“Mikey?” The male voice sounded surprised. “It’s me, Hon. I didn’t think you’d be—I was calling to leave a message. In case you got back early and I wasn’t . . .”
“Hi, Dad,” she said when he didn’t finish what he had started to say. But he seemed to have turned his head away from the phone and to be talking to someone else, telling someone else, “She’s home already.”
“Dad? Where are you?”
“At the office.”
“What time did you go in?”
“I wasn’t planning to come home until—I’ll be home by one.”
“No problem,” Mikey said.
“She must have driven you home herself?”
“Nine thirty,” Mikey told him.
“Well, so now you can make tennis practice,” he said. “Do you want to?”
“Yeah. I would.” It would feel good to be swinging her racquet and hitting the ball. A few overhead smashes—she imagined it—would feel pretty slimeing good.
“I’ll be home in a little while—if that’s OK? Mikey, there’s someone I’d like you to meet. Would you like to meet someone?”
Mikey knew what he was asking: Did she want to meet some woman he was dating? Who was probably the person in the background. Who was probably some woman at work and also probably—because her dad didn’t lie to her—the reason why he hadn’t told her how early he’d gone in that morning. She didn’t want to hear or think any more about that.
“What do you say, Hon?” he asked.
She kept it short. Clear. “No.”
“Some other time,” he said.
Uh-oh, Mikey thought. “Mom’s getting married Thursday.”
There was a silence. Then, “You’ve met this man, do you like him all right?”
“He’s rich. He’s older. She said we don’t have to worry about child support.”
“Hunh,” her father said. “How much older?”
“She’s moving to Dallas.”
“How rich?”
“Pretty.”
“Hunh,” he said again. Then out of the blue he asked, “Do I want to meet him?”
What was all of this meeting of people? “I’m cooking spaghetti sauce,” Mikey told her father, and hung up.
Without thinking, Mikey punched 1 on speed dial. “Esther,” she said. “Get me Margalo and don’t give me any lip.”
“It’s Susannah,” the girl’s voice said.
“You heard me.” Mikey didn’t care who got Margalo, as long as it was quick.
Margalo said, “I can’t talk, Mikey.”
“My father wants me to meet someone.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not.”
“Your parents are falling in love like there’s no tomorrow,” Margalo said.
“Can they still fall in love at their age?”
“They’re still human,” Margalo said. “At any age.”
“My mom’s getting married this week.”
“Oh,” Margalo said. She thought. “I might get home too late to call you.”
“She bought me a dress. For the dance,” Mikey said.
“Guilty conscience? Listen, Mikey, I really have to—”
“OK. See you,” Mikey said, and hung up.
Sometimes she was sorry she’d talked Margalo into a career in baby-sitting. Sometimes it was inconvenient when Margalo was always off earning money.
Mikey went back to finish her homework, and then she got to work on the spaghetti sauce. She chopped and sautéed onions, adding garlic at the very end. She crumbled ground meat into the pan and browned it. She stirred in tomato paste and water, canned tomatoes, basil, oregano, a bay leaf, salt and pepper, and set the heat under the pot as low as it would go. While she washed up, the smell of the sauce started to fill the kitchen, rich and tomatoey, a nourishing smell, the smell of Sunday evening—homework done, three hours of tennis adding to her normal appetite, her dad across the table and both of them talking, slurping spaghetti into their mouths.
She still had a couple of hours before practice, so Mikey went to unpack her suitcase.
Of course, the phone rang as soon as she got into her room. She was spending her whole life running for the phone. “Hello,” she said, not exactly friendly.
“Mikey?”
“Who is this?” But she thought she recognized the voice. It might be him. Again. “Is this you again?” she demanded.
“I told you I’d call. So I can find out what you decided.”
She bet she could figure out who this mysterious secret admirer was if she thought about it. If she felt like spending the time thinking about it, she could figure out this voice and get a face attached to it. “I didn’t decide anything,” she told him, deciding right then that maybe she’d gather some clues. “What do you want today?”
“You could tell me how your weekend went, at your mother’s.”
“How do you know I went to my mother’s?”
He went on, as if she hadn’t spoken, as if he’d planned what he was going to say and couldn’t be distracted. “Because my parents are still married to each other, so I don’t know what it’s like to go visit one or the other of them. To be a guest in one parent’s new house. What do you do when you’re, like, a guest? I mean, not just their kid, in their house.”
Mikey sat down. She’d never thought of it that way. “Go out for dinner with her and her dates. Go clothes shopping.”
“You like shopping for clothes?”
“No. But she does, so it’s what we do.”
“What did you get?”
“This weekend? For me, a dress for the dance.”
He hesitated. Asked, “You’re going to the dance?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why—”
“If you know me so grime-ing well, you already know why.”
“She wants you to go to the dance?” he guessed.
“Bingo!” cried Mikey, loud and sarcastic.
“So your tennis matches must be pretty stressful for her.”
“Is this Ralph?”
“Ralph?” he asked. “Ralph who?” he asked. “Ralph Nader?”
“Very funny,” Mikey said.
He wasn’t going to tell her who he was. And actually, that was OK with Mikey. She liked not knowing. It made him into a ghost, easy to talk to. “Don’t feel sorry for my mom,” she said. “She’s getting married. This Thursday.”
“Oh. I guess that’s the real reason why you have a new dress.”
“I’m not going to that wedding,” she told him.
“You don’t like the man she’s marrying?”
“I’m not invited,” she told him.
“You’re kidding.”
She didn’t say anything.
“You’re not kidding.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Don’t you mind?” he asked.
“It’s only a wedding. It’s small, just a few friends, it isn’t like—it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“You’re really not kidding,” he said.
The conversation was getting boring.
“I’d mind,” he said. “I’d mind a lot.”
She explained. “If I was there, it would just be her usual stuff, but it would be more of it because it’s her perfect wedding to her ideal man.”
“What do you mean, usual stuff?” he asked. He sounded interested, so she told him.
“The usual mother stuff. Stand up straight, pull in your stomach, look like you’re having a good time, at least try. Don’t talk about this, don’t eat that way, why can’t you try. I already got a lot of it this weekend, because she’s packing and I couldn’t do anything right.”
“Not even books?”
“Not even books.”
“What can you do wrong with books?”
“Get them out of order. Put them in the wrong way. Label the boxes wrong.”
“Well,” he said. “Well. Do you know what I think?”
??
?How could I know that?”
“She sounds to me like—all that criticism—she sounds like someone who doesn’t want to feel bad about what she’s doing. So she turns it into things wrong with you.”
“Is this Margalo?” Mikey demanded.
“No,” he said, and laughed. “So how are things going with Shawn?” he asked.
“Oh,” she said. A memory of Shawn’s face came to her, like looking at a photograph. She looked at the memory. “Well,” she admitted, “he says we’re just friends. Which I’m not, and I told him I wasn’t, but—oh, trash it,” she said.
“What is it about him, anyway?”
Mikey tried to explain. “What it is, is—Shawn—you look at him and you know—he’s something special,” she said. “You can’t miss it. You see him and you just know. . . .”
After a little silence, “Maybe you have to be a girl,” he said.
“I’m tired of this conversation,” Mikey said. “I’m hanging up.”
“I had an idea about your Chez ME cookies,” he said quickly. “Listen to this,” and now his voice got all enthusiastic. “I was thinking about how you might expand your business. Of course, you’d have to figure out packaging—”
This was actually interesting. “How would I find the time for a business?”
“School doesn’t take that much, does it? Except sports, but—someone as smart as you, and Margalo, too—the thing is,” he told her, “you’d have to upgrade some of your ingredients. Like the quality of the chocolate chips.”
“What do you know about chocolate chips?”
“You can find all kinds of stuff on the Internet. Or, I was thinking, if you got your cookies into some regular commercial outlet—”
Mikey could see what he meant, but she didn’t want to hear anything more from him until she had figured out what she thought for herself. “I’ve gotta go,” she said.
“No, but listen,” he said. His voice had gotten a little higher, as he hurried to tell her all of his ideas, and not so smooth. She almost recognized him now. “I’ve been thinking about it.”
“So it seems.”
And then, as if he was a car whose brakes had been jammed on by its driver, his words slowed down and his voice deepened again, and he said, “Not seems, is,” with a smile in his voice as if that was some joke.
Mikey hung up.
She checked the spaghetti sauce, stirring it a little, thinking about stores where she might sell her cookies, and how she would get deliveries made. Then she went into her bathroom and dumped the laundry hamper out onto the floor, sorting her dirty clothes into lights and darks. What was wrong with her chocolate chips, anyway? Nothing, that was what. She didn’t know about a couple of the new tops, so she had to find the little tag, hidden along a seam, to read the directions. She’d never had anything labeled Delicate before. She’d have to ask Margalo exactly what delicate meant, for doing laundry. Because she might just get rid of these delicate tops if they were going to be all that much trouble to clean.
She was jamming clothes into the washing machine in the utility room behind the kitchen, imagining how impressed Shawn would be if there was a newspaper article about Chez ME cookies and her business, when the phone rang.
Again.
“Hello,” she said, irritated.
“Is Mikey there?”
This voice she knew. Her knees buckled a little with surprise. She dropped down onto the desk chair, holding the phone to her ear with both hands.
“Shawn? It’s me.”
She heard noises behind his voice, as if he was at a party.
“Where are you?” she asked him.
“I told you, the Mall.”
“Who’s with you?” she asked.
“Just some people. Listen, Mikey, I want to ask you. I mean, you’re the one who’d know, I figure. Do you think Margalo would go to the dance with me?”
“Why?” Ask Margalo to the dance?
“If I asked her.”
“Margalo?” Why Margalo?
“What do you think she’d say?”
He was distracted by a voice from behind him asking him something, which gave Mikey a little time. She worked it out like a math problem: Margalo did not have a crush on Shawn. In fact, sometimes Mikey suspected that Margalo didn’t even like him. Also, Margalo had never said anything that indicated that she might want to go to the dance at all. So if Shawn asked her, she’d say no.
“No,” Mikey said.
“What?” he asked. “I couldn’t hear you.”
“No,” Mikey said again. “Margalo wouldn’t go to the dance with you.”
“I don’t believe you,” Shawn said. “She’s been working with me, you know, in rehearsals.”
What? Margalo hadn’t told her that.
She said, “You asked me what I think, and I told you.”
“Well, I guess I have to take your word for it,” he said. “Since you two are best friends. Is she going with someone else?” he asked, and then started to cough, a dry, choky cough, as if he was having trouble catching his breath.
“You OK?” she asked, and waited. When he’d stopped coughing and said, “Fine now,” she asked him, “You don’t already have a date? Because you could take me. As a friend,” she said.
“Well, I don’t know how good of a friend you are when you tell me not to ask Margalo but say you’ll go with me.”
“Is that a no?” Mikey demanded.
“Yes.”
“Yes a no? Or plain yes?”
“Don’t be any weirder than you can help,” he advised her, and hung up.
So it was probably a no.
Well, sewage—but it wasn’t as if she was surprised he turned her down. It wasn’t as if just because Margalo wouldn’t go with him, he’d want to take Mikey. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know that. She knew it, she just didn’t plan to lose out for lack of trying. Win or lose, lack of trying wasn’t the way she liked to do things.
Before she had to think too hard about this last phone call and whether she should be proud (because Shawn had asked her advice) or angry (at Margalo, for getting him) or embarrassed (about being turned down), Mikey punched speed dial 1 and asked for Aurora. “When Margalo gets home, tell her she has to call me. It’s really important,” she told Margalo’s mother.
“You always say things are really important,” Aurora pointed out.
“I won’t talk long,” Mikey promised. “When’s she coming home?”
“By nine. It’s a school night,” Aurora reminded her. “I’ll tell her, Mikey.”
“Good,” Mikey said.
“We aim to please.” Aurora sounded like she wanted to laugh. “Later, Mikey,” and she hung up. That was where Margalo probably got all of her jokes from, her mother, who couldn’t even get off the phone like a normal mother.
Mikey could imagine how relieved Margalo would be to hear that Mikey had saved her from going to the dance. She thought Margalo might have some interesting things to say about why Shawn would want to ask her. She was glad she was going to play three hours of tennis, drills and then some games, so she could concentrate on something besides Shawn Macavity. Sometimes it was no fun at all to think about him. And it would definitely be no fun waiting around at home for Margalo to call so Mikey could get Margalo’s opinion about the call from Shawn.
* * *
Margalo’s opinion was: “Why would you do something like that? What is the matter with you, Mikey?”
“Do you want to go to this scummy dance? What about me?”
“Oh, never mind,” Margalo said, and hung up.
Mikey slammed the phone down and her father looked away from the television to ask her, “What dance?”
WEEK THREE
GIRL LOSES BOY
12
ALL GIRLS IN LOVE ARE BAD
Margalo had thought about it, and thought about it. And thought some more about it.
Finally she decided not to yell at Mikey, because what good would that do? When she
got off the school bus that Monday morning, the last Monday before the dance, she had a plan, which did not include talking to Mikey about the incredibly loamy thing Mikey had done.
So Margalo got off the bus and met up with Mikey as usual. It was snowing lightly, not enough to close down schools, but there was always hope that it would start coming down more heavily and they would have one of those chaotic days with shortened classes. The morning news had predicted a tapering off by midmorning, but there was a faint chance.
Mikey was making a big deal of it. “Do you think school will close early? What about tomorrow?”
“In your dreams,” Margalo said. She hunched her shoulders against the cold and headed for the door.
“Not that I want to miss school,” Mikey told her. “Because how would I see Shawn?”
Margalo shrugged.
“What’s wrong with you? You aren’t mad at me, are you? I’m the one who should be mad at you,” Mikey pointed out.
They stepped inside, where immediately it was too hot.
“I’m not really mad,” Margalo said. “Only sort of.”
“You shouldn’t be angry at all,” Mikey told her. “Unless—” and she stopped, wheeling around to stare right into Margalo’s face, grabbing Margalo’s coat and forcing Margalo to a halt. “He told me you’ve been rehearsing with just him. You didn’t tell me that. You aren’t in lurve with him too, are you?”
“With Shawn?” Margalo could have laughed. Her life would look a lot brighter, and there would be things she could do, if it was Shawn she had her hopeless crush on. But she didn’t laugh; instead, she considered possible responses, ways to get even with Mikey, by pretending Shawn was chasing her, or telling Mikey her real opinion of Shawn. But in the end all Margalo said was the simple truth. “No.”
They started moving along again. “So you can’t care about going to the dance with him,” Mikey pointed out.
“I don’t care about going with him,” Margalo agreed. “But I’d have liked to go.”
“What are you talking about?” Mikey demanded. “You don’t mean that,” she decided, explaining to Margalo, “You’re just saying that to try to make me feel bad. Well, I don’t.”