There was a letter waiting for me on the counter one day when I came home from school. My heart did a little flip when I saw Grandma’s loopy writing. I picked up the letter like it was no big deal and went out to read it under a tree, far from the house.
I gently pried open the envelope so it wouldn’t tear. The letter was short and hard to read. I decided to buy Grandma some stationery with lines printed on it. She said they were doing fine and not to worry. There had been a few calls about the house, but no one serious. She said they loved me. We love you, sugar. I carried it around in my pocket for days. We love you, sugar.
She didn’t mention the letter I’d written to her, and I wondered if it got lost in the mail. You hear about mailmen who toss their mailbags into their backyards and stay home watching soaps all day. Maybe my letter was in someone’s backyard.
Nobody at school seemed to recognize me from the Blue Moon, which was a major relief. Maybe they only went to real theaters, instead of loser drive-ins. At least no one teased me about it. But October was coming. Once they realized I was a Halloween baby, I’d get plenty of it.
Natalie had asked me one day when my birthday was, but I’d sidestepped it. She was just trying to be nice, anyway, so it wasn’t hard to change the subject.
After school a couple of weeks before Halloween, we picked up Marty at the Shop’n Save where she worked. It was one of those warehouse grocery stores where you pack your own food. Grandma and Grandpa would like this place, except they would cause a major bottleneck for being so slow.
“Momma!”
Winnie ran to Marty, who stood at a checkout stand wearing an orange apron and a name badge with red letters and a Mickey Mouse pin stuck into the corner. I watched her push the buttons with the pads of her fingertips and wondered how she did it without breaking her long nails.
“Hey, guys,” she said to us. “This is my last customer.”
“Mom, I need mascara,” Deja said, veering toward cosmetics.
Marty called after her, “Grab a jar of spaghetti sauce.”
As she turned off her lighted number over the check stand and put a CLOSED sign on the belt, another checker came by.
“Hi, cutie,” the woman said, winking at Carl. Her voice sounded like she had swallowed gravel. Her hair was a shade of red that clashed with her lipstick and her apron. She hugged Winnie’s shoulder. “Hi, hon. Is this your new sister I’ve been hearing about? Introduce me, why don’t ya.”
I could feel my teeth grinding together. Not my sister, I said in my head. Marty smiled nervously and flicked worried eyes over to Carl.
“This is Andie,” Winnie said, looking bashful. She hiked her thumb at the lady. “That’s Jo.”
The woman said to me, “So how’s it goin’? You getting used to everything?”
She reached out and twirled a lock of my hair around her finger. It was getting long. Marty had told me it would look good if I let it grow out, but I wondered if she just didn’t have money for haircuts. I pulled back from Jo’s hand.
“Look at that hair,” Jo said. “You fit right in, don’t you? And those eyes. You’re the spitting image of your daddy.” She laughed evilly. “Ooh, honey. He was a looker.”
The color drained from Marty’s face. “Jo-ooh,” she singsonged.
I mentally composed a reply as she went on.
“We been friends since high school,” she said, with a choking laugh like her lungs were congested. “Good old Elko High. Your mom and me get ornerier every year, don’t we?”
Carl blew out a breath and dug both fists into his front pockets, his eyes riveted to the gray linoleum. Marty looked like she was going to throw up or pass out.
“Winnie, take Andie to pick out some cereal,” Marty said, careful not to look at me. “Aisle six.”
“Gosh, Mom. I know where the cereal is. Come on,” Winnie said to me. “It’s not like they ever move things around here.”
I could just imagine what they said behind my back.
We detoured through the Halloween section—a tunnel of fake spiderwebs and black garlands, where rats skittered and victims screamed. I could smell the candy corn. It had been hours since lunch, and I was starving.
“This is where we get our costumes,” Winnie said, “because Mom gets a discount. Look at this!” She fanned out a Snow White costume. “I love Snow White. Maybe we should be Snow White.”
We, as in Winnie and me? I had this sudden flash of myself dressed as Snow White with that patent leather hair and Deja holding out a poisoned apple.
“She was a victim,” I said.
Winnie’s brows scrunched together in a silent frown.
“She never did anything to help herself. She’s like Cinderella. She just waited around for someone to rescue her.”
Winnie turned away from me. I guess I’d shot down two of her favorites. She fingered a yellow dress with a brown wig and a fancy mirror.
“Belle was okay,” I said. “She had guts, standing up to the Beast. And she didn’t let Gaston push her around, either.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, thinking. “I like Belle. Maybe.”
I spotted a stretchy costume with a communicator pin near the shoulder.
“I was a Star Trek commander last year,” I said. “I wonder if Grandma still has my costume.” I squeezed the pin, wishing I could beam out of there. Maybe Marty thought I was too old to go trick-or-treating. “I’m hungry. Let’s find the cereal.”
After supper I wrote back to Grandma, asking her when I could visit and if she could find the costume for me. This time I had more to say. I told her about that lady, Ms. Wren, who came to visit from the court and asked me all kinds of questions.
By now, Grandma’s letter to me was mealy and creased in the folds—pretty mangled for only being a week old. Her handwriting wobbled like it had a life of its own, but I knew her words by heart. As I sealed my letter, Marty came into the bedroom with an armload of folded clothes.
“Here, you can put these away later,” she said, dividing up the pile of clothes between my dresser and Deja’s. “Did you finish your homework?”
“Is there anything in your backpack for me? Any newsletters to read?”
“Here.” I dug out a permission slip. “There’s a field trip. Some museum.”
Marty looked it over. “The Exploratorium. That’s a fun place.” She turned her back to me and separated my clothes into piles on the dresser. “Do they need parents to go along?”
I thought of the other paper in my backpack begging parents to sign up.
“No.”
She wasn’t really my parent, so technically it wasn’t a lie, was it?
“Oh,” she said. “Tell your teacher to let me know if someone drops out. I could probably take a day off. I went there with Deja’s class.”
Going with Marty as mother and daughter. Now that would be the real lie.
Marty left, and instead of putting my folded clothes into the dresser, I repacked them into my suitcase. The temperature dropped ten degrees when Deja came back from the bathroom after her shower. She turned her CD player up loud, I guess so she wouldn’t have to hear me breathe. It wasn’t because I ever said anything to her. The cat sauntered in behind her and jumped up on my bed. Sitting there with the walls pounding and my nose stuffing up, I decided that a Star Trek Federation officer would never allow herself to be victimized. I went out to find Marty, knowing I would pay for it later.
When I passed through the kitchen, a mountain range of iced brownies cooled on racks with chunks of chocolate the size of grizzly bears, but I couldn’t smell them.
I found her in the laundry room.
“The cat’s on my bed again,” I said as she loaded the washing machine.
Marty’s eyes narrowed, and she said under her breath, “I wonder how he got in,” like she already knew the answer. I followed her back down the hall. She stood at the bedroom door for a moment surveying the situation with her hands on her hips. Then she scooped Cyclops off the bedspread and into her arms. “Deja, the cat does not belong in here. You know that.”
Deja paused from putting away her clothes. Her face twisted up into a rude sneer. She glared at me. Like the crack of an ice floe, she said, “The cat belongs. She doesn’t.”
Marty froze. She looked like she wanted to slap Deja. Maybe if Cyclops hadn’t been writhing around in her arms, she would have. Her next words were daggers, unsheathed.
“You’re grounded. All weekend. Turn off the music and go to bed.”
Marty left with the cat, and the temperature dropped another fifty degrees. Deja slammed her drawers shut and combed out her wet hair like she had no feeling in her scalp.
I’d never had a true enemy before. And for sure I’d never slept in the same room with one. If Deja was going to be grounded at the house all weekend, maybe this was a good time to go back to Grandma’s for a visit.
I looked at the letter I’d written, folded it up, and stuck it in my pocket. I went back out to the laundry room to find Marty. She was talking to herself and doing a sloppy job of folding clothes.
“Marty, do you think … I mean, um …”
She stopped and looked up at me. I licked my lips. What if she said no? She probably wasn’t in a good mood for me to ask, but I blurted it out.
“Can I go to Grandma’s this weekend?”
Her shoulders sagged. “This weekend? Well, I don’t know. It hasn’t been that long.” She sat down on a laundry hamper.
Her Mickey pin winked at me from her collar. He was sitting on the beach under a palm tree.
“I have a Mickey pin,” I said. I got closer and reached up to touch it. I liked the way it felt smooth under my thumb. “Mine’s riding a surfboard.” I turned her pin over. “You have one of the old pin backs. These fall off too easy. The good ones are rubber and are shaped like Mickey ears. I have extras, if you want one.”
She didn’t say anything. I pressed the back on tightly and smoothed it. “I have a ton of trading pins. Some are from Disney World, but most of them are from Disneyland. Where did you get yours?”
“Uh … Disneyland. There was a foundation, you know, that grants wishes for … for sick kids. They paid for us all to go.”
I looked up at Marty. We were really close, and she had a funny look on her face. I let go of her pin and stepped back.
“Can I go to Grandma’s? I haven’t seen them for a long time, and they really miss me. And they need some help.” I tried to think of stuff I used to do for them. “It’s getting cold up there already, and Grandpa might try to clean out the gutters, or something dangerous like that.”
She gave me a strained little smile, like she wasn’t buying it. She rubbed her forehead. “Well, I don’t know. I have to work all weekend.”
I stood there, willing her to say yes. “We could go right after school. It’s not that far. You could get back before the drive-in opens.”
She looked past me down the hallway toward our room. Deja’s music blared, and she was still slamming drawers. Marty sighed and narrowed her eyes. “It might be a good time to go, since Deja’s grounded anyway. Why don’t you call your grandma tomorrow after school and tell her you’re coming?”
“Thanks, Marty,” I said. “I’ll pack right when I get home.” I was so happy, if she’d been someone I hugged, I would have hugged her. I danced down the hall and didn’t even care if Deja saw me.
Yes! Only two more days and I’d be back home at Grandma’s.