The Kind of Friends We Used to Be (10 page)

And then there was the fact that for the last two months, ever since the beginning of school, she had been sneaking peeks at Rhetta Mayes’s drawing journals. Really, all Rhetta Mayes did was draw, and pretty much all she drew were fairies. Rhetta never spoke to Marylin, but sometimes she seemed to sense that Marylin wanted to see her drawings, and she would hold her sketchbook out so Marylin could get a better look.

Marylin didn’t just look at Rhetta’s pictures; she stepped into them. On bad days, days when it was raining and Marylin’s feet had gotten wet, or days when Mazie was in a bad mood and made critical comments about everyone in the world, including the other middle-school cheerleaders, expecting Marylin to
agree 100 percent, Marylin looked forward to going to pre-algebra or language arts, classes she had with Rhetta, just so she could spend some time in one of Rhetta’s pictures. Life was easier when you could escape it every once in a while.

She would have liked to have gotten Rhetta’s advice on her fairy costume. As it was, Marylin had to settle for borrowing Rhetta’s ideas. One of her fairies who showed up in almost every story really did look like a princess, with a crown of roses and a gauzy-looking skirt that fell around her legs like rose petals. This was the fairy princess Marylin wanted to be.

Taking the pink material her mother had helped her buy at Jo-Ann’s out of her suitcase, she wished she’d started on her costume a week ago. But this year Marylin was discovering she didn’t always have time to get ready a week ahead, not with homework, cheerleading practice, and dealing with her parents’ divorce filling up her days. How were you supposed to get prepared for Halloween when you were
always packing to go back and forth between your parents’ houses? Besides being depressing, Marylin found her parents’ breakup completely inconvenient.

Marylin took out her mother’s sharp-bladed scissors, which Petey was under no circumstances allowed to get close to. She took out the pad of drawing paper she’d tried to copy Rhetta’s fairies onto from memory. Then Marylin sat on her bed and wondered what in the world she was doing. She didn’t know how to sew. She’d thought it would just come to her, but now she realized it wouldn’t.

“Honey, do you want a snack?” Marylin’s dad poked his head in the doorway. “I’ve got some pizza rolls in the freezer.”

“No, I’d better get started on this,” Marylin said, pointing to the yards of material on her bed. “You don’t know anything about sewing, do you?”

Mr. McIntosh came in and sat next to Marylin on the bed. “As a matter of fact, I do,” he told her. “In high school and college, I did a
lot of theater, and we were always having to make our own costumes. I even know how to use a sewing machine, believe it or not.”

“You do?” Marylin was stunned. In her entire life, she had never met anyone besides Kate’s mom who knew how to use a sewing machine, and now it turned out her very own father could. She leaned back and looked at her dad for a long time. She wondered what else about himself he hadn’t told her.

“Yep,” he said. “Sad to say, I don’t have a sewing machine on the premises. But I know how to use a needle and thread. Despite what your mom says, I’m a very handy guy.”

Marylin picked up the edge of the pink fabric and rubbed it between her thumb and index finger. She hated it when her dad made comments like that. They weren’t exactly critical of her mom, but at the same time they were. It made Marylin feel like she was in the middle of somebody else’s fight and each person expected her to take sides. This was one of her least favorite feelings in the world.

“So will you help me make my costume?”

Marylin asked. “I can show you some pictures of what it’s supposed to look like.”

“How about I teach you how to sew? I’ll help you help yourself.”

Marylin giggled. “I thought moms were supposed to teach their daughters how to sew.”

“Welcome to the twenty-first century, sweetheart,” her dad said. “It’s a brand-new ball-game.”

“Can I help?” asked Petey, walking into the room and plopping into Marylin’s rocking chair. “I’m pretty creative.”

Marylin pulled a plastic bag from her suitcase and shook it out on the bed. Out tumbled a dozen artificial flowers and a length of middle-weight wire. “Can you make a crown of roses? One that wouldn’t look stupid?”

Petey shrugged. “Why not? I built an entire nuclear reactor out of Legos once. A crown of roses ought to be a snap compared to that.”

“Let’s get started then,” Mr. McIntosh said, standing. “We’ll spread this fabric out on the dining-room table and cut out the pieces.”

Marylin followed her dad and Petey out of
her room. She carried the scissors, her sketchbook, a spool of pink thread, and a yard of elastic for the rose petal skirt’s waistband. It occurred to her that it was sort of funny that she was getting help on her fairy princess costume from her dad and her little brother. It made her wish Kate was there. Kate was the sort of person who could appreciate how weird life could get sometimes, probably because she was so weird herself.

But weird in a good way, Marylin thought as she walked into the dining room. And, to her surprise, she realized she meant it.

Kate was waiting for her at the front of the school Monday morning with a pile of posters that she’d made over the weekend. “I hope you like these, because I made about fifty of them,” she said, handing one to Marylin the second she saw her. “My dad actually let me use his color printer, which is an amazing event. He says if he could, he’d vote for you.”

Marylin examined the poster. Kate had used Marylin’s sixth-grade school picture, the one
that made her look like she was at least in ninth grade, so that was good. She had had a streak of bad school picture luck from second through fifth grade, closed eyes, stupid expressions, and one really bad hair day. Her mom had gotten in the habit of ordering the smallest picture package over the years, just because she always ended up putting Marylin’s school pictures in the bottom of her desk drawer, they were that bad.

But her sixth-grade picture made her look mature and pretty, someone you would vote for to represent you, in Marylin’s opinion. Below her picture on the poster were the words
INTEGRITY. COMPASSION. NEW IDEAS. VOTE: MARYLIN MCINTOSH, SEVENTH-GRADE STUDENT GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVE.

“Wow, this is great, Kate,” Marylin said. “I mean, it looks professional and everything.”

“Well, my dad helped,” said Kate, sounding pleased. “He’s worked on some city council campaigns, so he’s pretty good at this kind of stuff. But the main ideas were mine.”

Marylin liked the posters so much, she
almost forgot to be nervous about seeing Mazie when she got to her locker. She hadn’t told Mazie yet that Kate was going to be her campaign manager. As far as she knew, Mazie hadn’t given a second thought to Marylin’s campaign after she’d made sure that Marylin filled out the forms to officially become a candidate. So maybe she wouldn’t be mad that Kate was doing all the hard work.

As it turned out, Mazie was not amused.

“You’re kidding me, right?” she said after Marylin had shown her the posters before first period. “Kate Faber? I mean, I know you guys used to be friends, but she’s so lame. Have you seen those boots she wears? And now she hangs around with Matthew Holler, who’s, like, halfway to dropping out of school.”

Matthew Holler? Marylin had no idea who Matthew Holler was. How could she not know about a boy in Kate’s life? Wasn’t that against the rules for one friend not to share important boy information with another friend? Marylin didn’t know whether to feel mad or a little bit sad that Kate hadn’t said
a word to her about this Matthew Holler person.

“But you have to admit, it’s a good poster,” Marylin insisted. “Her dad runs all sorts of political campaigns, so it’s really him who’s doing it.”

Mazie rolled her eyes. Just then, Ruby Santiago walked up. She took the poster Marylin was holding and looked at it. “Wow,” she said after a moment. “This is awesome.”

“Kate Faber made it for me,” Marylin said quickly, hoping she might get some support for Kate from Ruby. “She’s really talented.”

“Hmm, I don’t think I know her,” said Ruby, handing the poster back to Marylin. “But she did a great job on this poster.”

“How can you not know her?” Mazie asked, sounding irritated. “She was in our pod last year, in Mrs. Watson’s homeroom.”

Ruby shrugged. “Sorry.”

Marylin was a little shocked that Ruby didn’t know who Kate was, but she guessed if you were Ruby Santiago, you could afford to not know all sorts of people.

“Well, fine then,” Mazie said to Marylin, shutting her locker door a little harder than necessary. “Let Kate do the hard work. While she’s at it, tell her to write your speech for tomorrow, if she hasn’t already.”

“Tomorrow?” Marylin felt a bolt of panic fly through her. “I didn’t know I had to give a speech tomorrow.”

“Didn’t you read the candidates’ checklist?”

“What checklist?” Marylin ran over a mental list of everything in her back pouch and binder. She was a very organized person, and she couldn’t remember a thing about a checklist.

Mazie put her hand over her mouth and giggled. “Whoops! I guess I forgot to give that to you. I picked it up when I got your candidate registration forms. It’s in my locker somewhere. I’ll give it to you at lunch.”

“I can’t believe you forgot to tell me I have to make a speech tomorrow!” Marylin was shaking with anger. How could Mazie forget something so important?

“Get over it, Marylin,” Mazie said. She gave Marylin a backward wave as she turned right
on C hallway and headed toward her first-period class. “It’s just a stupid speech. It’s not even important.”

Marylin turned in the opposite direction. Of course the speech was important. It could make or break her campaign. And now, for the life of her, Marylin couldn’t think of one thing to say. All she could think of was that tomorrow was Halloween and she had to give the speech of her life, and she was going to be dressed up as a fairy princess.

Everything’s going to be fine, she tried to convince herself as she walked into art. But she knew it wouldn’t be, not unless she could convince everyone in the seventh grade that voting for Tinkerbell was a great thing to do.

Which she was pretty sure she couldn’t.

Mr. Faber was the one who came up with the opening line for Marylin’s speech. He, Kate, and Marylin had been working on it since dinner, which they’d eaten while sitting around Mr. Faber’s laptop at the kitchen table.

“How’s this,” he’d asked around nine thirty,
which was officially the time Marylin was supposed to be home. “I can’t grant your wishes, but I can help with your dreams.”

“That’s close,” said Kate, tapping her pencil against her forehead, like it might help her think. “But it’s not quite there yet. How about something like, ‘I can’t make your wishes come true, but I can grant, um, something ...’”

“But I can help make your dreams come true!” Mr. Faber exclaimed, typing rapidly on his laptop. “Excellent! ‘I can’t make your wishes come true, but I can help make your dreams come true.’” He looked over at Marylin. “What do you think, Mary-Lou?”

“I ...like it,” Marylin said haltingly. “Except it’s sort of dramatic. Because, really, I can’t make anybody’s dreams come true.”

“Sure you can,” Mr. Faber insisted. “If we’re talking about dreams for a better school, right?”

Marylin thought about this for a moment. Then she nodded. “I guess that’s what I’m talking about,” she said. “If that’s not too dumb,” she added.

“Not dumb at all!” said Mr. Faber, still typing. “Now all we have to do is incorporate your list of campaign points”—he paused to briefly lift up the sheet of paper Marylin had printed out earlier with bullet points of all her campaign promises—“and you’ll have yourself a speech.”

The next morning she got out of bed, brushed her teeth, and did her best not to throw up. Throwing up on any occasion would have been bad enough, but throwing up and ruining her fairy princess costume would have been a disaster. It would have been like throwing up on the
Mona Lisa,
in Marylin’s opinion, because her fairy princess costume had turned out to be a work of art.