Pretty Is

Whap whap whap whap. Mama and I sat together on the porch swing, watching Monica practice. The morning was still deliciously cool, and I stretched out my legs, flexing my bare feet, content to do nothing but sit here with Mama. It was good to be home.

Monica had picked up her basketball like a long-lost friend almost as soon as we got home from camp on Sunday afternoon, shooting and dribbling in the airless heat until suppertime, and again after supper till the light began to fade. She’d played Monday afternoon, and again Monday evening with Russell Lovinger. Now here she was at it again, nine o’clock Tuesday morning. Nine was the earliest Mama would let her practice, for fear of disturbing some late-sleeping neighbor.

We’d sat here long enough, Mama and I, to watch half the neighborhood leaving. Mr. and Mrs. Lovinger had driven off together to their construction business. Mr. Blevins had purred away in his Lexus to the grocery store he managed (at least once a week Daddy wondered out loud how a man in his line of work could afford a Lexus), and Mrs. Blevins was out in her straw hat watering their vegetable garden.

Mrs. Pate, who didn’t have a husband but did have two little daughters, one in preschool and one in kindergarten, had buckled the girls into their car seats in her pink Jeep and roared out of the driveway, probably late for getting them to day care and herself to work at the Broadway Salon. Daddy had left before any of them.

The whap of the ball on pavement and the crash-rattle of the backboard and rim had to be disturbing Gary and Russell. In the summer you might see Russell out around ten or so, but you never saw Gary before noon. Anyway, I thought Russell might not mind the noise too much; he’d seemed really happy to get into a game with Monica last night.

After a day and a half at home, I still hadn’t seen or spoken to anyone from my class. Sunday we’d just unpacked and hung around with Mama and Daddy. On Monday Monica and I were both still a little tired. We’d sat around in our pajamas all morning, then made tuna sandwiches for lunch so Mama wouldn’t have to.

Just as Daddy had promised, Mama was her old self again, only she needed to rest a lot. She played Uno with us after lunch before going to take a nap. Then the house was really quiet. Daddy was at work, of course, and Monica was either playing basketball or doing something on the computer. I thought I might like to call a friend. But who were my friends?

Most of the girls I used to play with were Kayla’s friends now, and therefore they couldn’t possibly be mine. I’d have to wait awhile to see how they felt about me now—the first day of school was Monday, a week away.

It would be fun to talk to some of the boys, like Jesse Miller and Ricky Talmadge and Sam Lyons. They were so funny, so different from girls. Some of us used to steal Ricky’s baseball cap and play keep-away with it, and he’d roar and race after us. He called me “Scissors” sometimes, but he wasn’t being mean. The boys didn’t care who was on Kayla’s side and who wasn’t.

That left Hannah. I wanted to see her, and at the same time I didn’t. I almost wanted to call her, but even more I wanted her to call me. She knew I was home; Mama had told me that she’d seen Hannah and her mother at the grocery store on Saturday and had told them I’d be home the next day.

All Monday afternoon I fooled around, reading a little, making a house of cards, watching Monica’s computer game. I went outside and threw a gray-green, slobbery old tennis ball for Bruce to fetch again and again. All afternoon the phone refused to ring.

On Monday evening after supper Daddy went out to the front yard to start cutting the grass, and Mama went to her vegetable garden in the back. Sometimes on a nice evening she’d putter around there for the longest time, just picking a couple of tomatoes, pulling a few weeds, seeing how big the zucchinis had grown, sometimes stroking the smooth green skin of a bell pepper as if it were a polished gem.

It seemed pretty boring to me, watching her from my bedroom window, but she looked happy and peaceful as she moved slowly from plant to plant.

Restless, I put away the clean clothes Mama had left on my bed, then wandered through the house. Monica was in the living room watching TV. In the kitchen the dishwasher was humming. I turned back toward my room, then on impulse entered Monica’s instead.

I paused in the doorway, listening to the guinea pigs rustling around in their box. The room was neater than I expected; unlike me, Monica seemed to have put away everything from camp. On her desk, carefully stacked, were several spiral notebooks and a shrink-wrapped packet of lined paper, with pens and pencils and a sharpener on top. A new three-ring binder lay to the side of them. Her bed with its light summer bedspread was rumpled but more or less made up. I noticed that something stuck out slightly from under the pillow. Curious, I stepped carefully around the guinea pigs and pulled it out.

It was a book, and on the cover was an all-over pattern of roses like old-fashioned wallpaper. Across the roses was a single word, in flowing gold letters: Diary.

Amazing. Monica kept a diary? I’d always thought diaries were for girls like Laura McLaren—girls with talent and big dreams, and especially girls that boys liked, girls who could flirt with the best-looking boys and snub the rest, girls with a busy, gossipy social life.

But of course Monica, too, was entitled to dreams.... For a moment I was back in Laura’s bedroom, wavering as Hannah held up her sister’s diary in triumph. Then I slid the book back under Monica’s pillow, exactly the way it had been, and left the room.

As I sat in the swing with Mama on Tuesday morning, the thought of Hannah was the one thing that spoiled my contentment.

I tucked my feet up under me and turned toward Mama. There were little gray streaks in her dark hair, which hung to her shoulders, not yet pinned up for the midday heat. She was watching Monica, nodding as the ball swished through the net.

I felt myself flush, irritated by her knowing look. I almost demanded to know what she was nodding about. Then I caught myself, deciding I didn’t want to hear.

After a minute Mama went inside to make more coffee. I picked up a couple of magazines that I’d brought out earlier and turned the pages slowly, trying to find something to get interested in. I was staring at sharks in National Geographic when the whiz of bike tires made me look up. Hannah was coming up the driveway.

There was something wary about both of us. It reminded me of Bruce when he met a new dog, and he stopped a little ways off, totally alert, and his whole body quivered, as though he wanted to growl as much as wag his tail, and he wanted to run away as much as either.

“Great. Well, almost great. If I could have, like, gone with some friends instead of my family, it would have been really great.” She took off her bike helmet and pushed back her hair, then looked me in the eye. “You never answered my e-mail.”

“Oh. Well, there wasn’t anything to say.” I tried to keep my voice neutral. “Except that I was totally grounded and everybody thought I was crazy. I couldn’t write about that because your mother might read it.”

In the kitchen, I told Mama I was going for a bike ride with Hannah. “I know,” Mama said, pouring herself some coffee. “She called a while ago to make sure you were here. She seems to have some mysterious plan.”

Hannah took us in circles, all over Shipley. We passed her house, our old school, the grocery store, Samantha’s house. We were riding along a shady street lined with big houses when all of a sudden Hannah braked and turned, right into Kayla Morton’s driveway.

Hannah just got off her bike and beckoned to me. She had that daring, do-anything look on her face, and I thought, Oh no, get away from me, Hannah McLaren.

But then she looked at me seriously, and I felt that this time she saw me, not just her own scheme. “It’s okay, Erin. Really. I won’t get you in trouble. All you have to do is watch.”

Slowly I walked my bike down the driveway and leaned it against a thick shrub. We both took off our helmets, and I followed Hannah to Kayla’s front door, the same door where I’d stood and apologized on the most miserable day of my life.

“Hi,” she said, but she stared distrustfully at me as I hung back, a good ten feet behind Hannah. Then she looked at Hannah and said, “My mom said you called. She said you wanted to bring me something.”

“I did,” Hannah answered. “An apology.” She took a breath. “Kayla, cutting your hair off was my idea, not Erin’s. She wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for me. And I’m really sorry. It was a mean, stupid idea.”

Hannah turned, glancing from me to Kayla and back. “And I want Erin to know that I’m sorry she got all the blame. I should have gotten just as much. Maybe more.”

I was about to say more, but Kayla burst out. “It was so horrible. How could you do something like that? How could you be so mean—both of you?”

I forced myself to look straight at Kayla, at the tears of outrage in her eyes. “I’m really sorry, Kayla. I had to say that before, because my mother and your parents were standing here. Now I don’t have to. But I am sorry.”

Kayla sniffed. “It was really really awful.” She turned, glancing at her reflection in the glass of the open door, and fluffed out her hair. It was still that gorgeous golden color.

“My mother took me to the best salon in Raleigh,” she said. “Anyway . . .” She gave her reflection another lingering gaze. “I think this cut makes me look more ... sophisticated.”

“Oh yes, definitely,” Hannah answered enthusiastically. As well as I knew her, I still couldn’t quite tell if she meant it or if she was mocking Kayla’s vanity.