Twelve (2 page)

Dinah had boobs, soft little humps that provoked Gail's bra attack on the playground last week. “It's really kind of embarrassing the way certain people bounce around,” Gail had said, shooting a sidelong glance at Dinah. “Especially with boys nearby.”

Gail's boobs were even bigger than Dinah's. She let her bra straps show on purpose. Sometimes they were purple.

Amanda, who used to be my best friend but who had dumped me for Gail, had also gone the way of the bra, although she did not have boobs.

Which was worse: to have boobs, or not to have boobs?

I didn't want to be boobless
forever
. I just wasn't sure I wanted them now. Today they were starter boobs, no bigger than cotton balls, but what if they kept growing? I thought of a poem Ty had learned at the library, which ended like this:
They grew and they grew and they never stopped, they grew and they grew till the darn things popped!

The poem was about pea pods. But what if it was in code?

I leaned forward, still looking in the mirror, and bent my arms at the elbow. I placed my bent arms over my chest like big, pendulous breasts. They didn't look like breasts, they looked like elbows, but if I let my sight go hazy, I could create the illusion.

I was ginormous.

The doorknob clicked, and Sandra poked her head into the closet. She saw me on the floor with my elbow-boobs.

“Oh my God. What are you
doing
?” she demanded.

“Nothing!” I scrambled up and grabbed a white button-down.

“It's time to go. Dad's turning the car around.”

“I'm getting ready,” I said. “A little privacy, please?”

Sandra shook her head. “You just today turned twelve and already you've got attitude? Great, this is just great.”

I made a big “ahem” sound.

“Well, hurry,” she said. She strode away, leaving the closet door wide open.

At Benihana's, Dinah flittered with excitement. “You look fantastic,” she said to me in the waiting area. “You look so
old
. I love your shirt—it looks so cute like that!”

“Thanks,” I said. I'd paired a white T-shirt with a white button-down, and I'd tied the ends of the button-down at my waist. My boobs were safely hidden by the double layers, plus the knotted waist of the button-down made the fabric poof out in a way that was very concealing.

“You look nice, too,” I told Dinah.

Dinah beamed. She wore a pink dress with a built-in vest. As always, she was one step off in terms of the whole fashion thing. She looked more like she was going to church than going out to dinner. She even carried a small, white leather pocketbook.

“Right this way,” the hostess said. She led us to a sunken table at the back of the restaurant. “Shoes here,” she said, gesturing to a mat on the floor.

Dinah watched as Dad slipped off his loafers. Mom stepped out of her clogs, and Dinah edged closer to me.

“We have to take our shoes off?” she said.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “That's the way they do it in Japan.”

“But . . . what if my feet stink?”

“Did you take a shower?” I asked. Dinah's mom died way back when she was a baby, and sometimes she had to be reminded of the basics.

“Yes,” she said. “Yesterday I did.”

“Then I'm sure your feet are fine,” I said. “Anyway, they'll be under the table, not plopped on top with the Poo Poo Platter.”

Dinah's eyes widened. “We're having
Poo Poo Platter
?”

“That's Chinese, not Japanese,” Sandra said, using her toe to nudge her Chuck Taylors onto the mat. “Stop teasing and be nice.”

“She's right,” I whispered to Dinah. “We're actually having fish heads.”

Sandra rapped me with her knuckles.

"Ow,
” I said.

The waiter, who had an impressive Fu Manchu mustache, chopped and diced on a steel griddle right in front of us. Oil sizzled, and Dinah shrank back. A snow pea got too hot and exploded; Dinah squealed.

“What's he doing now?” she asked as he slid an upside-down bowl onto the hissing griddle.

“Shrimp,” I said. “Yummy yum yum.”

The waiter lifted the bowl, and two dozen raw shrimp spilled out, sputtering in the heat. They looked as if they were dancing. I grinned at Dinah, but Dinah didn't grin back.

“Uh . . . Dinah?” I said.

She gulped. “I don't . . . I can't—”

“Do you not like shrimp? Are you allergic?”

“I'm not allergic, I just . . .” Her eyes flew to Bo, who sat on the opposite side of the table with Sandra. He was showing Ty how to bounce water up inside a straw by tapping the end with his finger.

I lowered my voice. “You just what?”

Dinah gave me a pleading look. “I'm scared of them.”

A whoop burst out of me. “Of
shrimp
? You're scared of shrimp?”

“Shhh,” she said. “They're so pale. And they've got . . . veins.”

“Really
big
veins,” I said. “Help! They're coming to get me! Attack of the veins!”

She giggled despite herself. “Don't let him give me any, okay? I mean it.”

In part she was being goofy, but in part she meant it, too. She was funny that way, always wanting me to protect her—which usually I didn't mind because it made me feel important. It was something I noticed, though. My friendship with Dinah was so different from my friendship with Amanda, who'd been much more of an . . . equal.

Ooo, shove that thought back down
. Dinah was an equal, too. Just a different kind of equal.

Dad clinked his fork against his glass, and I was glad for the distraction. I sat up tall and nudged Dinah to do the same.

“A toast,” Dad said.

“Hear, hear!” said Ty. He loved making toasts.

“To my wonderful daughter on her twelfth birthday,” Dad said.

“Oh God, here we go,” said Sandra.

“May she learn the value of a tidy room and a tidy desk, and may she realize that when it comes to stuffing the toilet with gummy worms, her father does indeed know best.”

“Da-a-ad,” I said. I'd put gummy worms in the toilet
once
, when I was like Ty's age.

“May she always stay true to her kind and generous heart,” he said. “And may she stay our little girl forever.”

He gazed at me. There was love in his eyes, and it made me embarrassed, but happy, too.

“Cheers!” cried Ty, lifting his Shirley Temple. “Every-body clink!”

I clinked my glass with Dinah's, and then with Dad's. Then Mom's and Sandra's and Bo's and Ty's.

“Happy birthday, sweetie,” Mom said.

“Yeah, yeah, happy birthday,” said Sandra.

“Happy birthday,” said the Fu Manchu waiter. He flipped a sizzling pink shrimp at me, but it missed my plate and landed on Dinah's. Or maybe that's what he intended all along. Dinah shrieked, and everyone laughed.

Ty went to bed at nine, and at ten, Mom and Dad retired to their room to watch the news. By eleven, I was pretty tired, and I think Dinah was, too, but we weren't the slightest bit ready to go to sleep. Punch-drunk, Mom would have called us. Everything I said made Dinah laugh, and everything Dinah said made me laugh. Sandra kept stomping into my room to tell us to be quiet, and each time she looked grumpier and grumpier. The last time she had a mud mask smeared over her face, and I said, “Better wipe that frown off, young lady, or it'll stick like that.” Dinah about busted a gut.

After Sandra left, I said, “She puts that on to clean her pores. Isn't that weird, to use mud to clean your face?”

“She's so pretty,” Dinah said. She scratched my cat, Sweetie-Pie, behind the ears, and Sweetie-Pie head-butted her in pleasure. “Is it fun having a sister who's so pretty?”

“
Ehh,
” I said. Sandra
was
pretty, but mainly she was just Sandra. “Want me to see if she'll let us use some of her mask?”

“Yeah!” Dinah said.

“It's really neat,” I said, getting to my feet. “It tightens on your face until you can't smile, and it feels like you're paralyzed. Hold on, I'll be right back.”

I padded across the hall to Sandra's room, but she was on the phone with Bo. I held up my finger to mean, “Just one little thing? Real quick?” She scowled and turned her back to me.

Well,
I thought to myself.
How rude
. I walked in plain sight to her bathroom and grabbed the tub of mask, then darted in pouncy, tiptoe steps back across the hall.

“Mission accomplished!” I announced. I plopped down on the floor, and Dinah scooted closer.

“So what do we do?” she asked.

I picked up Sweetie-Pie and tossed her onto the bed, because mud and fur don't mix. Then I unscrewed the lid of the container. “We smear it all over, and then we let it dry.” I wiped a fingerful across my cheek. It was cool and oozy. “Now that I'm twelve, I guess I better start thinking about these things. Pores and stuff.”

“How does it feel being twelve?” Dinah asked. “Does it feel different?”

I liked the way she was regarding me, as if I were the wise one because I was older.

“Hmm,” I said. “Mainly it feels the same . . . but yeah, I guess it is different.” I hesitated, then said, “My mom says it's time for me to get a bra.”

“Really?”

I shrugged inside my oversized Braves nightshirt. “Not like tomorrow or anything. I mean, it's not
desperate
.”

Dinah swiped on one last blob of mud, and a little got in her hair. “Whoops,” she said.

“In fact I'm kind of hoping she'll forget about it,” I said. “Because once you start wearing a bra, you can't turn back. It's like shaving your legs.”

“It is?”

“Well, with legs, the hair comes back pricklier once you start shaving, so you really shouldn't start unless you're ready to commit forever and ever. Same with bras.”

“Your boobs come back pricklier?” Dinah said.

I giggled. “Uh-huh. Like cactuses.”

She giggled, too. “What are you
talking
about?”

“Imagine if a boy tried to touch them. ‘
Ooo
, baby, I'm feeling so romantic—
ouch
!'”

“Stop making me laugh!” she said. “You're making my face crack!”

“You look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Want to see?” I scrambled up and grabbed my hand mirror from my bureau. I very sneakily grabbed something else, too: a little souvenir from Benihana's that I'd plucked from my plate and wrapped in a paper napkin to bring home. I hadn't known what I'd do with it until now.

“Close your eyes,” I said, “and don't open them till I say ‘three.' Okay? One, two . . . three!”

Dinah opened her eyes. She saw the shrimp dangling in front of her nose.

“
Eeeee!
” she screamed.

I wiggled it closer. “It's coming to get you! It's coming to get you!”

“Nooo!”

Sweetie-Pie meowed in alarm.

Sandra burst into the room. “God!” she complained. “For the fifty millionth time, do you have to be so—” She stopped, noticing our cakey faces. “Did you use my mud mask? Without asking?”

I widened my eyes. In my sweetest, nicest voice, I said, “Er . . . care for a shrimp?”

Sandra took in the limp pink shrimp swaying between my fingers. Disgust layered itself over her outrage. “You are
so
immature,” she said.

“
Au contraire, mon frère,
” I protested. “In case you've forgotten, I am twelve years old. I'm on the brink of womanhood. ”

“Could have fooled me,” she retorted. She snatched the container of mask, stormed out of the room, and slammed the door.

“Sandra, Sandra, Sandra,” I said, shaking my head. “Do you have to be so loud?”

Dinah collapsed in hysterics.

April

NOW THAT I'M TWELVE, can you take me to get my ears pierced?” I asked Mom.

"What?” she said. Ty whacked her with his plastic sword, and she attempted to fend him off. A piece of green pepper fell from the kitchen counter.

“Your arm is your sword,” he told her, “and your stomach is your shield. It's time to face your fears!”

“When are you going to take me to get my license?” Sandra demanded, breaking in to get Mom's attention. “You promised we'd go yesterday.”

I yanked on Mom's sleeve. “You said when I was twelve, and I've been twelve for over three weeks!”

“And I've been sixteen for two entire days,” Sandra said. “Every single person in the world gets to get their driver's license on their exact birthday. Everyone but me!”

“Your birthday was on a Sunday,” I pointed out.

“And today is
Tuesday,
” Sandra said. “As in two full days later.” She turned to Mom. “Can we
please
go get my license?”

“I asked first!” I said. “I've been waiting even longer!”

“Ka-pow!” Ty said, smacking Mom below the knee. “Your leg is gone! You have to fall down!”

“
Enough!
” Mom cried.

We fell silent. Ty hesitated, then poked Mom with the tip of the sword. Mom snatched it and plunked it on the counter.

“Good heavens,” Mom said. “You children are driving me crazy.”

Sandra huffed indignantly, and I shared her pain. We were hardly “children.”

Mom closed her eyes. She inhaled. She was doing her relaxation breath, which we were all familiar with. She exhaled calmly and slowly. She opened her eyes.