The Whole Story of Half a Girl (10 page)

“Yeah?” I whisper back.

“Is Dad better now?” she asks.

“Maybe,” I say, and hold out my hand flat on the table so she can slap me five.

Dad’s talking to Mom by the stove. His eyes are bright and flashing. At one point Mom reaches over and straightens
his tie. Then he comes over to the table with his plate and crunches on his toast while glancing at the paper.

“I want you both to have a fantastic day,” he says, and stands up and kisses us each on the forehead. Then he’s out the door like lightning, as if I imagined the whole thing.

“Mom?” Natasha asks when he’s gone. “Does Dad have a new job?”

“No, but he has a job interview,” she says, and I can see from the twitching corners of her mouth that she’s trying not to smile.

In the afternoon I have my first cheerleading practice by the bleachers near the football field. I tell Mom just as I’m running out for the bus, just kind of yell it out to her, that I’m taking the late bus home because of practice. Her shoulders fall.

“I’m so sorry I forgot to ask,” she says, but that’s all. She doesn’t say she’s happy for me. She doesn’t say “good job” or “good luck,” or anything like that. Maybe I’ll become a professional cheerleader, so she’ll finally have to admit that I’m good at it and that cheerleading is okay.

chapter fifteen

When I get to the track near the bleachers, not everyone is there yet. Kate, Jess, and a few other girls crowd together and gossip about the football players who are practicing out on the field. I walk up to them and stand beside Kate. Jess is still trying to convince Kate that Peter Hanson likes her.

“He’s so looking at you,” Jess says, and glances sideways at the players. They’re completely covered in gear, including helmets. I wonder how Jess even knows who Peter is, let alone sees him looking at Kate. Kate turns boldly in the boys’ direction. “He so
isn’t
, and I’m not really into him anyway,” she says, but a blush on her cheeks makes me think she cares more than she lets on. He’s one of the tallest boys in our class and he is pretty cute, I have to admit, but he’s always surrounded by a bunch of boys who like to talk loudly and punch each other in the arms. In my opinion no boy could
come close to Connor O’Reilly, the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen. Connor is a lot different from the boys here. He can draw really well and play the guitar. Sometimes he and Jack would do duets together during lunch. I’m not used to arm-punching, football-playing boys like Peter Hanson. We didn’t have sports teams at Community. We’d run races or play soccer or basketball during recess, but that was it.

Finally when all the girls arrive we sit on the grass and Kate starts to run the practice. First she takes down everyone’s size for uniforms and asks for a show of hands of who wants sneakers and who wants saddle shoes. I have no idea what saddle shoes look like, so when Kate first asks who wants sneakers, I raise my hand. I’m the only one. The other girls sneak sideways glances at me while Kate writes something in her notebook.

“Okay,” she says. “Before we start warming up, I want to tell you some stuff. First”—she pauses to run her hand down her golden braid—“I’m so psyched about this team. We’re the youngest squad in the county and that’s really awesome.” A few girls yell out a “whoo-hoo!” “And second, as captain, I’ve decided to cut out the alternates.”

I look at her in shock. I make my hands into fists, dig my nails into my palms. Fine, she’s throwing us off the team in front of everyone else. Fine. Fine. Fine. I always knew there was something about Kate I couldn’t trust. Maybe she just
thought it would be fun to mess with my head. Mom will probably be thrilled.

“Including the alternates, we have ten people on the team,” Kate continues while she paces back and forth in her pink sweats. “The seventh-grade team has ten people, not including alternates. So I’ve decided that Sonia and Ann should be regular members of the team and cheer at all games. If someone’s sick, we’ll just change the pyramids last minute. Sound cool?” She says this loud and strong, in true cheerleader style.

Before I know what’s happening Ann comes over and gives me a quick hug. Some of the other girls clap. I catch Jess’s eye and she quickly looks away. My hands tingle and a smile spreads slowly across my face.

After practice Kate asks me to have dinner at her house.

“I guess that’s all right,” Mom says when I call her from the pay phone in the gym. “Pick you up at eight.”

Kate pulls on my elbow. “Ask her if you can sleep over,” she says. The thought of not having to return to my nervous mom and sad dad and confused little sister sounds pretty good.

“Can I sleep over?”

“On a school night?” Mom says.

“I don’t have any homework,” I lie. “Please.”

There’s silence on the other end for a second. “Are you sure it’s all right with Kate’s parents?” Mom asks.

I cover the phone. “Is it all right with your parents?”

Kate nods.

“Yes,” I say.

To my relief, Mom doesn’t bother to ask how Kate knows this, but from the impression I got from Jackie, Kate probably has school-day sleepovers all the time.

“What are you going to do for clothes, a toothbrush, lunch?” Mom asks.

“I’ll borrow stuff from Kate.” Kate nods vigorously while I say this. “She says it’s fine.”

By some strange miracle Mom lets me.

The bus trip to Kate’s house is much shorter than mine. She could actually walk to school, but since it would be along a very busy road her parents don’t let her. We go in the back door and Kate throws her backpack down in the corner of the small kitchen. I put mine next to hers.

“In the closet, please,” Jackie says, pointing to the backpacks. She stands over a round wooden table, arranging a vase filled with yellow roses. She’s wearing a pair of tight jeans, a lacy white T-shirt, and sequined pink flip-flops. She looks cooler than most of the teenagers in my town.

Kate takes our backpacks and hangs them in the coat closet. Then she starts hunting through the fridge. I stuff my hands in my jeans pockets and watch Jackie fiddle with the roses.

“There’s some ham and Swiss in there. Hey, Sonia,” she
says, flashing me a quick sparkly smile. I like the way Jackie says “hey” rather than “hi.” It makes me feel like she knows me better than she does.

“Hi,” I say, giving her a little wave. “Thanks for having me over.”

Kate grabs some ham, cheese, a loaf of pumpernickel bread, and a jar of mayonnaise and sets up on the kitchen counter. I’ve never had a ham sandwich in my life. I don’t tell this to Kate. I help her, hoping she thinks I eat ham sandwiches every day. Kate’s probably never had non-meat meat loaf either. We both make a sandwich and she pours me a glass of Coke. Then she takes her plate and her Coke, stuffs a can of Pringles—another thing I’ve never eaten—under her arm, and starts for the living room. I follow her.

“Don’t eat too much, we’re going to Rudy’s tonight,” Jackie calls after us.

“We won’t,” Kate calls back. We both sit cross-legged on the couch. I take a bite of my sandwich. It’s salty and full of mayonnaise and wonderful, topped only by a handful of Pringles and a sip of cold Coke.

“Have you been to Rudy’s? We go there all the time.”

“Yeah,” I say, and I’m relieved that though I’m new to the world of ham sandwiches and Pringles, I have been to the neighborhood Italian restaurant, Rudy’s. But only a few times. Mom thinks it’s too greasy.

Kate pops a couple of chips into her mouth and grabs the
remote. We both settle in on the puffy tan couch. Everything in Kate’s home looks like it’s out of a magazine. A thick, colorful rug sits under the coffee table and the wooden floors shine. There are fresh white roses in a vase over the fireplace. I’m surprised that Jackie lets Kate eat in here. Mom never lets us eat in the living room, the one fancy room in our house. Everything else in our house is sort of crowded and mismatched. There are shelves everywhere stuffed with books and knickknacks. And most of our furniture comes from all the countries my parents have traveled to. Our living room is all from Japan. Our dining room table is from Mexico. And we have lots of pillows and rugs from India all over the house. There’s even one little rug with a big hole in it in the kitchen from the house Dad grew up in.

Kate turns on what she says is her favorite reality show. It’s about a woman who has to choose a husband out of a bunch of men. She walks around and talks to them in a really sparkly pink dress. Two of the men get into an argument about who has spent more time talking to the woman. Then one man pushes the other into a pool. If there’s one thing Mom hates more than anything, more than junk food, more than cheerleading, it’s reality TV.

I hear Jackie’s flip-flops flip-flopping down the hallway. “Do you guys want to go to the mall?” She asks, poking her head into the living room with her sunglasses on, twirling her car keys. “I have to return some shoes.” Kate
quickly jumps up and turns off the TV. “Sure,” she says, and off we go.

The mall, a place where Mom drags me and Natasha for new school clothes, sneakers, or bathing suits a few times a year, is a very different place with Kate and Jackie. First we head to the shoe store, not the sporty discount one we always go to, but a nicer one that has about thirty different kinds of shoes displayed like pieces of art on glass shelves. The way Kate and Jackie walk around intensely gazing at the shoes, pausing to focus on one particular pair, reminds me of a show I once saw about lions hunting their prey. I follow them, afraid to touch anything. Jackie finally pounces on a shiny pair of red flats with very pointy toes.

“Like?” she asks Kate, holding up the shoe. Kate walks over and takes the shoe from her mother and turns it this way and that. I wonder what she’s looking for.

“Yes,” Kate says. Then she shows Jackie a pair of black patent leather sandals. They both huddle around the shoes and discuss their good and bad qualities. Kate decides to put them down.

Just for something to do, I go over and look at a pair of green loafers. The green reminds me of grass in the spring. I run my finger down the fronts of them; I’ve never felt leather so soft.

“Those are cool. They’re totally you,” Kate says behind me.

“Really?” I say, and wonder what I have in common with
a pair of green loafers. I pick one up and turn it over: eighty dollars, says the price sticker in thick red marker. I’ve never had a pair of shoes that cost more than thirty.

“Try them on.” Kate holds up the shoe in the direction of the saleswoman. I’m about to stop her, but it’s too late.

“Size?” the woman asks.

“Seven?” I say in a quiet voice, and drop myself into one of the black leather chairs.

The saleswoman comes back, kneels down in front of me, and takes off my beat-up sneakers. I’m afraid my feet smell, but she doesn’t seem to care or notice. The shoes fit like gloves.

“They look great, Sonia,” Kate says, and Jackie, who’s come over, agrees. I think I’m starting to catch what they have—shoe fever. I picture myself walking into the cafeteria with my green shoes on. The other girls in my class shower me with compliments. Even the boys stare. My chin lifts and my heart swells at the thought. But they’re eighty dollars. I have a dollar fifty in my pocket.
Bang. Crash. Boom
.

Jackie must notice my face fall. “My treat,” she tells me.

I know I can’t let her and yet these green loafers have suddenly become everything I’ve ever wanted.

“No, you don’t have to do that,” I say, not all that convincingly. But when it comes to shoes, Jackie doesn’t need much convincing. She whips out her credit card and hands it to the saleswoman along with her red flats.

“Wear them out of the store,” Kate says. And I do. I can’t stop looking at my feet. When I walk out of the mall, it feels like the whole world is admiring me.

“Hiya, pumpkin,” Kate’s dad says to her as we all come through the kitchen door. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, his feet up on another chair, reading the paper. He wears jeans and a T-shirt and a tool belt around his waist. He’s tall, with spiky brown hair, and his green eyes practically have Christmas lights in them. He’s one of the best-looking men I’ve ever seen. He’s as much of a non-dad dad as Jackie is a non-mom mom. I can’t believe I’m thinking this about Kate’s dad.

Kate walks over to him, and he grabs her around the waist and gives her a quick squeeze. She pats his head.

“Dad, I think you need a haircut.”

“Holy green shoes!” he says, looking at me.

“Dad, this is Sonia. Aren’t they the coolest?”

“Pleased to meet you, Sonia. I’m Greg and those”—he points down—“are rockin’ shoes.” I smile and quickly look to where he’s pointing so that he won’t see me blush.

Then Jackie comes marching into the kitchen after bringing her shopping bags upstairs and flings herself into Greg’s lap. He grabs her and she gives him a not-so-small kiss on the mouth.

“Ugh, come on,” Kate says, and grabs my arm.

“We’re leaving for dinner in fifteen minutes,” Jackie calls.
It’s close to eight. My family never has dinner on a school night past seven. And we only go out on the weekends.

I follow Kate up to her room. It’s like living inside a doll’s house. It’s small and perfect. The bed reminds me of a cake—fluffy, white, and pink, decorated with tons of pillows. Paper patterned with little roses covers the walls. Silver-framed photos gleam on top of a heavy wooden dresser. There’s a pink-and-green-painted desk in the corner. It’s also incredibly neat. I didn’t know anyone my age was this neat.