BFF* (12 page)

“I asked Steph to let me tell you myself,” Alison explained.

“I see,” Rachel said, quietly.

“Just like you got to tell Alison about your enriched math class yourself,” I said to Rachel.

“You knew about her math class?” Alison asked me.

“I wouldn't exactly say I knew … I just found out today … by accident.”

We just sat there. No one said anything. Finally Rachel stood up and gathered her books. “We should get going. We've got a lot to do at the library.”

Alison and I got our things together, too. Outside, it had stopped raining.

“Who are you doing your report on?” Rachel asked Alison as we headed for the library.

“Martha Graham,” Alison said. “She practically invented modern dance. What about you?” she asked Rachel.

“Margaret Mead. She was a famous anthropologist. How about you, Steph … who are you doing?”

“Jane Fonda.”

“Jane Fonda!” Rachel said. “What major difference has she made to the world?”

“She got a lot of people to exercise,” I said.

Rachel snorted. “I don't think that's the kind of difference our teachers have in mind.”

“I'm not so sure,” Alison said. “Jane Fonda is a very important person. Everybody in L.A ….”

“We're talking about the world,” Rachel said, “not L.A.”

“I know,” Alison said, “but besides exercise she's a very good actress. My mother's always saying she'd love to be offered half the roles Jane Fonda gets.”

Rachel shook her head. “I don't know about the two of you.”

That night I went to Mom's room. She was stretched out on her chaise lounge, reading.
That's her favorite place to relax. “Rachel's been transferred to enriched math and she never even told me.”

Mom looked at me over the top of her glasses. They're half glasses. She wears them for reading. She tucks in her chin when she looks over them, giving her face a funny expression.

“She's so smart!” I said, sitting on the edge of the chaise lounge.

“You're smart, too, honey,” Mom said.

“Not smart like Rachel.” I picked up a small, white pillow and held it to me.

“Rachel is gifted,” Mom said.

“Gifted,” I repeated, trying out the word.

“Does it bother you that she's been placed in enriched math?”

“It's not just any enriched math,” I said. “It's ninth grade enriched math.”

“You know, Steph … life isn't easy for Rachel.”

“Are you kidding? She can get straight A's without even trying.”

“I'm not talking about grades,” Mom said.

I didn't say anything.

“You're not going to let this math class come between you, are you?”

I played with the lace ruffle on the pillow. “I guess not … unless Rachel does.” I didn't want to think about Rachel anymore. So I looked across the room at the group of family photos on the
wall. There's one I especially like of Mom and Dad. He's carrying her piggy-back and she's laughing so hard her eyes are closed. “I can't wait until Thanksgiving,” I said. “I can't wait to see Dad!”

I told Dad I was counting the days when he called the next night.

“So am I,” Dad said. “What's new in school?”

“I made symphonic band … percussion.”

“Congratulations!”

“And in math we're following the stock market.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“It is. We each get to pick three stocks and pretend they're ours. I picked Reebok, Revlon and Jiffy Lube.”

“That's quite an assortment.”

“I know.”

“How's the weather?”

“It's been raining,” I said. “But today the sun came out again.” I paused, trying to come up with something else that would interest Dad. “Have you heard about Bruce?” I asked.

“What about him?”

“Well …” I began, but Bruce grabbed the phone out of my hand and said, “I'll tell him myself.”

Bruce has entered a national contest.
Kids for Peace
it's called. He's made a poster and sent it to Boston, where it will be judged. The three winners will get a free trip to Washington where they'll meet the President. In some ways I hope Bruce does win the contest. In other ways I hope he doesn't. I don't know how I'd feel having a famous brother. Probably everyone would compare me to him and ask,
What contests have you won, Stephanie?
And I'd have to think of some clever answer like,
I
don't believe in contests. Contests don't prove anything
.

I wonder if Jessica and Charles feel that way, having a younger sister like Rachel. I wonder if they're always trying to prove that they're as good as she is. Lucky for me Bruce isn't gifted. He's just a regular kid who happens to have made a great poster.

Things

Mom and Aunt Denise are trying to decide whether to make a vegetable stuffing or a chestnut stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey. They don't actually put the stuffing inside the turkey. They make it as a side dish. Mom says it's healthier to roast the turkey without stuffing it. I don't see why they call it stuffing when it isn't.

We're going to have fourteen to dinner. Everyone is family except for Carla, Mom's best friend from college, and her little girl, Katie, who is eight. Carla is a widow. Her husband was killed while he was crossing the street. Some guy in a van plowed into him. The guy didn't even have a driver's license. Katie was only a baby at the time. She never got to know her father. Mom
says some people have more than their fair share of trouble. But Carla has a very good job. She produces a news show for NBC.

I asked Mom if I could make place cards this year because everyone always stands around at Thanksgiving waiting to be told where to sit. And while they're waiting the food gets cold. Mom said place cards sounded like a good idea. I made them out of purple colored paper. I drew a flower on each one and tried to keep my letters from going uphill when I printed the names.

Then I made a seating chart, like the one Mrs. Remo used the first week of school, before she'd memorized our names. I put myself between Dad and Katie. I put Bruce next to Cousin Howard. I would never sit next to Howard. He's seventeen and disgusting. He burps after every mouthful. Then he tells us that in some countries burping is considered a great compliment to the cook. If you don't burp, Howard says, you're a very rude guest. Howard also lets it out the other end. I asked him at our Passover seder, last spring, if that's also considered a compliment in some countries. He just laughed. I'm so glad I don't have a brother like him.

Mom says he's just going through a phase and that in a few years he'll be just like his brother, Stanley, who goes to college. I don't know if that's good or bad. Stanley is such a bore!

On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I couldn't concentrate in school. I kept thinking that in a few hours I would see Dad again. I pictured him in my mind. He's tall and thin, with a bony face. His eyes are grayish-blue and he wears aviator glasses. He's got a dimple in his chin, like Bruce. When he's very tired his shoulders slump. He'll probably be very tan from all that California sunshine, I thought. And he'll have presents for all of us—sweatshirts for Bruce and me, saying something about California, and for Mom, perfume and a lacy nightgown.

I was glad we had only half a day of school. During the last hour we had an all-school Thanksgiving assembly, which made the time go even faster. The chorus sang, the dancers danced and the symphonic band played. This was my debut as a percussionist. I got to play cymbals twice and chimes once. I made a mistake on chimes. But Ms. Lopez, the music teacher, gave me a reassuring look, as if my mistake hadn't mattered at all.

Aunt Denise picked me up after school. I always help her bake the pies for Thanksgiving dinner. She says she wishes she had a daughter like me. I don't blame her. Imagine someone as
nice as Aunt Denise being stuck with sons like Howard and Stanley!

While the pies were baking Aunt Denise and I cleaned up the kitchen. “Has your mom been talking to you?” she asked, as she handed me the green mixing bowl to dry.

“About what?” I asked.

“You know,” Aunt Denise said, “things …”

“Oh,
things,”
I said. “Yeah … Mom bought me a book.”

“A book?”

“Yeah … 
Love and Sex in Plain Language.”

“Sex?”

“Yes, isn't that what you meant?”

Aunt Denise hesitated. “Sort of …”

“I'm home!” I called, when Aunt Denise dropped me off at five. I wanted to change before Dad got here. He's renting a car at Kennedy Airport and driving up to Connecticut.

“I'm upstairs …” Mom called back. I went to her room. She had just stepped out of the shower and was wrapped in a big striped towel.

“What a day,” she said, holding her head, “I have a headache
this
big …” She took a bottle of aspirin from her cabinet and gulped down two of them with water. “I've made reservations
at Onion Alley for you and Bruce and Dad … at seven.”