Trust Mom to look out for me even when she was almost three thousand miles from home. Before we ventured off to Peru, she had arranged a special surprise: Reb. On a two-day reprieve from her treehouse restaurant project, my best friend showed up at our door early that evening, sleeping bag in one hand, bag of treats in the other, and a big squealing “Surprise!”
First thing, Reb reared back in horror—no pretense ever with her—when her shocked gaze locked in on my bare feet, bracketed by crutches: “Whoa… those are just wrong.” She gagged. “Bleh. Ballerina feet.”
“You mean old man feet,” I said, wiggling my toes, banged up with blisters and topped with chipped nail polish that had once been angry purple. My feet were best hidden in socks, but I had better traction with bare feet on the slippery hardwood floors. I shrugged. “It was all those downhill miles in hiking boots.”
“Good thing I’m such a great friend.” Reb jabbed a finger in the direction of my offending feet. “I’ll lead the SOS mission. Just remind me to thank Mom for telling me to bring supplies.”
An hour later, my poor, trek-battered feet were soft from a long, pampering soak in Hawaiian bath salts—“My grandpa wants to know whether these would be good amenities for his inn. What’s your vote?” (Two thumbs up.) Then she handed me a lava pumice stone—“He’s testing these, too. What do you think?” (Only for guests into masochism.) And finally after vigorous scrubbing, we both lavished Notice Me Red on our toenails. While Reb waddled to the kitchen on the backs of her heels, doing an unintentional penguin impression, I surreptitiously checked my phone. Still no answering text or e-mail from Quattro. What did I expect when he didn’t even own a cell phone?
“Quick, where’s my phone?” asked Reb, scanning the kitchen counters frantically. “I know it’s got to be around here somewhere.”
“Why?”
“I need a picture for proof. The official end of your boycott.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ummm… that’s like the fifteenth time you checked your phone. Does bending your own No Boy rule have anything to do with that rather spectacular guy I met? The rather spectacular guy that Grandma Stesha can’t stop talking about?”
“Hey! Isn’t there some kind of confidential tour guide–client privilege?” I demanded as Reb rummaged in the grocery bag that she had brought with her. She held up a bag of fresh kettle corn triumphantly.
“Why would you want to keep Quattro a secret?” Reb asked me, dodging out of danger’s way when Auggie bounded into the kitchen. Smart dog, she knows when food is about to be consumed. Reb’s voice may have softened, yet her tone was insistent: “Why would you want to keep anyone a secret?”
Good question.
I sighed as Reb stopped Auggie from lunging at a stray piece of popcorn that had fallen to the floor after she ripped the bag open. “I guess you know about Dom.”
“Well… yeah. It wasn’t just that you never talked about him with me and Ginny after mentioning him once or twice but that you totally changed how you dealt with boys afterward.”
“I think I didn’t say anything—I know I didn’t say anything—because deep down I knew he was all wrong. I mean, what kind of guy asks you not to tell anyone that you’re dating unless he’s embarrassed by you?”
“Or… maybe he was embarrassed by himself? I mean, isn’t it a little creepy for a business school student to date a high school junior?”
“When you put it that way…”
Reb brought the popcorn bowl over to me, and we each grabbed a handful.
I continued. “I’m such a hypocrite. I gave you a hard time about staying with Jackson. What did I say again?”
“What are you guys going to talk about when you’re in college and he’s still in high school? Prom?” Reb quoted with near-verbatim accuracy as she delicately plucked one piece of popcorn from the bowl and dropped it into her mouth.
“Ouch.” I grimaced. “Sorry. How can you stand me?”
“You were just telling me the truth, Shana. I mean, any guy other than Jackson would have been a disaster. A total disaster. Plus, you’re usually right about guys half the time.”
“Only half?” It felt so good to be able to laugh about myself and not to have to be perfect. “So Quattro. I think I really like him. No, I know I do. But he’s on his way to college. And”—now I smiled sardonically, repeating the very words I had thrown at Reb once upon a time—“what are we going to talk about when he’s in college and I’m still in high school? Prom?”
“You’re not just any girl, Shana. And”—she held up a finger to prevent an interruption—“I have it from a very good source—you—that prom is fun.”
“But what if our time on the Inca Trail was all we had in common?”
“This, I’ve got to hear. The Love Guru speaketh. So you’re saying…”
“Vacation is fake! Anyone can do a vacation! You’d have to be a total Eeyore not to be happy on a vacation! But in my real world, the one way, way off the Inca Trail, there’s Dad’s blindness and college applications and pest control”—I scrambled for another example—“and prom!”
“Aren’t you being a little… dramatic?”
“Well, he hasn’t exactly called me.”
“Okay, I know this is going to be a shock to your system, but in the real world, where we of the normal looks live, not all of us are chased nonstop by boys.” She patted me gently on the hand as though I were senile. “It’s hard to believe, but true.”
“Reb!”
“So here’s a wild idea.” She who calls herself my friend now widened her green eyes. “Maybe you should call him? I know, crazy, right?”
“He doesn’t have a phone.”
“What?” Reb sounded the same disbelief I had felt before I knew Quattro’s reason. “Why?”
That was private information I didn’t want to share, not because I was afraid of what Reb would think but because Quattro blaming himself for his mother’s death was his story and his alone to share.
“I’ve tried e-mailing him, but it’s like he’s a CIA operative or something. He’s gone dark.” I shivered at those words. What if something had happened to Quattro and his dad on their way home?
“Well, who knows why? Maybe he’s not in a place where he can check e-mail? Or he’s lost your phone number? A billion things could have happened. You never know.” Reb shrugged. “It doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you.”
Reasonable enough. I needed to move to safer topics: her treehouse building, weekend plans with Jackson, her kid brother. Luckily, Reb agreed that I was so behind in school, another night off wasn’t going to hurt my grades more. So she insisted on helping me with Dad’s surprise present. As we reviewed the storyboard I’d sketched on paper, Reb said, “If you don’t mind me plagiarizing the idea, I’m so going to make one for my grandparents. I think Grandpa is going to pop the question soon. On the anniversary of the first time he proposed to Grandma Stesha.”
“That’s so romantic!” I said.
Our heads were bowed over Mom’s computer as we clicked through folders. Photo after photo showed my parents not just living together through the years but loving together. In more than half of the pictures, my parents were laughing or hugging or just holding hands. The recent divorce of Reb’s parents had come as a nasty surprise to everyone except her father, and I didn’t want images of a happy couple to hurt her now.
I asked Reb, “You okay looking at these?”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding firmly. Even though her smile was bittersweet, I could see she was telling the truth. “It’s nice to see couples who’ve made it.”
“Well, it hasn’t exactly been all peaches and sunshine these last couple of weeks.” I told her about how cranky Dad had been, first sullen and silent, then lashing out.
“Tough,” said Reb sympathetically.
And then I replayed how Mom had treated him like an invalid before becoming all helpless woman in distress. “Oh, my gosh, she kept asking him if he was doing okay—like he was on his last legs.”
“Ouch. Your dad’s Mr. Climb Every Mountain Because It’s There and all. He must have hated that.”
“I know! Can you say ‘total irritation at Mom’?” My breath caught. “You know what? Even when Dad was all cranky, he was the enforcer of thou-shalt-not-touch-my-daughter with Quattro. I swear, Dad could be my number one pest control technique. He totally intimidates guys.”
“You have pest control techniques?”
“Had.” I flushed when Reb burst out laughing. “Okay, so I had a couple of boy control techniques. But I didn’t even realize it.”
“Oh, my gosh, my mom always says that in her landscaping business, all she hears is rich-people problems: Wherever shall I site my bronze statue? I’m just so weary of looking at those peonies. But, Shana, do you have any idea how many girls would hate you for having pretty-girl problems?”
I blushed. Maybe Brian’s mother wasn’t terribly wrong about calling my streak of heartbreaking a pathology—a sickness. Discarding boys coldly wasn’t fair, no matter how afraid of being hurt I was. Just because I had the power to win hearts didn’t give me the right to break them.
In a small voice, I admitted, “I feel bad.”
“Yeah, you should,” Reb agreed simply, without any heat or judgment.
“Should I apologize to them all?”
“No!” Reb looked horrified. “I’m sure they all want your rejection to be a tiny little insignificant footnote in their lives. I wouldn’t go ripping off their scabs now.”
“I don’t know.…”
“Grandma Stesha would say, just be careful with people’s feelings starting right now. And then maybe—maybe!—at your ten-year reunion, you can say something to them. Oh, like”—her voice went all soft and sultry as she fluttered her eyelashes—“Hey, baby! I hope you’ve recovered from pest control technique number five.”
Laughing hard, I understood what Grace meant about her Wednesday Walkers. I told Reb about them now: trusted friends who had journeyed through marriages and divorces together, loyal friends who’d sat by one another’s bedsides during childbirth and cancer treatments, beloved friends who’d kept secrets and poured honesty into each other’s souls.
“Just like us,” she said.
Reb and Ginny might not live in Seattle full-time anymore and they might be moving on in their own lives, but they were my own SOS squad and love-you-forever crew.
“Just like us,” I agreed.