I Am the Wallpaper (24 page)

“Can’t.” I took a couple of backward steps toward my bike. Leslie Dern appeared in the doorway then, looking different from how I’d ever seen her. In the emotion of the moment, I didn’t notice why. “I have to go,” I said.

Nobody said anything else for a few seconds. It was really strange.

Finally, I said, “Bye.” And then I left.

A block away, I started to hate myself for leaving. But on the other hand, I was the one who’d biked all the way out there. Azra should have made more of an effort.

Halfway home I heard another bike racing behind me. It was Wen.

I stopped for him. “Floey!” he called. “I’d really hate it if we ended up not being friends anymore!”

I didn’t want to admit it, but I was incredibly happy that he’d followed me. I looked behind him to see if anybody else was coming over the hill. Maybe Azra?

As soon as he was close enough for us to talk, he stopped. He was a little out of breath. As if he’d read my mind, he shook his head. “Just me.”

I tried not to look disappointed.

“Look,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for causing so much trouble. I never meant to hurt you. Azra didn’t either. Right now I think she’s only acting hurt and angry because she doesn’t know what else to do. I think she’s really more sad than anything else. She wants to fix this, but she doesn’t know how. Me neither.”

I didn’t know what to say.

He leaned forward on his handlebars. “I … I hope you don’t hate us forever.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said. “Look, it’s okay. I’ll get over it.”

“I just want us to be friends, like before.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s really possible, do you? Everything is kind of different now.”

He looked so sad. “Different, okay. Maybe not like before. But still friends?”

I shrugged again. “I guess I’d like that. I don’t know if Azra would, though.”

“Floey, why don’t you come back with me to the house?”

“No, I really can’t. Lillian’s home and my cousins are leaving. We’re having a goodbye party and I have to get back to it.” After a few more seconds of staring at each other I couldn’t stand it anymore. “I really have to go,” I said. I hopped back onto the seat of my bike. “Listen, there’s a lot of food. You guys should come on over, if you want. Leslie too.”

He didn’t say anything at first, but then he said, “I’ll have to work on Azra. Maybe.”

“Either way,” I said, pedaling off. “It doesn’t matter.”

As soon as I was out of sight I had to stop. My hands were shaking.

I’d been gone less than an hour but for once my mother noticed. As soon as I got back she found me. “There you are! I was just looking for you. One minute you were here and the next you were gone. Come back with me. Wait by that tree. I asked Gary to take some pictures.”

It took her forever to gather my extended family, especially Lillian. My sister loves to have her picture taken but hates to wait. She kept wandering away and gabbing. Eventually, Gary managed to position us around one of the big trees at the side of our field. He put Richard and Tish on one of the two big low branches and Lillian, Helmut and me on the other. In front of the trunk he put my mom and Aunt Sarah.

I got it. A family tree.

Richard had brought Frank Sinatra over to Lillian so she
could put him in her lap, but when she tried to take him he hissed at her and ran away. By then there was a big crowd in our yard, bigger than at the wedding. Lillian should run for president someday. She’d win. I scanned the heads for Azra or Wen but didn’t see them yet. I craned my neck to see the road, hoping I might catch them when they arrived. If they arrived.

Which they probably wouldn’t.

“Hey!” Lillian shrieked. “Floey’s not even looking at the camera! Floey!”

Suddenly and unexpectedly, I felt a wave of emotion for my sister. She was really leaving home for good. I’d had almost four weeks without her, but it hadn’t really seemed final until now. But now I missed her even though she was right next to me. I wasn’t the only emotional one either. Gary’s eyes were tearing up again.

I forced myself to smile so he could snap the picture.

Just then, though, Richard tried to push Tish off the branch, but she kept her balance. She pushed him right back. When he hit the ground, Aunt Sarah and my mother gasped and started yelling at Tish. But Richard wasn’t hurt. I couldn’t help laughing. Tish laughed so hard she snorted.

That’s when I had another sudden strange realization: when Tish left, I was going to feel sad. I kind of liked the way she followed me around and kept me awake with her stupid, nosy questions. It was kind of like having a little sister.

Back on his branch, Richard the boy genius crossed his eyes and flared his nostrils at me. Would I miss him, too?

Probably not.

Later, I was talking with one of Lillian’s friends when somebody tapped my shoulder.

“How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

I turned around. Azra looked nervous, but she was holding out Smiley Quahog for me. “None,” I said, grinning. “They’re already enlightened.”

Over her shoulder, at the end of the yard, I saw Wen watching us. I wondered if this meant everything was going back to normal again.

But then I spotted Leslie next to Wen. Finally, I noticed what was different. How could I have missed it before? Her hair had new streaks of color. Violet.

Then I remembered.

Normal didn’t mean much anymore.

There had already been seven separate toddlers tearing around the waiting room. They’d climbed behind the desk, pulled open the stationery boxes and screamed at their parents and each other. Gary had asked me to cover the reception area. Sunday morning is always a busy time for family portraits, especially families with small children.

It was my job to be pleasant.

Now, two little kids waiting with their tired-looking father were throwing their shoes at each other and shrieking. I was standing behind the desk, using it as a shield.

Another hour to go and my nerves were already shattered.

That’s when I noticed Calvin standing outside. He was peering through the window, his cowboy hat touching the glass. When he saw me notice him, he grinned.

I’d been thinking about him a lot, wondering if he was ever going to write to me again, maybe even send me more of his poems. I’d searched the mail every day, hoping to
find an envelope with his name on it. Now here he was, walking through the door and up to the desk.

I wished I were wearing something nicer.

“Floey, is that you?” he said slowly, staring at my head. “Wow.”

“I know, I know,” I said, ready for the comments. “I look like a giant grape Popsicle, right?” I’d been considering dying it brown again, but that morning I’d decided to keep it violet for now. Not because it made me stand out—I didn’t care about that as much anymore. I just liked it.

He smiled. “No. I think it looks great, I really do.”

I tried to decide if he was making fun of me. He didn’t sound like it. He seemed sincere. Eventually, he stopped staring at my head and looked me in the eyes. “But I liked you without it too.”

I stared back. “Thanks.”

Right then a little blue shoe hit him in the back of the head.
Thump
.

The children shrieked with laughter.

Calvin looked surprised, but he calmly turned around, picked up the shoe and handed it to the embarrassed father, who apologized and then spoke sternly to the children. Calvin turned back to me and rubbed his head.

“Written anything lately?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I started something new yesterday. But it’s not a poem, it’s a story.”

“Really? What’s it about?”

“My summer. It’s been kind of a weird one.”

He gave me a half smile. “Mine too.”

The boy, who was obviously ignoring his father, climbed up onto one of the chairs and, in a pirate voice, announced to his sister that she was going to have to walk the plank. The girl screamed and tried to run between Calvin’s legs.

“I was here before,” Calvin said over the noise. He stepped aside for the little girl. “Two other times. You weren’t working.”

He’d been back here twice? To see me?

“Avast ye, mateys!” the little boy said. “It’s the dirty Spaniards! To the cannons!” I ducked. Another shoe whizzed by Calvin’s ear. The children laughed. I guess they’d decided we were the Spanish Armada.

“Yikes!” Calvin said. He held up his hand to protect his head.

The father grabbed the children, one under each arm, and put them in the corner. I handed the shoe back to the poor man. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Really.”

I smiled my biggest, sweetest smile. “It’s no problem. Gary shouldn’t be long. Would you like some water?”

“Kind of a dangerous job,” Calvin said when I came back.

I leaned on the counter and grinned. “All in a day’s work.” After another silence I said, “So, why are you here?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“You do? What about?”

There was yet another awkward silence. He put his hands in his pockets and kind of swayed anxiously back and forth before he finally spoke again.

“I … uh, Melanie and I broke up.”

“You did? Why?”

And even more curiously, why was he telling
me?

He glanced at the desk, the wall behind me, anywhere but at me. Then all of a sudden he took his hands out of his pockets, leaned across the counter and kissed me. I was so surprised. My first real kiss was soft and sweet. The whole thing only lasted a few seconds, but in my mind I’ve relived it at least a thousand times. An instant later I found myself staring at him, wide-eyed. He looked nervously back at me.

“Calvin, why did you do that?”

“I’ve been thinking of doing it for a long time.”

“But what about what you said? I’m only thirteen, remember? And you’re going to be a sophomore.”

He shrugged. “I know. But you’ll be a freshman when I’m a junior, right?”

I nodded.

That’s when the door opened and a young couple with twin babies dressed in frilly pink outfits entered and stood waiting for me. At the same time, the family Gary had been photographing charged back into the waiting area.

“Look,” Calvin said over the sudden increase in noise, “I know you have to work. Thing is, I keep thinking about you, Floey. I’d really like to see you sometime.”

I was so shocked that for a moment I couldn’t speak.

Still standing in the corner, his head leaning against the wall, the little boy started singing a song:

I pulled myself together. “A week from tomorrow there’s another poetry night. I was thinking about going.”

“Good. Great. See you there, then.”

The little girl laughed and joined in the song with her brother.

A moment later, the door opened and closed, and with a wave through the window, Calvin was gone. I barely heard the new family give me their names. I could have risen right off the floor and floated away.