Today’s Willow’s birthday. I don’t know how Meredith found out, but she did. We’re having a meeting in the group room this afternoon to plan a party!
Meredith told us the news in a whisper, like she was a superspy. A secret ballerina superspy.
“Message received,” I whispered back. “Agent Logan, over and out.” Meredith started to giggle, but I put my finger to my lips. “Silence is priority number one,” I whispered. “Super-stealth mode is activated. Agent Logan will be incommunicado until our next rendezvous point.” I stuck out my hand for a secret handshake. Only it turns out you really can’t do a secret handshake if the other person has no idea what you’re doing. So I basically flailed my hand in the air and slapped Meredith’s palm. That’s when Heather came out with her clipboard. She gave me the weirdest look ever.
“Over and out,” I mumbled.
The other girls broke into giggles. Heather rolled her eyes. That made us laugh more.
Willow’s turning thirty. I thought she was younger, but Meredith overheard Willow say her age. Thirty is a big birthday. When Aunt Rose turned thirty, she quit her teaching job and went to Italy for three months. She came back engaged to a guy from her bike tour named Raoul, who lived with her in Boston for a while and then moved to California to be a yogi. Aunt Rose cried for two weeks and then decided she still wanted to be a teacher after all.
Aunt Rose has a very complicated life.
My whole point is that thirty is a big birthday, one where you stop and think about what you want.
We all like Willow. That’s why we decided that we don’t want her to quit her job and move to Italy. We want her to stay here and keep helping girls like us.
“We have to throw her a birthday party.” Meredith bounced up and down on the toes of her flats. They’re the closest she can get to ballet slippers in here. “Maybe they’ll even let us dance.”
“Ooooh, yes!” Brenna bounced in her seat. Today is a very bouncy day. “We can put up balloons and streamers and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ and get her presents and have cake!”
“Extra cake?” Laura asked. “On top of our meal plan? No way.”
She had a point. “Maybe we can have cake as part of our meal plan?” Brenna asked.
“Of course you want cake,” Ali mumbled. We all still heard her being a jerk, though.
“Don’t say stuff like that.” I didn’t mumble. Brenna doesn’t deserve snarky comments about what she eats. None of us deserve snarky comments about what we eat.
“Stuff like what?” Ali asked. “I can say whatever I want.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “Like stuff certain people are doing at night.”
“No one’s doing anything at night except sleeping, Ali.” Aisha butted in, then turned her back on Ali. So did Meredith. So did everyone else. They didn’t ask what Ali was talking about. They just took my side. They took Brenna’s side. And we kept planning the party.
It wasn’t like at school, when whatever Talia says becomes law. When the girls she hates become the girls everyone hates. Today everyone had a mind of her own.
And they picked me.
(We’re still deciding about the cake.)
We didn’t have streamers, so we made those paper chains Julia and I used to decorate the Christmas tree with, where you tape construction paper strips into circles and hook them into a long strand. Instead of red and green, we used every color of the rainbow.
Instead of balloons, we made signs:
Happy Birthday, Willow!
Thank you for helping us!
You’re a great therapist!
I overheard Heather and Jean talking about how mature we were. They also made up some fake meeting for Willow to go to while we decorated. When Willow finally came in, she was so surprised she shrieked. “Oh my goodness, girls! You are the sweetest people ever. I’ll never forget this day.”
We played music! (Even some non-approved music with “questionable lyrics.”)
We danced! (For about five minutes, until Jean told us we were being too active.)
It was so much fun.
Laura’s going out to dinner with her parents tonight. She got a special pass since her dad is going overseas this weekend. He’s in the army and is going back to Afghanistan. Laura looked upset when she told us in group, so I tried to talk to her after. She totally shut me out, which made me think of Josie.
I don’t know what I can do to make things up to her. I wish I had a time machine, so I could go back and throw her the biggest, bestest birthday party ever. I’d get a karaoke machine, because Josie loves them, and we’d sing “Love Is an Open Door,” even though karaoke is the most embarrassing thing ever.
I’d even go out to eat for her, like Laura’s doing. (Her family is going to Frankie J’s, a super-scary Italian restaurant whose portions are as big as my head. Maybe bigger.)
“What does a big plate of pasta feel like to you?” Willow asked me in our session.
“Like I’m on a roller coaster,” I answered. “Like my stomach is dropping out of my body and the whole world is falling away.” I thought for another minute. I like metaphors. So does Mrs. Monahan. She’d be proud of me. “You know how there’s no gravity in space?”
Willow nodded, all therapist-like. She just needed a sweater with elbow patches on it. Or a pipe. Except those are gross.
“You know how whenever astronauts are floating in space, they’re tethered by a cord? A really strong one, so it doesn’t break and send them into the void forever? When I think about eating at Frankie J’s, it’s like I’m in outer space. But instead of a cord, there’s an elastic band. One of those really thin ones that break all the time, like on cheap Halloween masks.”
I was sure Willow was going to laugh at my metaphor. I stared at her carpet. It’s dark red with yellow dots, like bits of gold are embedded in there.
“Keep going,” she prompted.
“If I eat something scary, that band will snap. I’ll be in space.” I whispered the last part.
“What’s so scary about outer space?”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “It’s outer space. Duh. You keep floating forever and ever and you can never get back home and then you die.”
“But what if you don’t die?”
“That’s a silly question,” I said. “Of course you die. You can’t survive in outer space. It’s dark and bleak and there’s no one else around. There’s no food.”
Willow raised her eyebrow at the word food. She didn’t say anything, though. I bet there’s a special class in shrink school called How to Be Quiet to Best Unnerve Your Patients. I bet Willow aced that class.
“But what if you don’t die?” she asked again. “What if outer space isn’t dark and scary? What if it’s just that no one you know has reported back after their elastic snapped?”
I looked up from the carpet.
“What if it’s beautiful in space?” Willow asked. “Full of supernovas and exploding stars and brilliant colors? What if it’s the most wonderful place in the world, but you’re too scared to release your tether and find out?”
I wanted to ask her what colors were out there and how bright they were. But all I could feel was the elastic band snapping and sending me hurtling into the darkness.
“What if it is dark and cold, though?”
“Isn’t it like that now?” Willow asked. “So why not try for a supernova? You have nothing to lose.”