The List of Things That Will Not Change Read online

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  “No, I don’t want you to teach me how to cook a chicken. I’ll figure it out.”

  —

  “Okay, good. And thanks again. The pasta salad was delicious. Bye.”

  I was at the kitchen table at Mom’s, doing a word-find and eating tomato soup, when Dad called to say Angelica was going to the hospital.

  “Oh, Daniel,” Mom said. “I’m so sorry she isn’t better.”

  “Who isn’t?” I said.

  Then she said, “Of course. Of course.”

  I stood up and said, “What?”

  Mom waved at me to wait.

  “Yes. She’s right here. I’ll tell her as soon as we hang up.” And then, after a pause, “She may want some things. From your place. What time are you leaving?”

  Mom hung up and told me that Angelica needed some tests. But probably she would be fine. Almost definitely.

  Uncle Frank and Aunt Ess were taking Angelica to a hospital in Cleveland for a few days, and Dad was flying to Minnesota to stay with James and Jojo.

  Jesse would take care of the restaurant and Rocco, Mom said. And I would stay with her until Dad came back.

  I sat down. When the meaning sank in, my skin got cold.

  “Dad’s going to miss my colonial breakfast!” I said. Which wasn’t what I meant at all.

  “Bea,” Mom said, “does that seem very important right now? The breakfast?”

  I walked to the bathroom and threw up.

  “Bea!” Mom came in and felt my forehead. “Are you sick? Why didn’t you say something?”

  I sat on the bathroom floor. She held a washcloth under cold water, squeezed it out, and pressed it against my cheeks. Then I let her walk me to bed.

  “Honey, you should have told me you weren’t feeling well. And I really am sorry about the breakfast. I wish I could cancel my trip. Do you want me to see if Melissa can go with you?”

  Mom couldn’t come to the colonial breakfast, either. She had a teachers’ conference in Philadelphia and would be gone from early in the morning until after dinner.

  “Can you talk if your face is half paralyzed?” I whispered.

  “I think so,” Mom said. “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Could it be from a fall?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Angelica fell off the loft last summer. At the cabin.”

  “She did?”

  I nodded. “Uncle Frank says her head missed the woodstove by four inches.”

  “That wouldn’t cause this,” Mom said. “I don’t think so.”

  So it was possible.

  “I don’t need anything from Dad’s.”

  “What, honey?” She was rubbing my back.

  “I don’t need anything. Dad should go straight to the airport.”

  “Okay.” She put the washcloth on my forehead. “You want to call him before he goes?”

  I said no.

  The worst thing about getting a bat shot was all the time I spent thinking about it before I actually got it.

  Mom held my hand and I stared at the wall while Dr. Thomas gave me the shot. She always had a Band-Aid ready to go, so that by the time I looked, it was already on my arm. And the shot was really no big deal, which is what I always remembered, right after.

  “Do you think one side of my face looks droopy?” I asked Dr. Thomas. Mom had left the room to “do the paperwork.”

  “No,” Dr. Thomas said, tapping on her computer, which she wheeled around with her on a rolling cart. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because my cousin Angelica has a droopy half of her face now. My dad says it’s this side.” I slapped the left side of my face very gently. “I thought maybe it was something she caught, and maybe I caught it, too.”

  “I’m guessing your cousin has Bell’s palsy,” Dr. Thomas said. “But it’s not something you can catch. And it’s temporary, almost always.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  I guessed she thought the conversation was over, so I said, “But I just wondered. Because one time we went for a hike and we both fell down. Pretty hard. So maybe that’s actually what happened.”

  “Fell?” She looked confused. “Beatrice, are you worried that you—rolled in something? Like poison ivy? You look fine. And your cousin—”

  “Angelica,” I said.

  “Your cousin Angelica will be fine, I’m almost sure.”

  That was twice she said almost.

  “Where did these bruises come from?” Dr. Thomas said, suddenly noticing my arm, as if it hadn’t been there all along.

  I’d been pinching myself hard all day, to remember what it would be like when the shot was over and done with. I’d pinch my arm and then say to myself, “See? It’s over.” And then do it again.

  I told Dr. Thomas I didn’t remember.

  * * *

  —

  When we got home, Mom banged around in the cabinet under the kitchen window, asking, “Where can a roasting pan escape to?” because her friend Melissa was coming over to teach Mom how to cook a chicken. She did that until the doorbell rang.

  “The roasting pan ran away!” Mom said when she answered the door. Melissa looked right past her and pointed into our living room.

  “Is that it? Under your plant?”

  Mom raised her arms and said, “Yes!”

  I went to my room to do my worrying. I sat on the bed and closed my eyes. Mostly I worried about Angelica. And rabies. The doctor said the shots were “a hundred percent effective,” but I had noticed some rabies–worry leaking in during the day. I would have worried about Sonia, but I didn’t have time before the doorbell rang again.

  I had invited Lizette to dinner.

  “Look! Cake parts!” She held up a plastic container. “I was helping at my grandma’s today. Check it out.” She pulled off the top, and I saw at least three kinds of cake, cut into funny shapes.

  “It’s like a yummy puzzle,” I said.

  “Yeah, she has to trim off a lot of little pieces to make the cakes look perfect, and so I collected them. No frosting, though.” She made a sad face. “Today wasn’t a frosting day.”

  We sat on my floor with the cake between us, putting chunks of it in our mouths and trying to guess the flavors without looking, until there was only one little square left.

  She did her cat smile. “Let’s play halfsies. That’s what I do with my brother.”

  “What’s halfsies?”

  She bit the last square of cake in half and handed it to me. “Now you bite just half of that, and then give it back.”

  I did. She bit that half in half and handed it back to me.

  I laughed. “This is tiny!”

  “Keep going!”

  We got through three more passes, until Lizette had just a speck of cake balanced on one finger. She held it out to me. I looked at it and said, “You win, I’m not eating that!”

  She licked it off her finger and said, “I always win.”

  I spread myself out on the floor and said, “That game is gross.”

  “Yeah. My mom says it’s only for family. I guess you’re family now.”

  “Thanks.”

  And I kind of meant it.

  * * *

  —

  The chicken was good. Melissa made it, with carrots and potatoes, while Mom fiddled with the radio, made a salad, set the table, and said she was learning so much.

  Lizette said the chicken was almost as good as Mom’s lasagna.

  Mom looked at me, and we both started laughing.

  “What?” Lizette kept saying. “What?” But we wouldn’t tell her.

  * * *

  —

  After dinner, Mom pushed her plate away, looked at Melissa, and said, “I got Dan’s wedding invitation.”
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  “Got mine, too,” Melissa said.

  “We did, too!” Lizette said. She sounded way happier about it than Mom did, but Lizette didn’t notice. She started telling them all about the cake her grandma was planning.

  “That reminds me,” Melissa said. “I brought brownies!”

  Then Lizette and I looked at each other and laughed, because of all the cake we’d eaten before dinner. It was Mom’s turn to say, “What’s so funny? What?” But we wouldn’t tell her.

  We ate the brownies. And then we taught Melissa about dance-party cleanup.

  * * *

  —

  When Lizette and Melissa were gone, the apartment felt really quiet. I kept trying to get Red to jump onto my bed, but he wouldn’t, and I gave up.

  The wedding was in five weeks.

  Mission had not sent back the little card saying he would come.

  I emailed Sonia before I went to bed. She didn’t answer.

  At school the next day, I asked Angus, “Can I come over to brush Floo-floo later?”

  He looked surprised: tuna sandwich in mouth, eyebrows up. I’m not usually a big fan of going to Angus’s house. But I am a fan of his cat.

  “Sure,” he said.

  Brushing Floo-floo made me feel good. Red won’t let you anywhere near him with a brush. Mom says he prefers to do his own grooming. But Floo-floo loves to be brushed—he purrs and stretches and rubs his cheeks on your sneakers. If you’re holding his brush, Floo-floo will follow you anywhere.

  But brushing Floo-floo meant being at Angus’s apartment, which (usually) meant talking to Angus’s mother.

  Angus’s mother had never forgiven me for pushing Angus onto the floor during musical chairs at Carrie Greenhouse’s Halloween party. She also saw the exploding party bag, I think.

  And I have never forgiven her for the third (and last) terrible party of third grade. It was Angus’s birthday party, at a bowling alley uptown—the fancy one, with little menus on the seats, and people who bring your popcorn chicken and brownie bites right to your lane. I know what you are imagining, but I didn’t do one thing wrong at Angus’s party. I wasn’t even there. Because, after Carrie’s Halloween party, Angus’s mother took me off the invitation list. Angus didn’t know until the day after his party, when he asked me why I hadn’t been there.

  * * *

  —

  We lucked out for the first half hour, because Angus’s mother was in her room on the phone. She works at home. She’s a writer. We had four big balls of Floo-floo fur lined up on Angus’s rug before she showed up in the doorway.

  “Beatrice.” Whenever Angus’s mom sees me, she says, “Beatrice.” No smile. No nickname.

  “Hi,” I said. “We’re brushing Floo-floo.”

  “I see that.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hello, Angus.” She didn’t smile at him much, either. “And how are you two?”

  “Fine,” Angus mumbled.

  “I’m fine, too,” I told her.

  “Beatrice, how is your therapy going? Angus says that you and your Miriam are great friends.” She showed me her teeth. I think it was a smile.

  Angus looked up. “I never said that, Mom.”

  I shrugged. “Miriam is good. We’re friends, I guess….”

  She nodded slowly, like I was giving her a secret message that only she could understand, and said, “Well, that is wonderful.”

  Floo-floo stretched, reminding us that he was still available for brushing, and I got to it.

  “Sorry about that,” Angus said when she left. Angus gets everything. He even got why I shoved him out of that chair at Carrie’s party when we were eight years old. When I apologized to him (with Carrie’s mother’s cold fingers on the back of my neck), he just nodded with a serious face and said, “I hate musical chairs, too.”

  I looked at Angus, who was making another ball of Floo-floo fur, and I remembered how hard he had been holding on to that chair.

  “Angus,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re my best friend.”

  “No kidding.” He smiled and handed me the brush.

  “Angus.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s it like to have a sister?” I couldn’t picture Angus and his sister playing Lizette’s halfsies game.

  “It’s good. I mean, she’s old. She kind of grew up before me, you know?”

  I nodded. Angus’s sister is nine years older than he is. “But what does it feel like?”

  He leaned back against his bed. “It’s like—it’s like there’s someone else in my boat. Someone I don’t have to explain things to.”

  “Because she knows?”

  “Yeah. I mean, she doesn’t know what it’s like to be me, but she knows a lot of the reasons I am me.”

  “Do you think about her? Even when she’s away at college?”

  “Yeah. Definitely.”

  “I think about Sonia a lot. But I don’t think she thinks about me too much.”

  He didn’t say anything right away.

  “Bea—it’s not the same. I mean, you guys haven’t known each other that long.”

  “We’re not really going to be sisters, you mean.”

  He looked down. “I didn’t say that.”

  “But that’s what you meant.”

  Angus is probably the only person I never get mad at. But I was almost mad.

  While we dried dishes that night, I told Sheila about Floo-floo. “I actually used to think Floo-floo was kind of ugly,” I told her. “But now that I know him, I can’t believe I ever thought that. Now that I know him, he’s beautiful.”

  Sheila gave me a long look. Then she pulled me in for a hug and said, “I love you, Bea.” Sheila is like the opposite of Angus’s mom.

  Mom had made plans to go out because Monday is usually a Dad night, but Dad was in Minnesota. Jesse had to work at the restaurant. So Sheila had come over to Mom’s to be with me.

  “Can I ask you something?” I said when we were on the couch. Sheila was flipping channels.

  “Always.”

  “How do you know for sure that Mission doesn’t want to come to the wedding? Did you even ask him?” I was thinking that maybe I should tell Sheila about Mission’s invitation. In case his RSVP card showed up in the mail.

  She put down the remote and slapped her legs. “That’s a big question.”

  I waited.

  She said, “I’d have to start way back, a long time ago.”

  Then she stopped, and I knew she was deciding how much to say. I waited.

  “Fifteen years ago, about a month before he was supposed to get married to Sonia’s mom, Jesse told us he was gay. He told all of us together at the kitchen table—me, our parents, and Mission. Jesse asked us for help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “We all knew Ellie—that’s Sonia’s mom—real well, because Jesse and Ellie were high-school sweethearts. In our town, high-school sweethearts get married all the time. It’s not like New York City. Ellie felt like part of the family, and now Jesse was telling us he couldn’t marry her. It wasn’t fair, he said, to her or to him. But he needed to know we would still be there, after. He needed…I think he just needed us to say it. That we would still be there for him, after he broke it off.”

  “What happened?”

  Sheila closed her eyes. “You know what? I can still see us, sitting there. I’m looking at my mother’s kitchen right now.”

  “In your mind’s eye,” I told her.

  “Exactly.” She took a deep breath. “Our mother said, ‘Jesse, this never happened. We never sat here tonight, and you never said those words. Do you understand?’ And then she stood up from the table. After a second, our dad got up, and then Mission stood up, too. And all three of them w
alked out on him. I stayed up all night with Jesse. He cried, mostly. I did, too.”

  “But what did she mean? When she said it never happened? I don’t get it.”

  “It meant Jesse had to choose, Bea. He had to choose between himself and the people he loved.”

  It hurt, hearing that. I was pretty sure nothing like this had ever happened to Dad.

  “So that’s why he didn’t call off the wedding? Or tell anyone else that he’s gay?”

  Sheila said, “I told Jesse over and over—that I loved him, and that I would be there, no matter what. I told him that we could go talk to Ellie and her family together. But it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.”

  We heard Mom’s keys in the door. Sheila leaned over and squeezed my fingers. “Some people would probably think it’s wrong for me to be telling you this, Bea. But you might as well know right now that there are people who will try to make you choose between who you are and who they want you to be. You have to watch out for those people.”

  “Hello, gals!” Mom said. She looked happy.

  “Fun night?” Sheila called to her.

  “Yes!” Mom said. Her cheeks were pink and she was wearing her nice coat.

  “Ooh, I love your hair pinned up like that,” Sheila told her.

  “But what about now?” I said quickly. “Mission might be different. Maybe we should tell him about the wedding.”

  Sheila stood up. “Forget about Mission, Bea.” And she went to give Mom a hug.

  * * *

  —

  I put my medicine on very carefully that night and tried not to scratch in bed. I laid my arms outside the covers exactly the way the doctor told me to, straight down on either side of my body. “Pretend you’re a little princess,” the doctor said. I remember Mom laughed.

  Sheila made it sound simple, like everyone has one real self. But what if I didn’t? Or what if my real self was no good? I kept imagining Angelica’s face, half like usual, half not working right. Sometimes I felt like that on the inside, like I knew how I wanted to be, but it didn’t match up with how I really was.