Are you there?
You bet! Didn’t get your postcard until yesterday though.
I mailed it ten days ago! Talk about s-l-o-w.… What’s going on?
Fireworks tonight at Shea Stadium after Mets game. How about you?
We’ve toured most of Spain. Loved Granada and Seville best. No fireworks here because no one cares that it’s America’s birthday. It’s funny being in a foreign country for one of our holidays. Anyway, last 4th I was in D.C., and my troubles began. Hard to believe it’s been a year since my diagnosis. Sure glad it’s all behind me.
Me too. Where are you headed next?
We leave for Germany tomorrow and then we’ll take a tour of what Dad calls “the blond countries” (cute, huh?) … you know, Sweden, Holland, Denmark. I’m having fun, but I’m getting homesick.
I guess you’re not dancing.
No. And I feel stiff and fat from nonmovement. Oh, before I forget, today’s Bailey’s birthday. I sent her an electronic card, but it would be nice if you e-mailed her and wished her a happy birthday. OK?
Will do. When will you be home?
August 1. Europe’s nice, but there’s no place like home. (Didn’t someone named Dorothy say that?)
It depends on where your home is, I guess. Mine is definitely not in New York! Keep writing. Your postcards keep me going.
MELINDA’S DIARY
August 3
I’m glad to be home, but I’m so jet-lagged that I haven’t even unpacked. While we were away, Dad had a gazebo built in our backyard as a surprise for Mom. She’s always wanted one and it is really cool. I’m looking out my bedroom window and seeing her sitting there with her morning coffee and the newspaper. The lawn service planted vines around the base, and by next summer, it’ll be covered with flowers. It’ll be so romantic!
Bailey loved her B-day gift from Paris and had a fit over the things I brought back from all the countries we visited. My big project before school starts will be a scrapbook full of photos and ticket stubs and programs. I’ll call it “Europe on $500 a Day,” which Dad thinks is very funny (and accurate, according to Mom, because Dad spared no expense!).
Bailey has gone all summer without a boyfriend—some kind of record for her, I think. She says she’s not hooking up with any guy who doesn’t treat her good (the way Jesse treats me, she says). She told me he sent her a B-day e-mail, but she seemed kind of disappointed when I told her I’d suggested it to him. Probably my imagination.
Back to the studio on Saturday, and boy am I ever rusty. Sooo glad I have the mini-studio in the garage to work out my kinks before Mrs. Houston sees me. But I am looking like my old self again. All hair has made a complete comeback. Weight’s gone. Boobs no bigger. Oh well.… Two out of three ain’t bad.
August 3 (night)
Mom sorted through stacks of mail held at the post office and gave me the note from Natalie Blackbird. I almost fainted! And I can’t believe it arrived just AFTER we had left on vacation. What bad timing! Anyway, we’ll get a package together tomorrow and send it off FedEx. Mom said she’d write a note explaining why it took so long for us to respond. I hope the delay won’t count against me!
TO: Ballerina Girl
Subject: Can I Visit?
You’ll never believe what my dad says he’ll do for me. He’s willing to route my return trip to California through Atlanta with a weekend stay-over if it’s okay with your parents. All your postcards and e-mails made him curious about you (yes, he does remember you from our first-grade class and the night of the Nutcracker performance), and he was surprised that we’ve kept in touch all this time.
I told him about you and how I stayed with your family so much right after his and Mom’s divorce, and about how I used to wish your dad was MY dad. I really dumped on him. He got all teary, almost broke down, said it had been hard on him too with Mom moving to California and him not being able to watch me grow up. He said he was sorry, that divorce is always hard, but that his and Mom’s marriage hadn’t been good from the start. I told him I didn’t want him dissing Mom and he didn’t. He just said, “The past is the past. We all made mistakes.” He said he only wants to start fresh with me because he loves me.
Anyway, we cleared the air and I guess I can see both sides of their divorce now. Donna and Dad get along real well and I can tell it makes a difference when two people really care for each other. Then he offered to route me through Atlanta to visit you. I really want to come. Can I? I promise not to be a bother. I want to see you again.
Jesse
TO: Jesse
Subject: Your Trip
Yes, you can come! I’ll be at the airport to meet your flight. And this time, Mom promises not to talk!
M
August 17
This is one of the worst nights of my life. I look across the street and see a light glowing on Melinda’s porch and I know she’s outside in her yard in the gazebo with Jesse. She told me she was making them a picnic supper and they were going to “dine under the stars.” I acted excited and even helped her pick out music for her CD player and candles for her big evening with him. But inside, my heart was breaking. I want to be the one with Jesse under the stars. I want him to hold me and kiss me.
But she’s my best friend and I could never make a move for him. It would be traitorous. Plus, I know the truth: Jesse loves Melinda. Therefore, he’ll never love me. If only I could find a guy like Jesse. If only my brain would turn off and I could stop thinking about them and feeling sorry for myself. If only I could give up this impossible dream. If only …
MELINDA’S DIARY
August 17
Years from now, when I think of this night, I will count it as one of the best of my life. And for the first time ever, my dream of becoming a professional ballerina slipped into the background. Why? Because tonight Jesse kissed me. Not the quick kiss-and-run of last summer, but a real kiss, one that left my knees shaky and my heart racing.
I can still taste the peppermint of his tongue and smell the lemony scent of his skin. I can still feel the warmth of his body and the touch of his hands on my arms and around my waist. I can hardly hold the pen straight as I write this. But I will try to write it down just as it happened, so that I will never forget what it felt like.…
In the afternoon, Jesse played at my computer and swore not to peek while Bailey and I got things ready for a special backyard picnic for me and Jesse. Bailey helped me pack a basket and choose special music. We made chicken salad and cut up some watermelon. “And here is a bag of M&M’S,” Bailey said before shutting the lid of the hamper basket.
“You look sad,” I said to her. I had noticed that she’d been awfully quiet while we worked—not typical for Bailey.
“No,” she said. “Just green with envy.”
“You’ll find the right guy this year,” I told her.
“Maybe,” she said, looking like she was going to cry.
“For sure,” I said.
Maybe I should have been a better friend and pressed her to tell me why she was so sad, but I didn’t because all I could think about was my evening with Jesse. (I’ll make it up to her after he leaves.)
After the food was ready, Bailey helped me spread a blanket on the floor of the gazebo and place big squishy cushions all around. We set thirty-six votive candles on the railings and Mom’s silver candelabra on a tray in the center of the blanket. I put my CD player on a bench.
“It looks beautiful,” I said to Bailey.
“Yes,” she said. “Like a fairyland.”
“You think?” I said.
“You’re so lucky,” she said, and hugged me, then jogged away before I could even say thank you. Strange.
Mom and Dad went to dinner and a movie (very nice of them) and later, when the stars came out, Jesse and I walked together from the house to the gazebo. He carried the picnic basket and at the gazebo he stood for a minu
te looking at all the flickering candles (which I’d lit minutes before), and he said, “You did all this for me?”
“For both of us,” I told him. “Do you like it?”
“I like it,” he said. “Very much.”
We ate and talked and told each other our life plans. We’ve been friends for years, and I know a lot about him, but not everything. He told me that he really does want to become a doctor and I asked, “Since when?”
“Since you got sick,” he said. “I want to make people well. Especially kids.”
“It takes a long time to become a doctor,” I said.
“I don’t care how long it takes,” he said. “It’s what I want to do.”
After a while, we didn’t say anything; he just leaned against the big cushions and pulled me to his side and we gazed through the candles at the stars. There was no moon, just a million stars winking down at us and a CD playing Clair de Lune. Jesse nuzzled my ear and whispered, “I love you, Melinda.”
I turned my face toward him and his lips touched mine and it was like a rocket went off inside my head and my heart. I said, “I love you too, Jesse,” because I really, really DO love him. I asked, “When did you know it?” (Because I was curious about how friendship turned into love for him when we live so far apart and he has another life way out in California.)
He said, “Maybe on the first day of school in first grade, when I saw you standing in the doorway. I remember you were dressed in a yellow dress. You looked like sunshine and you lit up all the dark places inside me.”
I laughed and told Jesse that he had quite a memory. Grandma had given the dress to me along with shiny yellow patent leather shoes.
He said, “I thought you were a princess.” Then he looked into my eyes, and my heart picked up speed again. “My happiest memories are of those afternoons when I came to your house and we played together,” he said. “Even when I fell out of the tree and broke my arm, I was happy, because it meant I could stay at your place and I didn’t have to listen to my parents fight.”
I felt sad for him. And happy that our family had given him a place to belong.
Jesse reached into his pocket, dropped something small into my hand and closed my hand around it. He said, “Will you take this? It’s a birthday present, but I want to give it to you now. I bought it in New York before I came.”
“What is it?” I asked before I opened my hand.
“A birthstone ring,” he said. “But it’s also a promise ring, because I want you to promise that someday you’ll take a real ring from me and wear it forever.”
I held the ring up and the green stone twinkled—almost as if it was winking at me. I put the ring on my finger and started crying. Jesse kissed me again. And then again. And again. And again. Within the gazebo it was as if we were the only two people in the universe and the stars had left the sky and rained their fire into my heart.
I belong to Jesse and he belongs to me. He leaves tomorrow. How will I ever get through the rest of the year without him to hold me?
September 25
Dear Melinda,
I’ve decided to start writing letters to you because I might want to say something that’s too personal for e-mail that anyone might be able to read. (You know who I mean—parents!) I’ll also keep up the e-mail, but today it’s a letter, because I haven’t stopped thinking about our time under the stars. Next summer, I’m coming to Atlanta if I have to hitchhike all the way. I can get a job there just as easily as here. And Dad will just have to understand any cutback on my visit to NY so that I can spend more time with you. I don’t know where I’ll stay, or how I’ll manage all the details, but I’m coming. So be prepared.
I love you and I want to be with you. Nothing’s going to get in my way.
Forever yours,
Jesse
P.S. Mom is substitute teaching but will take over for a middle-school teacher going on maternity leave in January. She thinks it will lead to a full-time position, which means she’ll never leave California. But I will.
October 1
Dear Jesse,
I loved getting a letter from you and I’ve tied it up with a red ribbon and stashed it in my memory box (along with your other notes and cards from first grade till now). I hope you don’t think this is silly—the memory box, I mean. It holds all my most treasured possessions, and your correspondence ranks right at the top of my favorite-things list. So there!
Having you around all summer would be a dream come true. My mind keeps playing back the night of our picnic like a videotape (except unlike a tape, it doesn’t wear out). I will never forget a single minute of that night. Never! In class, I find myself staring down at my ring instead of listening to my teacher. It’s like I share a secret with the ring. The ring knows and I know that you and I love each other. I haven’t even told Bailey anything more than that we had a good time.
And speaking of Bailey, she still hasn’t found a special guy. I feel sorry for her (which is another reason I don’t talk to her much about us. I don’t want her to think, “Melinda has a boyfriend and I don’t and she’s rubbing it in.” Know what I mean?).
Keep writing. I miss you every minute.
Love always,
Melinda
Hey M
Here I am in study hall with time dragging. Thank God Christmas break starts on Monday. I’d love to go with you and watch you dance in The Nutcracker this Friday. Thanks for asking me, but please don’t think I’m a charity case just because I don’t have anyone in my life like you do. After my bad experience with Kerry, I’ve reevaluated myself and decided that until I can have something as special as you do with Jesse, I’d rather have nothing with anyone. Don’t be shocked.… I know what I’m saying.
Any word on your dance internship for next summer? What will you do about Jesse coming if you get an invite to Denver?
Bailey
B—
I don’t know. I want both—Jesse and a dance apprenticeship. First I have to see if Jesse can really stay and work in Atlanta, which will help me decide about the other. I’ve heard nothing from Denver, so I guess my audition tape and the influence of Ms. Blackbird wasn’t enough. It was a long shot anyway.
Oh … don’t come over after school. I feel like I’m coming down with the flu. Wouldn’t you know it? Just when the holidays are coming. Oh, about Saturday, let’s hit the mall early. I want you to help me pick out the perfect Christmas gift for Jesse. Two heads are better than one and I need to get it in the mail ASAP.
Thanks for being my friend. I don’t know who I’d talk to if it weren’t you!
Hugs … M
MELINDA’S DIARY
December 25
Christmas Day and it actually snowed in Atlanta! One whole inch! Bailey and I made pathetic little snowballs and threw them at each other. The snow was wet and sloppy and it hurt when it hit. I have a huge bruise on my arm and another on my leg, but one of my snowballs hit poor B. right in the face. I hope she doesn’t bruise like I did.
Jesse called and hearing his voice was like magic. I miss him so much. He sent me a charm bracelet with a single gold rose on it. I told him I’d never put a charm on it that didn’t come from him, and he laughed and said that we both may be graduating from high school before he can afford to add another.
Bailey’s Diary
December 25
Melinda gave me this for Christmas and so I feel obligated to write in it. I’m not like her, though, and I can’t imagine keeping this up every day like she does. But she’s my friend and I said I’d give it a try. Besides, It’s cute, with drawings of dresses and shoes on the cover.
Melinda showed me her charm bracelet from Jesse and I said it was beautiful, because it is. Jesse loves Melinda and she loves him. End of story. But I have to say that taking a vacation from having a boyfriend has helped me see some things. So far, I’ve picked a lot of losers. But no more! Here’s my New Year’s resolution: When classes begin, I’m going to look more closely at the less high
-profile guys (the ones who aren’t so cocky and stuck on themselves. Guys who are NICE to me).
I guess this is it for my first entry (and maybe my last). EOM (end of message). I saw that in a movie once.
MELINDA’S DIARY
March 17
I feel punky today. Too tired to write. Performed horribly in dance class. Got a C on a history test and shouldn’t have. Just an all-around bad day.
March 30
I have to go for a bone marrow aspiration. Geez, I hate them so much!!!!! But Mom dragged me to our family doc, who did a blood test and said my white count’s up (which totally freaked Mom, because it could signal the end of remission). He said I could just have a cold or maybe mono (it’s going around at school) but that I should get another aspiration just to make sure. Easy for him to prescribe. He doesn’t have to have one. So no dance class. Half day at the hospital. This really stinks!
The Denver Dance Theater
April 4
The Denver Dance Theater
1234 Yates Drive
Denver, CO 80202
Dear Ms. Skye:
After carefully reviewing your dance tape and your credentials along with the strong verbal recommendation of Natalie Blackbird, I am pleased to offer you a summer apprenticeship with the Denver Dance Company. Your expenses to Denver will be paid, along with room and board for the summer, plus compensation for your performances.
If this is satisfactory, a contract will follow for you to sign and return, as well as a complete schedule of performances. Congratulations! We look forward to working with you as a member of our dance corps.
Sincerely,
Jeremy McAllister
Director
Denver Dance Company
MELINDA’S DIARY
April 4
Long horrible day at hospital, seeing doctors and getting needles shoved in me. I’d almost forgotten the horrors of chemo, but they all came back today. It’s only been a little more than a year since I went through this. Thought the day was going to be a bust. Then the letter from Denver came and I about fainted. THEY WANT ME!!! I can’t believe it. A whole summer as a professional dancer. Mom looked dazed and said we should wait until Dad’s back home before we “firm up any plans.”