For Keeps (10 page)

“I didn’t hear it ring,” I tell her, which isn’t a lie. The battery’s dead and my charger’s at home.

“Well, when exactly were you planning on calling me? I had no idea where you were.”

“I left a note,” I say, keeping my tone cool.

“Where?”

“Right there, on the kitchen counter. Next to the fruit bowl.”

There’s a pause. The sound of footsteps. Then she says, “Well . . . you still should have called.”

“Right. The way you
always
call when you’re out with Jonathan, to let me know
exactly
when you’ll be coming home.”

If this were a sarcasm contest, I’d be kicking ass.

“This isn’t about Jonathan. This is about you and me, and the fact that I am still your mother, and because I am your mother, I need to know where you are.”

“Right,” I say. “As I indicated. With the note.”

“Besides which,” she continues, like she hasn’t heard a word I’ve said, “it’s a school night. And I don’t think you should be having sleepovers on school nights. You need your rest.”

I love how she’s trying to sound all parental right now. How many school nights have I spent sitting next to her on the couch, watching
90210
until midnight?

“Is Jonathan there?” I ask.

“No. He just dropped me off.”

Of course he did
, I want to say.
Because you can’t go a single day without seeing him, can you?

But I don’t. What I do is mutter good-bye and toss the phone onto a chair beside the couch.

Liv raises her eyebrows. “What was
that
?”

“What?”

“I’ve never heard you talk to Kate like that.”

I shrug.

“You sounded like
Mel
.”

“Yeah, well. My mom is starting to sound a lot like Mrs. Jaffin.”

Liv doesn’t say anything, just shakes her head and starts playing with some fringe on the edge of a pillow.

“What,” I say.

“Nothing.”

“You obviously have something to say, so say it.”

Liv turns to me, and her eyes are serious. She tells me I don’t know how lucky I am to have Kate. She says that she wouldn’t trade Pops and Dodd for anything, but it’s not the same. It’s not like having a mom to talk to.

“Well . . . you
have
a mom, technically.”

Liv shoots me a look.

“What? You do.”

“An egg donor surrogate is not a
mom
. She’s an
incubator
.”

“Not
just
an incubator,” I say. “She sends Christmas cards.”

It’s true. Every year, Liv and Wyatt’s egg-donor surrogate sends a Christmas card from Minnesota, wishing the Weiss-Longos a warm and wonderful new year. I am tempted to point out that Paul Tucci has never sent
me
a Christmas card, but I decide to keep this to myself. Because Liv is frowning.

“You’re right, Josie. Those Christmas cards are just like a real mom! Just
chock-full
of maternal wisdom and comfort. . . . I feel such a
kindred connection
to the annual Hallmark greeting that represents the
random woman
Pops and Dodd
paid
to lug me around in her womb for nine months—”

“OK, OK,” I say.

But Liv isn’t finished. “We’re so close, me and my egg-donor surrogate, we communicate telepathically!”

I wince and tell her I’m sorry. Because I am. I never should have brought it up.

She sighs. “Whatever. You’re completely missing my point. Do you want to hear it, or not?”

I don’t, but I nod anyway.

“You shouldn’t take Kate for granted, Josie. She’s a great mom. The more you fight with her—”

“We’re not
fighting
.”

“OK, the worse you treat her—”

“Me?”
I say. “There were two sides to that conversation, Liv. You only heard one.”

She shakes her head. “Regardless, you
still
have a choice about how you act.”

I stare at her, feeling my face heat up. “And this is your business because . . .”

“I’m your best friend.”

“You could have fooled me,” I say, surprised at the hardness in my voice. “You always take my mom’s side, you know that? . . . You think she can do no wrong. Well, let me tell you something: She can.”

“It’s not about taking
sides
, Josie. I love you both.” Liv reaches over, touching my arm with her hand.

I shake it off. “Whatever.” Then, sounding like a ten-year-old girl on the playground, I say, “I thought best friends meant total loyalty.”

“It
does,
” Liv says. “I
am
.”

I don’t respond. We sit in silence for a while. Then, she says, “Are you still pissed?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Would you feel better if you smacked me upside the head?”

“Yes,” I say again. I can feel myself start to smile but fight it.
“
Smack upside the head” is one of Liv’s and my favorite expressions. Ever since second grade, when Timmy O’Keefe threatened to smack our gym teacher, Mr. Lyons, upside the head, for telling him he threw like a girl.

“Go on, then,” Liv says, leaning in closer. “Smack me. Right upside the head. And after that, I’ll smack
you
upside the head.”

I smirk, bite my lip, smirk again.

And then, of course, I crack up.

Ten

IN THE MORNING,
when I get out of the shower, Liv is sitting at her desk in her pajamas, staring at the computer.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

She shrugs.

I lean in to look.

“Pregnant Teen Help dot org?”

She nods.

I swallow. “Please tell me you’re researching something for school . . . some health project, or . . .”

Silence.

“Liv.”

More silence.

“Oh my God, are you serious?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“You think you’re . . .”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I just yakked.” She points to the trash can. “I couldn’t even make it to the bathroom.”

“Well,” I say briskly, “you probably just have that stomach bug. The one Schuyler had. She was out all last week.”

“Did Schuyler’s boobs hurt?”

“Your
boobs
hurt?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, do they or don’t they?”

She shakes her head again. “Maybe. A little. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. But my period’s late. I know that.”

“
How
late?”

“Three days.”

I breathe out. “Well,” I say. I grab the other desk chair, sit down next to her. “Three days is nothing.”

“You think?” she says, looking at me with eyes that are suddenly too big for her face.

“Listen to me,” I say. “I’ve been three days late before. I’ve been a whole
week
late. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“Well, not if you’re a
virgin
.”

“Well, yeah. Obviously. But even if you’re not a virgin. . . . Wait. You and Finn
have
been using protection, right?”

“Of course.”

“Every time?”

Liv gives me a look. “Josie, do you think I’m an idiot?”

“No. No, of course I don’t. Just . . . Liv, you cannot freak out over three days. You’ll drive yourself crazy.”

“I know. I am.”

“It could be stress, hormones, diet. . . . All sorts of things can affect your cycle.”

“I know.”

I hesitate, then ask, “Do you want to take a . . . you know . . . test?”

She shakes her head. “Not yet. I don’t want to know yet. I just want to . . . not know for a few more days.”

“OK, so we’ll wait, then. And stay calm.”

“Right.” Liv nods. “OK. You do the calm part, though, because I don’t know if I can.”

“I will,” I tell her.

“Thanks.”

We hug. I hold on tight, too, because something just dawned on me.
This
is where Liv was coming from last night.
This
is why she went off on me. Her whole “you’re so lucky to have Kate, you shouldn’t take Kate for granted” spiel now makes perfect sense. Liv really needs a real mom to talk to. Not just an egg-donor surrogate from Minnesota who doesn’t know squat.

All day, I try to make her laugh. “Hey, Liv,” I say as we’re changing for gym, “I have a joke for you. Knock-knock.”

“Josie. I’m really not in the mood.”

“Come on,” I say. “Knock-knock.”

She heaves a sigh. “Who’s there?”

“Norma Lee.”

“Norma Lee who?”

“Normalee I don’t go around knocking on doors, but would you like to buy a set of encyclopedias?”

Liv doesn’t exactly laugh, but her lips twitch a little, which is good enough for me.

When we’re on the bus to our game against Palmer Regional, I try again. “So there are these two muffins in the oven, right?”

“If you say so,” Liv says.

“They’re both sitting there, just chilling and getting baked. After a while, one muffin yells, ‘God damn, it’s hot in here!’ and the other muffin replies, ‘Holy crap, a talking muffin!’”

“I’m surprised at you, Josephine,” Liv says dryly. “Druggie humor.”

“
Baking
humor,” I say. “And anyway, don’t blame me. Blame Big Nick. He’s the one who told it to me.”

“Ah.” She nods. “You’ve been bonding.”

“We have not been
bonding
.”

“It sounds like you’ve been bonding.”

“Let’s get one thing straight, OK? Big Nick is a customer. And I’m just serving up pastries and laughing at his jokes like I would with anyone else. That is all. But if you feel the need to read something Dr. Steveian into every little interaction, you go right ahead. . . .”

“Wow, are you defensive.”

“I am not defensive! I’m just trying to act normal around the guy! OK? Can you let me do that?”

“OK,” Liv says. “I won’t bring it up again.”

“Yes, you will.”

Now Kara and Lindsey are leaning over the back of our seat, wanting to talk about the game. We discuss strategy. We tell each other how awesome we’ve been playing lately. We agree there’s no way we’re losing today.

Ten minutes later, we’re pulling into the Palmer Regional parking lot.

“Ready to kick some ass?” I ask Liv.

She nods.

“What’s that? I didn’t hear you. . . . I said,
Are you ready to
—”

“Josie?” Her voice is barely audible.

“What?” I notice how pale her face is. Pale and pinched. “Liv . . .”

She closes her eyes.

“Are you going to—”

She nods, grabs her duffel bag, and barfs into it.

“It’s OK,” I tell her. “You’re OK.”

I rub her back and say a silent prayer, to whatever celestial being might be listening right now.
Please. Pleaselet this be a stomach bug.

Eleven

THE NEXT MORNING
, in front of my locker, Matt Rigby kisses me sweet and slow. Then he pulls back and grins.

“What’s that for?” I ask.

“Your hat trick.” He means the three goals I scored yesterday while Liv was on the bench, turning various shades of green. “Congrats.”

“Thanks,” I say, even though we already had this conversation last night on the phone. It’s way better having it in person.

“My parents want to meet you,” he says.

“Because of the hat trick?”

“Because I won’t shut up about you. . . . Next Saturday, after our games. Can you come for dinner? Becky’s making lasagna.”

Becky, the stepmother. Matt’s real mom, Darlene, split from his dad when Matt was a baby and moved to some hippie colony in Vermont. Matt only sees her a few times a year. Becky pretty much raised him.

“Lasagna,” I say. “Yum.”

“Yeah. Becky’s a great cook. . . . My dad, he’s kind of old-school about . . . you know . . . meeting the people I hang out with.”

“The people you hang out with. . . . And just how many people are you hanging out with, currently?”

He leans in, kisses the tip of my nose. “Just one.”

“You sure about that?”

Another kiss. This time on the lips. “Absolutely.”

“Good.”

“So you’ll come?” he says, kissing me again, softly, on the side of my neck, just below my left ear.

“Yes.” I have goose bumps now, running all the way down the left side of my body. “I will.”

I was planning to tell my mom about dinner at the Rigbys’. I was also planning to tell her about Liv, to ask her advice. But both of those plans just got derailed.

“Jonathan has tickets for the B.B. King Jazz Festival,” she tells me as we’re driving home from work. “This weekend, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He asked me to go with him.”

“Wow,” I say. “You’ve really embraced the jazz.”

She ignores my sarcasm. “I told him I needed to check with you, before I said yes. It would only be the one night. We’d leave Saturday morning.”

“You don’t need to
check with me
. You’re the adult.”

“I’m trying to be respectful of your feelings, Josie. OK? I’m trying to do this right.”

“Right,” I say. “You and Jonathan want my blessing to go away for the weekend? Fine. Consider yourselves blessed.”

“I really appreciate the smart-ass routine, Josie. Thanks.”

“Anytime, Kate. Anytime.”

Later, I hear her on the phone with Jonathan. Her voice is muffled, but I know she’s talking about me. And I hate it. Because she never would have talked behind my back before. She would have done it to my face.

We’ve forgotten how to talk to each other. And it hurts. More than I would have thought.

Liv stays home from school on Tuesday.

And Wednesday.

On Thursday, she’s back on the bus, but she still hasn’t gotten her period. And no, she hasn’t taken a test. And no, she doesn’t want to talk about it. She doesn’t even want to
think
about it. My job, therefore, is to distract.

“I’m staying at your house this weekend,” I say. “My mom’s going to New Hampshire. With Jonathan.”

“I know,” she says.

“How?”

“Kate called. She talked to Dodd.”

Right.

“So,” Liv says. “This Jonathan thing is serious.”

I make a noise, like a grunt.

“Are you OK?”

I shrug.

“Well?” Liv says. Her brown eyes are wide and lined with green pencil. “Are you, or aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “No.”

“Have you talked to Kate about it?”

“No.”

“Josie. Come on. You have to talk to her.”

“I can’t,” I say.

“Why not?”

“Have you talked to Pops and Dodd about your ‘situation’?”

“No, but that’s—”

“See?”

“But—”

“No buts,” I say. “I’m not talking to her.”

“Fine,” Liv says. “Tell me, then. I’m curious. What’s wrong with Jonathan?”

“I don’t
know
.”

“Bad breath?”

“No.”

“Verbal abuse?”

“No.”

“Does he pick his nose and wipe it on his pants?”

“
No
. It’s . . . OK. Here’s what it is. I look at the two of them together and . . . I don’t see it. You know? I don’t
get it
. I don’t feel the love connection. I’ve tried. But it’s just not there.”

“Maybe you don’t
want
to see it,” Liv says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe, deep down, you don’t actually want Kate to have someone. No matter how great he is.”

“Of course I want her to have someone! I just want him to be . . .”

“What,” Liv says.

“I don’t know.”

“Paul Tucci?”

“What?”
I stare at her.

“You heard me.”

“Are you high?”

“No.”

“You think I want my mom and Paul Tucci to get back together.”

“Maybe. Yeah.”

“Well. That’s ridiculous.”

Liv shakes her head. “I don’t mean consciously.”

“Oh,” I say. “Uh-huh.”

“It’s your subconscious desire.”

“Right.”

“It is. You just can’t see it because it’s buried.”

“Whatever, Dr. Steve,” I say. And I say “whatever” a bunch more times too as we’re getting off the bus.