My Worst Best Friend (23 page)

“That’s OK.” I laughed. It wasn’t what you’d call echoing with joy. “Only, I was, you know, a little worried that you were avoiding me or something. Since you didn’t come to lunch today.”

“Avoiding you?” she repeated. “Why would I be avoiding you? I just had stuff to do.”

And that was pretty much the way it was for the rest of the week. She stopped meeting me in the morning because her dad was leaving earlier and could give her a ride to school. We still hung out with the others before the bell, but mainly she sat with Archie’s arm around her, talking to him. We ate lunch together with the others, but there was never an empty seat next to Savanna any more. We met in front of the main building at the end of the day – but on Tuesday her mother picked her up to go somewhere after school, on Wednesday she went to Marilouise’s to study some more for the history test, and on Thursday she had somewhere to go with Archie. We’d still talk on the phone most nights, but our conversations lasted minutes, not the hours my dad always joked about – and were usually cut off in the middle of a sentence by some crisis in the Zindle household or another call.

I started feeling really lonely. It was as if Savanna and I were in some kind of suspended animation. We weren’t exactly fighting, but we weren’t exactly not fighting. We weren’t exactly
not
speaking, but, unless you count
hello, yeah, see you
and
bye
as a conversation, we weren’t really speaking either. It was pretty weird to think that not so long ago I could have told you what colour bra Savanna was wearing and what she’d had for supper, and now I didn’t know anything about her that everybody else didn’t know. A dozen times a day, I’d hear something or see something and I’d think:
I have to tell Savanna that…
And then I’d remember that I probably wouldn’t get the chance. I’d be smiling and telling jokes at school, but as I pedalled home I’d feel like the last Wampanoag, wondering how everything had managed to go so wrong.

I tried not to let anyone see that I was upset. I didn’t want to take Savanna’s behaviour personally. I wanted to believe that she just happened to be really busy that week. But it was hard not to. I felt as if I’d driven her away by criticizing her and refusing to help her. I wasn’t the friend she’d thought I was. I was less. I figured that if I were Savanna, I’d feel completely misunderstood. And let down. It was as if I’d said to her, “Jump and I’ll catch you,” but when she jumped I stepped out of the way. Then I told myself that I was overreacting as usual. Maybe Savanna was acting weird, but, if you looked at it objectively, that was pretty understandable. We’d never had a fight like that before. She was shaken. In shock. It would just take a little while for things to get totally back to normal.

“Did you lose your phone?” my dad asked me on Wednesday, while we were doing the dishes. “Or did Savanna lose hers?” He half-smiled. “It’s been pretty quiet in here the last few nights.”

I said that Savanna had been really busy. “You know, coming up to Christmas and everything.”

“I see.” He nodded as if that made perfect sense. “It’s just that you seem a little mopey.” His eyes were on the plate he was rinsing. “Are you certain everything’s OK?”

I said that I was positive.

He slipped the plate into the drainer. “You know, Savanna isn’t always right, Gracie. No matter how confident she seems.”

I said that of course I knew that. “She’s not exactly the Pope, is she?”

He didn’t so much as crack a smile. “No,” he said. “Not exactly.”

“So what’s going on with you and the Princess Zindle?” asked Cooper as we were leaving the cafeteria together on Thursday.

“Nothing.” I put on a puzzled face. As if he’d asked me how many pairs of socks I owned. “Why?”

“
Why
?” Cooper cocked an eyebrow. “Because I thought I detected an atmospheric shift. A little darkening of the usually cloudless blue skies over the peaceful village. An unseasonable drop in the temperature. The subtle distancing of twin stars.”

I laughed. Haha. “What is this? Meteorology for beginners?”

“Let me put it more succinctly, Ms Mooney.” Cooper came to a stop and leaned against the wall. “The eggs and bacon are both out, but they don’t seem to be together any more. The egg is on one plate, and the bacon on another.”

I’d stopped, too, but I was shuffling from foot to foot. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You and Savanna seem to be on the outs.”

“We’re not on the outs.” Not officially. “We … you know … we did have a little argument about something really stupid, that’s all. But we made up. It’s not a problem.”

“Right, it’s not a problem,” said Cooper. “Only the white water of Savanna’s conversation doesn’t seem to be flowing towards you any more.”

I said that I hadn’t noticed.

“Really?” Cooper was holding on to my book bag as if he thought I might run away. “So you’re telling me that any parting of the ways I’ve detected is just a figment of my warped imagination? You’re telling me that nothing’s wrong?”

I said that that was what I was telling him.

* * *

Savanna said that she wasn’t still mad at me when I spoke to her on the phone that night.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was on the landline. I could hear the TV blaring behind her. It was something that involved a lot of shrieking and laughter. “We made up, remember? It’s, like, way in the past.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but you’ve been acting strange all week. Kind of distant.”

“No, I haven’t, Gracie.” Savanna’s laugh was sharper than the laughter on the television. “I think you’ve been working too hard – as usual. You’re imagining things.”

Was I imagining that I hadn’t been sitting next to her at lunch?

“
And
? I sit right across from you, don’t I? I am allowed to sit with other people, you know. It’s not like we’re going steady, Gracie. Or Siamese cats.”

“
Twins
.”

“Anyway, it’s just how it’s been working out,” said Savanna. “It isn’t part of some fiendish plan.”

The fact that she’d been busy every afternoon wasn’t part of some fiendish plan, either.

“Of course not. I’ve had stuff to do. Don’t you ever have stuff to do?”

“But we don’t talk on the phone any more.”

“Um, duh…” She choked. “I don’t want to shock you or anything, but it just so happens that we’re talking now.”

“Yeah, but you don’t really tell me anything.”

“I’m trying to think of you and how you feel, Gracie. I’m trying to give you some space. Isn’t that what we said?”

“Well, yeah, it is, only—”

“My cell phone’s ringing, Gray. I’ll talk to you later. Kisskiss. Byebye.”

At lunch on Friday, Archie asked Savanna if she wanted to go to the lake the next day. “It’s still warm enough to take the boat out.”

Savanna made a disappointed pout. “I can’t. We’re going shopping.” She leaned her head against his. “I still have to get something totally special to wear to the Christmas dance, don’t I? I can’t go in something
old
.”

I stopped in mid-chew. This was the first I’d heard of another shopping expedition.

“What about when you get back?” asked Archie.

Cooper turned to me. “You mean you’re not going to Neighbours this week?”

I looked from him to Savanna.

“Oh, I’m not going to the mall with Gracie!” Savanna laughed. “You know how much Gracie hates the mall.” She was looking at the gap between Cooper and me. “And anyway, Gracie’s not going to the dance. Because she doesn’t want to do that, either. She hates dances, too.” She smiled as if she was in a toothpaste ad. “And I’m, like, not going to make Gracie do something she doesn’t want to do.”

“Oh. Right.” Cooper nodded at me. “So you decided not to go after all.”

Well, someone had.

“Yeah… You know, it’s not really my thing.”

“I’m going shopping with Marilouise.” Savanna stabbed at her salad. “She needs something for the dance, too.”

“Marilouise?” I put down my sandwich. “Marilouise is going to the Christmas dance with you?”

Savanna made a what-can-I-say kind of face. “I know, it’s, like, blue snow or something, isn’t it?” She was wearing tiny Christmas-tree earrings that shook when she laughed. “I mean, I figured I’d see Marilouise skateboarding on the moon before I’d see her at another dance after what happened in Middle School, but she thought all of us going together like it’s a party was a
great
idea.” The teeth flashed.
Unlike some people.
“She’s really excited about it.”

“So what about tomorrow night?” Archie was saying to Savanna. “Maybe we could all go to a movie or something.”

Savanna glanced at me. “I’m not sure. I may have something to do with the Zindles.”

I once asked my dad to explain what the difference between a truce and peace was. It must have had something to do with what I was doing in school. “I don’t get it,” I said. “Aren’t they pretty much the same thing?”

My dad said no. He said peace means things are settled, but a truce is temporary. A truce might be called to give the armies a chance to regroup. Or because they wanted a break from mutual annihilation. Or because it was Christmas. The war wasn’t over. The problem hadn’t been solved. There was no forgiveness – and no forgetting, either.

So now I knew.

I
was always happy to go to Neighbours, but that Saturday I was really happy to go. Everywhere else, I missed Savanna – even sitting at home on the couch, where we always scrunched up together watching movies, made me feel lonely. But she’d never been to Neighbours. It was all mine – a Savanna-free zone. As soon as I walked through the doors, I felt better. I wasn’t some kind of outcast, I was a regular person that other people liked and chatted to. The kids all came running as soon as they saw me. “Miss Mooney! Miss Mooney!”
Look what I wrote … look what I made … listen to this…
It was the only place where I didn’t feel alone.

The book I was using that week was called
And Then The Moose Got Into the Pool.
It was about this really baking summer and a baby moose who is so hot he wanders into someone’s backyard and gets into the wading pool to cool off. Everybody loved it.

By the time the class was over, I was in a pretty good mood. But Cooper wasn’t. He was waiting for me in the hallway as usual, but instead of smiling and humming under his breath as usual, he had a pained, stricken look on his face – you know, as if he had heartburn or his shoes were too tight.

“You mind if we skip the café today?” The all-purpose mailbag swung back and forth between us. “I thought mayhaps we could do something different. Change our habit. Break the mould.”

What did he want to do, go abseiling instead?

“I thought we could go to Java.”

Java?

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.” He was shuffling in place so much that his mailbag banged against the wall behind him. “It was only a suggestion.”

I liked going for coffee with everyone, but I liked my walks home with Cooper even more. I really looked forward to them. Hanging out with Cooper always cheered me up. I said that I’d rather go with him.

“You’re sure?” His bag hit the wall again. “I don’t want to pressure you.”

I said that I was sure.

Cooper made a sweeping gesture with one arm. “In that case, shall we sally forth?”

But I was the one who did most of the sallying. Cooper schlumped along beside me with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. Instead of the steady stream of anecdotes and thoughts I was used to, he let me do all of the talking, just grunting and umming and occasionally saying “Wow” or “Right” or “That’s terrific” when I paused for his response.

“And not only that,” I was blathering as we reached Java, “but they all totally got the idea that it was so hot because of global warming. Maria, you know the one with the braids and the bows? Maria even wanted to know if the moose was so close to the houses because there weren’t many woods left! Can you believe it? Isn’t that great?”

“Yeah,” said Cooper. He tugged on the strap of the mailbag. “So this is my treat, understood? I’ll even throw in the cupcake of your choice.” Cooper wasn’t exactly looking at me – as far as I could tell he was half-smiling at someone behind me. “You won’t get a better deal than that.”

We sat by the window.

“You know, I kind of think of this as our table,” said Cooper, as he ripped open a bag of sugar so hard it shot all over.

I shook sugar from my cupcake. The woman next to us shook sugar off her skirt.

“You mean, because no one’s going to want to sit here after we go?”

He smiled sourly, darting a wary look at our neighbour.

“At least it wasn’t milk,” I joked. “Or soy sauce. I did that once in a restaurant and it went everywhere. It looked like there’d been an oil spill or something.”

“Umm,” grunted Cooper. He was concentrating on opening the next bag very carefully. “Taken in that perspective, I can see that I’m terrifically lucky. Fortune’s child.”

After he successfully got the sugar into his cup, Cooper dedicated his attention to smoothing out the bag and studying it as if he was trying to decode it.

I usually found talking to Cooper easy and effortless, but today it was about as easy and effortless as walking the Inca Trail in stilettos with an armadillo on your back.

“I’ve only had tea in here before,” I said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “This coffee’s really good.”

“I’ve never had the coffee here either.” Cooper picked up his cup to take his first sip of a Java latte. He missed his mouth and poured it down his shirt.

“It doesn’t look like you’re going to have it now.”

It was the woman at the next table who laughed at that joke.

“Damn and tarnation.” Cooper jumped up, knocking the napkin holder to the floor.

After things settled down, he held his cup near his mouth, gazing into it like there was something really interesting going on in there. You know, like a solar eclipse or a migration of starlings.

I bit into my cupcake. “This is good, too.”