Love is a Four-Letter Word (19 page)

“Michael? Michael!” I push my way through the crowds but am not fast enough to catch up to Michael, who has slipped out the front door and into the night. I sit on an empty picnic table bench, feeling about as low as low can be. A bell jingles and Mattie exits the Dairy Bar, smilingly sadly at me.

“Well, that’s the end of that,” I sigh.

“Maybe not,” Mattie says, but I can tell that she doesn’t believe it.

“Well, I might as well go home. I don’t want to ruin anyone else’s night.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Mattie agrees.

“Let’s go.”

Mattie hesitates, twirling a thick chunk of hair around her finger. “Actually, Andrew asked if he could walk me home. Do you mind?”

“Of course not! Go, go! I’ll be fine.”

Mattie looks intensely relieved. “Oh, thank you! I hope you don’t feel abandoned. It’s not that I value boys over our friendship. It’s just, well, he’s going to walk me home!”

“It’s fine.”

“Are you sure? Because if you want me to, I can go with you. Sisters before misters and all that.”

“It’s fine, Mattie, really.”

Mattie gives me a quick hug. “I’ll call you when I get home and tell you everything, I promise!” Mattie runs back into the Dairy Bar to retrieve her purse and her date, just missing Benji who approaches me like you would a wild animal — slowly, and with caution.

“Are you heading home?” he asks.

I nod. “I don’t want to cause any more damage.”

“I’ll come with you.”

We walk in silence before Benji clears his throat and says, “Well, that was something.”

“I’m sorry I ruined your party.”

“You didn’t ruin it,” Benji says. “Actually, you were kind of the life of the party. People will be talking about this for ages.”

“Oh, great!” I moan. “I’ve really done it this time, haven’t I?”

Benji nods grimly. “I’ll say. The truth is, Clarissa, whether you want to admit it or not, you’re very good at causing drama.”

“But I don’t mean to!” I wail.

Benji pats my shoulder. “I know.” He pauses, then asks, “Why didn’t you tell me about Michael?”

“You mean about the —”

Benji blushes and cuts me off. “Yeah, about the …”

“See? You can’t even say it! How could I tell you about it knowing it would make you so uncomfortable!”

“I thought we were best friends.”

“We are!” I take a breath and try to explain it to him. “It all happened so fast. We had just found out that my mom’s cancer was all gone, and you were so busy with the show
and your new friends, and I guess I just didn’t think you’d be interested.”

Benji stops dead in his tracks and stares at me in disbelief. “Of course I’d be interested!”

“I thought maybe you’d think I was trying to steal your thunder or something,”

Benji frowns. “Steal your thunder?” he repeats.

I wave him off. “It’s something Mattie says. Anyway, I’m sorry. I promise I’ll tell you about any future kissing. Not that it will be happening any time soon,” I add wryly.

Benji grimaces. “No, I guess not.”

“What do I do now?” I ask, dreading the answer.

“You have to go apologize to Michael.”

I sigh. “I feel like all I do these days is apologize for all the stupid things I’ve been doing lately.” I look to Benji for strength. “This is going to be hard.”

“Really hard,” Benji adds.

“What do I say?”

“I don’t know,” Benji admits, “but I’m glad I’m not you right now.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

It takes me a full day to work up the courage to go over and apologize to Michael. I spend most of it pacing around the house until my mom hollers at me from the Hair Emporium, where she’s giving it a good clean.

“You’re wearing down the carpet,” she complains. “Are you going to tell me about it or do I have to get my scissors out again?”

I know she’s joking, but I run my hand through my slightly too-short hair and laugh nervously. I trudge downstairs and flop into one of the big, red chairs. “I have to apologize to someone,” I admit.

“Who?” she asks.

“Michael.”

To her credit, Mom only nods, as if it’s normal that we’re talking about a boy who is not Benji. “What did you do?” she asks, a smile playing at the corners of her lips. “Hit him with a badminton racquet?”

“I wish,” I say. “I said some horrible things about him in front of a group of people. I didn’t know he was there. Not that that makes any difference.”

Mom’s eyebrows go up but she continues scrubbing. “A group of people?” she repeats.

“Well, a restaurant full of friends and strangers,” I clarify.

“Ouch,” Mom says. “Sounds like apologizing is the right thing to do.”

“Doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Of course not. If apologizing were easy, we’d have achieved world peace ages ago.”

I smile in spite of myself. “Is that what you wished for when you won the Dairy Queen pageant?”

Mom laughs. “God, no, that’s way too Miss America. I wished for tax relief for farmers.”

“Really?”

“Well, the pageant was sponsored by the dairy farmers of Ontario.”

“Still, that’s a little obvious, isn’t it?”

Mom shrugs. “I just played the game by their rules, made everyone feel good about themselves and the work that they do. I don’t see what’s wrong with that. Besides, a true wish is something private. Definitely not something you share with a panel of judges.”

“Have you ever had a wish come true?” I ask.

Mom smiles. “Twice. First with you and now —”

“— with Doug,” I finish.

“Bingo.”

It’s now or never. I take a deep breath and let the first of many things that have been weighing me down off my chest. “I snooped in his closet, when I went to feed Suzy.”

Mom puts down the sponge she’s been using to scour the sinks in the Hair Emporium. She doesn’t say a word, just stares at me expectantly.

“I didn’t find anything, though. No skeletons, no dirty laundry.”

“I could have told you that without you looking through his private things.”

“I wanted to be sure. Are you going to tell him?”

Mom thinks hard before responding, “You left a chair out.”

“What?”

“In the bedroom, you left a chair out.”

Of course, the kitchen chair. Some detective I turned out to be. My heart sinks all the way to the bottom of my toes.

“So he knows?”

Mom nods.

“How come he didn’t say anything?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t want to embarrass you.”

I didn’t think it was possible to feel any worse, but I do. The guy whose house I got caught snooping in didn’t want to make
me
feel bad.

“What should I do?”

“You could apologize.”

I sigh. “I’m getting really good at it,” I say.

Mom laughs. “Thank you for telling me. I know you’ve been keeping things from me lately.”

“It’s only because I didn’t want you to worry over nothing,” I protest.

Mom looks hurt. “Your life is not nothing to me,” she says.

“I thought if you had more to worry about, you wouldn’t be able to concentrate on getting better.”

For a second I worry that Mom might burst into tears, but she breathes deeply through her nose and manages to pull herself together. “I am sorry you have had to go through all this, Clarissa. In a perfect world no child would have to deal with a sick parent. But I’m not sick anymore, and you need to start telling me things. I am your mother. I will always worry a little. Not telling me things makes it worse, not better.”

“Okay.”

Mom smiles, tucking my hair behind my ears with her fingers. It’s such a nice gesture I don’t even mind that she’s still wearing the yellow rubber gloves she cleans in. “Let’s start again. This is the first day of us telling each other things, no matter how big or small. Okay?”

“Okay. Does this mean I have to hear about Doug’s bad breath or his athlete’s foot?”

Mom laughs. “No one wants to hear about that. Now what are the chances I can get you to stick around and help me clean the hair out of the drains? I know how much you love cleaning.”

“You wish.”

I’ve never been to Michael’s house before. I pause on the front step before ringing the doorbell. Inside, it sounds like there’s a party going on. Or maybe it’s a riot. Whatever it is, there’s lots of shouting and barking.

The door flies open before I get a chance to knock. A little boy stares at me. “You’re not the pizza guy,” he says accusingly.

“No.”

From inside, a woman yells “David! Who’s at the door?”

The boy — David, I assume — yells back. “It’s a girl!”

“Well give the girl some money and grab the pizza!”

“She doesn’t have a pizza!”

“What?” Someone comes banging down the stairs and then a woman appears in the doorway. Her hair has been hastily tied back and there are soap suds on her hands, which probably has something to do with the very wet, very naked toddler she’s holding against her chest.

“Oh. We thought you were the pizza guy,” she says. “Can I help you?” Just then a basketball bounces down the hallway, chased by a puppy with enormous paws. “Michael!” she yells. “I asked you to put that ball away. Now the dog’s got it. Oh for goodness sakes. Here, can you hold him?”

The woman shoves the toddler into my arms and I am stranded there holding him as she runs after the dog, which is still running after the basketball, with David trailing behind her laughing. The kid is heavy and slippery and is getting the front of my shirt all wet. He twists around to look at me and frowns, placing a wet chubby hand on my cheek. I’ve never held a baby before; I’ve never even babysat for walking, talking children. Now he’s exploring my face with his hand, trying to find a feature that looks familiar. I shift his weight and he slips a little and grabs onto my shirt with impressive strength. What if I drop him?

“Clarissa?” Michael looks down at me from the top of the stairs.

“Can you help?” I ask, just as the kid starts to whimper. By the time Michael makes it down the stairs the kid is wailing directly into my right ear.

“Shhh, Theo, it’s okay.” Michael takes the baby, props him over his shoulder and rubs his little back like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Theo stops crying and makes gurgling noises, which sounds like he’s either happy or is about to throw up. Michael smiles his apologetic, lopsided smile. “Sorry about that. Welcome to the zoo!”

Within five minutes, I have met each of Michael’s three brothers. Theo, the wet baby, is eighteen months old; David is five; and Solly, who insists on wearing 3-D glasses, is eight. “Almost nine,” he insists. Rambo, the dog, runs through the living room, a running shoe dangling from his jaws.

“Is it always like this?” I ask.

Michael shrugs. “Pretty much.”

And I thought life at my house could get a little noisy.

“So, um, can I help you with something?” Michael asks. He can barely look at me, and I don’t blame him, after the way I treated him.

“I wanted to talk to you. Actually, I wanted to apologize.”

Michael looks over his shoulder and yells up at his mom. “Mom? Is it okay if we go for a walk?”

Michael’s mom appears at the top of the stairs. “Well, sure. But don’t be too long, you’re grounded, remember.”

“I remember,” Michael mumbles. To me, he says, “Let’s go.”

“Where do you want to go?” Michael asks.

I consider going to the Dairy Bar, but that would be too much like returning to the scene of the crime. Going to the park at St. Paddy’s would be cruel, since that’s where we were the night of our first (and probably last) kiss, and so I decide to play it safe and suggest the most neutral place I can think of.

“I don’t know, maybe the 7-Eleven? We could get slushies.”

“Sure,” Michael agrees.

The walk there is painfully quiet; it seems neither of us can think of anything to say. After an excruciating three blocks, Michael asks, “So, how was the play?”

“It was great! Benji was great,” I say.

“I think I’m going to see it Sunday afternoon. There’s a two o’clock show. I was going to go on Friday but I was grounded.”

“How come?”

“Well, because of what happened last Friday.” Last Friday. The day Suzy went missing. Remission day. The day of our first (and probably last) kiss. “Once we got to your place,
I got swept up in everything and forgot to call home. I was an hour and a half late for curfew, so I was grounded. No going out, no internet, no phone.”

Everything clicks into place. All the pieces of the puzzle make sense now: why he didn’t call me; why he didn’t show up at the play. All I can think to say is, “Oh.”

“I wanted to call you, but, you know, I couldn’t.”

“You could have told me at school,” I point out.

“I thought about it, but you’re always with Mattie or Benji or someone,” Michael says. “Plus you seemed kind of mad this week.”

I can’t help myself, I laugh out loud at this. Michael frowns. “What’s so funny?”

“I was mad because you didn’t call,” I admit.

Michael looks sheepish. “I guess that makes sense. I’d be mad, too.”

At 7-Eleven I offer to buy Michael’s slushie, just so he knows that there aren’t any hard feelings. I throw in some candy and a chocolate bar, too. “Wanna go to the park?”

Michael nods and we make our way back to the skate park, where we sit on the swings stuffing our faces with so much candy we can’t possibly be expected to talk to one another.

Once I’ve had enough and am jittery with sugar, I start my apology. You would think after all the apologizing I’ve done lately that it would get easier, but it doesn’t.

“Look, I’m sorry about what I said at the Dairy Bar. Everyone was getting on my nerves and I just snapped. I didn’t mean it and I never would have said it under normal circumstances.”

“Normal circumstances” was a term Mattie decided I should use. It felt strange coming out of my mouth, but
Michael doesn’t seem to notice, because he shrugs and says, “Okay.”

“Okay? Really? So you’re fine with … everything?”

Michael looks straight at me for the first time. I wonder if he can hear my heart as it skips a beat. “I guess so, as long as you didn’t mean it,” he says.

“I didn’t. And I’m sorry. Really, really, sorry.” I hold up a Sour Key. “Truce?”

Michael grabs a Sour Key of his own and touches it with mine. “Truce.” Another weight vanishes from my chest. Who knew coming clean could feel so good?

“I should probably head home soon or my mom will get mad,” Michael says. We stand to leave. “Unless you wanted to come over? Maybe we could watch a movie?”

My heart is hammering so hard he’d have to be deaf not to hear it. Since I’m on an honesty kick and all, I decide just to go for it. “Is this a date?”

“No.” I wonder if he can hear my heart break, because he suddenly looks wary and rushes on, “It’s just, after everything, I think I’m through with dating. For a while.”

It’s surprising how much that hurts. I guess I deserve it. The only thing left to do is put myself on the line. But first, I take a deep breath. “Because if this
was
a date, I’d be okay with that.”

The silence that follows is so long that it makes me want to scream, just to put an end to it. What can he possibly be thinking? Mattie says that boys live in a state of perpetual surprise and that I should be patient with them. Unfortunately, being patient is one of the few things that I am not very good at. According to Mattie, girls mature much faster and “you can’t blame a boy for being a little slow when it comes to matters of the heart.”

“Never mind,” I say, just to put Michael out of his misery.

After what feels like a year, Michael manages to say, “Well maybe we could, you know,
not
date for a while and then …” But he doesn’t finish the sentence. He’s looking at me expectantly, like he’s waiting for me to fly off the handle. In my head I hear Mattie say “hormones.” Oh, no. Have I become one of those girls who pass love notes during class and then cry about boys all lunch hour? Am I Amanda Krespi?

In an effort to look normal, I shrug it off and say, “Yeah, sure, that’s what I was thinking,” even though I have no idea what I just agreed to. How could I? He never even finished his sentence.

But it seems to do the trick because Michael looks immensely relieved. “Cool,” he says.

“Cool,” I repeat. Then we both smile at each other until it starts to feel weird and I have to look away. “Michael?”

“Yes?”

“Are you going to — I mean, are we going to — like …
not
date other people?”

Michael frowns. “I don’t know,” he says. “Baseball starts pretty soon. And then there’s soccer. I’m going to be pretty busy. I probably won’t have time to not date anyone else.”

Now it’s my turn to feel relieved. “Me neither.”

“So do you want to watch a movie?” Michael asks. Then, before I can say anything, he adds, “As friends?”

“Sure, that sounds cool.”

“Cool.”