Spring

It’s been seven weeks since Rachel and I stopped speaking. At the bus stop in the morning she doesn’t even look at me. She and Dana stand together, talking and laughing. Sometimes they talk so softly I can’t hear what they’re saying. I wish Alison would hurry and get better. I hate standing at the bus stop by myself. I’ve never felt so left out in my life. It’s as if I’m invisible, as if I don’t exist. Well, fine. Because as far as I’m concerned, Rachel Robinson doesn’t exist either. Besides, I have more important things on my mind, such as what happens on May first when Dad starts working in New York?

I took Alison’s homework assignments to her but the first three days she was too sick to do anything. Leon let me peek into her room. Seeing her like that, so small and pale with her eyes closed, frightened me. I guess Leon could tell because he said, “It looks worse than it is. She’s going to be fine.”

Later that week when I got to her house, Alison was sitting up in bed, sipping grape juice. “I feel a little better,” she said, coughing.

“I can tell.”

She held up a book—What to Name the Baby. “I’m trying to find a good name for him. You’d be amazed at how many names there are. So far Mom likes Alexander, Leon likes Edward and Sadie Wishnik likes Nelson …”

“Nelson?” I said.

“I know,” Alison said, “it’s terrible.” She laughed a little but that made her start coughing again. “You better not come too close.”

“I’m not afraid of catching it,” I said. Actually, the idea of a week in bed, with Mrs. Greco making me cinnamon toast and camomile tea, didn’t sound all that bad.

“It’s good I didn’t go to Paris after all,” Alison said. “I’d have been stuck there with the flu.”

“Yeah … and without Leon to take care of you.”

“I’ve decided to wait and see what happens. Maybe it won’t be that bad. And if it is, I can always leave after the baby is born.”

“Right,” I said. Maizie came in and jumped up on Alison’s chair. “Guess what?” I asked, running my fingers along Maizie’s back. “My father’s coming back to work in New York.”

“When?” Alison asked.

“May first.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“I wish I knew!”

“Well, at least you’ll be able to see him whenever you want.”

I nodded.

“Leon says you can feel spring in the air today,” Alison said, lying back against her pillows. “I wish I could go outside. I hate staying in bed.”

“You’ll be better soon,” I told her. “Did you hear that Dana and Jeremy are going to the ninth grade prom together?”

“No ….”

“I heard Dana telling Rachel at the bus stop this morning.”

“Is she wearing his bracelet again?”

“No, they decided it was the bracelet that was the problem.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Are you sure you heard right?”

“Yes. I listen to everything they have to say. Besides, she’s humming under her breath again.”

“The way she did when they first started going out?”

“Yes … the same way, only louder.”

Alison yawned. “I think I’ll take a nap now.”

“Okay … see you tomorrow.”

Jeremy Dragon is back to wearing his chartreuse jacket. He bumped into me in the hallway at school. I saw him coming but he didn’t see me and we collided. I suppose I could have stepped aside but I didn’t. He knocked my books out of my arms.

“Hey, Macbeth!” he said. “Long time, no see.”

“I’m still on your bus.”

“Well … long time, no notice.”

I could smell his breath and his hair and a woodsy scent coming from his shirt as he crouched next to me, helping to gather my books. I got tingles everywhere. Dana is so lucky!

I had trouble concentrating for the rest of the day. I was still thinking about him that afternoon when I got off the bus. Rachel and I were the only ones to get off at Palfrey’s Pond. I walked behind her, humming to myself. The crocuses were beginning to bloom. I love the way they work themselves out of the ground. One day there’s nothing there and the next, little blue, yellow and white flowers.

Rachel walked with her books under one arm. Her hair bounced up and down, instead of side to side, like Alison’s. I thought about catching up with her and saying, What’s new? But I didn’t know how she’d react.

I followed Rachel all the way to her house without thinking. When we got there she turned around and faced me. For a minute I thought she was going to tell me to get lost and I started thinking of what I’d say if she did. But instead her face softened. “I’ll walk you home …” she said, as if she were asking my permission.

I nodded.

This time we walked next to each other but we didn’t speak. When we got to my house I said, “I’ll walk you home.”

Then she nodded. Halfway there I said, “You want to talk about it?”

“Do you?” she asked.

“I don’t even remember how it started.”

“You told Amber that Max liked me.”

“Oh, right … I never did get what was so bad about that.”

“It was just the last straw,” Rachel said. “I was so mad at you by then.”

“For what?”

“Because you didn’t like me anymore.”

“No,” I said, “you were the one who didn’t like me!”

“I didn’t like you because you didn’t like me!” Rachel said. “You were best friends with Alison and everyone knew it.”

“But you had Stacey Green,” I told her. “You didn’t want to be my best friend anymore.”

“That’s because you didn’t want to be mine!” Rachel shifted her books from one arm to the other. “I felt it was some kind of competition … me against Alison … and I was always losing.”

“You acted like you were too grown-up to hang around with us.”

“I was trying to get back at you for leaving me out.”

“We never left you out. It was always the three of us.”

“I felt left out. I felt you weren’t my best friend anymore.”

“You can have more than one best friend at a time,” I said.

“No, you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because best means best.”

I thought about that. “What about close?” I asked. “You can have more than one close friend at a time, can’t you?”

Rachel thought that over. “I guess so.”

“And close is as good as best!”

“I don’t necessarily agree,” Rachel said.

“But it’s better to be friends than not to be friends … you agree with that … right?”

“Well, yes,” Rachel said, “if you’re talking about true friends.”

“Yes, I’m talking about true friends.”

“Then it’s definitely better to be than not to be.” Rachel stuck her tongue into her cheek. “I think that’s a line from Shakespeare,” she said.

“I wouldn’t know,” I told her.

“I hear you got your period,” Rachel said.

“Yeah, I did. But only one time, so far.”

“And you’ve lost weight, too.”

“I’m not as hungry as I used to be. Mom says my hormones are adjusting.”

“Do you still have that stupid poster over your bed?”

“You mean Benjamin Moore?”

Rachel laughed. “I always liked that poster.”

“Are you still throwing around big words?”

“You mean literally or figuratively?”

“Ha ha,” I said. I had no idea what those words meant.

When we got to Rachel’s house we stopped. “I hear you broke up with Max.”

“He was a complete airhead,” Rachel said. “I hear you’re going with Peter Klaff.”

“We’re not exactly going together. We’re friends, is more like it.”

Rachel put her books down on the front steps and fished her key out of her bag.

“My father’s coming back to work in New York,” I said.

“I know. My mother ran into your Aunt Denise.”

“Is that how you found out about my parents in the first place?”

“Yes.” Rachel unlocked her front door but didn’t go inside. “Look … I shouldn’t have said those things about your parents. I’m sorry. I guess I was trying to hurt you the way you hurt me.”

“I never tried to hurt you.”

“But you did.”

“Then I’m sorry, too,” I told her.

“So … you want to come to my concert on the fifteenth? I’ve got a solo.”

“Sure.”

“You don’t have to come,” Rachel said. “I just want you to know you’re invited. And you can bring Alison.”

“I don’t have to bring her.”

“No, I want you to. I like Alison.”

“Okay, I’ll ask her. She’s got the flu. I’m on my way to her house now.”

“Tell her I hope she feels better.”

“I will.”

“See you tomorrow,” Rachel said.

“Yeah … see you tomorrow.”

I saw a bee buzzing around the forsythia bush in front of Alison’s house. I’ll have to start wearing my bee-sting necklace, I thought. I wonder what Alison will say when I tell her Rachel and I are speaking again, that maybe we are even friends. Probably she’ll be glad. I broke off a sprig of forsythia and rang Alison’s bell.