I went to Poppy’s for breakfast. We sat at the kitchen table. I would have had toast and blackberry jelly except there was no toaster. So it was jelly on bread. I would have had hot chocolate except there was no microwave. So it was cold chocolate milk. Poppy was sipping coffee.
“It’s not working,” I told him.
“I think I heard this before,” he said.
“I tried,” I said. “All day yesterday. Mom made us stay together. I was mad at him all day. I ate my lunch in front of him and didn’t share a bite while he was starving. I made him watch my Gray Shadow DVDs. I didn’t speak to him all day.”
“Not a word?”
“Not a word. And I thought it was working. And then I got up this morning and—fssst. Zippo. No mad. It was gone.”
Poppy sighed. “I guess you just don’t have what it takes.”
I sighed. “Guess not.” I finished my bread in silence. “What’s wrong with me, Poppy?”
He squeezed my hand. “Not a thing. You’re just too nice, that’s all.”
“So what now?”
“Well,” he said, “at least we learned something. We know mad doesn’t work for you. So we need to find another way to get you a life.” He sipped and stared at me, as if there was an answer somewhere on my face. “How about”—he stared some more—“a friend.”
“I have friends,” I told him.
“I mean a best friend. Like girls always seem to have in books and movies. Somebody you’re on the phone with as soon as you wake up. Always sleeping over at each other’s house. Shopping the malls together. Somebody you just can’t live without.”
I said, “Does the name Jake ring a bell?”
“This isn’t about Jake. It’s about Just Lily.”
“Sorry.”
I told him I have friends in school and in the neighborhood. I talk to them and we do stuff and we have fun and I like them. But I never slept over. And I can live without them.
“Pick one out,” he said. “The one you like best.”
I thought about it. “Well, Anna Matuzak, I guess. She lives a block away. She’s in my grade. We both like Reese’s Pieces. And purple.”
He slapped the table. “Sounds like a match. Call her up. Invite her for a sleepover.”
I wish Poppy would take things a little slower. I’m getting woozy. But I did what he said. I didn’t just call Anna Matuzak. I rode to her house. Her mother came to the door. She said Anna was out swimming somewhere. I asked if Anna could come for a sleepover. Her mother looked surprised. She said my invitation was “very nice” and she would ask Anna as soon as she got home. As I was walking away she said, “Oh, and honey, I’m sorry but I have to ask—what’s your name?”
“Lily Wambold,” I said.
Anna called after dinner. She sounded surprised too, but she said, “Sure, I’ll come.”
So it’s set. Tomorrow night a friend is coming to sleep over. Mom and Dad said no problem. They said we can order pizza. We can watch DVDs. We can stay up as late as we want—“as long as you’re not going wild,” said Dad.
I’m planning the whole night. I feel myself getting excited. All of a sudden Anna Matuzak is the biggest thing in my life.