***
Mum was out of the Upton hospital and back at home in just a few days. Jeff left school early to pick her up and bring her home to sit – still white and wan – on the living room sofa. We had to explain to little Ashley, over and over again, that she must not climb on top of Mum before her incision healed. In another week, we didn’t need any more casseroles from church ladies. Mom was ready to go back to work at the college. In truth, the college offices were quieter places to spend a day recuperating than our noisy, busy household was anyway.
Despite her recovery, I still didn’t want Mum to have to worry about my fainting spell. I knew it wasn’t rooted in an ongoing, serious health problem so I was content to let it fade naturally out of town gossip. Ben Jones had already bullied me into seeing Dr. Timms about it. The doctor diagnosed my faint as a plain old stress reaction – a little low blood sugar, a little low blood pressure, a lot of stress, and no cause for great alarm. And all the while, Mum stayed at home, getting well, and never hearing anything about it.
Even after she went back to work, it took several more weeks before I could see Mum moving around the house, taking care of everyone and everything, without being hit with pangs of gratitude and relief that she was well enough to be with us again. And in one more month, Dad would be back at home too. He’d have a shiny, brass border guard badge and a brand new, promising career to go with it.
By the time Mum was settled back at home, I was tired of being the half of my and Crystal’s friendship that was in crisis. It might sound mean but I was perfectly ready for a change when Crystal leapt into an emotional upheaval of her own. While I was stuck in Upton doing my share of taking care of my parents’ family, Crystal got caught up in her high school’s spring fever and found herself a boyfriend. His name was Dan – a tall, lean, volleyball star from the twelfth grade. I never would have chosen him for her myself but I guess he spoke to Crystal’s athletic side. It was a part of her personality I admired and cheered, but couldn’t quite meet on its own terms.
“Dan’s perfect for us,” I told her. “He’s so different from me he doesn’t compete with me at all.”
Unfortunately, Dan didn’t agree with my ideas about their suitability for each other for very long. Two weeks after they started dating, he left Crystal for the assistant captain of the girls’ volleyball team. Crystal was devastated, of course. And I was furious.
“You can’t just sit here feeling bad about it,” I said, pacing on the rug in her room while she sat on the bed with her face buried in Taffy’s furry coat. “That’s no way to get over this.”
I lunged at her CD player where a Swedish lady was singing about how something was “over no-o-ow.” I pecked frantically at its power button. “For heck sake, Crystal, let’s listen to something else.”
“Sorry. Do you think I’m depressed?” she asked. “Do I need to go to the doctor?”
“No. As if. Depression is for people who are moping around for no reason. This is just sadness – a normal reaction to something bad that happened to you. If having your boyfriend cheat on you didn’t make you sad, I’d be worried about you being some kind of sociopath. No, you’re healthy but sad.”
“Oh. Okay,” Crystal sighed. “Thanks, I guess.”
“Still, we need to get up and shake this off,” I persisted.
“That’s what Tina and Lauren said too,” Crystal moaned into the cat.
“Really?” I was surprised to hear good advice coming from Tina and Lauren. They were Crystal’s ‘friends’ during the day, at school while I was busy in Upton. They were kind of like an evil version of what Tawny and Melanie were to me. They kept Crystal in their social circle because she served some vague and poorly understood function – but they never actually liked her and she really didn’t like them either. But unlike Tawny and Melanie, these two girls were often cruel. I couldn’t help bracing for the worst as I asked, “So what did they suggest?”
Crystal hummed, unsure of whether to tell me their advice. “They said I should give Tina’s older brother twenty bucks this weekend and send him to buy us all some beer.”
I scoffed. “That would just make things worse.”
“How would you know, Mack? You talk like you know all about it but you’ve ever even tasted–”
“Here’s what we’ll do,” I interrupted. “I’ve got a different approach–”
“Let me guess.” She was interrupting me now. “Upton style?”
I beamed at her. “That’s it exactly. Get your coat.”
A minute later we were out in the street. It was dark but still warm enough for us to get to Dan’s house on foot.
“We need to stop here,” I said, as we came to a drugstore. I pushed Crystal through the doors in front of me. “It’s a good thing we don’t need to show ID to buy supplies for this.”
We left the store with the necessary gear and crept through the city like criminals, inching along the leafless hedges and sprinting through crosswalks, trying not to be seen. Behind a blue spruce tree on the other side of the quiet street where Dan lived, we crouched in the shadows and made our final plans.
“Here’s your half,” Crystal said, shoving an armful of small, soft cylinders at me.
“Two-ply?” I asked, aghast. “Why did you waste your money buying two-ply for this?”
“I’ve never done this before. How should I know what I’m supposed to use for it?” she whisper-yelled at me.
“Oh, never mind. It’ll still work.” I was trying to soothe her. “We’re fine. So which one is his car?”
“The awful one.” Crystal pointed to a dingy, old economy car parked beside the curb across the street. We couldn’t see any lights lit up in the house behind it.
“Looks good,” I said. “Are you ready?”
Crystal nodded.
“Go.”
We dashed across the street, bent over at our waists. There was a flurry of white activity around Dan’s car before we ran back to the spruce tree. We fell onto the lawn underneath it, laughing as quietly as we could.
“Aw, I wish I’d brought a camera,” Crystal said, wiping her eyes.
We sat a moment longer, peering across the pavement to where Dan’s car sat tangled from bumper to bumper in two-ply toilet paper like a ratty, mechanical mummy.
“That’s enough of admiring it,” I whispered. “We should go before someone comes.”
Crystal’s courage seemed to waver. “Do you think he’ll know it was me?”
I shrugged. “Does it matter? If he bugs you about it, just tell him some crazy person from Upton did it. But he shouldn’t say anything. He knows he deserves –”
Before I could finish, Crystal had seized my arm, her fingers bent into the form of a claw. Across the street, a porch light had just been turned on, throwing an incriminating yellow glow over up the mummified car. Through the screen door we could hear the knob of the inner door clicking and twisting.
Crystal was already on her feet, running. She didn’t head down the street, where we would be seen, but sprinted into the backyard of the stranger’s house behind us. The small yard was hemmed with a low fence that Crystal vaulted over almost without a pause. It took me a little longer but I managed to clear the fence without Crystal needing to drag me over the tops of the pointy pickets.
We ran at full speed down an alleyway and along the street for two blocks before we let up and stood panting on a corner, waiting for the traffic light to change.
“Do you think we made it?” I puffed.
Crystal nodded. “Yeah. Sorry about the fence. I wasn’t sure you were going to be able to make it.”
I panted a laugh. “It was close, all right. You almost had to abandon me there.”
That was when she put her arm around my shoulders and tipped me off the ground in a rough, sideways hug. She said, “Never.”