8

Izzy and the Judgment Paint

Izzy waited at the top of the stairs in the garage apartment, hugging her knees to her chest. Nate was out “studying” at Starbucks and her dad was at Home Depot buying tools to fix the leak in the garage sink. Her mom had left to welcome the renters.

And it was taking forever.

Row sat down next to Izzy and plopped his head on her lap. “Did you see them get out of the car, Row? Did you see that girl? She looked my age. Did you think she was pretty? Prettier than me?”

Izzy scratched Row behind his ear. She didn’t want to be sitting in the garage apartment worrying about who was prettier, her or this new mystery girl. She wanted to be inside her house finding out for herself. But her mom had made Izzy stay behind with Row. So all Izzy knew about the renters was what they looked like. She was relieved there were no boys staying in her house, but she’d spent so long worrying about the boy possibility that she hadn’t considered what it would feel like for someone just like her to be renting her house instead.

It mattered that the girl was her age. And pretty. And that she’d kept her gaze on the ground, barely looking around as she walked into the house.

What if she was one of those popular girls who waltzed through life with tons of friends and loads of confidence? What if she thought Izzy’s sticker door was babyish? What if her cool girl judgment spread over the walls of Izzy’s room like paint?

What if they met, in the driveway or the backyard, and it spread to Izzy herself?

Izzy couldn’t just sit there anymore. She stood to find Row’s leash. If she took Row for a walk, she’d have to walk down the driveway, past their car. Maybe she’d run into the girl unloading more bags. She’d be able to see if the girl had braces, if her skin was clear, if her ears were pierced. She could look for elastic headbands and beaded bracelets. Not the exact ones that Daphne and Phoebe wore, but something that gave off the same vibe of belonging.

And maybe, if she seemed friendly, Izzy would ask the girl her name.

But as Izzy was about to clip the leash on Row’s collar, her mom opened the door at the bottom of the garage stairs.

“So who are they?” asked Izzy.

Her mom paused, and leaned against the wall of the stairway. “They’re a really nice family.”

“That’s all? A nice family? What about that older girl? Is she twelve? Did you ask?”

Izzy’s mom nodded but didn’t say anything. She walked up the stairs to the apartment and sat down at the folding table that was covered with blue-and-white checkered fabric. Her mom didn’t pick up Row’s leash or straighten the pages of paper that Izzy had left in a messy pile.

“What?” whispered Izzy.

“That poor family,” said her mom.

“They didn’t look poor,” said Izzy. The older girl had been rolling some kind of fancy bag and the younger girl had been carrying a clean white unicorn with a glittering pink mane.

Izzy’s mom shook her head, as if Izzy had disappointed her somehow. “The little girl has epilepsy.”

“What’s epilepsy?” asked Izzy.

“It’s a condition where kids have seizures,” said her mom. “It’s very scary.”

Before Izzy could respond, her dad walked in carrying a plastic bag from Home Depot. “What’s scary?” he asked. “What’d I miss? Please tell me I don’t need to go back for mouse traps.”

“The little girl staying in our house has epilepsy,” said Izzy.

Her dad exhaled a long breath. He placed the plastic bag on the folding table, the hard objects inside hitting against each other with a metallic clang. “Man, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“They’re checking her into Children’s Hospital on Monday,” said Izzy’s mom. “Apparently there’s a surgeon there who’s the best in the field. She’s going to be admitted for at least a week.”

“That stinks,” said Izzy.

“It more than stinks, Iz,” said her mom.

Izzy’s dad walked over and wrapped his arm around Izzy’s shoulder. He gave her a gentle squeeze. “Anything we can do?” he asked.

“I told them about theater camp,” said her mom. “I’m going to forward them Principal Carr’s e-mail in case there’s room for Wren to sign up.”

“Wren?” asked Izzy. “That’s the girl my age?”

Her mom nodded. She smoothed a wrinkle in the checkered fabric covering the table.

“But she’s not even from here,” said Izzy, shifting out from her dad’s grip. “It’s makes no sense for her to go to theater camp.”

“Come on, Iz,” said her mom. “How about a little empathy, huh? That family is dealing with a lot right now. You’re old enough to start thinking about other people.”

Her mom stood up and pulled her phone from her pocket. She turned to face the window over the sink. Izzy stared at her mom’s back, feeling as empty as a blank page. Izzy thought about other people all the time. Sometimes it felt like all she did was think about other people. About Phoebe and how she ditched her. About Daphne, Serena, and Prithi, and how they sucked Phoebe into their friendship like a vacuum. About her dad and how stressed he sometimes looked at the end of the day. About her mom and the client who cancelled at the last minute.

How was Izzy also supposed to think about a girl she’d never met? A girl who looked like the kind of person that Phoebe would love to hang out with at theater camp? The kind of girl who would slide into her very own bedroom and old friendship?

Her mom put down her phone. “I’m going to lie down for a bit,” she said. “Then how about we go to the library.”

“Great,” said Izzy, under her breath.

Phoebe and Daphne were going ice skating that afternoon before Daphne left for a week-long ski trip. And Izzy was going to the library with her mom. Opposites.

“I could use some help with the sink,” said her dad.

He said it kindly. Hopefully. But Izzy shook her head and walked into her sleeping space. She slid the curtain shut.

So much had changed in just an hour. Earlier in the day, when she’d walked into the apartment for the first time, Izzy had been relieved to see that her dad had installed a large piece of plywood to separate her space from Nate’s space. Her mom had hung fabric in the place of doors, striped for Nate and polka dots for Izzy. The air mattresses on the floor were made up with comforters and pillows in colorful pillowcases. There was a wood crate in the corner of Izzy’s area where her mom had placed her butterfly tin of Sharpies.

Izzy had thought the space was cool, in a glamping kind of way.

But now she looked at the pile of her clothes stacked in the corner and wanted to kick them over. The space wasn’t cool; it was small and dark. It smelled like sawdust and wet towels. Izzy imagined that girl, Wren, unpacking her clothes in Izzy’s real room, laying out the perfect first-day outfit. She’d probably float into theater camp on a thick, fluffy cloud of popularity.

And Izzy would be stuck watching from the ground, gazing up at what she could never seem to reach.