10. Life Back to Normal—Kind of

Deja sits on her own porch, waiting for the cab that will bring Auntie Dee home. She's glad it's Friday after school. She's glad she doesn't have to hear everybody whispering about Antonia's party anymore. Rosario and Melinda had the nerve to walk up to her at recess and ask her if she was coming to Antonia's party. She turned around and walked the other way.

Nikki, beside her, is busy writing in her notebook. "What's that?" Deja asks finally.

"I'm listing all the stuff we can do at your birthday party tomorrow."

"It's only going to be the two of us, Nikki."

"Well, we can still have some fun."

"No, we can't. Everything is ruined." Deja sighs. "All I want is for it to hurry up and be over."

Nikki continues her writing, and Deja continues watching the corner, waiting for the cab to turn onto their street. When it does—slowly driving down Fulton—Deja jumps up and does a little dance. Auntie Dee is back!

"Auntie Dee!" Deja runs crashing into her arms before she can even pay the driver.

"My goodness, Deja. I haven't been gone that long."

"It seemed like forever."

Deja grabs Auntie's bag by one handle and Nikki grabs the other. They walk with her into the house.

"Ready for the big day tomorrow?" Auntie Dee asks. Deja shrugs, but Auntie seems not to notice. She pulls back the drapes to let some sunlight into the darkened living room. Deja smiles. It is good to get back to sunny rooms.

After Nikki's mom calls her home for dinner and Auntie Dee has come back from Miss Ida's to thank her and offer her some payment (which Miss Ida refuses), Auntie orders pizza to celebrate being home. "So you think no one is coming tomorrow?" she asks Deja. When Auntie Dee had called the night before, Deja told her about the no RSVPs and how everyone was going to Antonia's and how Antonia had even asked her, Deja, to her party. "Don't worry," she'd said to Deja. "I'll see what I can do."

They're sitting at the coffee table, eating off paper plates. Deja loves when they eat pizza this way. It's more fun than sitting at the table in the kitchen.

"Antonia's party is going to be better."

"Well," Auntie Dee says. She looks as if she is thinking—hard. "Maybe a small party will be better than you think. Maybe," she adds, as if she has something in mind. Deja looks at Auntie Dee carefully. Is she thinking about Deja's daddy coming? Is this the time to bring him up? They hardly ever talk about him. Auntie Dee always seems to change the subject when Deja mentions him. Deja knows she has to be careful.

Deja takes a deep breath. "Auntie Dee?"

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Do you think my daddy will show up for my birthday, since he didn't make it last year? Or the year before that?"

Auntie doesn't answer right away. She stops eating and sighs. "Deja, I sent your daddy an invitation, but I haven't heard anything. I'm sorry, baby. Maybe he didn't get it. Perhaps where I sent it isn't his current address."

Auntie Dee looks down, and Deja knows that Auntie doesn't believe that. What she believes is that her daddy isn't coming. "I'm thinking we won't see him," Auntie Dee says finally. "I'm sorry."

She looks at Deja closely, but Deja looks away. She doesn't know what Auntie Dee wants her to say. So he's not coming this year. Then he'll probably come next year. Yes. That will be better, actually. She doesn't want her daddy to see that she had a party and nobody came. "That's okay, Auntie Dee. He'll probably come for my ninth birthday. I can wait."

In the moment of quiet that follows, Deja thinks about how far into the future next year seems. It's going to take so long to get to be nine.

Later, after they've eaten the pizza and Deja has helped Auntie Dee unpack, Auntie Dee makes a few telephone calls to the mothers she knows from PTA. As she sits at the kitchen table talking, Deja sits on the couch combing her Barbie's hair and listening. It's so hard when things don't go the way you've been imagining them. So far, nothing is the way she thought it would be just five days ago.

Now she hears: "Oh, yes. I see. No, no, I understand. Okay, maybe next time." It doesn't sound very good, not very promising. After she hangs up, she dials another number. Deja hears a better conversation from Auntie Dee's end. "Oh, great. Good. I'll see you tomorrow. Yes, at two."

Auntie Dee hangs up and calls out, "Well, Sheila Sharpe is coming, after all."

Sheila Sharpe!Deja thinks. Sheila Sharpe, who breathes through her mouth? That's who's coming to my party? Now she pictures herself and Nikki ... and Sheila Sharpe ... sitting at the dining room table in party hats. Not good.

"Well," Auntie Dee says from the doorway. She claps her hands once. "It seems no one got your invitations, and they've already committed to going to the other party."

"Nikki and me put the invitations in everyone's cubbies."

"Could they have fallen out?"

"No. Someone must have taken them out!"

"Now, don't go accusing someone if you don't know for sure."

"I bet you Antonia saw us."

Auntie smiled cheerfully. "I'm going to make a couple more phone calls tonight, and the rest in the morning. We'll have some kind of party yet."

Deja doesn't want "some kind" of party. She wants the party she's been imagining for the last three weeks.

Deja doesn't like the look on Auntie Dee's face when Deja pads into the kitchen the next morning, still in her nightgown. Auntie Dee breaks into a big smile as soon as she sees her, but Deja knows it is a forced smile. "There's the birthday girl," Auntie Dee says cheerfully over her newspaper. She gets up and gives Deja a big birthday hug. "Happy birthday, big girl. I got something for you."

Deja sits down and puts her chin in her hand. Auntie pushes a small box toward her. A small box means jewelry, Deja thinks. Deja stares, making no move to open it. She just wants to look at the box wrapped in lavender tissue paper for a while first. Finally, she removes the paper, lifts the top off, and peers inside. It's a citrine pendant on a gold chain.

"It matches my ring," she says softly.

"Do you want to put it on?" Auntie asks.

"Okay."

Auntie Dee slips the necklace around Deja's neck and then fastens the clasp. "Beautiful," Auntie says.

Deja rubs the citrine, liking the feeling under her fingertips. Then she goes to the mirror over the buffet in the dining room. She has to jump up to get a really good look at it in the mirror. She likes what she sees. "Thank you, Auntie Dee," she says, coming back into the kitchen.

"Look what else I have for you," Auntie Dee says. On the table is Deja's favorite breakfast, the one she never ever gets to have—except on her birthday. On Auntie Dee's best china plate is a single cinnamon bun, like the kind they sell at the mall. Gooey and dripping with icing. Deja can never eat a whole one, but she always thinks she can when she starts. She peels off a piece and licks the icing. She licks all the icing clinging to her fingers. She feels a little better.

"Now, Deja, I made some calls last night and some this morning. It seems most of the girls in your class are going to Antonia's party, but a few are now undecided. There's nothing we can do about it, so let's think of something fun you, me, Nikki, and your little friend Sheila can do."

Deja sits up straight at the mention of Sheila Sharpe. She's not my friend! she wants to say. But she doesn't. She realizes fully what a dud her party is going to be and slumps her shoulders. She looks out the kitchen window at a cloud-covered morning. The wind rattles the leaves on Auntie Dee's maple trees. Even the day is disappointing. Where is the sun?