Stacey's Lie Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Letter from Ann M. Martin

  Acknowledgment

  About the Author

  Scrapbook

  Also Available

  Copyright

  “Sure, Dad, sure,” I said, leaning against the kitchen wall and absently wrapping the phone cord around my fingers. “No problemo. Robert will understand. It’s okay. You don’t have to meet me at the information booth. I can just take a cab from the station. Of course I remember where! Dad, please! I’m not a little kid! All right then, see you Saturday. I love you, too.”

  Just as I was hanging up the phone, my mom walked in with a brown paper bag of groceries. “Hi, Stacey,” she said, setting the bag on the table. She shrugged off her beige blazer as she gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Am I ever beat. I had a crazy day at work. How was school?”

  “Pretty good,” I replied. “Nothing super unusual.”

  “Who was on the phone?” she asked.

  “Dad.”

  “Oh,” Mom said in her I-will-betray-no-emotion voice. It’s the flat voice she uses whenever we speak about my father. You see, Mom and Dad got divorced not too long ago, and Dad isn’t exactly Mom’s favorite person on earth these days. But she tries not to show it, at least around me. After all, I am still his daughter and I do love him. “What did he want?” she asked casually.

  I began helping her put away the groceries. “There’s been a slight change of plans. You know I was supposed to go stay with him next weekend, but some business conference thing has come up, so he wanted to know if I could come this weekend, instead. I told him it was no problem.”

  Mom sighed. “Nothing is more important to your father than work,” she commented, annoyance working its way into her voice.

  “It’s no big deal, Mom,” I said. “Robert and I were just going to go to a movie. We can go next weekend.”

  Robert is my steady boyfriend. I am so crazy about him. He is the greatest guy. And he understands that I spend lots of weekends in New York City with my father. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind this little adjustment.

  “Anyway, this change of plans solves one problem,” I said. “Sunday is Father’s Day. I’ve been wondering how I would get Dad’s present to him. I could have mailed it, but I’ve already waited too long. Now I’ll be able to hand it to him.”

  “I wonder if that’s why your father changed the date,” Mom said thoughtfully. “So you could be with him on Father’s Day.”

  “Wouldn’t he have just come out and said so?” I questioned as I ripped open a bag of sliced carrots.

  “Your father is funny when it comes to sentimental things like that,” Mom said, covering her cream-colored silk shirt and matching slacks with a purple-and-gold-striped apron. “Even though he might want you with him on Father’s Day, he probably wouldn’t just come out and admit it.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Some people have trouble talking about their emotions,” she said as she tore the wrapping off a package of chicken. “Your father is definitely one of those people.”

  I thought about that. To me, Dad seems okay about emotions. I’ve never wondered whether he’s glad to see me or not — he always gives a big hug and all. I know he loves me. “What kind of emotions can’t he talk about?” I asked.

  Mom picked up her favorite knife and started slicing the skin off the chicken. “He doesn’t like to show his softer side. And he doesn’t like to discuss anything that might possibly get the other person upset. He’d rather just avoid talking about difficult things altogether.”

  I thought of the terrible shouting fights Mom and Dad had had right before they told me they were getting divorced. Naturally, both of them had been very upset (not to mention how I felt, sitting in my room listening to them). But if Dad really didn’t like talking about emotional, upsetting things, it must have been murder on him.

  “Homework calls,” I said to Mom, giving her a kiss on the cheek. I picked up a carrot stick and went upstairs.

  I never really mind math homework. We’re doing some pre-algebra work. I love it! Algebra is so balanced and logical. Math is absolutely my best subject.

  When my last homework problem was done, I headed back downstairs. On the way, I smelled the tarragon-lemon chicken cooking. It smelled great. It made me want to eat, even though I wasn’t really that hungry right then.

  It’s a good thing Mom makes really great meals because whether I’m hungry or not, I have to eat supper. I can’t afford to skip a meal or let myself get too hungry. That’s because I have diabetes.

  Diabetes is a condition which prevents my body from regulating the amount of sugar in my blood. In order to keep it under control I have to eat a healthy, carefully balanced diet. So, even though I snack, I can’t eat just anything I want. Unlike a lot of my friends I don’t snack on sweets or junk food. (My best friend, Claudia, eats so many junk food snacks that I don’t know how she manages to eat supper at all! I’ll tell you more about her later.)

  I have to take my diabetes very seriously. Cheating on my diet could send me into a diabetic coma — which is as awful as it sounds. I also have to give myself insulin injections every day.

  Every once in awhile I feel sorry for myself about the diabetes. But I usually snap out of it pretty quickly. The disease rarely stops me from doing anything I want to do. And I’m not one for self-pity. My attitude is that life goes on and you have to keep looking for the good in it.

  When Mom and I sat down to dinner (which tasted as good as it smelled), we had a lot to talk about. She’s a buyer for Bellair’s department store. That means she decides which items the store will sell. Today she’d had a huge problem at work. A line of fall coats she’d ordered came in and they were all wrong. (Since it’s June I can’t imagine even looking at a fall coat! But department stores order their stuff way ahead of the season.) The coats were supposed to be in a selection of black, red, and blue. Instead the coats that came in were fake fur in a selection of zebra-striped, leopard-spotted, or tiger-striped. (Which sounded pretty cool to me, but it was not what Mom thought the people who shop in Bellair’s would want to buy.) She’d spent the entire day on the phone arguing with the coat company.

  Mom shook her head as she scooped a forkful of peas. “Sometimes I wonder why I was so eager to work.”

  Mom didn’t work full-time outside of our house until after the divorce. But now she loves her job (most days). And I’m happier because the job distracts her from me. Mom used to spend a lot of time worrying about me, mostly because of my diabetes. Now, I guess she still worries, but she has other things to think about, too.

  The next morning I got up, pulled on a pair of blue tights, black canvas walking shorts, a long-sleeved, blue T-shirt, and a pair of black flats. I piled my blonde perm up on top of my head and fastened it with a blue stretchie tie.

  Then I looked out my bedroom window and realized my outfit was all wrong. Totally. Those weren’t tiny green buds on the trees any more — they were actual leaves. And the sky was blue and clear. It looked much more like summer than spring. I lifted the window. A warm breeze was blowing. It changed my mood entirely.

  I ripped the stretchie from my hair and let the curls fall around my shoulders. I took off my clothes and changed into my new one-piece shorts dress with the gold, red a
nd green Aztec-style print. I slipped into a pair of light tan woven flats and I was set to go.

  The clothing change had put me a little behind schedule. But I quickly downed a bowl of Shredded Wheat (plain, no sugar) and a glass of orange juice. Skipping breakfast is a no-no for me. “Looks like we’re both running late today,” said Mom as she came into the kitchen, still tying the bow on her blouse.

  “Did you change outfits at the last minute, too?” I asked with a laugh.

  Mom laughed with me. “Yes, I did,” she admitted. “I couldn’t wear a black gabardine pantsuit on a day like today. It’s gorgeous out.”

  “Summer at last,” I said as I kissed her cheek and headed for the door.

  “Have a good day,” she called after me.

  I half walked, half ran to the corner of Elm Street. I live at 89 Elm. This is my second Stoneybrook address. I used to live at 612 Fawcett Avenue, but my friend Jessi lives there now.

  Maybe I should explain. At the beginning of seventh grade, we moved from New York City, where I grew up, to Stoneybrook, because my father’s company transferred him here. Then — just when I’d made friends and had begun to feel at home — the company transferred him back to the city. Then my parents decided to divorce, and my mother made plans to move back to Stoneybrook. I had to choose where I wanted to live. Was that ever a tough choice! But what helped me decide was how much I missed my friends here in Stoneybrook.

  So, I came back to Stoneybrook with Mom. It was the right choice. If I’d stayed in the city, I would never have been able to take back my job as treasurer of the BSC.

  BSC stands for Baby-sitters Club. Claudia, my best friend, is in it, too, and so are several other good friends of mine. I’ll tell you more about the BSC later.

  My friends Mary Anne and Mallory were waiting for me on the corner of Elm and Bradford Court. (Some mornings I run through my backyard and into Mal’s, and leave with her. Other mornings — like this one — I’m running too late to do that.) As we headed toward Stoneybrook Middle School, we stopped at my old house and picked up our other friend, Jessi.

  When I got to school, Robert was waiting at my locker. Even though I’d seen Robert just the day before, my heart still speeded up when I caught sight of him. As I said, I am just crazy about him. He isn’t exactly model-gorgeous like, say, Jason Priestly, but to me he is simply adorable. He has dark brown hair; deep, dark eyes; and broad shoulders. “Hi, Stace,” he said with a smile. (His smile just finishes me. It makes me melt, completely. Did I mention his dimples?)

  “Hi,” I said, smiling back.

  Then a funny thing happened. “Guess what?” we both said at once, which cracked us up.

  “You go first,” I said.

  “Okay,” said Robert. He looked pretty excited about whatever he was preparing to say. “Remember I told you that my family always spends vacations at our house in Davis Park?”

  I nodded. “On Fire Island. Don’t remind me. You’ll be there all of August with your family.”

  The smile faded from Robert’s face. “That’s the only bad part about it.”

  “About what?”

  “My summer job.”

  “You got a summer job!” I cried happily. I knew how much Robert had been hoping to land one. “What will you be doing?”

  Robert folded his arms and leaned against my locker. “It’s a great job. This friend of my father’s knows the people who run the ferry between Long Island and Davis Park. He got me a job working on the boat for two months this summer.”

  “Excellent!” I cried. Then I frowned. “Wait a minute. Not excellent. When does this job start?”

  “Next weekend.”

  “What?” I cried. “You mean as soon as school ends, you have to go?”

  Robert nodded. “Until my family comes out in August I’ll stay with my father’s friend’s family. I’ll see my family pretty often anyway — they’ll come out for weekends in July, too.”

  “This is terrible,” I said with a sigh.

  Robert took my hand. “It’s really just a month more, since I’d be gone for August anyway. And you’d probably be in the city for two of the weekends in July. If I were staying home I’d have to get a job during the week, anyway. So all we’re losing is two weekends, when you really think about it.”

  “It’s okay,” I said glumly. “I mean, it’s not okay. But I understand.”

  “At least we have this weekend,” he said.

  “No we don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s what I was going to tell you. My father asked me if I could come see him this weekend instead of next, and I said yes.”

  “But by next weekend I’ll be gone,” Robert pointed out.

  “I know,” I said. Maybe I could skip seeing my father this weekend. That would mean I wouldn’t see him for three whole weeks, though. And this was Father’s Day weekend. I couldn’t cancel out on him for Father’s Day. Could I?

  I stepped off the train late that Friday afternoon and entered the flow of people moving up the platform toward the main lobby of Grand Central Station. Yes, Grand Central, in New York City. Of course, I hadn’t canceled my weekend with my father. How could I, on Father’s Day weekend?

  So there I was, being swept along with the crowd. All the way down on the train, I’d slumped in my seat and thought about Robert. Last weekend we’d played Ping-Pong at the Stoneybrook Community Center game room, then browsed around the crafts fair out front, where I found a great Father’s Day gift for Dad. Then we’d ridden our bikes into town and had lunch. It was a great day. A perfect day! On the way back home, we stopped our bikes at the end of Bradford Court. Robert reached over and gave me the most wonderful kiss.

  As I said, everything was perfect. But I hadn’t known it would be our last full day together for the entire summer! I don’t know if I would have done anything differently, but I do wish I had known.

  As rotten as I felt about Robert going away, a different feeling took over as I stepped out of the train tunnel and into Grand Central Station’s beautiful lobby with its high, rounded ceiling.

  My down mood began to lift. My pulse quickened as the excitement of being back in New York City took hold of me.

  New York is so different from Stoneybrook. I love both places, but there’s just nothing like the Big Apple. It’s louder, brighter, faster. It’s packed with museums, stores, restaurants, great buildings … and people. In the city you see people from all over the world — rich, poor, and every color, shape, and size. And all of them seem to be rushing somewhere. Especially on a Friday afternoon!

  I adjusted my heavy canvas overnight bag on my shoulder and cut across the lobby, heading for the door that leads to the taxi lines. My bag dug into my shoulder. I had packed too much stuff (as usual), plus I had Dad’s Father’s Day gift with me. As I passed the information booth, someone called my name. I turned sharply. There was Dad, rushing toward me.

  “Dad!” I cried happily, putting down my bag. He wrapped me in a hug. It was so good to see him.

  “But, Dad, you weren’t supposed to meet me,” I reminded him.

  “I know,” he said as he picked up my suitcase. “But I just couldn’t resist.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” I noticed he was dressed casually, in khakis and a striped sports shirt. He always wears suits to work.

  “I took a work-at-home day,” he said. “Sometimes it’s easier to get work done without all the interruptions and distractions of the office.”

  We started walking up the ramp to the side of the station where cabs line up. “See how easy this is?” I said. “I would have walked up this ramp, gotten into a cab, and gone right to the front of your building. I’d have been perfectly safe.”

  “So, I’m a hopeless worrier,” he said with a laugh. He put his hand on my shoulder. “But you’re my girl. I’m not talking any chances with your safety. You’re too precious to me.”

  I smiled at him. Secretly, I was glad he’d come. Although I wanted to be independent,
I also liked being cared for. It made me feel warm inside. At that moment, I knew I had done the right thing by not canceling this weekend.

  We got a cab quickly. Dad gave a fake groan as he dropped my bag on the seat. “What did you pack? Bricks?”

  I smiled mysteriously. His guess was pretty close. Actually, it was marble. At the crafts fair, there was a man selling beautiful marble chess sets. The playing pieces were sculpted into figures from the armies of the Civil War. Dad loves chess and he loves history, so it was the perfect gift for him. The set had cost me most of the baby-sitting money I had saved up over the spring, but it was worth it. It was pretty weighty, though. Carrying it home in the basket of my bicycle had been tricky.

  Soon the cab turned onto East 65th Street, and pulled up in front of Dad’s building. His apartment is really cool. It’s old and classy, with these great brick walls inside and a cozy little fireplace. My bedroom there is a bit on the small side, but since I don’t spend all that much time in it, I really don’t mind.

  “Stace, I have to ask you a favor,” Dad said as we put my bags down inside the apartment. “Can you give me a couple of hours to finish up some work?”

  “You have to go to the office?” I wailed.

  “No, it’s not that bad. Remember? I’m set up at home now.” He pointed to the desk by the window. It used to be cluttered with papers. Now it was set up with a computer, a printer, and a fax machine.

  “Gee,” I said glumly. “Now you can work all the time, day or night, at home or in the office.”

  “No, no this is a good thing,” Dad insisted. “It means I don’t have to be in the office so much. It gives me a lot more free time. Really.”

  Sure, I thought. More free time to work. If I was missing my last weekend with Robert just so I could sit here and watch him work all weekend, I was going to be really annoyed.

  The expression on my face must have told Dad I was fuming. “Stacey, honestly, give me these few hours and you won’t be sorry. I have a little surprise lined up, but if I don’t take this time I can’t make it happen.”

  “What kind of surprise?” I asked.