Hope Is a Ferris Wheel (20 page)

But I still wanted
something
.

The phone rang, and Mom got up to answer it. I decided I'd been in the bathroom long enough, and anyway, my bed was a lot comfier than the toilet. Besides, even though I was trying, I couldn't stay mad at Mom anymore. In a
way, I was hoping she'd lied to me again, but I knew this time she was telling me the truth.

“Hello?” Mom said into the phone. “Yes, this is her … Really? No, that's a surprise to me, too … Of course I will. Thank you so much.” She hung up the phone, then stood over the sink for a few moments. “Why is it that you and your sister are so in sync these days?” she asked me. “That was Sarah Borne. Apparently Winter forged a note to get out of school today.”

W
inter didn't get home until about 5:00, while Mom was picking up Gloria from work. Her truck rattled into the driveway, and as soon as she came in the door, I told her, “Mom knows you cut school today.”

She had one arm out of her coat already but left the other one in. “You told her?”

“The school called.”

“She wasn't out with Gloria?”

I hadn't thought it was actually my fault, Mom finding out; I just wanted to warn Winter. “I got into a fight at school,” I said, without looking at her. “They called Mom and sent me home early.” I almost told her about the
returned letter, but I hadn't ever told her that I'd sent it in the first place, and I didn't feel like explaining.

“Who'd you get into a fight with?” she asked.

“Denny Libra,” I said, quietly.

She froze. Except for her face, which began to frown, pulling her eyes and her eyebrows with it. “Did he … say anything? About me?”

I didn't want Winter to know what Denny had said, but I did want to ask her something. “Why did you want to get back together with Allie? Is he the father of your baby?”

Winter sank down at the built-in table, nodding. “I don't want to get back together with him, but I don't know what else to do.”

I couldn't believe she was actually talking to me. I stayed quiet, knowing that if I said the wrong thing, she could be gone again.

“I'm tired of this,” she said. “I don't know what I'm doing, but I don't want to keep it a secret anymore.”

I reached over and took her hand. “Everything will get better soon,” I said, hoping it was true.

Then footsteps crunched across the gravel and up the steps, and the door swung open, revealing Mom and Gloria. It was one of the few times I'd seen Gloria without a single donut.

“Oh, Winter's here,” Gloria said. “I think I'll go back to
my trailer. This might be a good time to dump that microwave into the bay.”

But Mom grabbed Gloria's arm and said, “Stay for a minute.” The two of them stepped inside, and the door clicked closed behind them. “So,” Mom said to Winter, “you gonna tell me where you were today?”

I tried to think of a good lie Winter could give, a good excuse for why she wasn't at school. But Winter must have decided that she was tired of keeping such a huge secret. “I saw a doctor.”

“You went to a doctor?” Mom looked like she wanted to laugh. “After you refused to see one when you were actually sick, you decided to see a doctor now?” And then, just like that, the laughter was gone, and she said, “You're not sick, are you?”

“No,” Winter said, her hand cradling her forehead. “I'm pregnant.”

Mom didn't shrink at all. Her whole body was frozen, so I don't think she could have shrunk even if she wanted to. “No,” Mom said. “You can't be serious. How could this happen?”

“Well, it happened to you, didn't it?” Winter said.

And still, Mom didn't shrink an inch. I couldn't believe she wasn't screaming. Maybe she'd used all her screaming energy on me.

“Well, I think it's time for me to go,” Gloria said. “Come on, Star. Let's leave for a bit.”

She didn't say where we were going, but I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay and make sure Winter would be all right. But Winter pulled me out of the table and gave me a little shove in Gloria's direction, so we left her and Mom staring at each other from across the linoleum.

“How mad do you think Mom's gonna be?” I asked Gloria as we made our way to the car.

Gloria shook her head. “Never would have thought this would happen to Winter, too. That sure is something.” She unlocked the passenger's-side door for me and said, “Don't worry about Winter, though, sweetie. She'll be fine. Your mom's just upset because Winter turned out to be more like her than she wanted. I think she hoped the both of you would grow up without all the hardships she went through. But she'd love you no matter what. And so would I.” We got in the car, and she rubbed the top of my hair.

“Gloria,” I said, “did you give me a mullet?”

“It's a layered cut,” she said automatically. But after peering critically at it for a moment, she added, “It was my first layered cut, though, so maybe it didn't turn out quite right. You want me to even it out for you?”

“Maybe,” I said. I didn't think it would stop the teasing.
If I didn't have a mullet, they'd all just find something else to make fun of. Besides, I liked my mullet for now. “Maybe next year.”

She clapped her hands together, grinning. “Great! What do you say we go rent a movie? You ever seen
A League of Their Own
?”

The library was closed, but Gloria said she'd splurge on a rental. We were the only two customers in the movie store, and while Gloria browsed the new-releases section, I checked out the candy displays. Next to a wall of chocolate bars was a spinning rack of postcards.

“Hey, Gloria,” I yelled. I didn't think the woman working behind the register would mind the noise, since it was just us. “If you mail someone a postcard, can they send it back?”

“Not unless your address is on there,” Gloria called out. “Can't send something back without a return address, you know.”

Just what I'd been hoping. I spun the rack around and around, looking for a postcard that would not look like it came from California. No redwoods, and no giant Paul Bunyan statue either. Dad—Frankie—had to read it before he knew who it was from.

The one I picked out had
Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman
written on it, along with a fifty-foot woman attacking people.
I raced up just as the woman behind the counter was telling Gloria the total. “This too, please.”

“You writing to someone?” Gloria asked. “Someone back in Oregon?”

“Yup,” I said. I just had to figure out what I'd write. I'd probably only get one chance, because then, after that, he'd just throw every postcard with my handwriting on it away.

By the time we got back to the trailer, Mom and Winter were done with their discussion, or argument, or whatever had happened. And nothing was broken. Mom said it was thanks to me, because if I hadn't made her feel like such a horrible mother—a horrible, lying, selfish mother—she would have hit the roof. Instead, they both sat on the foldout couch, wrapped up in a quilt.

It was the closest I'd ever seen them.

Maybe it was because Mom knew how Winter was feeling, or maybe it was the other way around. But it was the first time Winter seemed happy to have Mom there.

“I got two movies,” Gloria said, and she held them up. Mom pointed to one, and Winter pointed to the other.

“Oh, come on, Winter,” Mom said. “It's a classic.”

“It's in black and white, and it looks totally boring.”

“Me and Gloria used to watch it all the time.”

“Gloria and
I
, Mom.”

“You know what I meant.”

We didn't end up seeing either movie, because Mom and Winter spent the rest of the night arguing over which one to watch. It was a silly thing to argue about, but I guess they had to argue about
something
.

W
inter offered me a ride to school the next day, which I of course accepted, since it meant I wouldn't have to
traverse
the whole twelve blocks on foot. And also because I wanted to know what Mom and Winter had said to each other the night before, after I'd gone to bed.

“It was weird,” Winter said, as we buckled our seat belts. “Mom said that it was my decision and that she supported me no matter what.”

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

“I still don't know. Isn't that terrible?” She took a sharp turn onto the next street, which nearly threw me against the window. “But I'm feeling a lot better about it now.
Mom says I should tell Allie, so I'll probably do that soon. I mean, I don't really care what he thinks, but maybe … I don't know. I guess I could see him being a good dad. We'll see.”

We pulled up to the school a minute later. Winter turned into the parking lot instead of just dropping me off, and when she found a spot, she turned off the truck. “We're early,” she said. “I wanted to tell you I'm sorry for being so mean lately. I was just freaking out, and I didn't want to deal with anything else.” Her hand reached across the middle seat and grabbed mine. “I wonder if that's how our dads felt.”

“They didn't want to deal with us?” I said.

“I didn't understand until we went to his house,” Winter said, “but Robert really isn't that great. And I remember, when I was little, how everything was always on his terms. One day he suddenly decides he wants to see me at the fair. Or then he decides he wants to send me a birthday card. But you know what? I bet if I'd written him back, he wouldn't have answered. It's a good thing I was too scared to write to him and tell him I was going to visit,” she added. “Otherwise he might not have been there. Although maybe that would have been better.”

But if we'd never talked to Robert, I wouldn't know who
my
real dad was. And even though he'd refused my letter,
I wanted to get through to him anyway. I wanted him to know that even if he wasn't thinking about me, I was still here. I told Winter that, and I showed her the postcard with
Dear Frankie
written on it and nothing else. I hadn't decided what to write yet.

“But I'll figure it out myself,” I said. Whatever I ended up writing, I didn't want it to come from Winter. It had to come from me.

“If you insist,” Winter said, just as the bell rang. I started to move out of the truck, but Winter held my hand tightly. “You have any other problems you need help with?” she asked. “I want to make it up to you.”

There were so many. Denny was always going to be a problem, I figured. People were still calling me Star Trashy, and Langston liked me, whatever that meant. And of course, the biggest problem of all: I still had no club.

But I did have hope. It had started spinning again after I'd talked to Mom. And maybe it was stupid to think so, but hope was telling me that things really were going to be okay.

“Don't worry about me,” I told Winter. “Are you going to be okay?” I asked as she leaned over to hug me good-bye. “I was afraid it was because we're half sisters,” I whispered into her hair. “That that's why you wouldn't talk to me anymore. Because you didn't like me anymore.”

“Yeah, right,” she whispered back.

I waved as she pulled out of the parking lot. And then I kind of wished I had asked her for help, because maybe, just maybe, everything wasn't going to be okay.

But I willed that Ferris wheel to keep on moving by putting one foot in front of the other until I finally got to class.