Pink & Green is the New Black (14 page)

“Maybe it's good news, Ma. Ever think of that?”

My mom does have a point. Does Claudia play the lottery? Or maybe she won some kind of award. Who knows.

Grandma shakes her head. “I doubt it. Good news is usually first delivered over the telephone. And besides—why is she spending money on a flight?”

“Ma! Enough. We're doing fine with money now. You sound like someone who lived through the Depression!”

They go back and forth like this for a few minutes while I pick at a blueberry muffin. I'm not going to tell them about Yamir. They don't need something else to be upset about. And besides, I don't know if I want their advice.

I stare at the clock waiting for something to happen. I know we all assumed that Claudia flew home, but maybe she didn't. Maybe that girl Lauren drove her again. Maybe she took the train. There are so many possibilities.

I'm reading one of the
Times
Sunday wedding stories when my phone buzzes. I'm grateful for the distraction. People with broken hearts shouldn't be reading stories about weddings.

“How are you?” Sunny asks in a very serious voice. She must know.

“Fine, I guess.”

“
Soooo
, Yamir punched a hole in the wall,” she says. “I don't think you can say he doesn't care.”

“He told you I said that?” I ask.

“Yeah. But that's pretty much all he said.” She stops talking for a few seconds, and it feels like an hour has passed. “Did something happen with Travis?”

“No! I mean, yes and no.” I walk out of the room and upstairs. “He tried to kiss me. And maybe our lips touched. But it wasn't my idea. And then we stopped.”

“Oh.”

It's quiet again. I can't tell what's happening. It seems like Sunny is mad at me, but that doesn't make any sense.

“Where were you and Evan? I didn't see you guys the whole night.”

She says, “We can discuss that later,” and then she's quiet again. “I gotta go, Luce. Sorry all of this happened.”

That's it? I don't get it. I need Sunny now more than ever, but she seems to think this is my fault.

A minute after we hang up, my phone rings again, from a random Connecticut number. I figure it's Claudia calling from someone else's phone or something, so I answer it.

“Lucy,” a girl says on the other end.

“Yeah?”

I have no idea who it is.

“So, that kid Elias is awesome,” the girl says.

Oh. Now I know who it is. Erica Crane. She must be calling from her landline.

“He is?” I ask.

“Yeah. He knows about all these obscure bands and he's really into music. Plus, he seems, like, way older. Like way, way older than all the guys we know.”

“Um, that's great.”

I don't understand this call. It almost seems like Erica is thanking me, but that's so not like her.

“But I heard about you and Yamir. And that really stinks.”

“Yeah, thanks. I'm really upset and—”

She interrupts. “I need you to fix it. Say you're sorry or
whatever. Because we need to go on double dates. Elias is in high school, and I can't make this happen all on my own.”

Oh. So that's why she's calling.

“It's not really up to me. Yamir has been ignoring me for a long time.”

“Really? You made him sound all amazing,” she says. “So you're a liar too?”

Ouch. That was harsh. I don't even know what to say.

“I'd suggest you find a way to fix it,” she warns. “Or soon everyone will know you're a liar. You don't want that, do you?”

“Erica, come on,” I plead. “You don't know the whole story.”

“True. And I don't really care about the story,” she says. “Just fix it. Bye.”

Okay, so somehow this morning has gone from bad to worse, and Claudia's not even here yet. I pray that Mom's right, that Claudia is coming home with good news. I'm not sure I can take any more bad news.

Lucy's tip for surviving eighth grade:

Spend time with your family. It can help.

An hour has passed and
Claudia's still not here. I think she said an hour, but maybe she said a few hours. I don't know.

My mind is spinning with all the horrible things happening: Yamir and I breaking up, Claudia's mystery trip, Sunny being annoyed with me, pressure from Erica. I need to talk to someone, and there's only one person I can think of.

“Evan, hey, it's Lucy,” I say, as soon as he answers.

“Hey!”

“Listen, I hope it's not weird that I'm calling you, but after our chat at the beach, I really think you might give the best advice.”

He laughs. “Well, thanks.”

I sit back on my bed, and try to even out the feathers in
my down comforter. “Everything felt crazy at the party last night. Didn't it?”

“What do you mean?” He asks in a way that sounds like he's actually interested in the response.

“I mean, the whole thing with Yamir showing up, and Erica and Elias, and now I think Sunny's mad at me.”

I wait for him to say something, but he's quiet for a few seconds. Maybe it was a mistake to call him.

“Lucy, you always get worked up over this stuff, and then it's fixed in, like, a day,” he tells me. “Just go with the flow.”

I don't even know what that means. It sounds like good advice. But also like something to say when you can't think of anything else.

“Yeah.”

“Yamir is obviously confused. So let him work out his stuff.”

Again, it sounds good, but is he really saying anything?

“You and Sunny are the perfect couple. How do you do it?” I ask. I hear all kinds of noise coming from my mom's room. Things dropping. Doors closing. Exasperated groans. I have no idea what's happening out there.

“I don't know, I guess we're just awesome,” he says. “You shouldn't compare your relationship to ours, though. Everybody's different.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Look,” he says. “Travis likes you. Yamir's been a little bit of a doofus lately. So just go with it. And who cares about Erica? She's never going to be nice.”

“Maybe she's on a path to being nicer,” I say.

“No, she's not.”

“All right. Well, thanks, Evan,” I say. “You can tell Sunny I called you. I don't want her to think I'm going behind her back or anything, or that she's been replaced by you!”

“Okay, I gotcha.” He pauses, and in the background I hear the screeching-tire sounds of some kind of car video game. I guess he was multitasking. “Catch you later.”

I end the call and wonder if I feel any better than before I called him. Maybe a little. Maybe not. I guess I don't feel any worse.

I walk downstairs to grab some kind of a snack. Stress eating is hard to avoid on days like this.

Mom is in the foyer, putting her coat on. “I have to go,” she says.

“What? No. You can't go. Claudia will be here soon.” I decide to sit on the bench by the front door so I'll be able to see Claudia when she comes.

“Don't even ask. Adrienne had some kind of problem with the pet sitter she lined up and now she's in a bind, and I
need to go over and check on the animals every day this week. Apparently in addition to the cats, she has two birds now. The animals have been alone for three days already.”

“
Eww
. Gross.” That explains all the crashing and banging I heard before. My mom always drops stuff when she's in a hurry.

She makes a face. “I know.”

We are not cat people. Or bird people.

Mom should be more put out by this. It's making me even madder that she's not as angry as I am.

“Where'd your mother go?” Grandma asks, coming down the stairs.

“Adrienne. She needs someone to check on her cats and birds.”

“Your mother does not know how to say no.” Grandma sits down next to me, and we look out the window together. “She's left us to deal with your sister alone, I guess.”

“Apparently.”

We sit there quietly for a few more minutes and then Grandma says to me, “You sure it's only your sister that's troubling you?”

I shrug. “I don't know.”

“I see. It's okay to not know.”

Grandma's usually pretty comforting, but I don't feel like
having some kind of deep discussion. Not when everything's falling apart.

If I don't figure out how to make Erica happy, everyone will know that I haven't been honest about Yamir. The AGE girls will know I lied to them.

Eighth-Grade Masquerade is in a month, and my life is a complete disaster. I think I'm better at handling grown-up problems. Eighth-grade problems seem much, much harder.

I should never have attempted a perfect last semester. A merely okay semester would have been a lofty enough goal.

Lucy's tip for surviving eighth grade:

Be open to surprises.

An Old Mill taxi pulls
into our driveway, and Grandma and I leap up from the couch. We're outside on the porch waiting for Claudia before she's even gotten out of the car.

I'm having déjà vu back to last summer when Claudia pulled up with Lauren and Bean. Only a million things are different now: Claudia's getting out of a taxi, not Lauren's car. It's freezing outside. And Yamir's not sitting on the porch taking pictures.

I want to go back to that moment. Sometimes I wish that life could be like the photo stream on my phone. You could click back and forth from one moment to another. You could revisit happier times and take a break from harder ones.

“
Hiiii
,” Claudia says, running up the steps to the porch.
She reaches out to hug both of us at the same time. I guess she's not staying long, because she only has a small bag with her.

“Let's go in. I'm freezing,” she says. She's the only one of the three of us with a coat on, plus she's coming from Chicago. She should be used to cold weather.

She drops her bag by the front door and hangs her coat on the coat tree. She walks into the kitchen like she's been here for weeks, like nothing unusual is happening. She grabs an apple from the bowl and fills up a glass of water.

It's the strangest thing. It's like she has no idea we're ridiculously worried and curious about why she's here.

Grandma goes back into the living room and picks up her book. I sit next to her and wait. I'm not going to interrogate Claudia. I'll wait until she's ready to talk.

“So,” she starts, and sits down on the brown armchair across from Grandma.

“I'm going to guess you weren't arrested,” I say. “You seem too calm for someone who might be heading to jail.”

“Very funny, Luce.”

“Start talking,” Grandma says to Claudia. “You don't just appear out of nowhere like this.”

If Mom were here, she'd probably yell at Grandma for saying something like that, but I stay quiet. I kind of want to see
how Claudia explains this. And sometimes a little tough love is helpful.

“Where's Mom?” Claudia asks.

I tell her about “the bind” Adrienne is in. “She needs someone to check in on the cats and the birds. Sounds like she has a whole pet store in her house.”

“Yuck,” is all Claudia says.

“Claudia. Come on. What's going on?” Grandma seems frustrated that Claudia isn't getting to the point.

“Well, I came for advice.” She looks down at her feet. “Bean asked me to marry him!”

“What?” Grandma screams and stands up. “Claudia Desberg. Stop this right now.”

I can't say I'm totally surprised. It could be worse. She could already be married. Oh no! Maybe she is.

I stand up too. “Wait? You didn't answer him, right?”

Claudia's the only one still sitting down, and it feels funny. “Great to know you both love Bean.” She half-smiles.

“This is not about loving Bean or not loving Bean,” Grandma says, sitting down again, so I follow along. “This is about the fact that you're barely twenty years old. And you're not getting married. It's not even legal!”