is I have no guts. I had to wait until I was outside the classroom to open my mouth. “Minx is a total jerk.”
It was then that Ashley Barnum, with one hand on the water fountain and the other holding back a bunch of blonde hair, turned to stare at me. She licked a bead of water from her upper lip and said, in this very deep voice, “I believe there are a few spots open in Standard English, Ms. Lee.”
I wagged my finger at her. “And several in Basic English, Ms. Barnum.”
Ashley tossed her hair over one shoulder. She crossed her eyes and smiled at the same time.
As I was walking down the hall toward my locker, it occurred to me that Ashley Barnum and I had just shared A Moment.
At lunch, I sat with Nola and Georgine as usual. This new girl, Paula Harbinger from Cleveland, sat with us. Given the choice Paula would probably rather sit at a different table. With the cheerleaders, for instance. Or with the soccer team girls. But you can’t just sit anywhere you want in the cafeteria. You have to get asked to sit at certain tables.
“Is that all you’re eating?” Paula asked when I pulled out my lunch. Two hard-boiled eggs and some carrot sticks.
I shrugged. “I don’t really like lunch.”
Nola and Georgie laugh-smiled at each other.
“Isabelle is a weird eater,” Nola said. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Yeah,” said Georgie. “She hardly eats a thing.”
“I noticed,” Paula said, in a kind of snotty way, which made me want to chuck an egg at her.
“But we love her anyway,” Nola added, which made me want to hug her.
Paula and Georgie were both eating the school lunch—some kind of chicken and rice with gravy, and green beans. For dessert it was cut-up peaches from a can, floating in syrup.
Nola was eating the same exact lunch she eats every day: two peanut butter sandwiches on pumpernickel bread and two chocolate milks. Nola could eat peanut butter and chocolate all day long and not gain an ounce. She has the skinniest, palest little body you ever saw. Whenever she gets cold—which is a lot—her skin turns blue and marbley all over.
My stomach rumbled as I looked at everyone’s food. I could have eaten all three of their lunches and still have been hungry, but the truth is I can’t stand eating in the cafeteria with everyone watching me. If people are going to look at me, I’d rather eat too little than too much.
I took a bite of carrot stick and sprinkled salt on my hard-boiled eggs. I thought about everything I would eat later, when no one was around.
Georgie started talking about soap operas, as usual. She is borderline obsessed with soap operas. I mean, she will not miss two of them, which she secretly tapes during the day so she can watch them at night when her crazy mother is asleep. Nola and I are casual watchers, meaning we know all the characters, but we will not go into cardiac arrest if we miss an episode.
Paula wasn’t even pretending to follow our conversation. Her eyes kept wandering over to the center table. Ashley’s table. You could tell Paula wished she was sitting there more than anything.
Lotsa luck, toots. Basically if you’re not on the field hockey team, and you don’t have long shiny hair and a toothpaste smile and perfectly broken-in size zero jeans, you can forget it.
At the center table Ashley Barnum was busy smiling and tossing her hair while talking to Heather Jellerette. Eli Bronstein, the cutest guy in our grade, came up behind her, pretending to dump ginger ale on her head. Ashley squealed so loud, everyone in the room turned around. “No, Eli! Don’t!” Finally Eli picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, sack o’ potatoes style, while she whacked him on the butt with a lunch tray. Everyone at the table started clapping and cheering. Eli lowered Ashley into a chair. She sat up smiling, with pink cheeks and flyaway hair. “Eli!”
“God,” said Paula. “Could they be any louder?” She was trying to act annoyed, but you could tell she was thinking, Okay, here’s the plan: I’m going to grow out my bangs and buy some cooler jeans, and then maybe . . .
Nola just smiled and took a sip of chocolate milk. “They are kinda loud. You’ll get used to it though.”
Nola doesn’t care about things like who’s sitting at which table. Neither does Georgie.
I guess that’s the difference between us.
5
WHEN I GOT HOME FROM SCHOOL my mother was on the phone with my Aunt Weezy. They’re twins, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at them. Sure, they have the same curly black hair and blue eyes, but Weezy wears makeup and clothes from Ann Taylor. She goes to kick-boxing and gets her nails done. My mother looks like she just rolled out of bed and put on the first thing she could find, usually sweatpants.
It didn’t used to be that way. Mom used to dress cool, with nice black slacks and funky jewelry. Not any more though. These days she doesn’t even care if she matches.
Right now, she is spread-eagle on the kitchen floor, a ratty old skirt bunched up around her waist, flashing her panties to the world. On the linoleum between her legs sits a saucepan of boiled potatoes ready to be mashed. She is holding one of the potatoes in the same hand that is holding the phone and is actually nibbling at it while she chats. Some dignity, please!
Mom and Aunt Weezy talk at least twice a day. I call that ridiculous. Mom calls it a twin thing. Umbilical cord, phone cord. I’m glad Weezy lives an hour away from us, or she’d probably be over here twice a day too.
“How’s Nini?” Mom was saying, scratching her thigh with the potato masher. She looked up and saw me in the doorway, waved.
I waved back.
“Really?” Mom said. “Awww. . . . How did you find out? . . . Uh-huh. . . . She came to you first? . . .”
My mother covered the receiver with one hand and whispered to me that Nini got her period! Yesterday!
Whoop-dee-doo. I’ve had my period since I was eleven. It’s supposed to be this big deal, like you’re all of a sudden a woman the minute it happens. And now, if you wanted to, you could get pregnant. Oooooo. Trust me, when you get it, it’s not all that magical. You don’t feel more grown-up or anything. Just crampy. And fat.
Anyway, I don’t know why my mother would get herself so worked up over Nini. I mean, who cares?
My cousin Janine Barrett may be my age, but she is my polar opposite in every way. First of all, she is four-foot-six—practically a dwarf. And she’s a gymnast, which means she competes all over the country and weighs about seventy-five pounds, leotard included. She thinks anything over eighty pounds is fat.
“Is Nini home yet?” my mother said. “I want to talk to her. I want to say congratulations.”
I grabbed a few grapes from the bunch on the kitchen table and ran upstairs before my mother could make me get on the phone with Nini and congratulate her.
