The List of Things That Will Not Change Page 5

  Then I stood in the middle of the room, breathing hard. I wiggled my bad foot, hoping I hadn’t opened the cut. I checked the Band-Aid, and it looked okay. But my room still didn’t look right.

  I dragged the couch over to my bed, one corner at a time, my arms shaking, until the couch and the bed were lined up perfectly, like the orphans’ beds in Madeline, which had been my favorite book for at least two years when I was little.

  Dad knocked, and I opened the door.

  “Bea—um, you moved the couch by yourself?”

  “Yeah. It’s not heavy.”

  He nodded, looking. Thinking. “Sonia’s not coming until January. You heard that part, right?”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I have some privacy?”

  He blinked. “Oh. Sure.”

  I locked the door after him, put my headphones on, and danced.

  * * *

  —

  “So what’s her name?” Angus asked on the phone that night.

  I smiled. “Sonia. Good name, right?”

  “It’s a nice name. But it isn’t as nice as Beatrice.”

  I said, “Oh, yes, it is.”

  * * *

  —

  “Sonia is great,” Sheila said when she picked me up after school on Monday. “I’m so happy she’s coming, Bea. This is just—wonderful.”

  “A real sister,” I reminded her. “When Dad and Jesse get married, we’ll be legally sisters. Just like sisters anywhere.”

  Sheila squeezed my arm. Her bracelets jingled. “She’s lucky to be getting you as a sister.”

  “I’m lucky, too,” I told her. “Luckier.”

  Miriam said that I should try to think of all the possibilities about what might happen when Sonia came. She said I should think about what it might feel like for Sonia, getting on a plane and flying all the way across America to her dad’s new family.

  I reminded Miriam that I have been on a plane by myself, to Florida. Dad was already there for a food-festival job, and I was meeting him afterward for a vacation. Mom took me to the airport on the M60 bus. An airline lady gave me a big orange sticker to wear on my shirt. It said, “I’m Flying Solo!” and Mom came with me right up to the door of the plane to say goodbye, and then I sat next to a woman who had a tiny dog in a bag between her feet. I didn’t even know that dog was there until the very end, after we landed, when she held him up to look out the window. I guess she was showing him Florida.

  The worst part of the whole trip was that the flight attendant told me she had a special treat for me, which turned out to be a hot dog. I hate even looking at a hot dog, and I really hate smelling a hot dog, but she said the pilot had asked for that hot dog to be put on the plane especially for me, and she certainly hoped I was going to eat it. And then, for some reason I still don’t understand, I did eat it.

  After she took my empty tray, I stared straight ahead for the rest of the trip. When we landed and the plane door finally opened, all of this sticky air came in. We lined up and walked out, and there was Dad, standing next to some empty chairs in the Florida airport. As soon as I saw him, I threw up all over the rug, and then I started crying.

  Dad said I should have told the flight attendant, “No, thank you.”

  * * *

  —

  I made a reminder in my head for Jesse to tell Sonia about saying “no, thank you” if she doesn’t like the food on the plane.

  Then Miriam said that when she suggested I think about how Sonia might feel about the trip, she didn’t just mean the plane trip, but the whole idea of what the trip meant: That Sonia’s dad was getting married to my dad. That Dad and Jesse and I were living together now, as a family.

  “On Mondays and Wednesdays,” I said.

  “Right,” Miriam said.

  “And every other weekend.”

  “Yes,” Miriam said, “but are you thinking about what I’m saying, Bea? It might take Sonia a while to get used to the idea of her father getting married again. What if she’s never been so far from her mom before? What if she feels uncomfortable or strange for a while? Let’s make a list of all the different things Sonia might feel. Can you start?”

  “She might feel excited and happy,” I said. “Because now she has a sister almost exactly her age.”

  Miriam nodded. “And she might feel excited and happy and quiet. Or not sure how she feels. She might feel homesick.”

  I noticed that all of Miriam’s ideas were bad ones. “You went three times in a row,” I said.

  Miriam said, “You’re right. I apologize.”

  “Sonia might feel lucky,” I said. “Because she’ll have a sister, which she didn’t have before. And, I just realized, she has a dog now, too—she has Rocco! Maybe she wants a sister just as much as I do. Or even more.” I wasn’t sure that was possible.

  Miriam smiled. “Yes. Or she might not know right away how she feels about a new sister.”

  “Until she meets me,” I said.

  I hate today,” I told Mom before school on the last Friday in October.

  I’m always at Mom’s on spelling-party mornings, because the parties are on Fridays, and I’m at Mom’s on Thursday nights (Thursday = Mom day).

  Mom said getting mad about the spelling parties was understandable, but that I should also think about whether I could make myself feel better by doing “something special.”

  “I can’t do anything,” I told her. “I have to sit in the dumb lunchroom! And dumb Carolyn Shattuck always sits next to me!” Carolyn Shattuck couldn’t spell, either. But that wasn’t what I meant by dumb.

  “Maybe we can pack something special in your lunch,” Mom said. “Maybe you can bring your puzzle book and do all the word-finds.” The word-finds were my favorite kind of puzzle. I loved circling the words.

  “Wait!” I said. “What if I write a letter to Sonia in the lunchroom? We can be pen pals.” Because January was still far away. I wanted to know Sonia faster.

  “Great idea,” Mom said.

  I kept my “B” stationery at Mom’s, which was lucky. I ran to my room to get it. Every page had a big, curly B at the top, and the envelopes were covered in stars. Mom had given it to me for my birthday, and I only used it for special occasions. Carefully, I slid two pieces of stationery and one envelope into my homework folder.

  * * *

  —

  When it was time for lunch, Mr. Home said that kids eating in the lunchroom should line up as usual. This was the worst part of it, having to line up while everybody looked. I grabbed my homework folder and held it close to me, like it was important. I also tried to look like I was thinking about something interesting, something so interesting I never even noticed that most of the class wasn’t lining up.

  What I forgot to do was get my lunch from the coat closet. So I had plenty of time to write my first letter to Sonia.

  Another thing I have noticed about telling a story is that spelling mistakes are not interesting. In fifth grade, my letters were full of spelling mistakes, but I am not going to put them in.

  Dear Sonia,

  How are you? I’m in the lunchroom at my school. Half my class gets to eat in our classroom today with the radio playing, but not me, and not Carolyn Shattuck, who is sitting right next to me, even though I purposely left my sweatshirt there. She just slid it over. Do you have annoying people in your class this year?

  My best friends are Angus and Lizette. You can meet them when you come. Lizette has a brother who’s three years older, and Angus has a sister in college already! I know you have two little brothers. What are their names? Are they annoying? Or not?

  When we were in second grade, Carolyn Shattuck told me to make a bridge with my pencil between my hands. She wanted to karate-chop it. But instead of breaking in half like it was supposed to, the p
encil stabbed me right under my thumb, and I had to go to the nurse. When the cut healed, there was a pencil mark that never went away. My dad calls it the world’s tiniest tattoo.

  Write me back if you can.

  Your future sister,

  Bea

  Dear Sonia,

  My teacher, Mr. Home, started a new thing. When he hands back our spelling tests, he balances them on our heads. If we can keep them there until he gets back to his desk, we get a plus-one on the test. Everyone gets a plus-one, because he lets us cheat by holding the papers on our heads with our hands. Now even more people get invitations to the spelling parties, but I am still not one of them. My mom put a cranberry muffin and two caramels in my lunch today because she knows that spelling-party Fridays are the worst.

  I got your postcard. California looks cool. It’s good that your brothers are not annoying.

  This week at school we started a project called “my breakfast table.” It’s because we’re doing colonial America this year. In April, all the parents are coming to our colonial breakfast. I’m on the food committee with Lizette and Angus. We’re making butter from scratch. It takes forever!

  For “my breakfast table,” we’re supposed to think about how we have breakfast in modern times, like what we eat and where everyone sits and everything. We have to draw diagrams on graph paper and label them. I have two tables, one at my mom’s and one at my dad’s, so I’m doing two diagrams. Maybe I will get extra credit.

  Your future sister,

  Bea

  Dear Sonia,

  Thanks for postcard number two! Do you have any stationery? Then you could fit more words. My Thanksgiving was good, too. Mom and I went to my dad’s restaurant, like always. Dad and Jesse (your dad!) came and sat with us whenever they got work breaks. Sheila (your aunt!) came, too. A lot of people go to restaurants on Thanksgiving, did you know that? That’s why my dad always has to work.

  After we ate, I helped in the coat room while my mom and Sheila talked. There are three coats in the coat room that people left behind a long time ago. They are always there, even when the restaurant is closed. Angus calls them the orphan coats, and he named them Gerald, Phoebe, and Tim. Whenever Angus comes to the restaurant, he visits them and shakes their sleeves like they’re people. It’s pretty funny.

  I finished the “my breakfast table” project. When I showed Mr. Home my diagrams, he told me his parents got divorced, too, when he was thirteen.

  My mom’s kitchen table is round, with three chairs. Dad’s table is rectangular. I labeled one chair “Jesse.” It’s the chair he always sits on. You’ll see. I told Mr. Home all about how our dads are getting married, and I also told him about you. We have a fourth chair at Dad’s, if you are wondering. We actually have six. I also put an arrow pointing under the table, and wrote “Rocco.” Jesse told me you know about Rocco already. But did he tell you that Rocco really likes to be under the table while we eat?

  Carolyn Shattuck (remember her?) keeps trying to read my letter! She is so annoying. She made me look at her diagram. She has a brother now because her mom got married again and had a baby. Carolyn labeled his chair “highchair,” and his breakfast food is “gross banana mush.” I wish she could get 10s on her spelling tests, even if I never will. Then she could go to Mr. Home’s radio parties and leave me alone.

  Angus’s breakfast diagram looks like this: a rectangle labeled “Angus” (this is his bed, with him in it) and, right next to it, a circle labeled “brownie” (this is his breakfast). Angus had a big fight with his mom about his “fundamental human right” to save his dessert for breakfast. Angus won. So now he sits up in bed every morning and the first thing he does is eat yesterday’s dessert. But he doesn’t get to have dessert after dinner. I don’t know if I would make that trade.

  Mr. Home loves Angus’s diagram so much he asked to make a copy.

  We made practice butter again this week. It turned out better than the first time.

  This is the longest letter I ever wrote!

  Your future sister,

  Bea

  P.S. Your aunt Sheila says that if you get a shiver for no reason it means that someone is walking on your future grave. Do you believe that?

  Sonia and I have a lot in common. Our parents are divorced. Our dads are gay. We both love barbecue potato chips. And yogurt with tons of honey. We agree that pistachios are the best of all the nuts. But she is different from me in at least one way, which is that you can’t tell how she’s feeling just by looking at her. At all.

  On our first night together, after Sonia put her blue suitcase in my room, after I showed her the two drawers I had cleared out for her, asked her which of my stuffed animals she wanted to sleep with, and made Rocco shake hands with her three times, Dad and Jesse took us out to eat at Pizzeria Pete’s, where there’s unlimited refills on soda. Usually Dad lets me have zero sodas, but he said tonight the rules were “out the window.”

  I told Sonia about the just-a-little-bit-burnt crusts at Pizzeria Pete’s, how they are the most delicious when you dip them in the ranch salad dressing, and I warned her to hide her crusts from Dad and Jesse, who will just take them without even asking. We ate our pizza and saved our crusts in our laps while Dad pretended to look everywhere for burnt crusts and be sad when there were none, and Sonia laughed really hard. Her hair bounced on her shoulders the way I always wished mine would, but I wasn’t jealous because Sonia was going to be my sister, so it was like that hair was already a little bit mine.

  Sonia and I each had two sodas, first a root beer and then a ginger ale. She was smiling a lot, and I said to myself that Miriam was wrong to worry about her so much. Sonia smiled right up until the moment she ran away from the table and out the front door of Pizzeria Pete’s.

  Jesse jumped up, grabbed Sonia’s coat from the back of her chair, and ran after her.

  Dad looked at me, and his eyes were tired. “Sonia’s having a little bit of a hard time—for one thing, I think she’s exhausted.”

  “But she was happy,” I said. “She looked happy.”

  “I know, sweetie.” Dad didn’t look happy.

  We sat there.

  He said, “Sonia has never been so far away from her mom before, Bea. The idea of spending time with two families is all new for her. It’s not easy.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He said, “Hi.”

  “Hi” is our code for a check-in. Miriam taught it to all three of us—me, Mom, and Dad—when they first got divorced. “Hi” means, “I want to know what’s going on with you if you want to tell me.” It means, “I’m listening.”

  “Sonia doesn’t want to be my sister,” I said. “That’s mean.”

  Dad waited.

  “She’s the meanest person I ever met.”

  Dad’s eyebrows went up.

  Then I said, “Miriam says Sonia might get homesick.”

  “I think that’s what’s happening,” Dad said. “Think about it, Bea. Her parents live on opposite sides of the country. If she’s with one of them, she’s very far from the other.”

  “I would hate it if you and Mom lived far apart,” I said. And right then I missed Mom so much. Which happens a lot.

  “I would hate that, too,” Dad said.

  My parents will always live close to each other. It’s on the list of Things That Will Not Change. So I didn’t have to worry about that.

  My plan had been to wait for Sonia to come back to the table and then I’d stomp off to the bathroom, to show her exactly how mad I was that she didn’t want to be my sister. I put a cancel on that plan.

  “Can’t Sonia’s mom move to New York?” I said. “And then Sonia could live with us on Mondays and Wednesdays. And every other weekend. And every other Sunday.”

  I let myself think about t
hat. My room at Dad’s would be our room, for real. She’d have her own bed, and it would look just like mine. Maybe our comforters would match.

  Dad smiled. “Sonia’s mom is remarried. Sonia has two little brothers.”

  “I know,” I said. She didn’t have a sister, though. Yet.

  “They have jobs in California,” he said. “It’s where they want to live. The same way we want to be here.”

  Dad was looking at something behind me, and I twisted around to see Jesse and Sonia hugging next to the cash register. It was a long hug.

  I had two pizza crusts hidden under my napkin. I gave Dad one of them, and he just held it. So I just held the other one.

  * * *

  —

  Miriam taught us the Rule of Hi after Ben Larson’s eighth birthday party, which was one of the three terrible third-grade parties. Ben invited the whole class for a speedboat ride in the Hudson River. The driver made the boat go super fast, and I thought we might all get dumped off the back, into the river, like garbage gets dumped out of a garbage truck.

  I screamed, “I don’t like this!” again and again until the ride was over, because I had the idea that my screams were protecting me (and everyone else in the boat) from drowning. After a while, I got really tired of screaming, but I always told myself, “One more.”

  By the time Mom came to pick me up from the playground where we sang “Happy Birthday” and ate Ben’s cake, I had pretty much forgotten about the whole thing, but Ben’s mom hadn’t. She took my mom over to a tree and talked to her. I could see Mom nodding.

  “You didn’t like the boat ride, huh?” Mom asked me on the way to the subway. She had her hand on my shoulder.