The girl next door is Bridget. We’re the same age. How old are you now? I have trouble keeping track, but you must still be seven.
Gram is look-look-looking for Mom. I don’t know why. I don’t care where she went. I guess Gram is worried because she is Mom’s mom and she has to be, but maybe that can’t be it, because my mom doesn’t seem to be worried about me. That’s fine, though. I don’t want to see her.
Love,
Aubrey
In the morning I took the envelope for Jilly and snuck outside with it before Gram could see me. There didn’t seem to be anyone up at Bridget’s, either.
I remembered the way to Bridget’s scar tree on my own. When I got there, I stood at the base of the trunk, looking up. I had never been that great at tree climbing.
I put Jilly’s letter in my teeth. I looked for the lowest branch and started my climb there. It took me a long time to get anywhere, because on each branch I stood very still for a minute and wondered how scared I was to go higher. Sweat started running down my face and my hands got slippery, but I kept climbing. Finally, I felt I’d gone as high as I could go, so I carefully sat down. I took Jilly’s letter out of my mouth and set it on the branch against the trunk of the tree. That seemed to be the right thing to do with it. Then I climbed back down.
Vermont wasn’t as hot and sticky as Virginia, but it could still be really hot. When it was, Gram shortened my list. One morning she handed it to me with a bowl of watermelon chunks and said it was okay just to sit for a while first, if I wanted to.
I should have been used to it, the heat, but for some reason I felt awful. Being hot had never done that to me before.
Sitting on the porch swing, I closed my eyes. Dad used to say something about this kind of weather.
“This heat is oppressive, Aubrey. It’s oppressively hot.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I don’t feel like doing a thing, not one thing. I might even get too lazy to breathe, if my body didn’t take care of that for me.”
“Good morning!”
I opened my eyes to see Bridget on the porch.
“Hi,” I said. “Watermelon?”
Bridget took a chunk and bit into it. “No seeds?”
“Nope. Too bad, though, we could have had a spitting competition.”
“What chores do you have today?” she asked.
“I just have to feed Martha and then water all the plants, especially the tomatoes.”
“I’ll do Martha,” Bridget said, sitting on the porch railing. “I used to take care of her all the time.”
“What do you mean?”
“When your gram was away in the spring. She was away for about a month, and I fed Martha. Wasn’t she with you?”
Gram. Gram had been with us, in the spring. I remembered her being there after the funeral, when everyone else went back home. But she had only been with us for a few days, hadn’t she?
“Was that a month?”
“Yeah. Don’t you remember?”
I shook my head. “Not really.”
Bridget shrugged and went inside to get Martha’s food. I stayed where I was, clinging to the cold metal watermelon bowl. Bridget returned with the cat bowls and set them on the porch. Martha, annoyed with me for sitting without feeding her first, slunk up on the porch and started her breakfast.
Bridget climbed over the porch railing.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
She didn’t answer, disappearing for a minute. I heard her giggle. Then I was wet with freezing-cold water!
I jumped off the swing, dropping the watermelon bowl.
“Feel better?” she asked, waving the hose at me. “Let’s do the watering. It’ll be fun.”
Soon the ground around all the plants turned to mud, and the grass squished beneath our bare feet. We shrieked and ran, getting completely soaked. After a while Gram stuck her head out the kitchen window to yell at us to stop wasting her water and ruining her lawn. We shut the hose off and sat down in the dry grass in Bridget’s yard. The day was hotter, we noticed, now that we didn’t have the hose on.
Mabel saw us through her window and came outside.
“Can I play?” she called.
“What do you want to play?” Bridget asked.
“House.” Mabel had obviously planned on us saying yes, because her arms were loaded with three dolls. “Bo,” she said, handing one to Bridget. She held the second one to her chest. “Janie,” she said. The third doll she held out to me. “Brussels Sprout.”
Bridget and I laughed, but Mabel continued seriously. “We have to find them something to eat.”
We scavenged for leaves, acorns, and grass we could pretend was food. My stomach started to hurt again as we played. Mabel fixed oatmeal for her baby, and Bridget announced that she was making pizza. She got a handful of mud sauce from my yard, slathered it on a Frisbee, and started sprinkling grass cheese on it.
“What are you cooking, Aubrey?” Mabel asked.
“I don’t know yet,” I said, looking at the maple leaves piled in my lap.
“Daddy, we made you a restaurant!”
“Oh boy! Again?”
A table is set, our play one. I drag Dad by the hand to sit, and Savannah hands him a menu with red-marker scribbles on it.
“I’d like a nice steak.”
“We don’t have that at this restaurant, sir,” I say, the polite waitress.
“Okay.” He scans the menu again. “Swordfish?”
Savannah the Chef looks at me, worried, then decides to take care of things herself. She whispers in Dad’s ear, loudly, “Our play food doesn’t come with that stuff.”
Dad turns to me. “What would you recommend?”
Savannah cups her hand again and whispers something else.
“I’ll have a hamburger,” Dad says.
“One hamburger,” I say. “Coming right up.” Savannah scampers behind the couch, where our play kitchen is set up.
“I need to go,” I said.
“What?” Bridget asked. She and Mabel looked up from their cooking.
“Yeah, I don’t feel good.”
Bridget looked a little worried for a minute, then seemed to forget it. “See you,” she said. As I walked back to Gram’s, she and Mabel, absorbed in the game again, laughed together.
Inside, I went upstairs to change my clothes, and was going to get in bed, but it was so hot up there. Downstairs was much cooler because the porch kept the sun from getting in the windows, so I went down to the living room. I hadn’t really spent much time there because it was where Savannah and I used to stay when we came to visit Gram, but I sat on the couch and turned on the TV. There was nothing on but those daytime court shows, but I left it on, closed my eyes, and put my head on the armrest.
* * *
Savannah lies beside me on the couch.
“Aubrey, you’re in my space. Aubrey!”
“Shut up, Savannah. You’re the one in the way!”
She jabs me in the ribs, and I tickle her back. Soon our low giggles turn to shrieks and laughter.
Savannah sees Mom come into the living room.
“Mama!” Savannah cries. “Aubrey’s tickling me!”
“She started it by being all squirmy!” I say.
Mom bends over us both, reaching her arms to pin us down on either side. She kisses each of our cheeks. Her long dark hair tickles me as the end of her ponytail sweeps past my face.
“Did you have a fun day here with Gram, girls?” she asks.
“Let’s stay forever!” Savannah says.
“Forever?” Mom asks, sitting down. “That’s a long time to be at Gram’s house! We have our own house.”
Savannah may want to stay, but thinking of staying forever makes my stomach feel funny. I love Gram, I do, but I would miss my room and my school friends.
Mom must see my feelings on my face. She bends close to my ear, whispers. “We’ll get you home soon, girl.”
“But I can stay
forever, right?” Savannah asks.
Gram comes into the living room. “What’s all this talk about forever?”
“What’s that, Aubrey? What are you talking about?”
Sweat was beaded all over my face.
“Gram … what?” I asked.
Gram took the remote control from me and clicked off the TV. “You were mumbling about something. Was the show upsetting you?”
“No,” I said, thinking. I shook my head. “No.”
I sat at Gram’s table and watched Bridget’s family through the kitchen window. They were having a picnic dinner. They had stretched out two blankets, one for food, and one, it seemed, for baby Danny to roll around on. That seemed to be his big discovery in life, rolling himself over. I couldn’t tell what they ate, but there was some kind of meat from the barbecue that I had watched Bridget’s dad cook, and something leafy green, and buns, and maybe something like potato or macaroni salad. Bridget’s mom served it in scoops on their plates.
The air was rapidly cooling.
“Ah, isn’t that refreshing?” Gram asked, coming into the kitchen. “Let’s get a pizza. Does that sound good?”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
“Well, I want a pizza. You might change your mind when you smell it. I’ll go pick one up,” Gram said. She called the pizza place, got her keys, and headed out to her car.
I saw Bridget’s family wave at Gram.
They didn’t see me.
After Gram drove away, and no one was there to watch, I left my seat at the table and went to stand at the window so that I could see better, my face pressing against the glass.
* * *
The next day was cooler, thank goodness. Gram gave me a regular list of chores to do, which meant I had to attack the weeds around the tomatoes again. Bridget showed up to help me, and it went much faster than usual. Some of the tomatoes were orange now. When we finished, we washed our hands in the hose water and went to play in Bridget’s yard.
After a few hours, her mother called, “Girls, come in for lunch!”
“Me too?” I asked Bridget.
“Guess so,” she said. “She said ‘girls,’ and we’re the only ones out here.”
I hesitated.
“What’s the matter?” Bridget asked. “Come on!”
I followed her inside. The back door led to a kitchen that had a table with baby Danny in a high chair and Mabel in a booster seat, swinging her legs, and a nice mom in soft clothes with soft hair who looked just like a mom should. The way my mom used to. I squirmed my toes in my tennis shoes.
“Mom, this is Aubrey,” Bridget said. She went to the counter, picked up a Fluffernutter sandwich, and bit into it, getting the sticky filling on the edges of her mouth.
“Hello, Aubrey,” Bridget’s mother said. Then she did something I wasn’t expecting. She knelt in front of me and slowly gathered me into a hug. “Your grandmother told me about you. I’m very glad you are here.”
I stood stiffly. I met Bridget’s eyes. She was using her thumb to smudge away the stickies on her cheeks. She looked steadily back at me without seeming to be afraid to. She had known the whole time, I realized then. She knew everything.
I relaxed in Bridget’s mother’s arms, resting my head on her shoulder as she rocked me. When I finally pulled away, there was wetness on her shirt. Drops I didn’t need to carry around anymore.
One side of the table had a bench seat along the window. I sat there next to Bridget, our hips and legs touching, we were so close. We worked our way through the pile of sandwiches until I was stuffed. Then Bridget asked, “Want to see my room?”
We washed our hands in the bathroom off the kitchen and made our way upstairs. Her room was above the kitchen and full of slanty ceilings and corners. There was a twin bed in the biggest open space, and a toddler-sized mattress and box spring in one corner.
“Mabel sleeps there. They’re getting her a big-girl bed soon. She’s been afraid of getting it,” Bridget explained.
She showed me everything important, most of which was on her dresser: a soccer trophy, a picture of her softball team from earlier in the summer, a collection of seashells from their family’s trip to Maine the year before.
“You never said anything. About. Me,” I said.
“Mom told me not to,” she said, opening her jewelry box. “See, this was from my dad when Mabel was born.” She held up a heart on a chain.
“That’s pretty,” I said.
“Here,” she said, opening the top drawer of her dresser. She took out a bottle of pale pink nail polish. “Want me to paint your toes?”
“Sure,” I said. I guess it didn’t bother her that my feet were really dirty from our work in the garden that morning. We sat down on her rug. She had me set my feet on a magazine. I rested my arms on my knees, and put my head on top of them. I didn’t tell Bridget, but while she painted my toes I was thinking of Savannah. She used to like her toes painted magenta, with silver sparkles on top.
Dear Jilly,
I’ve been spending more time with Bridget and her family. After everything happened, a lot of kids back at school started talking to each other about me like they were close to me, even if we weren’t friends before. But then if I was around, they acted like I had some kind of disease, and no one wanted to be with me. Bridget’s not like that at all. She doesn’t ask me weird questions and she’s not afraid to touch me. She makes me feel like she’s just friends with me because she wants to be and it has nothing to do with what happened.
I never thought I would say this, but I kind of miss you.
Love,
Aubrey
“I thought we’d go visit school today,” Gram said.
“School?” I asked. I’d forgotten about school. What did that have to do with me?
Gram handed me the day’s list.
Shower.
Dress in semi-nice clothes (no stains or rips).
Visit school.
“Why do I have to go there?” I asked, pulling the sheets back over my head.
“All children go to school,” Gram said. “Or, at least, they should.”
“But it’s summer.”
“School starts next week.”
“It what? Gram, I have a school.”
“Aubrey.” Gram sat down on the bed next to me and patted the blanket over my hips. “I took care of everything. You’re all set to start school up here. It might even be good for you. You’d be with a new set of kids.”
I didn’t say anything.
“All right, then.” Gram patted me more cheerfully. “Go shower. We have an appointment.”
I scrubbed in the shower, and shampooed, and then I rummaged through my clothes for a long time before picking out a light-blue skirt and a white blouse. I didn’t really know how fancy she wanted me to dress, but there was something nice about putting on something other than the ripped jean shorts I’d been wearing all summer.
Gram talked about the school for the whole drive, but I didn’t really listen. I watched the town change from what seemed like farms around Gram’s to neighborhoody clumps of houses. Finally, Gram parked the car in the lot next to sports fields and a large brick building.
“Here we are,” she said.
We walked inside. The building had that weird summer feeling, when there are no kids and just a few teachers in regular clothes wandering around. It was easy to find the main office. Gram told the secretary we were here to see Mr. Pudlow, the principal. She told us to wait a minute, and called him. We sat down.
Mr. Pudlow came out of his office. Even though it was summer, he was wearing a shirt and tie. He shook Gram’s hand, and then reached for mine. I watched his eyes take in my scar and then look carefully over the rest of me. I already didn’t like him.
“Normally, I like to meet with our new students one-on-one, just to get a sense of who they are. So if it’s all right, I’ll talk to Aubrey on her own for just a few minutes, and then we can go over any questions you may have,?
?? he said to Gram.
Gram nodded and sat back down. Mr. Pudlow brought me back to his office. He sat behind his desk and gestured toward a chair in front of it. I sat.
“Hello, Aubrey, and welcome. I hear you’ve come to live with your grandmother. She called down and had your records sent up from your old school, so I have those right here.” Mr. Pudlow waved a folder at me. “It looks like you excelled in math, science, and reading especially. Are those subjects you like?”
“I guess so,” I answered. He was making me more and more uncomfortable. Perhaps my folder didn’t include my latest report card.
“So tell me, Aubrey, outside of academics, what are your interests? Do you like to play a sport, play an instrument, write poetry … ?”
Hobbies. Now that seemed long ago. I used to learn everything I could about the Middle Ages. I used to play soccer. I used to like to swim in the summer. Once upon a time I was interested in fishing and made Dad take me. I still liked reading, but I didn’t think that was what he meant.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I see.”
He obviously thought I was an idiot.
The phone rang. “Excuse me a moment,” Mr. Pudlow said, and answered it. “Yes, thank you, I’ve been waiting for this call.” He glanced at me. “Actually, transfer them to Helen’s room. I’ll take it in there.” He hung up. “Excuse me for another minute, I must take this call. I’ll be right back.”
He left the office.
At first, I stared around at his books and filing cabinets and posters, but then I saw my file sitting on his desk. I had always wondered what it said about us in those “permanent records.” I looked behind me out the open door, but there wasn’t anyone around. I got up from my chair and walked around to his side of the desk, and opened the folder.
Paper-clipped to the first sheet, my fifth-grade grades, was yellow legal notepaper showing a scrawl of black ink, with a date on it from the week before. It looked like a list.