Please, Please, Please (2 page)

I asked Mom, “You really think so?”

“Definitely,” she said, wiggling it on my finger with her thumb over the knot. “I like that it’s so strong-looking, like a boat knot—what’s it called?—nautical, like you would tie with a really strong rope to hold a boat to the dock, but at the same time, it’s delicate, the silver, so feminine.”

I smiled at the ring. “Mmm-hmm.”

“You must be so happy,” Mom said softly. “I’m happy for you.”

I nodded.

“Who chose it, you or Zoe?”

“Both,” I said. “The other, other rings were too, I don’t know—fancy. This one is just . . .”

“Perfect,” Mom finished for me.

“Exactly. Yeah. So, I’ll put in my ring, and . . .”

“Really?” Her eyes were open wide, like she was trying to look all innocent, but I knew what she was thinking.

“Zoe is putting hers in her bag,” I explained. “She’d feel pretty stupid if I didn’t.”

“Uh-huh,” Mom said, biting her lip.

“You . . .” I tried not to get angry.

“What?” she asked, like she didn’t know.

I stamped my foot. “You . . . you’re the one who-who-who didn’t want me to be best friends with Morgan anymore.”

“CJ!”

“What? You, you never even liked Morgan at all, you were so happy I was getting to be best friends with Zoe, and now, what? You don’t want me to?”

“I didn’t say anything!” Mom protested.

“Why can’t you just be happy for me?”

“I am happy for you.”

“But?”

Mom shrugged. “I was just imagining how Morgan might feel.”

“Morgan?”

“She thinks she’s still your best friend, right?”

“That’s, that’s not . . .” She was right, Morgan had no clue that Zoe and I had bought these rings together today.

“So how will she feel, sitting there in English when you and Zoe . . .”

I slapped my hands against my thighs, wishing I could explain or get her to stop saying that, at least.

She shook her head, bouncing her soft curls from side to side. She is so beautiful it really ticks me off sometimes.

“You just, you . . . fine. Fine!” I yelled. “You don’t want me to put my ring in?”

“That’s not what—”

“Fine! I won’t. I won’t even wear it.” I pulled the ring off my finger and threw it down onto my floor. It clanked, bounced, and rolled under my bed.

“CJ,” Mom said, reaching toward me.

I pulled away. “What? Does that satisfy you? You don’t want me to play soccer, you don’t want me to have friends, you don’t want me to have any best friend except you, that’s what I think!” I never talk to her like that. She looked as surprised as I felt, standing there absolutely shaking with I don’t know if it was fear or rage or what.

“What?” she asked, her hands up like surrendering. “I didn’t . . .”

I punched myself in the thigh. “You always keep saying I’m your best friend!”

She shrugged. “You are.”

“How do you think that makes me feel?” I yelled.

“Good, I hope.” She smiled a little, tilting her head.

“Yeah, except, you know what?” I asked her, starting to cry. “You’re not in seventh grade! So what am I supposed to do at lunch?” I held onto my head, which felt like it might blow up.

“CJ, I think it’s great that you have other friends. Really. It doesn’t take away from us. I have other friends, too—Aunt Betsy, and Dad, and . . .”

“Yeah, but. . . .” It’s really hard to argue with Mom. She agrees with you, which turns a person around so much, you forget what your point was. But I wasn’t giving up this time, for once. “And then, then”—I wiped my eyes quickly with the heel of my hand—“then you keep saying how Morgan isn’t a real friend to me.”

She opened those beautiful green eyes so wide again. “I do not.” My dad says he fell in love with her the minute she laid those beautiful green eyes on him.

“You do so!” I stamped my foot again. “You say it.”

“CJ.”

“All the time, you say it, you know you do! You make that face when I ask can she come over!”

“Morgan is here all the time,” Mom protested.

I wiped my runny nose on my sleeve. “But you make that face,” I said, and when she looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about, I wanted to smash her. “Don’t! You know you-you-you bite your lip and you say, ‘Well, if you want to.’ Right? You know you say that!” I imitated her voice. “‘Well, if you want to.’”

Mom breathed out hard. She couldn’t deny it.

“Right?” I asked. “And now when I’m finally like, OK, fine, so I’ll be best friends with Zoe, who you think is so great, it’s still not enough! I get friendship rings with Zoe, and you-you just, you don’t even want me to put it in my bag! What do you want from me?”

“I just . . .”

The tears were pouring down my face. I didn’t even try to wipe them. “Fine!” I yelled. “So I won’t have any friends, if that’s what makes you happy!”

I had to get away from her. I wanted to stomp up to my room, but we were already in my room. So I left my room and slammed the door. I stood in the hall, listening to the slam echo, thankful for the sudden silence. I’ve never yelled at my mother like that before. I don’t think I’ve ever said so many sentences in a row before.

I stood there for a minute not knowing what to do. It was a sort of awkward situation. Even though I was still crying, I almost cracked a smile at the thought of Mom standing in the middle of my room, tilting her pretty head and biting her lip, not knowing what to do. Just like me, on the other side of the door. But then I realized she’d probably have to come out soon, and so I quickly slammed myself into the bathroom.

Some cold water on my face felt good. I looked at myself in the mirror—pointy nose, dark circles under my green eyes, nonexistent lips, pulled-back frizzy brown hair—and got really depressed. I’m not beautiful like my mother. I look like a gerbil. Especially when my eye rims are red from crying. Tommy must be blind or stupid or into rodents. Yuck.

After a few minutes I heard my door open. I locked the bathroom door, but Mom didn’t try to come in. I heard her footsteps on the stairs going down, and then her voice in the backyard with Dad and Paul. They were all laughing, having a great time as if I didn’t even matter.

three

I
lay in my bed, in the dark, holding
my favorite old stuffed animal. Zoe hadn’t called and neither had Tommy. Luckily, neither had Morgan, because I don’t know what I would’ve said to her.

My new friendship ring was still on the night table, where Mom had left it after our fight. She must’ve crawled under my bed to get it for me. Yesterday I promised Zoe I would never take it off except to put it in my Bring Yourself in a Sack. Oh, well. It was eight thirty, and I was in bed already because I couldn’t think of what else to do. My satin pillowcase felt cool against my hot face. Nobody had come to check on me.

Finally, Mom pushed my door open and came over to sit on the edge of my bed. I didn’t roll over to talk with her like I usually do. She didn’t say anything, just touched my forehead and pushed my hair back from it, over and over, like when I was a baby. I didn’t want her to stop, so I stayed very still.

After a minute, Mom said, “I’m sorry I upset you.”

I didn’t answer.
Good
, I was thinking.

She stroked my head a few more times, then stood up. I listened to her footsteps crossing my floor, her slippers scratching against the wood, her long fingernails clicking as they touched my doorknob.

“What should I do?” I asked without turning around.

I heard her coming back to sit beside me again. I rolled to face her, and she leaned over me, her hand behind my back. She smiled down at the stuffed dog clutched in my arm—History, my stop-sucking-my-thumb present from when I was two and a half years old. I used to bring him everywhere, but most of the time lately I just leave him lined up on my shelf with the other things I’m too old for. I thought she might be about to launch into the old story of how when she handed him to me, nine years ago, she’d suggested we could call him Doggie, but I said no, his name is History. She and Dad thought I was brilliant. I always like that story, but I wasn’t really in the mood. I was relieved when her smile faded quickly and she looked serious again.

I waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, I buried my face in what’s left of History’s brown fur and asked again, “What should I do?”

“What do you think?” she asked slowly.

“I don’t know! That’s why I’m asking you!” I didn’t mean to get mad. I never ever used to yell at her, but she’s been so frustrating lately.

“OK,” she said calmly. “OK, I just wondered if you’d thought of anything.”

I looked up at the ceiling and didn’t answer.

“Because,” she continued, “I’ve been thinking about it, and it occurs to me, maybe this isn’t nice but, well, OK. Just hear me out, but, maybe you don’t need to say anything to Morgan.”

“But, you said . . .”

She bit her lip and tilted her head to the side, opening her big green eyes wide. “I don’t know if I’d put my ring in my Sack about Myself, but . . .”

“Bring Yourself in a Sack,” I corrected.

“OK,” she said. “So maybe you don’t have to shove it in Morgan’s face that you and Zoe have become best friends, but the truth is, you have to do what’s right for you. And do you feel like being best friends with Zoe is better for you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“OK. Then, OK. I keep thinking about how happy you looked last weekend, when Zoe slept over. Hearing you girls whispering in here until I don’t know when, and giggling. You’ve seemed so much more confident and, well, happy this week. You don’t smile when you’re with Morgan.”

I sat up. “I smile.” I’m always defending Morgan to her.

“Uh-huh,” Mom said. She waited for me to keep going, if I wanted to.

I bent over my legs and buried my face between my knees. “It’s just,” I whispered, “Zoe and I understand each other.”

Mom didn’t say anything so I turned to look at her. She was nodding.

“And she’s honest, like, Morgan always has to act tough, like she doesn’t care what her mother thinks or anybody, but like, Zoe—she’s so funny.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Mom said.

I hugged my knees. “She told me about this time her mother took just her out of the five kids in her family to
Sesame Street Live
once when she was little and bought her an Elmo flashlight even though it was overpriced.”

Mom nodded some more.

“And she still has it,” I whispered. “And sometimes she sleeps with it under her pillow because it feels like her mother giving her attention just specially. You know? I don’t think she ever told anybody but me about it.”

“It’s wonderful that she feels like she can confide in you,” Mom whispered back.

“Exactly. And I feel like I can really talk to her, too.”

“That’s such a powerful bond,” Mom said. “And why shouldn’t you enjoy that? You’re such a nice person, you would never want to purposefully hurt Morgan’s feelings, but you know what? Sometimes a person has to do what’s right for herself.”

“That’s what I think.”

Mom pushed my hair back from my forehead. “And when you do what’s right for yourself, things have a way of working themselves out.”

“Like when you ran away from home?”

Mom looked up at my ceiling, then shook her head slowly. “That was different. It was very hard, believe me.” She took a deep breath and stood up.

I wasn’t quite ready for her to leave, yet. “Tommy didn’t call,” I said.

“I was thinking about that.” She sat back down.

“It doesn’t matter,” I assured her. “I’ll see him in school tomorrow.”

She brought her shoulders up near her ears—her excited expression. When Tommy Levit called to ask me out Friday afternoon, I had barely hung up before I was jumping up and down in the kitchen. My mother ripped off her cow apron to hug me and beg for all the details, listening with her shoulders up near her ears. She let me tell her the whole Tommy conversation three times, and the pork chops burned, but she said, “Who cares, this is much more important.”

“Are you nervous about it?” Mom asked.

I nodded.

“Maybe we can do a French twist in your hair. That always looks especially pretty on you,” she suggested.

Usually I just wear a plain bun. Mom is the one who sometimes wears a French twist and looks especially pretty in it, but I said, “OK,” hoping maybe it would look good on me, too.

“Don’t scream at me,” Mom whispered. “But, Tommy’s the one who kissed Morgan last year, right?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I said.

“Oh,” said Mom without looking at me.

“She doesn’t like him anymore, though,” I explained. “She likes his twin brother, Jonas.”

“Oh, that’s fun,” Mom said. She sounded relieved. She pulled her feet up to sit cross-legged on my bed. “That was a long time ago, anyway, that she kissed Tommy.”

I sat up, too. “It was the day I got chosen to be a bug in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Mom laughed, covering her mouth with her long, elegant fingers.

“At the time it felt like, so what, kissing. I get my toe shoes spray-painted brown.”

“You stood out.”

“Get kissed, be a bug. Hmm.”

Mom scrunched up her nose. “Which sounds better now?”

“That’s not the . . .” I said, hugging History. “There’s just, a lot—so much—going on right now.”

“There sure is,” she agreed. “Tomorrow’s a big day for you.”

I nodded. She reached over and picked up my ring from the night table and handed it to me. I put it on. “Thanks,” I whispered, looking again at how beautiful, how strong but delicate, my friendship ring is.

Mom pulled my covers up to my chin and tucked them tight around my body and History’s. “It’ll be a good day. It’ll all work out,” she whispered.

“Really?” I asked. “You sure?”

“I have every confidence,” she said, and kissed my forehead.

four

I
was up early doing my stretches
and finishing my project. When I took my shower, I used double cream rinse so my hair would slick back smooth. I wanted to look good. I put on my black flared-leg Capezio pants and a gray T-shirt. While Mom was tucking my straggly hairs into a French twist, she told me I looked really cute.