November 7th, 2008
JerryAnn
It’s November and I’m staring into the emptiness of my fridge, trying to decide what to eat. The cube of butter reminds me of Toby. The salad reminds me of Cate because I bought it for her a month ago, before I screwed up, before she stopped talking to me. I miss her despite the fact that she walked past my front window minutes ago. I grab the salad. It’s soggy and moldy, so I toss it in the trash, then sigh at the empty fridge.
My phone buzzes. When I see who it’s from, I shut the fridge door.
Cate: We need to talk.
Me: Then let’s talk. Come over.
Cate: First, sorry I haven’t talked to you in weeks, but this is an emergency.
Me: OK, I’m coming over.
Cate: No! Do not come over. I’ll come to you.
Me: Cate, you’re scaring me. What is going on?
Me: Is something wrong? Did you do something to your apartment?
Me: Are you okay? Are you hurt?
Me: Should I call an ambulance? Should I call the fire department?
I’m freaking out when my door swings wide and Cate steps inside, shuts the door behind her, then peers out each window as if she’s being followed. She puts her pointer finger up to her lips.
“What’s with all the cloak and dagger?” I whisper.
“Mom’s home.” Cate nods. “I don’t want her to know.”
“Don’t want her to know what?” Cate messes with her phone for a second then stands next to me and shows me the screen. The phone is between us, and I want to hug her and tell her how much I’ve missed her, how my life is desolate without her. I want to tell her Toby accidentally stayed the night, Gavin is coming over for Thanksgiving, I got a ten-cent pay raise, and Toby has a cat named Gordita, but I play it cool.
Cate shoves her phone toward me. “Read this.”
I follow the thread.
Milo: Hey Cate
Cate: Hi nerd
Milo: Thanks for tutoring me
Cate: Thanks for being a tooter
Milo: Do you want to go to the 8th grade dance with me?
Milo: It’s in two weeks.
Milo: It should be fun. I’ll look so handsome you won’t recognize me.
“You’re tutoring Milo?”
“Yes, I’m tutoring Milo. I’ve been tutoring him for a few days now. As if you didn’t know, as if you and Toby didn’t make that contract so your dad would mentor Milo into becoming the next Kobe Bryant.”
The information floats like an airball missing everything: net, rim, backboard. I talked with Dad last night, and he never mentioned Milo or Toby or a contract.
Cate shoves the phone in my hand up close to my eyes. “The text I’m freaking out about is the one where he invites me to the dance!”
I nod my head, rereading the texts.
Cate yanks her phone from my hand. “Grrr, how could you not get this?” She shoves her phone in her pocket and paces. “I can’t go to a dance. The last time Milo touched me, I ended up paralyzed in a heap on the gym floor. People touch at dances. I can’t do this.” She paces over to my bed and has to jump up to fall on it. She leans back on my pillow, grabs my basketball, and rolls it clumsily through her hands then throws it up at the ceiling. She doesn’t come close to hitting it. She tries twice, failing both times.
“How does this relax you?” She sets the ball down on the bed, clenching and unclenching her fists. “I could use a donut, but I’m trying to eat healthy.”
“You are?”
Cate rolls her eyes but doesn’t sit up. “Oh, please, isn’t that what you want from me? I figured we’d be friends once I’d conquered my junk food addiction, but I need sugar and fat like an addict needs drugs.”
I sit on the bed beside Cate, and guilt washes over me. “That’s why you stayed away?” I put my hand on hers, but she pulls away, and I know she’s not rejecting me, she’s just reacting to being touched. “I thought you weren’t talking to me because of all the stupid things I said.” I face Cate. “I’ll love you if you eat donuts for every meal for the rest of your life. I won’t love that you do it and I’ll worry about your heart, but I’ll still love you.”
Cate sits up and narrows her eyes at me, incredulous.
“I’m serious. I’ll still love you.” I tap her on the nose, very quickly and very softly. “I’ve missed you. Life is boring without you.” She smiles, and I hop off my bed. “Okay, let’s figure this out.” I grab the ball off my bed and toss it from hand to hand. “What does your mom say?”
“I haven’t told her, and I don’t plan to.” She falls back on the bed. “She’d get excited and want to buy me a fancy dress and plan out how to do my hair and talk about makeup and shoes and act like I don’t have a problem, which would make my problem feel bigger.”
I nod. She’s right. “Do you want to go to the dance with Milo?”
Cate stares up at the ceiling. I wait. She whispers, “Yes, but it would be so much easier not to go.”
“Good thing we’re not the kind of people who choose easy over good.”
“You’re a dork.”
“Yes, yes I am.” I lie down on my bed, and Cate scoots away. “We can make this work.” I throw the ball up at the ceiling. “Milo’s not going to put the moves on you. He’ll be too busy trying to get people to laugh. If you tell him not to touch you, he won’t, but you’ll have to tell him, otherwise, he will.”
“How do I tell him?” She turns to face me, but I keep throwing my ball and missing the ceiling by a centimeter.
“Easy.” I hop off the bed, set the ball down on the floor with me, roll out my tote, find the CD I’m looking for, and hand it to her. “Next time you’re tutoring him, play this.”
She reads the title aloud. “U Can’t Touch This.” There’s a pause as she stares at the cover, complete with MC Hammer and his baggy-crotch pants. “That is not funny,” she whispers.
I’m afraid I’ve screwed up again, crossed a line or something, so I reach for the CD to put it away, but Cate pulls it closer to her.
“It’s not funny because it’s friggin’ hilarious. I’m gonna need to borrow this.” She smiles and scoots to the edge of the bed. Her feet dangle off a good two feet from the floor. She keeps opening and shutting the CD case.
I tuck the tote under the bed. When I look up, Cate’s expression has changed. The smile has faded, and she’s serious. “You have to come.”
“To tell Milo not to touch you? No, that’s weird.” I sit beside Cate. She doesn’t want a hug, but it’s nice being close and catching the hint of sour cream and onion potato chips on her breath.
“No, I mean, you have to go to the dance.” She turns, facing me head-on with her leg tucked under her butt. “If you don’t go, I won’t go.”
“I don’t think they let adults show up to these things.” It’s middle school. I imagine whoever is in charge has to beg for chaperones, but nothing makes me more insecure about my height than dances.
“Dr. Jacobs worships you. I’m sure he’ll let you.”
She’s right. “Fine. If Dr. Jacobs is good with it, I’ll go.”
Cate jumps off the bed and spins around, then runs to my door. “I’m gonna tell Mom.”
“What about Milo? Don’t you need to tell him first?”
“Nah, I’ll let him sweat for a while. Guys like that.” She opens my door, then turns back with her palms up in a question. “Well, aren’t you coming?”
I throw on shoes and a jacket and follow behind Cate.
From Cate’s doorway, Natalie reacts exactly how Cate said she would, but worse. She’s at the kitchen table, her back to me, talking about hair, makeup, accessories, jewelry, clutches, nails. Cate’s face is getting red, and her fingers are shaky. She’s overwhelmed. I clear my throat. Natalie turns around, surprised to see me standing in the entryway.
“Hey, Natalie, Cate and I have plans right now.” We don’t have plans.
“Yeah.” Cate runs over to me. “Sorry, Mom, we have plans.”
Natalie puts her hand up to her heart and gets teary-eyed. “Of course. You girls have fun.” Cate rolls her eyes. Natalie swallows hard.
Cate follows as I grab my stupid purse and hop in my car. It’s chilly, so I turn up the heat as we pull out of our complex.
“Your car…” Cate inhales. “I smell more lemon now than I do fish. It smells good?”
I smile and pat the dashboard. “Thanks. Toby changed the air filter and the oil and fixed her up.” And we had a sleepover.
Cate groans. “Toby, a.k.a. Se?or Delgado.” She says his name, laced with disappointment.
“What? I thought you liked him?”
She’s staring out her window. “I do like him. He’s great.” She turns her body toward me. “I saw him and Miss Rose making out after practice. I’m avoiding him because he’s dating her .” She tightens her fists. “She’s the worst!”
I turn left onto Montgomery. “What’s wrong with Rose?”
“She gave me a C on my cookie decorating assignment! I don’t get C’s. Can you believe her?”
“No, she is the worst.” I nod in agreement, but when we stop at the light, I face Cate. “I don’t get what your C has to do with Toby, and isn’t family consumer science a pass-or-fail class?”
“That’s not the point. I can’t believe he would pick her, of all people. You know what Miss Rose said when she saw my decorated cookies?” It’s a rhetorical question. I put my foot on the gas when the light changes to green. “She said…” Cate imitates Rose’s high-pitched voice and puts a hand on one hip. “If this inappropriate behavior continues, you will need to visit the principal and the school counselor.” She shakes her head and drops her hand. “And then she gave me a C even though my cookies looked awesome.”
I turn into the parking lot at the donut shop where Toby and I met. Cate hasn’t looked up, instead, she’s on her phone scrolling through pictures. She stops at a photo and hands her phone to me. “Don’t they look impeccable?”
I’m looking at a tray of frosted cookies. “Uh, Cate, what the...”
She rolls her eyes at me.
It’s not a traditional plate of cookies. Graham cracker crumbs fill the center of the plate in a heap. A headstone, complete with R.I.P. written across it in frosted letters, sits atop the crumbs, but that’s not the disturbing part. A gingerbread man with x’s for eyes has been dug out of a graham cracker grave.
“Check out the details.” She zooms in on the picture, where the dead man’s gingerbread leg is being eaten by one of the other cookies. Red frosting oozes from the dead man’s leg. She scrolls over to another gingerbread man. He’s eating a hand. There’s a speech bubble above him in icing.
“Tastes like chicken,” I read the speech bubble aloud and try not to laugh. “It’s very lifelike.”
“I know, that’s what I said. Miss Rose didn’t appreciate it. During the Starving Time in Jamestown, Virginia in 1609, corpses were dug out of graves and eaten to prevent starvation.” I bite back a laugh. Cate takes her phone back and peers out the front windshield with a smile. “Donuts!” Then she glares at me with mistrust. “If this is a self-control test, I’ll never speak to you again.”
“Whoa, eating healthy doesn’t mean never eating sweets or junk food, it just means eating them in moderation.” Cate’s skeptical. I hold up my hands. “No trick.” I sigh. “I do not want to get on your bad side.”
Cate relaxes, and we hop out of the car and end up getting two donuts each. We split them in half and share.
Cate moans with her first bite. “Oh, this is good. I’m glad I don’t have enough self-control to stay away from you and junk food. Mom is driving me crazy and spending more time with your big hairy Dad. I miss you and Toby, even though his girlfriend is stupid.” She looks at her donut, maple dripping down the side onto her finger, and smiles, not at me, but at the donut. “I know food only cures hunger, but eating this maple bar tastes a lot like happiness.”
I smile and nod. “I agree.”
She tears her eyes from the donut. “You haven’t had a bite yet, weirdo.”
Thanks to Toby, Milo’s getting help from my dad and tutoring from Cate, and the heavy knot in my chest unravels a little. Cate moans her approval of her donut, and I smile. It’s a good moment—great, even—but something is missing. No, someone is missing. Toby. He has a girlfriend, I have a boyfriend, but I can’t erase Toby’s generosity toward Milo, or forget the night he slept on my chair, his gentle snores, or the way he makes me smile.
I laugh with Cate and blame my errant thoughts on the donuts.