The Goodbye Time (4 page)

Chapter Ten

So Thursday came and Katy, her mom and Bug Eye took Sam to the hospital. It had a pretty name, Fern Brook, and was on Staten Island. To get there they hired a car service and put all Sam’s stuff in the trunk, but on the way back they took the ferry.

I like to imagine Katy standing on the ferryboat, leaning out over the railing on the deck. Her hair is blowing out behind her and she is looking straight ahead over the blue water. She looks like a girl on the cover of a book. Something bad has happened to the girl, but she is brave, and looking out at the water and sky, all big and blue and shiny, she knows she will be all right. I see this picture again and again. I keep it inside me like grown-ups keep pictures of people in their wallets so they can look at them whenever they want.

What do you wear to a crepe party? I mean, what’s the right outfit for eating pancakes, aside from pajamas? I had no idea. On Saturday I figured I’d wait till Katy got to my house and she could help me pick something out. Only thing was, Katy never came. Two o’clock passed, then three o’clock. Finally at four I called her apartment. Mrs. Paoli answered.

“Hi. It’s Anna. Is Katy there?”

“We’re working on her room.”

“You mean moving B—” I had almost said “Bug Eye.” Yikes. “You’re moving Gem’s stuff?”

“Oh, we did that last night. Today we’re going to paint the room.”

“But what about the—” I stopped for a second. “Do you think I could talk to her?”

“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Paoli said. After a minute Katy came on.

“Hi,” she said. Like everything was normal.

“Hi,” I said. “Why aren’t you here?”

“What?”

“You said you were coming over. We were going to Kendra’s party from here.”

“I guess I forgot.”

“Forgot?”

“Yeah, I forgot. Don’t people forget things sometimes?”

“I guess they do. So when are you coming over?”

“I’m
doing
something, Anna.”

“Yeah, I heard. But we had a plan.”

“Is that all you can think of—your silly little plans?”

“Katy!”

“What? I mean it. There’s bigger things than Kendra’s stupid party.”

“Like painting your room?”

“Like changing everything in my house. Like what happened this week. As if you care—”

“I do care, Katy! You know I do.”

“Maybe you want to, Anna. But you really can’t understand.”

“About Sam, you mean?”

“Sam and a hundred other things. Your life’s so perfect, Anna. Your mom and dad and your great big nice apartment. You don’t understand what it’s like for me. Having no dad. My mom always being tired. My sister being so depressed that she spends her life wishing she had fairy wings. And by the way”—she paused for a breath—“I get it about the dress.”

“What?”

“I understand why your mom took us shopping at Goodwill. And my mom says I don’t have to wear that dress. She’s taking me back to Macy’s and buying me the dress I saw that I really liked. She doesn’t care how much it costs. So tell your mom you can keep the dress.
You
wear the dress if you like it so much!”

“Katy!” I cried.

“Goodbye,” she said. “Say hi to Kendra. Enjoy the crepes.” And just like that, she slammed down the phone. I stood there stunned. Like someone had hit me on the head. I couldn’t believe it was Katy saying those things to me!

“What’s with you?” my brother said, whisking past on his way to the fridge. I stood there speechless, still holding the phone.

He pulled out a bin of cold cuts, then turned around to look at me.

“Are you all right? You look like your best friend just died.”

“It’s like she did!” I blurted out. The telephone started beeping and he took it from my hand.

“You and Katy had a fight?”

“I didn’t have a fight with her. She had a fight with
me
!”

“Isn’t that kind of hard to do? Takes two to tango, like they say.”

“I’m telling the truth! I called to find out where she was, and she started yelling all this stuff.”

“Where is she?”

“Home. She was supposed to be here at two o’clock.

We were going to hang out and then go to Kendra’s party.”

“So what happened?”

“I don’t know! I asked her why she wasn’t here and she said she forgot. Like it didn’t matter to her at all. And then she said I only think about stupid things like Kendra’s stupid party and she wasn’t going to wear the dress from the Goodwill place Mom took us to—”

“Hey, slow down. You’re losing me.” I took a breath and it caught in my throat as I let it out.

“She said awful things. Like how I don’t understand her life because my life’s so great and perfect; how I’d never be able to understand, even if I wanted to.”

“I’m sure she didn’t mean that stuff. She’s just upset—wasn’t this the week they took Sam to the loony bin?”

“He isn’t in a loony bin!”

“The mental hospital, I mean. Didn’t they just take him there?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well, that’s probably why she’s so upset.”

“I’m upset too—I’ve been trying hard to cheer her up. Why is she being mean to
me
?”

“She’s just bummed out and feeling confused. She’s really sad, but it’s coming out mad. Hasn’t that ever happened to you?”

“I don’t know,” I told him.

“People do it all the time. Think about it, Anna.”

“Well, maybe when I was really young. Like if something broke, some really great toy.”

“That’s the idea.”

“And once, the top of my ice cream cone fell off.”

“I bet you screamed your head off—and two seconds later started to bawl. Well, that’s how Katy probably feels. Only having to put your brother away, well, that’s a whole lot bigger than having your ice cream cone go splat. Imagine how mad you would feel about that.”

“Yeah, I know. I’d feel like yelling at everyone—except for Katy. I’d never feel like yelling at her.”

“I think until it happens to you, you really don’t know how you’d feel.”

“Now you sound like Katy. Like I don’t understand and never will.”

“I didn’t say that—”

“Well, that’s how it sounds. Like Katy’s in this other place and I’ll never go there ’cause I’m too dumb.”

“Look, everything’s changed in Katy’s life—”

“And Katy won’t ever be the same?”

Tom paused for a second. “Maybe not. But it doesn’t mean you guys won’t go back to being best friends.”

“But what if she doesn’t want to?”

“Anna, come on. You guys have been friends forever. You just gotta give her a little time.”

“But what if a little time goes by and she still wants to go away from me like you’re gonna go away from us? Why do people keep going away?” All of a sudden I realized I was crying. Big dumb tears were dribbling down and I couldn’t make them stop.

“You’re crazy, Anna. Nobody’s going away from you.”

“Yes, you are. You know you are!”

“I’m going to college, if that’s what you mean. But I’ll always be, like, with you. You’re my little sister, you crazy nut. You’re never getting rid of me.”

“I don’t even know what’s true anymore! Everyone says it’s ‘best’ for Sam to go away, but if it’s ‘best,’ how come everyone’s so upset? You tell me you’ll be with me, but you won’t be with me; you’re going away just like Sam, and you won’t be living in our house, so how can you say I’m never getting rid of you? No one’s making any sense!”

“Anna, come on. It’s different with Katy’s brother. He can’t write to her or call her on the telephone. He can’t send her an e-mail every day.”

“You’ll send me an e-mail every day?”

“Well, maybe not every single day. But you’ll hear from me a lot. You’ll probably get sick of hearing from me. And I’ll be home on holidays and plenty of weekends too.” He reached to the counter and grabbed a paper napkin. “Here, you lunatic, blow your nose.”

I took the napkin. “It won’t be the same.”

“Of course not. Nothing ever stays the same. Imagine how boring it would be if it did.”

“But why does it have to change right now—and everything all at once?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s just the changing time. But what’s not gonna change—I mean, way down deep—is us, our family. You and me and Mom and Dad. We’re stuck forever with Krazy Glue.”

“I hope you’re right. That’s what I thought about Katy and me.”

“You and Katy will be just fine. It’s like I said, you have to give her a little time.” He messed up my hair to annoy me, I guess, and get my mind away from stuff. “Want a sandwich? I’ll fix you one.”

“I’m going to Kendra’s house for crepes.”

“Who are you gonna go with if Katy isn’t coming by?”

“I don’t know.”

“Want me to take you?”

“You serious?” He never took me anywhere.

“Yeah, of course. Just let me eat a sandwich. Go get ready—like comb your hair.” He smiled at me and opened the bin of cold cuts, pulling out some ham.

Chapter Eleven

When Tom’s away at Harvard, I thought, I’ll probably think of this day a lot. How nice it was walking together along Central Park. How warm and soft the air was. And how good he looked, the new green trees behind him, the blue sky shining through the patches between the leaves. I’ll think of the way we goofed around, hopping on and off the benches. How we started singing this stupid song—“The ants go marching one by one, the little one stops to suck his thumb”—over and over a million times.

Kendra’s apartment is in this big old building at West End Avenue and Ninety-first Street. In the lobby we met Yolanda and Tyesha, who were on their way up. Tom said goodbye and told me to have a great time, and I stood there watching him until he was out the door and around the corner of the building.

“He’s really cute,” Yolanda said as we rode in the elevator to the top floor.

“He’s smart too,” I bragged. “He’s going to Harvard in the fall.”

“Wow,” said Tyesha. They were both impressed. Even people who don’t know anything about colleges have heard of Harvard University.

When we got to Kendra’s apartment the door was open and we could hear kids’ voices echoing through the rooms. We went into the huge foyer and then followed the sounds to an even huger living room, where everyone was hanging around. Kendra’s mom came over and greeted us, then called out to Kendra, “More guests,
ma chérie
!” That last part is French, in case you don’t know. Kendra broke away from a group of kids she was talking to and came to say hello.

“Where’s Katy?” she said, looking behind me as if I was hiding Katy.

“She couldn’t come,” I said.

“Too bad,” she said, but it didn’t sound like she cared too much. She lowered her voice a little bit. “Michael’s here. He was, like, the second person to arrive. Anyway, come on in. Have something to drink. My aunt’s just about to serve the first batch of crepes.”

I went in and said hi to everybody. The girls were all standing together in one group and the boys were in another group over by the table where the sodas were. It’s always like that at parties until someone breaks the ice. Usually it’s Katy who gets things going. She goes over to the boys and says something like “Hey, Dylan, your shoe’s untied,” and he falls for it, of course, and everyone starts laughing and soon we’re having fun. But Katy wasn’t here, so everybody kept standing in their boy-girl corners.

Then all of a sudden Kendra’s mom announced that the crepes were ready. She waved us into the dining room to a table where there were lots of jars and bowls and plates and stuff. Another lady came in—Kendra’s famous aunt, of course—with a big tray of pancakes. She was wearing a huge apron with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it, and was all smiley and cheerful-looking. She set down the tray; then Katy’s mom told us to gather around. She demonstrated how to fix a crepe with whatever filling we wanted, then fold it up to eat. There was Nutella and about ten different kinds of jam and sauces and bowls of chopped-up nuts and stuff. There was also a plate of sliced lemons and a sprinkle jar of powdered sugar.

Suddenly no one was shy anymore and everyone jumped right in to take some crepes. It was so crowded around the table that I decided to wait a little while. I knew I wanted one crepe with Nutella and one with lemon and sugar, which Kendra’s mom had said was the way real French people like them best. I wandered out of the dining room and back into the living room to get some soda. Kendra’s family didn’t seem to like furniture much. In the living room there was just a couch and a couple of chairs facing a TV and some big modern paintings on the wall. There was a lot of empty space, only partly covered by a huge, exotic-looking rug. The place was so bare and echoey that the soda pouring into my plastic cup sounded like a waterfall. Or maybe everything just felt weird and wrong not having Katy there with me.

I took my soda and headed toward the window. It had no blinds or curtains, and I bet that at night people looked right inside while Kendra and her parents were watching TV. I took a sip of soda and when I turned back to the room, Michael was standing there alone.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“You can’t get near the table in there.”

“Yeah, I know. I figured I’d wait.”

He nodded. “So where’s Katy? I never see you without her.”

“She couldn’t come.”

“She sick?”

“No,” I said. “She just couldn’t come.” He was waiting for me to say something else. I cleared my throat. “She was painting her room.”

“She didn’t
want
to come, you mean.”

“Yeah, I guess.” And then I remembered that Kendra was throwing the party to welcome him back to town. “No, it’s not that she didn’t want to come. Her mom just wanted her to paint.” He was looking at me, unconvinced. Like he didn’t believe me. I felt I had to explain. “Do you know about her brother?”

“Kinda, yeah. My mom said he’s kind of slow.”

“It’s worse than just slow. He can hardly do anything for himself. He’s like a baby except he’s big.”

“Wow,” said Michael softly.

“And yesterday they put him in some kind of home. No one really wanted to, but things were so bad they had to.”

“That’s sad.”

“I know.”

“I can understand how she wouldn’t feel like going to a party. I didn’t really want to come.”

“You didn’t?”

“Nah. My mom said I had to ’cause Kendra and everyone meant well and went to so much trouble.”

“We’re all glad you’re back.”

“Yeah, thanks. The thing is, we’re not really back. We’ll be here till graduation, but after that we’re moving to New Jersey. My mom just told me yesterday.” I tried not to look upset, but the truth is, my stomach dropped right down to my toes. Another person going away! It seemed like it would never stop. “I guess it’ll be all right,” Michael went on. “My mom’s gonna buy a house and stuff. And like I said in that letter I wrote, the school out there is pretty nice.” Michael’s eyes went to the floor. “That letter I wrote but never mailed.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked him.

“I guess I thought you’d think it was weird.” Still looking down, he lowered his voice. “And you’d also know I liked you.”

What
had he said? Was I hearing right? He couldn’t have said what I thought he had. But then, very slowly, he raised his eyes, and that’s when I knew for sure.

“You’re different,” he said. “I can’t explain. You’re not like all the rest of them. And pretty too. And I really like your hair.” I wanted to say that I liked him too, but the words just wouldn’t come out of my mouth. The only thing I managed to say was “Wow, I wish you’d mailed it. The letter, I mean. It would’ve been nice.”

“Can I write you from New Jersey?” he asked.

“That’d be really great.”

“Good,” he said, sounding glad. He smiled at me and walked over to stand beside me. We looked out the window for a while, out toward the river beyond the rows of buildings to the purple sky all studded with lights. Then I felt him look at me. I turned my face and he leaned in close and very softly kissed my cheek.

“Is that okay?” he asked me. I told him it was.

And while I was standing there still in shock, Tyesha, Nancy and another girl came sailing out of the dining room holding their piled-high plates. They looked at us. “You don’t have crepes?” As if we were missing an arm or a leg.

“It was just kind of crowded,” Michael explained.

“Well, it’s okay now,” Tyesha said. “The chocolate sauce is the best.” There were dribbles of it on her chin. Other kids began to drift in, heading for the drinks. Michael and I went back for some crepes.

Normally I probably would have eaten about five of them, each filled with something different. But right now I could hardly eat. I’d just been
kissed
! I couldn’t wait to tell Katy! And then, of course, as soon as the thought came into my head, I remembered that I couldn’t tell Katy—Katy wasn’t speaking to me. That made me not want to eat at all. But in the end, I had two crepes, one with Nutella and one the French way, with powdered sugar and a lemon squirt. Kids kept coming back for more, and Kendra’s aunt—Simone was her name—kept filling up the tray.

Finally, when no one could eat another bite, Kendra asked the girls if we wanted to see her dress from France. It would have been rude to tell her no, especially with her aunt right there, so we all said yes and followed her to her room. It was at the end of a long, narrow hallway with nothing in it, not even a scatter rug. Our shoes made a lot of noise on the floor. Like the other rooms, Kendra’s was very large and bare. Her bed looked tiny pressed to the wall and her desk seemed lost, like a little boat on a great big sea.

The dress was hanging on the outside of the closet, as if she kept it there so she could stare at it all day. It was pretty, like Kendra had said, and I don’t know why, but it did look sort of special, like it came from somewhere else. Then Kendra’s mom said we had to see the shoes as well, and before Kendra could stop her, she’d opened the closet and pulled out a shoe box full of—Barbie dolls.

“Mama!” yelped Kendra, grabbing the box away from her. The Barbies clattered to the floor, and everyone could clearly see they weren’t old but extremely new, the very latest Barbie dolls. The shoe box was pink and shiny, and I figured Kendra pretended it was her Barbies’ car.

For the moment none of the kids said anything. I saw a few of them look at each other and cover their smiles, but no one dared to laugh out loud, not with Kendra’s mom and aunt right there. The grown-ups didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong. Though I knew they’d hear from Kendra the minute we were gone.

Soon we went back outside where the boys were, and we gave our gift to Michael. It was a big collage of photographs of our class from kindergarten up to now, and in the middle was a sign with the dates on it and the name of our school. It was kind of weird to look at ourselves how we used to be, in our woolen mittens with our bus passes pinned to our big puffy coats or dressed in costumes for Halloween. In every picture where I was, Katy was right next to me, her hair in braids tied with those little plastic balls.

Tyesha’s mom offered to drop me home since they’d pass my building on the way. My mom seemed glad when I called to say she didn’t have to pick me up. She was hanging out with my dad alone, which didn’t happen all that much. As we started to leave, Michael came up behind me.

“I’ll see you in school on Monday.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Tell Katy hi. I’m sorry about her brother.” I didn’t tell him I wouldn’t be seeing Katy or even talking to her on the phone.

When I got home my mom and dad were drinking some wine in the living room. They really seemed relaxed. They wanted to know all about the crepe party. I had this weird feeling that they could tell I was different—that I’d been kissed. But of course, that was silly. They’d never imagine a thing like that. They also wanted to know how Katy was doing after yesterday. I told them she hadn’t gone to the party because she was painting her new room, but I didn’t mention the argument. I felt like if I mentioned it, it would all be real, and I wanted so hard to believe it wasn’t.