The door squeaked open as I let myself in and the noise from inside rushed out to me like oxygen drawn to a fire. Her parents were about as fertile as the farmland just outside this area and had had four children in the time span of four years. Jane and her brother William (who had down syndrome) were the oldest at almost sixteen, Carter was fourteen, Brandon was thirteen and Paisley was twelve. Then, eleven years after Paisley was born they had another set of twins Hope and Faith. It was a pretty big surprise for them, since her parents were in their late forties. With all the children in the house it went without saying that it was loud all the time. Between Hope and Faith screaming for attention or food, Paisley and Carter and Brandon fighting or William throwing a tantrum it was amazing that anything got communicated in that house. Maybe that was why it was so loud though.
The house was in its usual disarray when I went in. Hope and Faith were in their high chairs, trying to be fed by Mrs. Apple. If I were them, I wouldn’t want to eat the green mush either. Carter and Brandon were in the living room, stretched out over three beanbags and were yelling over some video game. William and Paisley were at the kitchen table doing homework, Jane was leaning over their shoulder’s trying to help them. She looked up when heard the door click shut.
Usually she would have brightened up and smiled. Maybe she would have walked over to me and asked why I was here since we usually held sleepovers at my house since it was much bigger and quieter. Between the six kids only Jane had her own room, and even then on most nights Paisley snuck in to the room since Faith and Hope still weren’t sleeping through the night very well. Instead though, she just looked up and was exasperated. Her hair was pulled up in a similar knot like mine, but her straight black hair was frizzy and stray ends were sticking up everywhere. She looked like she had been hit by a truck several times and hadn’t had time to recuperate.
I smiled and waved to Mrs. Apple, Mr. Apple was probably down the hallway working away at his computer. Had they had a few less children they could have had a study or den room to put the computer but the hallway would have to do for a few more years until they could clear out a room. I walked over to Jane a bit self-consciously. I never knew how to act around William. He had been cool when we were younger and the difference between seven-year-old maturity and Down syndrome had been very little, but now it was different. I couldn’t talk to him about it anything.
“Hey,” Jane said quietly, not looking up from the paper she was correcting.
“I thought we could do a sleepover tonight, we usually do one to plan the party and it’s supposed to be tomorrow…” I drifted off. I didn’t need to explain to Jane that we held sleepovers all the time. She was my best friend and she knew that, but I didn’t know what else to say. I felt a little pushy too, like I should have given up and taken the subtle, silent hint that she had been giving off.
“Yeah, I thought since we hadn’t talked about it we could just put it off for another week or so. I know we always celebrate the Saturday of but things are just really busy here right now.” She handed the paper back to Paisley who started working on it again.
Put it off. Maybe I hadn’t heard her correctly. We never put things off. Our party was practically in the Farmer’s Almanac, you could predict things off of it. We had never put it off. Even when I had strep throat I had managed to get well in time.
“Yeah, I guess I—should have—yeah—uhm…” I’m sure I sounded like I was in the top ten percent of my class right there, but I was stunned, as if I had just been tazed.
She took a deep breath and tried to smile, I knew her well enough though to know it wasn’t real, “Just give me a few minutes, I’ll meet you up in my room. Okay?” she said it quietly and slowly, like talking to a small child.
“Yeah, of course.” I stepped over Brandon and Carter who at some point in the last few moments had started wrestling and now had each other head locked by the stairs. I wondered if I should separate them, but figure that since Mrs. Apple could see them and wasn’t doing anything that it was probably an every day occurrence here. I didn’t come over very often because the cramped area of the house and living conditions made me feel uncomfortable. The place wasn’t terrible, the appliances were new enough and the walls were well painted. The carpet was clean and most of the furniture matched. This was how most of America lived, it was just something I wasn’t used to and the differences between Jane and me being pointed out made me feel awkward. Especially right now for some reason.
Jane’s room was the last one at the end of the hall, it was probably supposed to be a study or something since it was the smallest room in the house, but since she usually didn’t share it with anyone she didn’t have much to complain about. Her room was put together in a hodge podge of furniture and decorations from Target and garage sales. My room had been carefully crafted by a professional decorator the only way to tell it apart from a picture in a magazine was by the items on the shelves and the pictures on the corkboard. Jane’s room, on the other hand, told her entire story. Behind the furniture you could see the border of baby wallpaper that had never been taken down and I knew that in the closet were stacks of coloring books and boxes of school art projects. Cut outs of her latest heart throbs of twelve and thirteen were barely covered by the printouts of college information on her walls. Her turquoise bedspread clashed with the red couch we had picked up for 5 dollars at a garage sale a few summers back. The bookshelf was packed with books and old binders and tilted to one side. Beneath her bed was an extra mattress, the one that Paisley or I usually slept on.
“Hey, sorry about that,” Jane said when she came in to the room. She walked around the room, self-consciously tiding up a few things. My room was always kept extraordinarily clean, whether by me or my snooping mother or the sometimes housekeeper, but Jane had to keep her room together all by herself and it wasn’t like she had a bunch of time on her hands.
“It’s fine. I should have called but you haven’t been picking up your phone…” I twisted my fingers through the strands of beads that hung off her bed frame. We had made the necklaces years ago. She had managed to keep them while I lost mine awhile ago.
“Yeah, I kind of ran out of minutes. I should have told you,” she shifted around her room, not looking at me. She finally settled on sitting on her bed, legs pulled up on to the mattress and crossed under her. “So… what did you want to do?”
She brushed her hair behind her ear. I hadn’t seen her so uncomfortable since our first boy-girl party.
“Well,” I sat down at her desk, careful not to mess up any of the papers that were on it. “I brought a few things,” her gaze was off towards the window, looking out at the huge tree that held the tree house we had played in until middle school. I tossed the bottle of navy blue nail polish back and forth between my hand. It was Jane’s favorite color but was too expensive for her. Whenever we had sleepovers and did each other’s nails it was her color of choice. Even when I told her that navy
blue was a fall color. “Do you even want me here?” I asked quietly. I didn’t want to know the answer, but I also didn’t want to be here for the next twelve hours if she had better things to do.
“It’s not that, Charlotte, it’s just that… I’m busy. I wish we had talked about it. I just—“
“Are we having a party this year?” I asked bluntly. I needed to know.
For the first time, she looked up at me. Usually her eyes were subdued, happy, but subdued, today though there was a distinct amount of sadness to them. I had never seen them like that before.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly, shrugging.
“It’s our sixteenth, though,” I said like it would make some sort of difference.
“And it’s just not a good time,” she said sharply. Jane didn’t snap. She was as docile as a doe, so it stung a bit. In fact, it hurt. She was practically disrespecting our friendship right here. Our joint birthdays had been a tradition since elementary school. We had had theme parties, like Lizzie McGuire for our tenth or parties that didn’t match like Angelina Ballerina and luau themed. We had had sleepovers and parties at Chuck E. Cheese. But since the first joint party we had never had one separate from the other. Why ruin a good thing?
“Yeah, you know what, just let me go to the bathroom and I’ll leave.” I quickly got up, nimbly leaving the navy nail polish and party-planning book on the chair. Maybe, after I left, she would see them and reconsider.
The kids’ bathroom was across the hall from Jane’s room. It was smaller than my bathroom; I couldn’t imagine what mornings were like in here. It was messier than I expected, I had watched some home improvement shows and I knew it was important to be organized in smaller rooms. In this case though, the floor was littered in washcloths, towels and dirty boy socks. I turned the faucet on and let the cold water run over my wrists. It was refreshing and calmed me down. I leaned against the cold counter and my elbow brushed against the piles of Jane’s makeup. I watched the mascara teeter-totter on the edge, but I didn’t move fast enough to catch it.
I looked down between the counter and toilet. Disgustingly the tube of drugstore mascara fell in to the trashcan, and it seemed to have slid pretty far in there. I closed my eyes out of frustration. I knew I couldn’t leave it in there. I bent down and pushed up my sleeves and delicately plunged into the plastic container. Of course it had to fall in to here. It couldn’t have hit the rim and bounced off the side, I’d rather dig behind the toilet for the tube. At least I knew what was behind there, the garbage can was no-man’s land. I pushed aside the layers of used tissues and tried to ignore my mind telling me what was on those tissues, I picked out the pearly pink razors and empty Suave shampoo bottle.
I was getting close to the bottom and I still hadn’t found or seen the mascara. I gagged through pushing aside a few tampon applicators, no matter how close Jane and I were, that was gross. And then, finally, at the very bottom was the mascara and right next to it was an empty birth control container. Jane and I were besties, she would have told me if she was having sex right? That was something best friends talked about. We had talked about it when Michael and I were talking about having sex. Jane should feel open enough to talk to me about it… apparently she didn’t. But who was she… who was she doing it with? It wasn’t something I really wanted to think about, but I thought back briefly to what Dylan had told me. I hadn’t paid him any attention at the time, Dylan had had a crush on me since we were in fourth grade. I had figured he was just trying to rock the boat. I guess somebody else was doing that already.
I desperately didn’t want that to be true. I didn’t want my best friend and my boyfriend to be cheating on me. I knew I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but I had been telling myself that for weeks. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Charlotte. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill, Charlotte. But maybe conclusions needed to be drawn, because maybe that conclusion was the answer.
I picked up the mascara and tossed it on to the counter, it landed in the sink but I didn’t really care. I grabbed my bag and stormed out of the Apple house. I didn’t care that I was noisy or drew attention to myself or that I was rude to Mrs. Apple when she asked me where I was going. I just left. I slammed the door and started walking towards Riverside Heights, I knew I couldn’t walk all the way there but I needed to calm down before I called Mom. I hitched my bag up higher, regretting how much I had packed. I thought back to the nail polish and party-planning book I had left with her. She definitely didn’t deserve the nail polish and there was no way in hell that I would be throwing my Sweet Sixteen with her. What a… what a backstabbing bitch!
I screamed. There were apartments on either side of the street, a family on their front porch and I screamed on the top of my lungs. I could just feel everything bubbling up inside of me like boiling water that wasn’t watched and it all just flew out of me in one instant. I flew down on the sidewalk, ignoring the feel of the pavement against my palms and the wind against the small sliver of skin that was peeking out from between my shirt and jeans.
A cool hand touched my shoulder, “Are you okay?” I jumped and looked up to see a woman, the one from the front porch. She was concerned, but also obviously didn’t want some crazy teenage girl crying on her front lawn.
I waved my hand at her and nodded, even though I obviously wasn’t okay. “I’m fine. I just…” I tried to think of something that sounded logical but didn’t involve me spewing that past three weeks of my life “… my boyfriend just broke up with me,” I sobbed. It wasn’t exactly untrue. I didn’t have a plan of action on how I was going to talk with Michael and Jane yet, I think I wanted some more concrete evidence besides the birth control container and Dylan’s gossip. But if it was true, Michael and I were definitely over. And maybe Jane and I too, I didn’t know how I could face her after this.
I dug my phone out of my pocket and smiled again at the lady. It seemed to appease her and she left for her family. I dialed the home number and waited for someone to pick up.
I hiccuped with surprise when my dad answered. “Hello?”
“Daddy?” He wasn’t supposed to be back yet.
“Babydoll, what’s wrong?”
“Daddy?” I sobbed again. “Will you come get me?”
“Babydoll, what’s wrong?” he asked again but with more urgency.
“I just—I just—will you please just come get me?” I hadn’t pleaded like this since I wanted the Barbie jeep for my fourth birthday.
“Of course sweetie, I already have the GPS on your phone activated,” cause that wasn’t creepy, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
I sniffled, “Kay, thanks Daddy. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I hung up the phone and set it down next to me. The sun had set and the wind was starting to pick up. Spring was definitely here, but it wasn’t quite summer yet. I pulled my sweatshirt out from the bottom of bag; I watched the nail polishes and bracelet making kit fall in to the gutter. A few steps away from me was the opening that led down to the sewers. I pulled my sweatshirt on, I glared at the orange and blue symbol on the front of it, it was from the only cheer camp that Jane and I had every gone to together, but I didn’t have any other sweatshirt with me and it was pretty cold. I glanced back at the family on the porch, they were all circled around the campfire that was in the front of their house and roasting marshmallows.
With a deep breath I stretched out my leg and kicked the contents of the sleepover bag down the gutter. I wouldn’t miss much, a cute top and some comfy socks but nothing that was irreplaceable. Not like my friendship, or my relationship. I felt guilty about the littering but there was something freeing about hearing everything drop into the sewer below. When I got home I would throw away the sweatshirt.
Dad pulled up in his sporty red car. Mom had tsked at him when he came home with the expensive, flashy vehicle saying that he was only going to drive it a few months out of the year.
“And if I’m only going to drive something a few times a year I should make it a luxury.” He lived from hotel to hotel for most of the year, the sporty car was a treat for him.
I quickly got up and scrambled in to the small car. The leather seats were warm from the heating system. Dad looked just like he always did, even though I hadn’t seen him in person since the beginning of February. We had spoken via webcam a few times, but the time differences tended to leave us to texting and emailing. It wasn’t terrible, it was something I was used to.
“Did you want to talk about it?” Dad asked. He wasn’t one to use pressure to get me to talk and I knew that if I said no he would leave it at that and we would move on from this topic.
“Not really.” And true to form he left it at that. For the sporty car he drove slowly through the town, not really hugging the curves or running the red lights like he probably could have. “So, when did you get back?” I asked. I wasn’t ready to talk about Jane and Michael and I didn’t want to sit in the car in silence and let my mind stew over what was going on.
“I pretty much just walked in the door, I wanted to surprise you all but your mom and Elizaveta were sleeping and you weren’t there. Business finished up a bit early, most people stayed behind to gamble but I had more impor
tant things.” He said it with a smile and on another night it would make me feel better but tonight, not much would.
“Where were you this time?”
“Monte Carlo.”
He meant the one in Monaco, not Las Vegas.
“That must have been beautiful,” I commented though there wasn’t enough enthusiasm in my voice and we both knew it.
“It really was. You know I was thinking,” he said in the voice he reserved for when he was going to suggest something, “that if you didn’t have any other plans we could go there as a family for your next spring break.”
“That’d be fun.” Again it was unenthusiastically, even though I really did mean it. I had grown up listening to Dad talk about the places he went and look at the pictures and even Google map them; it was only natural that I wanted to go.
“Vetta is a little young, but I think she’d still enjoy it. She likes going to the beach and their beaches are amazing. I wasn’t able to go to any but my hotel room overlooked the water, bluest thing you’ve ever seen.” Dad was just talking to fill the silence, but I didn’t mind it. In fact, I was thankful for it. He continued to talk about the trip until we pulled up to the house. “Okay,” he said, getting out his car and locking it up in the garage, “I know your mother doesn’t like this, but do you promise to keep it a secret?”
“Keep what a secret?” Instinctively I went to grab my bag but came up empty handed. Oh yeah, my nail polishes were probably out to the ocean by now.
“Just… do you promise to keep what I’m about to give you a secret?”
Flustered, I nodded and tried to smile. I didn’t want to play “can you keep a secret” or guessing games right now. I just wanted to go to my room and cry on my bed. Maybe later I would get up and start packing up the past social life, the pictures on the walls, the stuffed animals, the gifts, everything would have to go. Instead, I humored my dad. I followed him in to the house through the garage and in to his study. His study was usually off limits to Elizaveta and me, but today was different. Maybe he knew that today needed to be an exception. Good parents were intuitive like that.
His study was dark and stuffy. When he wasn’t home we shut the vents off and kept the room closed up, our house was pretty big for a family of four (sometimes three) so Mom did her best to conserve energy when she could. I could remember the few times I had been in here. Specifically when I was seven and I hid under his desk for two hours listening to him make phone calls. He had been gone for four months and had just gotten back when some big whoop-de-do had happened in the office. I can remember being so desperate to spend time with him that even hiding under the desk and listening to him argue with people was enough to please me.
Dad lifted a large rectangular box from the space between his desk and the wall. Even in the darkness of the room, the only light provided by the moon shining through the wall of windows, I could see how shiny and smooth the box was. Momentarily, my mood lifted. My eyes were dry and itchy, but I was still smiling.
“It’s supposed to be a surprise, for your party tomorrow,” I hadn’t mentioned the lack of party to him yet, “but I think it might cheer you up a little. I’ll give it to you now as long as you promise to be surprised tomorrow.” I noted the shiny designer’s name on the front of the box and had to resist the temptation to snatch it out of his hands.
“I promise!” I smiled, really smiled, and Dad handed over the box. Ceremoniously, I set it down on the Spartan desk I had hid under so long ago. Carefully, so as not to damage the box I lifted the lid and set it down on the desk. The name Zac Posen shined on the front of it and my heart fluttered. The smell of the designer clothes beneath the layers of tissues wafted up into the air, it smelled better than a freshly baked apple pie. It was simple but it made things better. I used just the tips of my fingers to lift up the papers and a mess of green fabric was revealed to me. I could already tell that it was going to be gorgeous. I lifted it up, finally ignoring the tissue paper that fell to the ground, I would worry about recon later.
The dress was the very definition of gorgeous. The fabric was light and fell down in the layers, the bodice was pleated but the focal point of the dress was the slit cap sleeves that met in the back at the based of the neck. The entire back was cut out and all I could think of was how adult this was.
“You didn’t pick this out, did you Daddy?”
“Well, no,” he admitted sheepishly. “One of the sales clerks at the store did. I thought it was a little too much… but…” he was getting teary-eyed and I could tell that it was making him uncomfortable. “I feel like it was yesterday when you were running around in little onsies, a puff of red hair and energy,” he hugged me tightly. I tried to set the dress down so it wouldn’t get wrinkled and I hugged him back. “You’re just growing up so fast.” Part of me wanted to gag, but the other part was crying. Now just wasn’t a good time to bring up anything emotional, I’d probably cry during Oprah at this point. He let go and wiped away his tears, “Do you like it?
“Daddy, I love it. It’s gorgeous.”
“I thought you would like it,” he bent down to pick up the tissues paper and I folded the dress up and put it back in the box. I didn’t want to. I wanted to put the dress on and twirl around the house. I could imagine the dress flying up in a perfect circle, the way the fabric would twist and pull with each pirouette. I resisted though and I placed the lid back on the box and gave it back to Dad. “Good night, sweetie,” he gave me a hug after putting the box back in the, now useless, hiding spot. “I hope you feel better in the morning,” I nodded in agreement even though I knew it would be a long time before I was happy again. “If you need to talk…” again I nodded, he didn’t need to finish the sentence. He was a dad, I already knew what he was going to say and I didn’t want to talk about it.
I left the study, while Dad went to sit down at his desk to do whatever was that he did after his business trips. The cool, darkness of my room was welcome. Even with the reminders of Jane and Michael dispersed through out it the comfort of my sheets was a welcome reprieve from the awkwardness of my dad doting on me and thinking about Michael and Jane. Even still, the Egyptian cotton sheets weren’t enough to lull me to sleep and I found myself thinking about them again.
I had to do something. Passive was the last word people used to describe me and I wouldn’t have that start now. The obvious thing to do was to break up with Michael and cut off Jane. Quick, easy (well, easily said) and effective. I could find a new BFF. Hell, I could recruit Leanne to be my new BFF. We didn’t have the same history as Jane and I… and she had an unacceptable affinity for those long floral skirts. But those things could be worked around, Leanne and her Christianly morals wouldn’t cheat on me.
Moving on was all fine and well, but I didn’t want to just move on. I wanted to get revenge. I wanted to make them hurt. I wanted to make them feel guilty for what they had done to me. You don’t cheat on Charlotte Marks and get away with it. Being part of cheer had taught me one thing, I had to be aggressive. B-E aggressive. I quickly got out of bed and shuffled over to my computer. It booted up quickly and I went straight to Facebook. I ignored the new friend requests, status comments and messages and went straight to the Events section… and then stopped. The feed was filled with notes of parties and dresses and “I can’t wait”s. It made me stop. No one was stupid enough to hold a party on the day that always had my and Jane’s party. Who would do that?
I clicked on the first person’s name and went through their profile, down where I could see what events they were attending and right there in plain site
Jane’s Sweet Sixteen
THIS SATURDAY, message me for place
7pm to whenever, NO PARENTS!!!
BYOB, bbs.
My stomach dropped to the tip of my toes. I couldn’t breathe. My fingers went numb and I couldn’t even move them over keyboard. No wonder she had been so evasive! She had already had a party planned—and without me! If she had wanted to have separate parties this year I would have been fine with that. Okay, not really but that wasn’t the point, she was having a party without me and hadn’t even invited me. I was her best friend.
This cleared “just moving on” off the playing board. I was going to get even. I was going to make a scene. If she was stupid enough to post the detail on Facebook—a public forum—then I had every right to attend. Boo hoo on her for not being smart enough to figure out some other way to invite the entire class. With 68 people RSVPing I needed to make a big scene, I had a little less than 24 hours to figure out the perfect thing. And with Michael’s name at the top of the attender’s list I needed to make whatever it was big. It was going to be the be-all-and-end-all of high school show downs and it was going to involve that green Zac Posen dress.
word count: 5056
