The Hard Kind of Promise (3 page)

"Okay, okay, I get it." Immediately Sarah felt bad. She was just suddenly sick of being best friends with someone other people didn't like. She couldn't help it.

To try to make it up to Marjorie, she asked, "What's your movie going to be about?"

Marjorie began to peel a bruised-looking banana.

"This big blue space alien lands on Earth. He's been sent by his planet to study other forms of intelligent life in the universe, and he lands right here, on the Keith Middle School playground."

"He's going to have to look pretty hard to find intelligent life."

Not laughing, Marjorie went on.

"The kids are really nice to him. They show him all the classrooms and talk about what their lives are like. No one can take him home, because they're afraid of what their parents would think, so they build him a bed in Mr. Mayberry's room, under the Bunsen burners."

"But wouldn't the teachers be as suspicious as the parents?"

"I'm not going to have any teachers in it. That would be too hard to arrange."

"But I'm just saying. The teachers would know if a blue space alien had landed at the school. Wouldn't they call the police?"

Marjorie put down her banana and took a bite of her pastrami-sprinkled-with-barbecue-potato-chips sandwich.

"No, because the kids will find him first. They'll hide him."

"But—"

"Sarah, you'll see. It'll work out. I have it all planned."

They ate in silence. Sarah was keeping an eye out for Alison and the leadership kids, but they were nowhere in sight. She tried to feel triumphant about getting their place under the palm tree back, but it was hard: she kept remembering how Alison had called her a loser. She watched groups of other kids—boys shooting baskets, threesomes of girls giggling and shrieking—and wondered if they knew her name, if they'd heard of her, what opinions of her they might hold. The sound of Marjorie chomping on her sandwich was really getting on her nerves.

"So," Marjorie said, accidentally spitting a crumb of barbecue potato chip as she spoke, "you want to be the space alien?"

"You mean, in your movie?"

"Louellen will make the costume to fit you. You'll be the star."

Sarah was going to say no. Being an alien in one of Marjorie's movies was about the last thing she felt like doing. But she couldn't deny that she liked the idea of being a star.

"Who else is going to be in it?" she asked.

"Me. And maybe Joey Hooper. Joey's going to help me direct."

"How can you have two directors for one movie?"

"Lots of people do it. Michael and Peter Spierig both directed
The Undead.
"

"Who's Joey Hooper?"

"A new kid. He's in video production. He asked me to be in his movie, so I might ask him to be in mine."

Sarah liked it that Marjorie had someone else to be in the movie besides just the two of them.

"Is he nice?" she asked.

Marjorie shrugged. "He's okay."

Sarah took a breath.

"Is he cute?"

Marjorie fumbled in her lunch bag. "Hey, do you have grapes?" she asked. "Grapes are better with pastrami than a banana."

Sarah sighed. Clearly, Marjorie was not ready to talk about boys.

"No. Just an apple," she said. After a moment she said, "I'll be the alien."

It actually almost sounded like fun.

"As long as we do it after school and on weekends," she added. "I don't want to be running around in a blue alien costume at lunch."

"Why not?"

"
Because.
Because it's weird, okay? Because I don't want to do anything that weird in front of other people."

Marjorie poked her glasses back up on her nose and smiled.

"Okay," she said.

Sarah wished she didn't have to explain everything. She wished Marjorie just got it, the way everyone else did. She wished she didn't have to hurt Marjorie's feelings to protect herself.

"You want to meet after school and scout locations?" Marjorie asked.

Sarah remembered Lizzie.

"I can't today," she said. "I have a dentist appointment."

"Another one? Already?"

"I have a lot of cavities," Sarah said. She could feel herself blushing with the lie she was telling. "Five, actually."

"Wow. Five." Marjorie crumpled up her lunch bag. "I've only had two in my whole life."

"You're lucky."

The bell rang. They rose from the bench.

"Do you really think all the kids would be nice to the space alien?" Sarah asked as they threw their bags into the trash can.

"Sure," Marjorie said, pushing at her glasses again. "Why wouldn't they be?"

That night, Grandpa came for dinner at Mom's. He still used a cane sometimes, but he'd gotten pretty used to his prosthetic leg in the past year and was proud of how well he walked and also of having almost all his hair. He was tall and muscular and made sure to stand straight, even when he was tired.

"Hey, Sarah," he said, "can I have a hug?"

He always asked, another thing Sarah loved.

Henry the poodle, his fur still curly and black but beginning to turn a distinguished shade of gray, pranced into the hallway, his tail wagging. Mom had gotten him when she and Dad divorced, hoping that he would be a good guard dog. He was terrible. The only thing he barked at was the sound of motorcycles on the street below.

"Hey, buddy. How's my buddy?" Grandpa asked, rubbing Henry's puffballed head.

Henry panted with the pleasure of being rubbed. Then he ducked down low, rear end high in the air, ready to play.

"Not now, Henry," Sarah said. But Henry ignored her. He wagged his tail and looked hopefully at Grandpa.

"That damn dog," Grandpa said. "Henry. Cut it out."

Sarah and Grandpa watched as Henry held his ground, rump still raised, hoping that someone would give in and roll a ball for him to fetch.

"Poodles are really smart," Sarah said. "He knows exactly what we're saying."

"I'm going to do a little research on the computer," Grandpa said. "See if we can't find a way to make Henry mind."

Sarah smiled as they headed toward the kitchen. Grandpa loved any excuse to look things up online.

Mom had already poured his cranberry juice, which was sitting on the kitchen counter. Grandpa was an alcoholic. He hadn't had a drink in seventeen years, but he said that didn't matter, that he would be an alcoholic until the day he died. Sarah was proud of him for not drinking anymore and also for being honest about who
he was. She liked hearing his stories from the old days, when he used to hang out in bars, even though Mom didn't like for him to say too much and was always trying to change the subject.

"You look tired, Dad," Mom said. She was pulling strands of silk from corncobs and wearing her KISS THE
COOK
apron, which was from when she was still married to Sarah's dad and which Sarah wished she wouldn't wear anymore.

"Nope. Just need to sit down," Grandpa said, reaching for his juice and pulling a chair out from the table. Henry, who had followed them into the kitchen, waited until Grandpa was settled and then lowered himself to the floor at his feet. He liked sitting wherever Grandpa was because sometimes Grandpa was a sloppy eater and dropped food on the floor.

"How's school?" Grandpa asked Sarah.

"Okay."

"How's singing?"

"Pretty good. It's my favorite class." He already knew, but Sarah said it anyway. "We're working on a round. That's where you sing lines and then another few kids sing the same lines, only later. It's hard to keep track of where you are."

"We did that," Grandpa said. "'Row, Row, Row Your Boat.'"

"We did that, too. In kindergarten. This is harder than that," Sarah said.

"You just have to focus on your own voice. On where you are in the music. Don't think about what the others are singing." Grandpa liked to give advice, which got on Sarah's nerves sometimes, but she knew he meant well.

"It's hard to hear myself over everyone else," she said.

"I know," Grandpa said. "It gets easier."

He said it as though he was sure, even though she knew he'd never sung in public in his life.

"Sarah's got a new friend from chorus," Mom said. She was standing over the open oven door, checking on the spareribs. "What's her name, honey?"

Sarah hated how her mother still cared so much about who her friends were. Mom liked Marjorie, but she always said it was good to have more than one friend. You never know, she said, which is what she said about almost everything. Mom lived as though she thought some catastrophe was going to happen in the next hour and she wanted to be prepared.

"Lizzie." To Grandpa, Sarah said, "She's not a friend, exactly. Just someone I hang out with."

"Of course she's a friend!" Mom said.

"Why isn't she a friend?" Grandpa asked.

"Because—because..." It was so hard to explain. "Because Marjorie's my friend."

"Can't you have more than one friend?" Grandpa asked.

"Well, yeah, if you're all friends together."

"Why can't Marjorie and this Lizzie be friends?" Grandpa asked.

She waited for him to finish his juice before she answered.

"I don't know if they'd like each other," she said. "Marjorie can be kind of annoying."

"But you like her," Grandpa said.

Mom brought over the salad bowl and set three plates on the table.

"Maybe it's time you and Marjorie took a little time apart," she said.

"No!" Sarah said. She noticed with irritation that there were artichokes in the salad. Mom knew she hated artichokes. "She's my best friend! You don't take time apart when you're best friends."

Grandpa used the salad tongs to put salad on Sarah's plate.

"Remember Patty Bowlingball?" he asked, winking at Mom.

Patty Bolenbaugh was Mom's best friend when she was a kid. Grandpa had always called her Patty Bowlingball as a joke. Mom still rolled her eyes when he said it.

"What about her?" Mom asked.

"Your mother and I thought you two spent too much time together. Especially when Patty decided it was time the two of you got your ears pierced. Remember?" Grandpa looked at Sarah. "Your grandmother about had a fit. She wanted to send your mother to a private school. Split them up for good."

"Why didn't she?" Sarah had heard it before, but Grandpa loved to talk about Mom when she was little.

"When she heard about being sent to a private school, your mother moped around for a week. Wouldn't talk. Wouldn't eat. 'Patty's my best friend,' she kept saying." Grandpa speared a cucumber with his fork. "Finally your grandmother just gave up."

Mom swallowed a small bite of salad. "Well, for heaven's sake, Dad, I'm not saying Sarah should go to another
school
." She poked around on her plate, looking for a crouton. "I'm just saying you can't have too many friends."

"But it's not like that in middle school," Sarah said. "You have one best friend and then maybe a couple of other people you hang out with. Not big groups, though."

"I had a big group," Grandpa said.

"Boys are different."

Grandpa laughed. "Maybe so," he said.

Mom stood up to check on the spareribs again. "Well, I had lots of friends," she said, opening the oven door. "Why don't you try introducing Marjorie and Lizzie? Maybe they'll like each other."

"I don't know," Sarah said. "I don't know Lizzie well enough yet."

Lizzie and Sarah had had a pretty good time at the Juice Warehouse, but there were a lot of silences. It was hard to think of what to say to a new person. With Marjorie, there was always something to talk about: movies, old jokes, memories.

"When I first got my prosthesis, I tried to hide it," Grandpa said. "I didn't tell people about it. When I'd walk into a store and the clerk would ask me about my limp, I'd just say I'd twisted my knee. Now I tell everyone. In the summer I wear shorts. I don't care what people say."

Sarah sighed. "It's different in middle school," she said. "You have to care what people say, or no one will like you."

"Oh, Sarah," Mom said from over by the oven, where she was putting spareribs on their plates. She sounded frustrated. It bugged Sarah that her mom acted as though it wasn't that way when she was in middle
school, which it definitely was, even if everyone was still dancing to disco and no one had computers.

"What would Lizzie say about Marjorie?" Grandpa asked.

"That she's weird."

"Is she?" he asked.

Sarah looked away. "A little."

Grandpa laughed as Mom set his plate in front of him. "Good for her," he said. "And good for you for liking her anyway."

Mom gave Sarah her plate. "There are lots of non-weird people to like, you know," she said. "There's nothing wrong with being
normal.
"

"
Mom,
" Sarah said. She was so irritating.

Grandpa picked up a rib and took a bite. A little barbecue sauce got into his mustache.

"As I recall, Patty Bowlingball liked to tell people she could bend spoons just by thinking about them," he said. "Now
that's
weird."

Sarah gave him a grateful look. She didn't tell him that she wouldn't mind if Marjorie could find a way to be just a little less weird.

IN CHORUS THE NEXT DAY, Mr. Roche asked everyone to sit down. Sarah knew this meant they weren't going to sing. You had to stand for singing.

"We have a very exciting opportunity," Mr. Roche said. He was younger than Sarah's parents, and pudgy, and he wore big tinted glasses indoors, which made him look like pictures of men from the 1970s. Also, he had a nose ring.

Lizzie leaned close and whispered, "Uh-oh. Something's going on. I'll bet it means extra work."

Mr. Roche crossed his arms and stared at Lizzie. Usually he tried to act as though he were one of the kids, but when someone whispered in class, he got just as mad as any other teacher.

When Lizzie was quiet, he went on.

"We have been asked to participate in a choral competition in Los Angeles," he said.

Everyone started talking at once. Going to Los Angeles meant flying and staying overnight.

"People, please!" Mr. Roche begged. "Raise your hands if you have questions."