OH MY GOD! MOM! HANG UP!” We both bolt from our posts to meet at the railing, frozen in terror.

“This is Martha Heller. Who’s this? No, I did not call you. Well, then
you
hang up…good-bye.”

“I…I…” Laura becomes zombielike.
“My mother
called Rick Swartz. Jeanine’s going to—the entire seventh grade’s going to…
My mother
called Rick Swartz!”

“Laura, listen.” I swivel her face to me. “Just call him back and say, um, that your mom’s been really sick and she’s just, like, got a really high fever and has been, um, calling random numbers and being, like, delirious.” I nod hopefully.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“But how would I know that she’d called him unless I was on the line?” Her blue eyes grip me with desperation.

I chew my lip. “Say you just came into her room and she was murmuring about calling Rick Swartz like she murmurs about the other stuff she’s doing while she’s sick. Come on, Lor, we’re losing valuable time here. Just call.”

“MOM! DO NOT PICK UP THE PHONE!”

Mrs. Heller appears at the bottom of the stairs. One hand in a yellow rubber glove, she uses the other to reclip her hair away from her face. “Are you paying the bills around here now?”

Laura hangs off the banister. “Mom,
please,
I’m begging, just give us five minutes?
Please.”

“Are we calling boys?” She rests her gloved hands on the hips of her stirrup pants.

“Mom,”
Laura moans.

“Laura,”
she moans right back. “All right, but start your homework, please.”

“Okay!” I chime as we each resume our posts. The second she’s out of earshot, Laura dials. I press my palm into the door frame as it rings.

“Hello?” he answers.

Laura freezes. I scissor-kick my legs at her to snap her back.

“Rick?”

“Yeah?”

“Hi. This is Laura Heller.” Her small hands clench the receiver so tightly her knuckles turn white.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, so I just called ’cause my mom has this major fever. She’s really sick and I don’t know, we think it could be malaria because she’s just totally sweaty and out of it and…” I kick my legs again. “Anyway she’s been doing all sorts of weird stuff because she’s, like, delirious. We have to watch her all the time and my brother was supposed to be watching her but he had band practice so she was alone and she, I think she picked up the phone and called you and acted crazy. Because of the malaria. I only know because I just walked into the room and she was mumbling something about your name and I thought, you know, God, I better call you and let you know that she’s just being weird like that because she was sick and dialing random numbers and so…so that’s why I called.”