Parties & Potions #4 (8 page)

A Pregnant Pause

“So, what are you going to do all weekend?” I ask Raf via my cell. Miri and I are on the train heading to Long Island.

“Talk on the phone with you?”

“Yes, besides that.” Why is my knapsack rising off the floor? I glance at Miri and see her wiggling her fingers at my stuff. “Stop megeling my things!” I mouth.

She sticks out her tongue.

“My dad asked me if I could help out at the store tomorrow,” Raf says, referring to Kosa Coats and Goods, their family’s leather jacket factory store. They make their own jackets and sell them to department stores like Saks and Bloomingdale’s. “And then I’m going to Dave Nephron’s party tomorrow night. Wanna come?”

“Don’t tease. You know I want to.” Unfortunately, while I’ll be stuck in the yellow meringue room that Miri and I share at my dad’s, Raf will be surrounded by all the girls at JFK who wish he were their boyfriend. Like Melissa Davis. “You’re not allowed to talk to any other girls, ’kay?” Omigod! I can’t believe I said that! I didn’t mean to! Miri’s distracting me.

He laughs. “I’m not interested in any other girls, Rachel. I’m definitely not interested in the girls at the party.”

My heart rate speeds up. “Melissa will be at the party. You used to be interested in her.” I keep my voice light and playful, but of course I’m dying to hear what he’s going to say. We’ve never really talked about why he chose me over her.

My knapsack starts rising again. I grab Miri’s fingers and squeeze.

“Ouch!” she whines.

“Melissa isn’t a bad person,” Raf says. “She’s just not the right person for me.”

“And why not?” I hold my breath. And Miri’s fingers.

“We just didn’t connect, you know? I was with her because we thought we should make a good couple, not because we really were a good couple. It was superficial.”

Wow. That’s the most intense thing Raf has ever said to me. Unfortunately, I don’t have brain power to process it, because Miri is wiggling her nose and making my knapsack smack me in the face.

“Rachel?” he says. “Are you still there?”

“One sec,” I tell him. “What do you want?” I whisper.

“I’m bored.”

“One minute,” I whisper. “Then I’ll get off. This is a really important conversation.”

She crosses her arms and sinks back into her seat.

“Sorry about that,” I say calmly. “Back to what you were saying. About Melissa being superficial?”

He laughs. “It’s not that she’s superficial. It’s that we were a superficial couple. You and I have something more … real. Does that makes sense?”

“Absolutely,” I say softly. “Something real. I like it, it being real and all.”

“And I like you,” he says.

I feel my face grow warm. Okay, it’s not “I love you,” but it’s close. Just a half step away. “I like you, too,” I say.

I hear him clear his throat. Aw, how adorable! He’s embarrassed! “So, what time are you coming home on Sun-day?” he asks.

“Eightish.”

“Next weekend you’re in town, though, right?”

“Yup.”

“Should we do something on Saturday?”

“It’s a date.”

Miri pokes me in the side. “We have Samsorta classes next weekend.”

I cover the mouth of the phone. “Miri! Are you listening to my conversation?” At least, I think it’s the mouth. I don’t totally understand how this thing works yet.

“Learn how to adjust the volume on your phone,” she snaps. “Don’t blame me.”

“Samsorta class isn’t all day, is it?” I whisper.

She shakes her head. “It’s from one to four.”

I roll my eyes. “Great. Only the entire afternoon.”

“Can you please get off the phone already?” she begs. “I’m really bored.”

“I’ll be one more minute,” I promise.

“You said that ten minutes ago! You’ve been talking with Raf for an hour!” she yells, not very discreetly “Shared minutes!”

“It’s not like you’re going to use them,” I mutter.

Her face crumples. Whoops. That was really mean. I’d better go. “Raf, can I call you later from my dad’s?”

“ ’Kay Have a good night.”

“You too. Enjoy the party. But not too much. Bye.” Like you. Love you.

Not that I say that last bit out loud. ’Cause I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole love thing, about whether or not I should say it, and I’ve decided that gold hearts and birthday-card salutations are not the same as saying “I love you.” I’m pretty sure. I don’t know. How could I possibly know? I’m not a boy. I don’t understand the workings of the boy brain.

I wish Miri were a boy. Then she’d—I mean he’d—be able to explain things to me. If Miri were a boy, she wouldn’t be so sensitive. She wouldn’t be ignoring me now and staring out the window.

I should really be careful about making strange wishes. What if when Miri turns around she has a beard?

“Sorry,” I say. “That was a mean thing to say. About the minutes. And that I secretly wished you were a boy. But don’t worry about that last part; I unwished it.”

She shrugs, still refusing to turn around.

I drop my phone into her lap. “See? I’m off. I’m all yours. Talk to me.”

Still nothing.

“Gimme a break. I said I was sorry.”

“It’s not you,” she says. “You’re right. What’s the point of me having a cell phone? I haven’t used it once!”

“Not true. I called you at school. And you conferenced in Mom. And you called Wendaline to tell her that we were downstairs at her place. That’s three people.”

She bites her lip. “My calls totaled three minutes.”

“Wanna call me again now? I’m happy to chat. This train ride is totally boring.”

Finally, she cracks a small smile.

“Miri,” I say. “Your phone is going to ring off the hook beginning next week. That’s why we’re doing this Samsorta thing, right? So you can make friends!”

She looks into her lap. “It’s not just about making friends…. Do you think I’ll ever have a boyfriend?”

Omigod! Miri is asking me about boys! Abracazam! “Do you have a crush I should know about? Tell me absolutely everything!”

She turns bright red. “There’s nothing to tell. It’s not like there’s anyone at school who
likes
me.”

“Then they’re stupid. Next! Or, we could always spike their drinks! We’ll put a love potion in their water bottles. Huh, huh?” I wiggle my eyebrows extra-suggestively. “I know how much you love love potions. Or maybe we’ll make you that love perfume that Mom used last year. Then you’ll have a gazillion dates just like she did. Or we can—”

“I changed my mind,” she says, interrupting.

“You want to try the love potion?” I ask.

“No.” She hands my cell back. “I want you to call Raf again and stop harassing me.”

When we arrive, Prissy, Dad, and a pregnant Jennifer are waiting at the station.

Not that she looks pregnant. She’s only a couple of months in. But I can tell, I swear. Probably because she keeps rubbing her belly.

“You’re here!” Prissy screams, jumping up and down like she’s on a trampoline. “We’ve been waiting and I’m hungry and—”

“Hi, kids!” My dad throws his arms around us. “I missed you!”

“We just saw you two weeks ago,” Miri says, giggling.

I pat the bald spot on his head. My special way of saying hello.

“Two weeks is too long to go without my girls,” he says, and we pile into the car.

“How are you feeling?” I ask Jennifer.

She opens her window. “Oh, I’m fine. I have a little morning sickness, but it’s not terrible.”

“Is it a girl, Mommy?” Prissy asks.

She groans. “I told you, honey, I don’t know.”

“I want a girl.”

“I know, honey, but it’s not up to me.”

“I don’t want a boy. No brothers. No.”

A brother, huh? Maybe he could help me under-stand boys better. Not right away, obviously. But in a few years.

Hopefully before I turn twenty-seven and get married.

The next two days go by at a broken broom’s pace.

My dad and Jennifer got me a … bike.

“Oh!” This is not a laptop. Not that I really expected a lap-top. They are super-expensive. But so are bikes! And I
need
a laptop. I don’t need a bike. I don’t even like biking that much. But I don’t want to hurt their feelings, so I try to feign enthusiasm. “Great! Thanks!” Why would they get me a bike?

“I know how much you used to love riding,” my dad says. “I thought you could take it out around here. I used to take you everywhere….” He lets his voice trail off, remembering. “Miri, we can get you one for Hanukkah if you want. So you guys can go together.”

Oh, sure, she gets a choice? Maybe she can get a new laptop and I’ll trade her. I’m sounding ungrateful, aren’t I? It’s just that I haven’t ridden a bike in a million years. (Be-sides when we flew our old canary bike into the city to magically turn it into a car. But that wasn’t pleasure riding.) Doesn’t my dad know me better than that?

Anyway. A new bike. Yay

Instead of biking, I spend the weekend worrying about the upcoming magic pop quiz. When will it be? What if my dad is involved? What if they turn him into a frog and I have to reverse the spell? Surprise! You’re a frog! Surprise! Your daughter’s a witch! Yikes.

I also teach myself how to text on my cell. I find the letters a bit confusing, but if the rest of the world can do it, so can I.

But why can’t I figure out how to make spaces or punctuation?

I also spend a lot of time thinking about what Raf said about us being “real.” Are we real? How can we be real when he doesn’t know my secret?

Should he know the real me?

Can I tell him the truth? After all, he did kind of tell me he loves me. Or at least, he used the word
love
in connection with me. That counts, right?

Almost. Fine, maybe he’s not ready for the truth now, but maybe one day?

I text him Saturday night.

Me: Howstheparty

Raf: Boring without you. Today was more interesting.

Me: aturdads

Raf: Yeah. I designed a jacket.

I want to write
!!!!
but I don’t know how, so I call him instead. “You what?”

He laughs. “I don’t know, I was playing around with the sketches and one of the designers saw it and liked it.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Is that weird?”

“No! That’s insanely cool.”

How is it that Raf knows how to make a jacket, and I can barely figure out how to make an exclamation point?