Promise Me Something (13 page)

To the same guy he called limp-wristed?

Yeah, Tim Ferguson.

I used to have a teacher like that too.

Did you ever say anything to him?

Her. No, I didn’t.

Why not?

I was too busy with other things. For example, trying to off myself with sleeping pills.

Jesus, Grace.

It was the year I came out.

That sucks.

She had no idea how close I came to succeeding.

She should have been fired.

So should your teacher. Maybe you should write a letter to the principal or something. Do what I should have done.

And out myself in the process? No thanks.

He deserves it, though.

That’s true.

The very worst.

I know.

I
was putting on my boots to bike to Abby’s house when the phone rang.

“Don’t come,” she said. “I’m not there.”

I let go of my shoelace and watched it drop to the floor. Not there? As we spoke, Dad was in the shower singing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” at the top of his lungs while Lucy made him breakfast. Literally the
only
thing stopping me from marching over and slamming his door was the fact that I was in a hurry to leave for Abby’s house. We were planning to kick off winter break with an all-day ’90s movie marathon.

But not anymore apparently. “I’m on my way to the airport,” Abby said over the sound of traffic. “Dad surprised us last night with tickets to Puerto Rico. Awesome, right?”

Awesome?
I felt my stomach drop. “You’re leaving the country?”

“Technically Puerto Rico is part of—”

“Whatever!” I said. “You’re leaving? Just like that?”

Abby didn’t sound even remotely guilty. “It was a Hanukkah present,” she said. “Mostly for Mom, since she’s been so stressed lately with work—”

“You can’t leave!” I burst out. “This was our week to spend together.” I felt like a baby, but it was true. Leah was going to Disney World with her gymnastics team. Madison’s family was on their annual ski trip in Colorado. Abby and I were supposed to be stuck in Springdale together just like last year. It was the natural order of the universe.

“Rey, I have to go. I have to call Jeremy and the others. I called you first, of course.”

Probably only because I was on my way to her house. A hard knot was forming at the base of my throat. “Didn’t you hear me?” I asked. “This was supposed to be our week together.”

“Actually, the reception is kind of bad right now.” Abby’s voice came through my phone garbled. “We’re halfway through a tunnel.”

Anger and disappointment swirled through me like a dust storm. “I never get to see you anymore,” I said, my voice dangerously wobbly.

“Hello? Did you say something?”

“I never get to see you,” I repeated. “We’re practically just acquaintances now.” Then I hung up before she could tell I was on the verge of crying. It was going to be a long week.

Instead of riding my bike to Abby’s house, I rode to the most depressing place I could think of—the mall. I spent four hours there, wandering from booth to booth, letting pushy salespeople sell me a pair of fingerless mittens, polarized sunglasses, and exfoliating skin lotion from the Dead Sea. On Sunday I went to Mass. On Monday, I finished all my homework for the entire vacation. On Tuesday—the day before Christmas—Dad finally agreed to watch some ’90s movies with me, but he fell asleep on the couch twenty minutes into
Dumb and Dumber
. I watched the entire thing, not laughing even once, and then channel-surfed for a good hour before Lucy came home from her Pilates class and flopped down on the loveseat.

“Anything good on TV?” she asked.

“Nope,” I said, handing her the remote. There were still six hours left before dinner, and if I checked Facebook one more time, I thought I might puke. So I followed Dad’s example and snuggled into the couch, burrowing my feet under the fuzzy throw blanket I got him for Christmas in fourth grade. Then I closed my eyes and tried with all my might to sleep through the rest of vacation.

When I got so bored I thought my skull might crack, I called Gretchen.

A woman whose voice sounded like Martha Stewart answered the phone. “
The
Reyna Fey?” she asked when I said my name. “Gretchen’s told me all about you, sweetheart!”

I tried not to feel creeped out as she re-invited me to the Palmer Family New Year’s party on Tuesday night and gave me directions, all before wishing me a Merry Christmas and passing the phone to her daughter. By the time Gretchen picked up, there wasn’t much left to say. “How’s your break going?” I asked.

“Good—really good!” said Gretchen, clearly distracted. I heard laughter in the background and wondered if the Slutty Nurses were with her.

“Mine too,” I lied. “I’m baking cookies with my friend Abby. Actually, I have frosting all over my hands right now—I should probably go.”

“Me too!” said Gretchen. “Only, egg whites, not frosting. My mom and I are making eggnog.” She laughed again. “Mom, put that down!”

So it wasn’t the Slutty Nurses she was hanging out with. It was worse. I felt an ache in the pit of my stomach, wishing I could frost Christmas cookies one last time with Mom.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” said Gretchen. “You have to write a New Year’s resolution on a slip of paper and bring it with you to the party. Only don’t put your name on it, OK?”

“OK—”

“Ciao, Reyna!” The line went dead. As I stood there with the phone still held up to my ear, I pictured Gretchen and her mother sitting in Martha Stewart’s kitchen, clinking their glasses of eggnog together. It was enough to kill my appetite for the rest of the evening.

I slept late on Christmas morning. I probably would have slept all day if Dad hadn’t knocked on my door and threatened to give my presents to charity.

So I dragged myself barefoot into the living room, my hair a gnarled mess. I could see the nest of it in my peripheral vision, but I didn’t bother to grab a brush. Instead I just pulled my arms into the body of my sweatshirt and hugged myself to keep warm.

“Morning, Reyna!” said Lucy, sitting cross-legged on the carpet next to the Christmas tree. She was wearing red and green pajamas with fluffy reindeer slippers. Rudolf’s bulbous nose wiggled over her big toe every time she bounced her knees.

“Merry Christmas,” I said with zero enthusiasm, dropping to sit on the floor. I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge, utterly devoid of cheer. I was half-debating going back to bed when Dad pulled up a chair and Lucy handed me a small yellow envelope. I pulled my hand out of the warmth of my sweatshirt to take it from her.

“This is for you,” she said with a nervous glance at Dad. “From both of us.”

“Thanks,” I said as I slid my finger under the flap of the envelope. She wasn’t about to win me over with a gift, but I did my best to smile politely. It was all I could do to stop myself from pointing out that she had used an old quilt of Mom’s as a skirt for the Christmas tree.

She grinned, perfectly oblivious. “Go on. Open it.”

Inside the envelope was a gift certificate to the Gramercy Concert Hall downtown, where popular bands performed. The card read:

Dear Reyna,

Merry Christmas! This is for two tickets to a concert of your choice.

Love, Dad and Lucy.

“Thanks!” I felt a rush of excitement followed almost immediately by a sudden drop in my stomach. There were two tickets. Who would I bring? Dad was watching me, so I mustered a smile in his direction. There was no need to ruin his Christmas with the fact that I had no friends.

“Here,” I said, reaching under the tree and passing him a small rectangular box with a bow on top. “I thought these might be useful.”

“Polarized sunglasses?” said Dad, tearing off the wrapping before I’d even finished my sentence. “Very nice! Thanks, Rey.” He leaned over to kiss me on the head.

Lucy reached for the gift bag with her name, carefully removed the tissue paper, and pulled out a small tub of lotion barely larger than her fist. “Exfoliating cream,” she read off the label. “From the Dead Sea. Cool!” She leaned over to hug me too. I stiffened at first, but relaxed when I saw Dad’s expression. He flashed me a grateful smile behind her back.

We opened the rest of the presents under the tree and ate breakfast together—eggs with sausage. Dad and Lucy did most of the talking while I behaved like a perfectly polite avatar of myself. Only when I glanced down at my spoon and saw my freakishly bug-eyed reflection did I feel, for a split second, like me.

By the time New Year’s Eve rolled around, I didn’t know whether to dread Gretchen’s party or look forward to it. On the one hand, she had been nice to invite me. On the other hand, I got the sense that if I said no, my social life would be doomed for the rest of high school.

The whole drive to her house, I pictured Dad dropping me off in front of a giant beehive with honeycomb windows. Inside, a swarm of bees would lounge around with champagne flutes full of honey, toasting the New Year.

As it turned out, Gretchen lived in a brick house with a slew of inflatable, light-up reindeer prancing across the roof. Dad whistled at the display when he dropped me off. “Must do wonders for their electric bill,” he said, shaking his head.

As I started to remind him not to pick me up until one a.m., Gretchen’s front door swung open. “Reyna!” she called, popping her head out. “You’re just in time!”

She must have been freezing—she was wearing a tank top—so I scooped up my purse, hurried out of the car, and waved good-bye to Dad. As soon as I got up the steps, Gretchen enveloped me in a hug like we’d been friends forever. Then she led me inside, babbling about eggnog and virgin piña coladas. Right away, I could see why none of the Slutty Nurses stood up to her on Halloween. Being on Gretchen Palmer’s good side was like walking around with a giant VIP badge. For once, I actually felt wanted.

Inside, her house looked more like a preschool than it did a Martha Stewart magazine. There were wicker baskets everywhere holding board games, DVDs, and random toys. Gretchen’s four younger brothers ran around playing tag in the living room while adults wandered in and out of the kitchen, carrying cocktails and little cubes of cheese on toothpicks.

Lennie King and the other Slutty Nurses were sitting in a corner around a game table, eating from a gigantic bowl of chips. There was a basket on the table next to it, and as we got closer, I realized it contained half a dozen scraps of paper. “Did you bring your New Year’s resolution?” Gretchen asked, leading the way.

“Yeah,” I said, pulling it out of my pocket.

“Good.” She snatched it from my hand and dropped it into the basket with the other pieces of paper. “Now we can get started.”

“Get started with what?” I asked.

She looked at me with an evil smile. “Pick a resolution from the basket, but don’t tell anyone what it is.”

Reluctantly, I reached out and selected a scrap of paper. It was folded over twice, and when I opened it, I saw two words written in colored pencil:
Jamie Pollock.

I knew that name. Jamie was a chubby girl in my math class. I didn’t know much about her except that she played in the ninth grade orchestra. It was hard to miss her wandering the halls with her giant cello on wheels.

“I’ll go first so you can see how it works,” said Gretchen, snatching another piece of paper from the basket. When she saw what was written inside, she grinned. “Lennie, you must have written this one. I’d recognize your handwriting anywhere.”

“What does it say?” asked the Slutty Nurse named Emma.

“John Quincy,” said Gretchen. I knew John. He was a curly-haired soccer player in my history class—sort of a class clown.

“Date, demolish, or dump?” asked Lennie.

“You should date him,” answered Gretchen. “Obviously.”

I felt like I was in a foreign country. “How exactly does this work?”

“You have to guess whose resolution it is,” Gretchen explained. “And then you have to say either date, demolish, or dump. Not what you’d want, but what you think the writer intended.”

My cheeks grew warm as I thought of the New Year’s resolution I’d written on my piece of paper. “You didn’t tell me that on the phone,” I said, reaching for the basket to find it. Mine was the small yellow sticky note folded over twice. I could take it out of the pile, if I could find it—