Do you believe in miracles?
A. Yes
B. No
My answer is A. And they happen on Tuesdays. I know this because it is Tuesday night, and my day has been filled with miracles. Three of them, to be exact.
The first miracle happened this morning. I got to sleep in again. That’s two days in a row for those of you keeping score at home. No Donny bouncing on my bed, licking my face. No Mom or Dad waking me up to say I need to watch my brother. My eyeballs didn’t see daylight until 9:30 in the morning.
The second miracle occurred shortly after the first. Livvy called.
“Can we go today?”
“To the mall?”
“No, to the moon. Duh. What have we been talking about for the past few days?”
Not only did my mom agree, but my dad slipped me an extra fifty bucks. Yes, you read that right. Fifty dollars to spend. On me. At the mall. This after the raging fit about money I got from my mom just two days before. Maybe it was a guilt thing. Maybe it was a payoff for all the free babysitting I’ve done. Who knows? Who cares? I got the extra cash, and I wasn’t about to look that gift horse in the mouth or any other place.
The third miracle happened at the mall. Now, I don’t typically picture the mall as a miraculous sort of location. In fact, I’d say it’s pretty much the least miraculous place I can think of, except for maybe the dentist’s office.
Livvy and I cruised the stores for those last-minute back-to-school bargains. Nate disappeared into the Music Depot to harass Chris. Livvy and I made our way over after a respectable wait. As I flipped through the new CDs looking for something to grab my attention, someone grabbed me from behind. I about jumped over the CD rack and left my skin behind.
“Hey,” Nate said. His warm hand rested on my hip.
Once I got my heart rate down below a thousand, I answered him. “Hey.”
“There’s a ‘welcome back’ stomp at school on Friday night.”
I looked around for Livvy to see if she was catching any of this. She stood at the counter, looking at gift cards and discount stuff while Chris helped customers. I looked at Nate. “Yeah,” I managed to say. Such stunning repartee.
He moved next to me and started casually flipping through CDs that I doubt he has any interest in. “So, I wonder,” he said, his voice soft and yummy to my ears. “Maybe you’d like to go with me.”
My heart rate jumped back up to hummingbird speed. My brain spun so fast I thought I’d wind up with cerebral damage. “Um, yeah. Sure,” I said, trying to sound calmer than my body functions wanted to allow.
“Great,” Nate said. He touched my arm and a jolt raced through me, hitting every extremity at warp speed. “I’ll call you later with details.”
Then he walked away.
It is a good thing that the racks in the Music Depot are bolted to the floor, because I felt like I might fall over and take the whole Hip Hop section with me. Three miracles in less than eight hours. That has to be some sort of record. I wonder who I call at Guinness to verify this. Does Guinness have a world record for miracles?
The rest of my day is a blur. I spent most of the fifty dollars, but not all of it. I ate something at the food court, but I don’t remember what. I talked to Livvy about stuff, none of which I can recall.
Now I’m waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting to work out those oh-so-important details about my first date with Nate. My first date. Okay, my first real date. That thing with Josh Crowe at the junior high science fair shouldn’t count. Especially since my science project was better than his and, oh, never mind.
Ring, dang it, ring.
Obviously sheer willpower isn’t working. I wonder if I should call him. I could call and ask for Livvy, and then ask if I can—no, that won’t work, because I never did tell her that her brother asked me out. Can you say “dilemma”?
I vaguely recall Livvy saying something during lunch about the stomp. I vaguely recall me saying something about going with her. Nate was still at the Music Depot bugging Chris.
Yikes.
“Mattie,” my mom says. “Are you in there?”
“Yeah,” I answer.
“Livvy’s on the phone for you.”
Great. “Got it.” I didn’t hear it ring.
“So what’s up?” Livvy asks.
My heart thumps a little harder. “Nothing. What’s up with you?” I’m hoping that’s what she expected to hear. I try to sound normal, but nothing is normal right now.
“A little birdie told me you have a date this Friday.”
Busted. “Um . . .” I force my brain to find the right words. I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with this.
“Why didn’t you tell me at lunch?” Livvy’s voice is flat. She sounds royally ticked off.
“Shock,” I say.
“Very funny.” She doesn’t sound amused.
“Seriously.” I’m going for the honest approach. I really wish I were a good liar. “It was a huge surprise to me, and I didn’t know what to say. In fact, I barely remember talking to you during lunch. I barely remember eating lunch, I was that stunned.”
“Yeah, well, have a great time. I’ll see you on Monday.”
With that, the line goes dead. Hello, Guinness? Cancel that last call about record-setting miracles.
Now what? Do I call back and try to explain things? Do I call back and tell her what a booger she’s being? Do I ignore the whole thing and hope it will go away? The thing is, I’ve never been in a situation that required asking these kinds of questions before, and I don’t want to make the wrong choice. This is so not fun.
I decide I should call back and try to explain.
Nate answers and my brain instantly turns to mush. “Uh, hi, um, Nate. This is Mattie.”
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Can I talk to Livvy?”
“Don’t you want to talk to me?”
More than I want to keep breathing. “Well, yeah, I do, but I need to talk to Livvy.”
Nate covers the phone and yells. I hear muffled voices. “Livvy says to tell you she’s not here.”
That feels like a blow to my gut. I sit in stunned silence for a moment.
“I guess now you have to talk to me,” Nate says in his yummy voice, only it’s not sounding so yummy right now, because I really want to talk to my best friend. I really want a chance to explain things to her.
“I thought maybe I could pick you up about 7:00, and we could grab something to eat?”
I’m too distracted to really concentrate on what he’s saying. “Yeah, okay.”
“Great. So I’ll see you Friday at 7:00, unless you can come by sometime this week to visit.”
“Depends,” I say.
“On what?”
“On whether Livvy will let me in the house or not.”
He chuckles like this is some sort of joke. “Don’t worry about her. She’s just jealous.”
But I am worried about her. “Will you ask her to call me?”
“I’ll ask,” he says, then he pauses. I can hear a television in the background. “I don’t know if she’ll answer, but I’ll definitely ask.”
I hang up the phone and sit on the edge of my bed, wondering if what I did was wrong. Livvy has known forever that I had it big for her brother. I thought she would be happy for me. I thought, being that she’s my best friend and all, she would be excited. Her not being excited makes me mad. What kind of a friend does that to you?
Maybe Tuesdays aren’t as miraculous as I thought.