I Am the Wallpaper (10 page)

I felt pretty confident as I got ready on Friday morning.

As the New Extraordinary Floey, I wanted to stand out at the parade, so along with my hat I wore dark sunglasses, and I tied a red silk scarf around my neck. I looked at myself in the mirror. The overall effect made a pretty strong impression.

Azra’s mother wasn’t a parade person but Azra was, so we picked her up at six-thirty in the morning. As soon as she got in the car she gave me that same puzzled look I’d seen at the poetry reading.

“What’s with the costume?” she asked.

“It’s not a costume. It’s my new look. Do you like it?”

“It is? You look like a spy or something, maybe a blues singer.”

“Or a blind gangster with a cold,” suggested Tish.

Richard snickered. Ma didn’t say anything—she just kept driving.

I ignored them all.

“There he is!” I shouted. “That’s Wen!”

Azra and I screamed and called out, and my mother and Tish did too. I don’t remember Richard joining in. He was probably off sulking somewhere. The band played some Dixieland song, not a regular marching tune. When Wen was about half a block away, he saw us and waved. Just then, the parade paused, so Azra and I ran over to him.

“Hey, soldier,” Azra called out. “Love the hat!” Everyone in the band wore blue and white uniforms with shiny black shoes and tall blue helmets that made them look like toy soldiers. I could’ve just rolled the boy up in pita bread and eaten him.

“I’m so glad to see you,” I said, realizing with disappointment that I’d left my hat and scarf by our blanket. I’d taken them off because of the heat. I tried to see if there was anything different about the way he looked at me, but it was hard to tell with all the confusion around us.

“How you doing, Floey?” he asked. “Finally cheered back up yet?”

I shrugged. “Not sure.” I tried to send him a secret smile so he’d know I was thinking about him and me. “Maybe.”

“Hi, I’m Floey’s cousin Tish!” She was right on my heels. Sometimes having Tish around was kind of like having a dog.

“Hi, Tish,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

“So,” I asked him, “are we still on for this afternoon?”

“I think so. My dad made some plans, though. I might be late.”

I was disappointed, but only a little. As it turned out, Azra had said she wasn’t coming to our block party after all because her mother decided at the last minute to throw a barbecue with their own neighbors. Azra had invited my mother, my cousins and me to her house after the parade but fortunately Ma said no. This meant, I’d realized with secret excitement, that if Wen came I was going to have him all to myself.

“Well,” I said. “Guess I’ll see you later, then.”

And that was all the time we had, because the band started playing again and Wen had to step back in line. He and the rest of the band did a hilarious dance where they marched in place and then side to side and then turned around and did it again. The crowd went wild. So did we.

After they marched away, Tish asked, “That’s the boy from the picture, isn’t he? Are you
sure
he’s not your boyfriend?”

“Who, Wen? No.” I glanced at Azra, but I don’t think she was listening. “We’re just friends, that’s all. I already told you I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Oh,” Tish said. “He’s
soooo
cute! He’s
adorable!
”

We walked back to our blanket.

I couldn’t even look at Azra.

I stared up at the darkness, silently considering my own stupidity.

Pathetic! Weak! Dumb, dumb, dumb! What happened to independent? What happened to self-sufficient? What’s wrong with me?

That’s when I heard, or at least I
thought
I heard, a tapping sound from my window.
Ploink
. A moment later, it happened again.
Ploink. Ploink
. It was the sound of something small hitting the screen.

Then somebody outside whispered, “Floey!”

I sat up and lifted the shade. There were two flashlights in the darkness just under my window. It was Wen and Azra.

“What are you doing?” I called, ecstatic to see them but trying to be as quiet as I could.

“Getting you out of bed!” whispered Azra, nearly blinding me with her flashlight.

“Are you crazy?”

“Sorry I couldn’t come earlier. George and I had to take care of two needy parents.” George was Wen’s little brother. Wen set his backpack on the ground. “But it’s not that late. Want to go to the secret beach?”

The secret beach was a little sandy clearing that Azra, Wen and I had found behind a patch of reeds along Otis Cove. As far as we knew, nobody else knew about it. It was our special place where we liked to go together.

I turned around to see if the lights and voices had woken Tish, but she looked comatose. Actually, without even looking I should have known she was asleep because it sounded like there was a wild growling beast in the room.

“Sure, if you insist,” I said, trying to sound casual so they wouldn’t know how happy I was. “Just give me a second to change.”

I glanced again at Tish but she definitely looked dead to the world.

Sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night was the sort of thing Lillian used to do, not at all an Old Floey thing. Thrilled, I threw on some clothes, including my hat and scarf, as quietly as I could. I carefully lifted the screen, hooked one leg over the window and pushed myself through. Then I hopped down to my friends.

My escape successful, I was ready for whatever adventure the night might bring. And oddly enough, that night something really really weird, something strange and adventurous, actually did happen.

“My God, Floey,” Wen said. “What are you wearing?”

“Let me introduce myself,” I said. “You’re looking at the New Improved Floey Packer.”

Otis Cove was just off the main road that led into the center of Opequonsett, not too far from Wen’s house. There was a secluded area of sand in the middle of a thick patch of reeds by the water that probably belonged to an old vacation cottage. There wasn’t much light from the sky that night, so I was glad I’d thought to bring my little penlight. We’d been here many times but never at night.

After we sat down in the sand, Wen opened his backpack and took out a medium-sized box. “For you and me,” he said, opening it up. It was a cake, the kind you buy in the junk-food section of a grocery store.

I stared at it. “Why?”

Squinting into the beam from my penlight, he held his hand up to block his eyes. “For surviving our first breakups.”

Oh, he was so
sweet!

“I didn’t know you get a cake for that.”

“Apparently,” he said, slicing a piece for each of us, “you do.”

“So this is Dump Cake?”

He laughed.

Azra didn’t. She knew I had told Wen that I’d been dumped by some mysterious guy. When she’d asked me why, I’d told her the truth: that when he asked me why I
sounded depressed I had a moment of insanity. She’d just said I was weird. She wouldn’t give me away, though.

Wen nodded sympathetically. “I know you’ve been through a hard time.”

Azra rolled her eyes.

“It’s nothing,” I said carefully. “It’s not a big deal.”

“So who was he? How come I didn’t know anything about him?”

I couldn’t tell the truth, that it was
him
, so I had to make something up. “I was embarrassed,” I began. “He was … just a pen pal. We wrote each other letters, but the truth is I hardly ever saw him.” I felt guilty for lying again, but secretly I also felt proud of myself. It was a pretty good story.

“Oh really?” Azra said, giving me a you’re-crazy look. “Tell us more.”

What was she doing? “Well … I met him at summer camp when I was little. We sent each other notes for years. It’s just stupid. That’s why I never said anything.”

But Azra didn’t leave it at that. She was having fun with me. “What was his name?”

I flashed her a warning with my eyes. I felt bad enough already, and she was making it worse. “Robert,” I said. It’s the name of the guy who wrote
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
. “But I really don’t want to talk about it anymore. Can we change the subject?”

“Sure,” Wen said. “I completely understand.” He handed me a slice of cake on a paper plate.

“Thank you,” I said, relieved. I studied his eyes for signs of secret passion. Unfortunately, it was too dark to be sure.

The Dump Cake was good. It was dry with hard frosting that tasted kind of plastic, but that didn’t matter. It was absolutely delicious.

“It’s great to be here,” Wen said, kicking back in the sand. “Just us. The Three Blind Mice.” I wondered if he was trying not to act suspicious in front of Azra. He seemed to be working hard on keeping our little secret, so I decided to follow his lead. We would have to find time to discuss our secrets another day.

A warm breeze blew my hair into my face. Azra told us about being a day-camp junior counselor and Wen talked about his retreat. We grilled him about Kim. He said he’d been sad at first, but now he was practically over it. Then I told them about how hard it had been at home with my monster cousins. Azra and I even told Wen about Aunt Sarah and the birthday picture. It felt good to talk with them about it. Wen laughed about the picture, and so did I, a little, so I guess Azra felt okay to laugh too. When I saw it from someone else’s point of view, it really was kind of funny.