Bounce (9 page)

Okay, it's official. I have been traumatized for life.

Why, on a Tuesday afternoon, was Eleni home at all? Why—today of all days—did I decide to use the peachy bathroom instead of the one downstairs? Huh? Isn't my life messed up enough already, without me having to experience what I have just experienced?

Let us recap.

I come home from school, needing to pee.

I toss my backpack on the kitchen table, grab a fistful of grapes from a bowl (starving, after yet another lunch period spent in the bathroom), and sprint up the stairs.

I throw open the door to the bathroom and…

Ahhhhggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!

Flesh.

“Oh! Evyn, honey. We didn't know you were—”

Wet, steaming pink flesh.

“—home…”

And hair. Oh, the hair.

Achhhhhhh. A grape lodges itself in my throat, from the horror of it all.

“Ev?” His voice.

“Honey? Are you okay? Are you choking?” Her voice.

Achhhhhhh!

And then.

Are you ready for this?

It's not Birdie who leaves the shower and comes to my rescue, it's
her. She
leaps out of the shower. Leaps, like a superhero. “I know the Heimlich!”

And does she have the decency to throw on a towel? No.

Warm, moist arms grabbing me from behind.

“Don't worry, honey!”

Boobs, mushing into my shoulder blades. Fists, jamming into my rib cage.

“I've done this before!”

Jam! Jam! Jam!

Out flies the grape. It hits the edge of the sink and ricochets onto the floor, right next to my foot.

“Oh, thank God.”

She hugs me. Full frontal, my stepmother hugs me.

“Thank God you're all right.”

I. Am not. All right.

Jules can't stop laughing.

“Thank you,” I tell her. “Thank you so much for finding my life hilarious.”

“I'm (hahahaha) sorry. It's just (hahahahaha). Oh my God! HAHAHAHAHA! Your stepmother…gave you the nude…”

“Yes. We've established that.”

I don't know why I called Jules. Well, yes I do. Jules is my
best friend. When a person is having a tough time, and her only legitimate parent has taken on an entirely new personality, who does she turn to? Her best friend. Only lately, it's been harder and harder to find Jules when I need her. Today, when I called her house, her mom said she wasn't home. She was at Jessie Kapler's house.

“Jessie Kapler?” I said. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Anthony. “You remember Jessie Kapler. From the cheerleading squad?”

Yes, I remember Jessie Kapler from the cheerleading squad. Jessie Kapler is the Maine version of Andrea—picture Andrea with hairspray and press-on nails—and she has always been wayyyy out of our league, friendship-wise. Jessie Kapler, who used to make fun of Raquel's accent and Ann's nose, who called them “The Two ‘Tards,” in front of everyone.

“Sure,” I told Mrs. Anthony. “I remember.”

That is when she gave me Jules's cell phone number. Because now, apparently, Jules has her own cell phone. Not that she bothered to tell me.

“Oh my God, you guys,” Jules is saying. “Listen to this. Evyn's (hahahaha) stepmother (hahahaha) gave her the naked (hahahaha)…Oh my God…I can't breathe…HAHAHAHA! Heimlich!”

In the background, peals of girl laughter. I have to pull the phone away from my ear, they're so loud.

“Thanks a lot, Jules,” I say, when things have finally calmed down. “Thanks for being such a fantastic friend. Really. I don't know what I'd do without you.”

“Evyn, come on. You have to admit it's funny.”

“Is it now?”

“Yes!”

“No. It's not. It's not funny.” My voice catches in my throat. “This is my life we're talking about, and you're supposed to be my best friend.
Efftees,
remember? Friends ‘til the end?”

Jules is quiet for a minute. I can hear whispering and then giggling in the background.

“Yeah, um, Evyn? We're getting a little old for that, don't you think? The whole
best friend
thing…it's, like, juvenile, you know?”

“Juvenile,” I repeat.

“Um, yeah,” she says.

“I see.”

It's total silence after that. There's nothing else to say. Any words that might have considered leaving my mouth a few minutes ago are now clinging to the back of my teeth.

Jules doesn't say anything more.

So I hang up, without even telling her good-bye.

As if that's not bad enough, Birdie tries to apologize. He finds me outside and walks right over to where Clam and I are sitting.

“Hey, Ev,” he says.

I bury my nose in Clam's neck and say nothing.

“Sorry about earlier,” he says. “About the, uh, shower scene…We should have, uh…remembered to lock the door. But we weren't expecting anyone to, uh…walk in. And, uh, I
think you're old enough and mature enough to understand that when two married people, uh…”

I lift my head and stare at him.

“That when two married people love each other—”

Ugh.

“It's only natural that—”

“Birdie.”

“Making love is a way of expressing—”

“Birdie!”

“What?”

“Stop trying to explain it to me! God!”

He takes a breath and lets it out in one long, slow stream. “You don't want to talk about what happened?”

“No. Way.”

“Okay,” he says, and it's obvious how relieved he is. “I can respect that. I can respect your feelings about that.”

I stare at him.
Since when?
I think.
Since when do you respect my feelings about anything?

But I can't get myself to say it out loud.

Stella? It's me, Evyn.

Don't even bother because I know what you're about to say. “Bounce.” Don't let what Jules says bother me. Don't let what Birdie says bother me. Don't let what Andrea says or Eleni says or anyone else says bother me. Don't let anything bother me. Just “bounce.” Well, guess what? Bouncing is a crock. It doesn't
work. And neither does talking to you about anything. So, I'm done. These little chats of ours are over. Finito. Kaput.

Stella looks at me, a little smile playing on her lips.

You think I'm kidding?
I reach behind my head—fiddle with the clasp of her necklace until it comes loose.
See? I'm taking this off. I don't need it anymore. I don't need you anymore.

She opens her mouth as if she's going to say something, but no words come out.

Later, when I'm lying in bed, there she is again. Green eyes watching me. Soft pink mouth opening and closing, opening and closing, like a fish.

But no words come out. Not a single one.

After another day of dirty looks and not one person to hang out with after school, I open the mailbox. Usually there's nothing for me—my Maine friends just call and e-mail—but today there is.

I stare at the envelope.

Miss Evyn Linney and Mrs. Eleni Linney.

A sick feeling comes over me as I open it, and not just because the yellow-and-green-plaid card stock is nauseating to behold.

You are cordially invited to the 47th Annual March School Mother-Daughter Tea. Sunday, November Twenty-third at Two in the Afternoon

Are they serious? Do they actually think she's my mother? And if they know she's not—if they know she's just the woman my father married—do they really think I'd want to drink tea with her, anywhere? The thought of walking into the March School on a weekend, for an afternoon of small talk and crumpets, is bad enough. But with Betty Boop by my side? Forget it.

Luckily, I'm the one who brought in the mail. She hasn't seen the invitation yet, and now she never will.

Birdie walks into the kitchen just as I'm stuffing the last shreds of yellow and green into the trash can.

“Hey, Ev,” he says, not noticing a thing. “How was the day?”

“Fine,” I say.

“School was good?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anything to share?”

I look at him.

He's got that eager-beaver look on his face, like he's been doing some inspirational reading.
How to Connect with Your Daughter in the Kitchen After School.

“Anything?” he repeats.

I shake my head.

I've never seen him act this way around me. We used to just talk, like regular people.

“You'll be here for dinner, right?” he asks.

“Why wouldn't I be here for dinner?”

He laughs—a jolly
har, har, har.
“No reason. It's just Family Meeting Night, that's all.”

Family Meeting Night.

Linus.

Linus will be here.

“If you could be at the table by six o'clock that would be great.”

I shrug.
Whatever,
my shoulders say.

But that shrug is a lie.

Inside, my heart is playing the bongos. My brain is flinging open storage drawers, in search of the perfect outfit.

Family Meeting Night. I have on a black camisole and tight black jeans—castoffs from Jules. Also lipstick. It's the kind of ensemble that a girl with short hair and no curves whatsoever could actually look good in. Even sexy. Maybe. If you were to squint at her from a great distance.

I come to the table, hoping I won't say anything stupid—hoping my crush-blush will behave itself.

But when I get there, Linus's seat is empty. Apparently, he has a take-home exam due on Monday, and it's half his grade. He's not here, and for the dinner portion of the evening I'm devastated.

The knee slapper is this: I only
think
I'm devastated. I don't know real devastation yet. No one does. Not Mackey, not Thalia, not the sweater twins, not Ajax, not Phoebe. Real devastation won't hit us until after dessert. Until after we file into the living room. Until Birdie and Eleni are standing right in front of us, beaming like a couple of halogen lightbulbs. It hurts my eyes to look at them.

“Kids.” My father slides his arm around her shoulders and squeezes. “We have an announcement.”

They move closer to each other. Closer. Closer. So close, her head gets wedged under his armpit. While the two of them blather on, I think about the fact that only the thinnest layer of oxford cloth separates her head hair from his pit hair.

“Blah, blah, blah. We wanted to make absolutely sure. Blah, blah, blah.”

Sweat is soaking through the fabric onto her scalp.

“Before we told anyone. Blah. Blah. Blah.”

Instead of Pantene, her hair now smells like armpits.

“But we went to see the doctor this morning. Blah, blah, blah. And of course we wanted you to be the first to know. Blah, blah, blah.”

Shampoo de B.O. Ha!

“We're pregnant!”

We're pregnant!

The words hit me like a soccer ball to the face.

We're pregnant.

We.

WE are pregnant.

The silence in the room is deafening.

Birdie is looking at me. He's looking for a reaction, but I don't have one because my facial muscles are paralyzed. They can't move a bit. And if they could, I don't know what they'd do. If my mouth could open right now, what would come out?
Noooooooo!
He's still looking at me, and I am still frozen.

“Mazel tov,” someone says, breaking the seal of silence.

Mazel tov.

I look around and see that it's Thalia who said it. Thalia is getting up off the couch and walking over to Eleni, kissing her cheek. Then, kissing Birdie.

I can't believe what I'm seeing.

“Mommy's having a baby? When? Can I name it? Is it a
girl? How will you get it out? Can it live in my room? When Hannah's mommy had baby Jillian, Hannah got to—”

“You're
pregnant
? How are you
pregnant
?”

“So
that
's why you gagged when I lit up my incense.”

“Did you have the ultrasound yet? Do you know the sex?”

They're all talking at once. Words are flying through the air like hail balls, and every one of them hurts.

I look at Mackey. He looks at me and shakes his head—in what? Disgust? Disbelief? I can't tell.

“We know this may come as a shock,” Eleni says, “but we hope we'll have your support in the coming months.”

Support.

“We hope you're as excited as we are.”

Excited.

“We might have to do a little switching around, room-wise, when the time comes, but—”

“Because what, we're not cramped enough already?” Ajax sounds pissed. “Where are we supposed to put another kid?”

The room erupts again—voices getting louder and louder and louder—until suddenly I can't take it anymore. I have to get out of here.

Scrambling up from the couch, I step on Phoebe's foot and she yelps, but I don't stop to see if she's okay. I just run.

“Evyn?” Birdie calls after me. “Ev?”

“Let her go,” I hear Eleni say. “She just needs time.”

Time? She thinks I need time?

I run through the dining room.

What the hell does she know about what I need?

Through the kitchen.

I don't need time. I need…I need…

I don't know what I need.

I run into the backyard.

Over to Clam, who's asleep under a bush. I flop down on my belly, not caring about the dirt, just wanting to smell his smell.

We're pregnant!

I snake my way along the ground, scratching my face on the branches, until I reach his pudgy little body.

And as soon as I touch him, I know.

Because of course. Isn't this exactly what would happen now?

I remember when I was five and Mackey was seven, and we had a parakeet named Pete, and one morning we came downstairs for breakfast, and Pete was lying on the bottom of his cage, cold and perfectly still, and I cried for a week.

But tonight, the tears don't come. Instead of crying, I run to the back door and yell, “Clam's dead! Are you happy? Is everybody happy now?”

Then I grab a bunch of twenties from Eleni's purse and take off.