Quite an Undertaking - Devon's Story (7 page)

When she laughed, the sweet sound yanked my perma-grin from the depths where I had stuffed it. I could dedicate my life to making her laugh.

She said, “That must be a tough job, but promise me one thing.”

Anything. Everything. “
What?”

“If I ever misplace a comma, be gentle. Okay?”

I burst out laughing. Several kids looked at me, but I didn’t care. I know my smile took over my whole face. “I will always be gentle with you.”
Whoa, did I just say that?
I hadn’t meant to flirt. It just came out.

Rebecca seemed to take my flirting in stride, though. “Toi, oui, Devon Raines, I’m sure you would.”

Mme Depardieu called the class to order. We were going to read some kind of short story in the textbook, all in French, of course, and then answer questions on a worksheet.

As Mme Depardieu handed out the dreaded worksheets, Rebecca learned over and whispered, “I got my application.”

“What application?”

“The Karen Swanson School of Dance in New York. It’s a summer program.”

“Cool. When will you find out?”

“Well, I just got the application yesterday, but I have to send it back right away. If they like how I look on paper, my dance teacher, Ms. Adams, says they’ll ask for my audition DVD. She told me that if they ask for a DVD it means you’re ninety percent in.”

“Cool. I hope they ask for your DVD.” I reached for my worksheet from the kid in front of me.

“Me, too.”

We read in silence and then answered the questions on the worksheet. I didn’t know all the words in the story, but I was pretty good at winging it. I hoped I could find a way to wing it with Rebecca because I desperately wanted to find out if she was gay like me.

Mme Depardieu collected our worksheets with about five minutes left to the period. The way she tossed them into her “papers to be graded” basket told me we wouldn’t be getting them back anytime soon. When she sat at her desk and started typing on her keyboard, I knew the lesson was over for the day.

“That was fun,” I said to Rebecca sarcastically.

“Yeah, a real blast.” She rolled her eyes. “Actually, speaking of fun, we’re going to the mall on Saturday. Do you want to go?”

I never realized how such a simple question could turn me inside out. Yes, yes, yes, I screamed inside my head. Omigod, Omigod, Omigod. I didn’t even care who the “we” referred to.

“Sure,” I said with as much cool and calm as I could muster with my heart beating a thousand miles an hour. I tried to ask her what time, but the question caught in my throat. I coughed and tried again, “What time?”

“Oh, I don’t know. We’ve got a couple of days to decide, but Jessie usually likes to eat at the food court first, and Natalie, well, she doesn’t care when we go.”

Jessie. Bummer. Of course, the “we” included her. She wouldn’t do anything to me with Rebecca right there, would she?

“Okay,” I said, “let me know on Friday.” Most of me knew I shouldn’t go to the mall with them because of Jessie, but the prospect of hanging out with Rebecca made the stupid part of me take over.

“Great.” She reached down into the front pocket of her backpack and pulled out her cell phone. Keeping it low under her desk, she asked me for my cell number. My insides started shaking as she punched the numbers in. She saved it and said she’d text me later with the details. She snuck her cell phone back into her backpack and then looked up at me with a grin as if we had just gotten away with something grand in Mme Depardieu’s class.

The bell rang to end the period, and Rebecca stood up. I got up to walk out with her, but when I saw Jessie waiting in the hallway I sat back down and pretended to fuss with my backpack. I didn’t want to see if Jessie would shoot daggers at me again. I’d better get some thicker armor, I thought to myself, because in order to hang out with Rebecca, I’d probably have to hang out with Jessie, too.

AS WE STROLLED into the food court at the Maplewoods Mall that Saturday, Natalie and I walked a step behind Jessie and Rebecca. They had picked me up at my house at around

11:30 and by 12:15 we were in the food court trying to figure out what to eat. Jessie and Natalie went for Chinese, but I decided on the wrap place. Rebecca, seeming torn, opted to go with me. Ha! Devon 1, Jessie 0. I knew that was childish, especially since Jessie hadn’t sent me a single dirty look, but still, it felt good for a moment.

When we regrouped at a table near the Chinese food counter, Jessie shoved a big spoonful of fried rice into her mouth and said, “Hey, we can’t always eat fried chicken and watermelon. Right, Devon?”

Fried chicken and watermelon? What did that mean?

Rebecca threw Jessie an exasperated look—one that said, “Behave.” That’s when I understood. Fried chicken and watermelon were supposed to be black foods or whatever, and I was white. I was the only white girl sitting at the table with three black girls. Maybe this was why Jessie hated me because I was white. That didn’t make any sense, though. She had white friends. I mean, her teammates on the basketball team were white. I decided to stay mute and not go for the bait.

When Rebecca smiled at me in apology, I felt better. She did this, of course, when Jessie wasn’t looking. I smiled back and shrugged as if to say, “I’m not sure what I did to provoke that.”

After lunch, we walked the mall. Early November seemed too soon for Christmas stuff, but every store was decorated for the December holiday. We passed an electronics store with some of those mechanical puppies out front that barked and did flips. They were cute, but we didn’t stop to look, even though I kind of wanted to.

I think I gained a few points at the food court, but that didn’t seem to matter since Natalie and I were relegated to second-class status behind Jessie and Rebecca. We’d tried to walk four across, but a lot of Canadians had come across the Seaway International Bridge to shop in the United States forcing us to walk two and two. I didn’t really mind walking with Natalie because she loved to talk about basketball, and I was learning a lot about the sport. She was a sophomore, a little overweight, not to the point of obesity, she was just a big girl. She wore her hair down, like Rebecca, but Natalie’s hair was shorter, falling just below her collar.

“So what exactly does a power forward do?” I asked her.

“Oh, uh, I’m kind of a cross between a center and a regular forward.”

I laughed. “Okay, that’s as clear as mud.”

Jessie must have been listening because she said over her shoulder, “Her job is to rebound the ball and then find me, so I can dribble up the court, do a behind the back move around the defense, and lay it up as soft as a baby’s behind.”

I only understood about half of it, but I said, “Oh,” as if impressed with her skills.

Rebecca decided she wanted to look at earrings at one of those free-standing carts in the middle of the mall walkway. I think she was trying to change the subject. “Hey, Devon,” she beckoned me over and held up a small pair of hoop earrings, “I think you’d look great in these.”

She held the earrings up to my ears, and as I looked in the mirror, I tried hard to focus, but Rebecca’s smile reflected in the mirror overtook me. Her rose-scented perfume wrapped itself around me making it hard to think straight. I even imagined that I felt her body heat as she stood behind me. I took a quick breath and looked away.

I dug out the ten-dollar bill I had in my jeans pocket to pay for the $6.99 pair of earrings. I never spent money on jewelry because Mom, Missy, or Grandma took care of that for me at Christmas or on my birthday. In fact, my grandmother had given me the pair of gold ball earrings I usually wore. My stomach clenched when I thought of her. I forced it away. There was no way I was going to cry in front of Jessie. No way.

Rebecca seemed pleased when I took them to the cashier at the far end of the cart and stood with me while I paid. Jessie and Natalie stood together in the walkway where we’d left them. They didn’t even pretend to be interested in the jewelry. Instead, they made fun of people in the mall, including this really fat lady who walked by them. Jessie, without saying a word, waddled after her. That cracked up Natalie who in turn waddled in a circle. I pretended to be oblivious to them, but out of the corner of my eye I saw an almost sad look take over Rebecca’s face.

Change and bag in hand, I turned toward Rebecca. “Ready?” My heart leaped when I saw the troubled look in her eyes. Her cheeks flushed, and I could tell that Jessie had embarrassed her. Thank God the fat lady didn’t notice them making fun of her.

“C’mon.” Rebecca put a hand on my back and nudged me toward her friends.

We resumed our original pecking order and walked the full length of the mall. When we hit the Sears at the end, we turned around and walked up the other side. Natalie continued to talk about basketball and the Connecticut Sun, her favorite WNBA basketball team. I’d pretty much had my fill of basketball by that point, but I asked her questions anyway just to keep the conversation going. What I really wanted to do was vaporize Jessie, so I could walk next to Rebecca. I’d take Rebecca’s hand, and we wouldn’t even care if people stared at us—two girls holding hands in the mall. Unfortunately, Jessie still existed. Technically, I was spending the afternoon with Rebecca, but at that point I just wanted to go home. Editing bad copy was beginning to sound much more appealing than playing second fiddle to Jessie.

As we walked back up the other side of the long stretch of mall, an interracial couple walked toward us. A tall black man held hands with a noticeably pregnant white woman. Once we passed them, Jessie shook her head. “They’re dilutin’ the blood, man.” She turned toward Rebecca. “Don’t they see that?”

Rebecca glared at Jessie.

Jessie shrugged. “What? I was kidding.”

I didn’t sound like she was kidding, though, and I realized that all day I’d felt self-conscious about the color of my skin.

I SAT IN my room after they dropped me off and tried to edit the girls’ soccer article, but my mind kept wandering back to my wonderful trip to the mall that afternoon. Even though I stole a few smiles from Rebecca, I didn’t have much fun. I was hoping Rebecca would text me or call, but so far nothing.

I tried one last time to focus on the soccer article, but finally closed the file in frustration and shut down the computer. I got up, took my new earrings out of their small plastic bag, and then took off my gold ball earrings. I lifted the lid to my jewelry box and laughed. I’d have to ask Mom for a grown up jewelry box for Christmas this year. The cheesy Howe Caverns stamp on the top of my current one reminded me of the car trip Missy and I took with Grandma and Grandpa to the Finger Lakes when I was ten. Amazingly, I didn’t choke up at the memory. Maybe I was making progress.

I carefully put on my new hoops. They were only about a half inch in diameter, but still, I’d never worn any kind of hoops before. I felt grown up all of a sudden. With my new earrings and new highlights, maybe Rebecca would look at me the way I wanted her to. Not just as a friend, but something more.

I sighed and gently placed the earrings that Grandma had given me in the cedar box and then shut the lid. There was no way I could have told Grandma that I was gay. She had been old-fashioned, but maybe she knew now. Maybe she looked down from heaven and was okay with me. Grandpa, too. Maybe they’d both know that being gay wasn’t a choice or something I randomly decided to be. Maybe they would understand that I wasn’t some evil horrible person, and that it was something I figured out about myself in eighth grade. My crush on Marcy Berger didn’t last long, but the deep attraction I had for her back then woke up something inside me. When Missy wasn’t around, I secretly searched the Internet for anything gay-related and discovered a whole world of gay people. They called it “the gay community” on a few websites. I didn’t know if Grasse River had a “gay community,” but I hoped someday I’d find one somewhere if it existed. Those websites were right. I wasn’t gay because I chose to be. I just was.

I found myself in Grandma’s room, not quite sure how I got there. I took a deep breath. I hadn’t gone into her room since she died. I sat down on the edge of her bed and wondered if and when Missy would take her room back. I smoothed out the comforter with my hand. The softness reminded me of all the times I sat on Grandma’s bed and we’d talk about stuff. Stuff like the animal shelter or her bridge club or my school. I choked up, so I stood up and went to Grandma’s bookshelf. Darn, Mom took the butterscotches out of the jar, but that made sense because Grandma wasn’t there anymore.

I picked up my favorite glass snow globe from Grandma’s collection. I shook it and watched the snow swirl around the skyline of Manhattan. Missy brought it back from New York City when she went to a journalism conference last summer. Once all the snow settled on the bottom, I put the snow globe back and picked up a picture of Grandma and Grandpa standing in front of their Christmas tree. They looked young and confident, but there was a better word to describe them. Peaceful. I hoped they were at peace up in heaven. I wiped the dust off the top of the picture of my dad and Uncle Joe as young boys. They looked so dorky in their old-fashioned clothes. Grandma even had an old elementary school picture of me and one of Missy. I hated my picture. Mom had gotten tired of brushing the knots out of my long hair and cut it short into a page boy. The bangs were the biggest reason I hated the picture. Once I got into middle school, I informed my mother I was going to grow out my hair. When she didn’t protest at my first real rebellious act, it knocked the wind out of my sails. After that, Missy helped me find a good style that I liked, one that framed my face nicely, as she put it.

I put my school picture back on the dusty shelf, and before my sorrow overtook me, I fled to my room. I didn’t want my mom to see me crying in Grandma’s room. I plopped onto my bed and faced the wall. I pulled my knees up into a fetal position and pulled Seymour tight to my chest. I cried mostly about Grandma, but I think I also cried about the frustrating afternoon I’d spent with Rebecca and her friends. I made a promise to myself that I’d never be in a situation where I’d have to hang out with Jessie ever again. Of course, as soon as I made that promise, I knew that if Rebecca asked me to hang out with them again, I’d do it. Who was I kidding?