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  But I couldn’t say that to Mom. I bit my lip and then said, “I’m going to go over to Mary Anne’s, okay?”

  “Sure,” said Mom. She picked up Emily Michelle and pressed her chin to the top of Emily’s head.

  I bolted for the door almost as abruptly as Charlie had.

  Mary Anne Spier and I have known each other since we were both babies. We used to live next door to each other on Bradford Court, before Mom married Watson and we moved. Mary Anne’s father got remarried to Sharon, his high school sweetheart, not long after that, and they moved too, to a house on the edge of town. (Sharon’s daughter, Dawn, is Mary Anne’s other best friend as well as her stepsister. She lives in California now with her brother, her father, and his new wife). In fact, Mary Anne and I were at that wedding, but that’s another story. (Mary Anne’s birth mother died when Mary Anne was just a baby, too little to remember her.)

  But Mary Anne’s back on Bradford Court now — for an awful reason. Her house was destroyed. Faulty electrical wiring caused it to burn to the ground, with everything Mary Anne and her family owned inside. Luckily no one was hurt, not even Tigger, her gray tiger-striped kitten.

  Anyway, Mary Anne now lives in a rental house across the street from her old house and next door to Claudia Kishi, another friend of ours.

  Remembering what Mary Anne had been through helped me put things in perspective a little as I biked furiously across town to her house. I hoped she was home. I hadn’t even bothered to call first.

  She was — and she took one look at my face and said, “Kristy! What’s wrong?”

  That’s Mary Anne for you. She not only knows me way too well, but she’s very sensitive. She picks up on things that most other people would miss.

  “My father,” I said.

  “Watson?”

  “No! Not Watson. Patrick.”

  “Let’s go to my room,” said Mary Anne. “You can hold Tigger while you tell me about it. It’s very soothing to hold a cat.”

  I had to laugh at her solution. But I followed her obediently through the still-unfamiliar halls of her new house.

  As we sat down on the bed in her room, it creaked. Mary Anne made a face. “Rental furniture,” she said. “When we get settled in a home of our own again, we’re going to have new furniture.”

  “That’ll be fun to shop for,” I said.

  “True. But …” Her voice trailed off. I knew what she was thinking. She would prefer not to be shopping for furniture at all. Losing everything in a fire was no way to go about getting a new wardrobe or practically a new life.

  She scooped up Tigger from the pillow and plopped him on my lap. He settled in and turned his purr up a notch as I absently stroked his back.

  “Patrick,” Mary Anne prompted me.

  “Okay. Well. It’s like this. Patrick called last night, in the middle of dinner.” I gave her the whole story, and she listened intently, her gaze never leaving my face.

  “And Charlie absolutely refuses to go,” I said. “I’m not sure I want to go either, but if Charlie doesn’t go it’s going to make things even weirder. And what about the extra ticket?”

  “It’s a problem,” Mary Anne agreed.

  At that point, I came up with one of my brilliant ideas. (I haven’t mentioned, have I, that I’m famous for my brilliant ideas — such as thinking up the Baby-sitters Club? I have mentioned the BSC, haven’t I? We meet regularly, although not as often as we used to, and clients know that with one phone call they can reach several experienced, reliable baby-sitters. We’re so well known now in Stoneybrook that we don’t even have to advertise.) “Wait a minute,” I cried. “I’ve got it!”

  “What?”

  “The answer. The solution. You!” I pointed at Mary Anne.

  “Me? Me what?”

  “You can go to the wedding too. In Charlie’s place. Or even if he does decide to go.”

  “Kristy …”

  “It makes perfect sense, Mary Anne. Think about it. It would make everything much easier if you went with me.”

  “Kristy …” Mary Anne tried again. I rolled right over her.

  “Plus, when Dawn’s dad remarried, I went to California with you for that, remember? So it’s only fair that you go to California with me for Patrick’s wedding. What a great idea. If I do say so myself.”

  “It would be nice to go to California,” said Mary Anne diplomatically. “But I think this time it would be better if I didn’t go. This is a family thing, Kristy, something you and your brothers should do on your own.”

  “Don’t you want to go to California with me?” I asked.

  “You know I’d love to.”

  “We could visit Dawn.”

  “California’s a big state,” Mary Anne replied. “Where does Patrick live?”

  That stopped me. “He used to live in Sausalito,” I said. “I’m not sure if he still does.”

  And, come to think of it, I wasn’t even sure how far Sausalito was from where Dawn lived.

  “Well, even if he lived next door to Dawn, I couldn’t go with you, Kristy. You know that,” Mary Anne said.

  I sighed. “Yeah, I know. But I wish you could.”

  “I wish I could too.” Mary Anne paused to let my not-so-brilliant idea die a natural death, then changed the subject, sort of. “Did Patrick tell you who he’s marrying? What do you think she’s like?”

  * * *

  Claudia came over later, and I ended up calling Watson and spending the rest of the day at Mary Anne’s. At five-thirty we met up at Claudia’s house with our friend Stacy McGill, for a BSC meeting. We made plans for every possible baby-sitting emergency while I was gone. After all, I am the president of the BSC. It’s my job to make sure the club runs smoothly, even when I’m not there. I went home after the meeting feeling a little less confused and chaotic inside. But our house was still in a quiet uproar. As I walked into the kitchen to see if I could help with dinner, I heard David Michael say, “But I want to go. Charlie doesn’t want to go, and I do. Why can’t I?”

  Karen and Andrew were setting the table. Karen was talking to Andrew about the secret life of dogs, explaining that dogs and cats and all animals talked all the time, when humans weren’t listening. Andrew was watching Shannon out of the corner of his eye. Shannon, who didn’t seem to have anything to say for herself at the moment, was lying on her pillow in a corner of the kitchen, chomping on a Nylabone.

  “Hi,” I said to Watson, who was standing at the stove, stirring something. “I’m home.”

  “Kristy,” he said, looking pleased.

  “What’re we having for dinner?”

  “Gnocchi,” answered Watson.

  “Potato lumps,” said Karen, coming to watch Watson stir. “We helped boil the potatoes and then Daddy mashed them with eggs and now we’re boiling them again.”

  “It’s a sort of potato pasta, like little dumplings,” Watson interjected.

  “Sounds good. What can I do to help?”

  “Call in the troops,” said Watson, lifting a spoonful of the little dumplings onto a plate. “We’re ready to eat.”

  Maybe things had settled down, I reasoned as I obeyed Watson. I managed to hold onto that hope even when I found Charlie in his room with the door closed. “Coming,” he growled when I knocked and told him it was time for dinner.

  I thought of trying to talk to Charlie, but what could I say? My oldest brother is a stand-up kind of guy, patient as the day is long. It takes a lot to make him lose it.

  But now he was angry, and our father’s invitation to the wedding was responsible. I didn’t know how to talk to him about it.

  Maybe time would cool him off, I thought. Maybe that was all we needed — a little time. Maybe the rest of the family was already adjusting to the news.

  Wrong, and wrong again.

  “Why can’t I go to California?” were the first words I heard from David Michael as he followed Mom into the kitchen. She had just walked in the door and was still wearing her work clothes
.

  “There isn’t a ticket for you,” Mom said. “I think your father felt that you aren’t quite old enough to —”

  “There’s a ticket if Charlie doesn’t go,” David Michael interrupted.

  “I want to go to California too,” Karen said out of the blue. “I like weddings. I don’t have to be in it. I just want to go.”

  “Me too,” Andrew said immediately. “I want to go too.”

  “There aren’t any tickets for you either,” my mother said.

  Watson suggested, “Why don’t we all sit down? These need to be eaten while they’re still warm.”

  “Gnocchi,” said Karen importantly, her attention diverted. “With mari … mari …”

  “Marinara sauce,” Watson said.

  “Tomatoes,” Karen explained.

  “I’m not too young,” said David Michael stubbornly.

  “Let me serve you some gnocchi, David Michael,” Watson said.

  I could tell Mom was having a hard time satisfying David Michael’s questions about why he hadn’t been included. Was it true that Patrick had thought David Michael was too young? Why couldn’t Patrick have told David Michael that himself?

  Nannie concentrated on helping Emily Michelle. She held definite opinions about Patrick and always had. I’d overheard some of them over the years, when she’d been talking to Mom. But she’d never said anything to me, or to any of us kids that I knew of, and she didn’t say anything now.

  David Michael’s voice slid into a whine. “It’s not faaair. It’s not. I want to go to California.”

  “You’re not going,” said Mom. The tone of her voice warned David Michael he was pushing his luck. He lowered his head, stuck out his lower lip, and poked at the food on his plate.

  Poor guy, I thought. He was feeling left out, and his feelings were hurt. And poor Mom too.

  Karen stopped talking about her need to go to the wedding and fell uncharacteristically silent. Andrew began flattening his gnocchi with his fork, attempting to turn them back into mashed potatoes.

  That left me, Sam, Watson, and Mom to make conversation. We tried. We tried very hard. But it was no use.

  At the end of the meal, Charlie, who hadn’t said a word, picked up his plate and stood up. “I just want to say that now I’ve thought it over, and I’m still not going to his wedding,” he announced.

  He turned to leave.

  “Wait a minute,” Mom said.

  Charlie turned. I think he expected her to beg him to go or to try to reason with him. He looked angry and defiant.

  But Mom surprised Charlie. She surprised us all, except maybe Watson. “Fine,” she said to Charlie. “Don’t go. But in that case, Kristy and Sam can’t go either.”

  I couldn’t believe it.

  I sat down with Sam to watch a baseball game after dinner, but not even a perfect double play featuring a bare-handed catch and a behind-the-back toss by the shortstop to second could hold my attention for long. I kept thinking about what Charlie had said and what Mom had said then.

  If Charlie didn’t go to the wedding, neither Sam nor I could go either.

  Suddenly, I realized how much I really wanted to see my father. I wasn’t sure how I felt about his getting remarried, but maybe the wedding would be some kind of turning point. Maybe he’d be — what? More fatherlike? Or just, well, more there.

  How did Sam feel? I wanted to ask him, but somehow I couldn’t. He was sprawled in the overstuffed armchair, his arms folded, his eyes half closed. I knew he wasn’t sleepy. I didn’t think he was paying much attention to the game either.

  Just to see, I picked up the remote and flicked to another channel.

  “Hey,” Sam mumbled. Normally, that move would have earned a howl of protest.

  “Hey, yourself,” I said. I surfed back to the baseball game. “You sorry to miss the wedding?”

  Sam’s eyelids lowered a fraction of an inch more. “Maybe. But at least this way I don’t have to get all dressed up.”

  “Sam. I’m serious.”

  If Sam slid any lower in the chair, he was going to slide out of it.

  “Sam?”

  “Yeah, sure. I want to go. I think. I’d kind of like to see … him.”

  I set the remote on the table between us. “I’m going to talk to Charlie. Want to come?”

  “Nah,” said Sam. His eyes opened slightly and he glanced at me before glancing back at the screen. “But let me know how it goes.”

  “I will.”

  I knocked on Charlie’s door and opened it before he even finished saying, “Who is it?”

  “A member of your family,” I said.

  “I kind of thought it might be.” He was propped on the bed, reading The Sporting News.

  “I get to read that when you’re finished,” I said automatically.

  Charlie said, “You came up here to tell me that?”

  “No. Of course not.” I sat down in the chair at his desk. “We need to talk.”

  “What about?” He held the paper up in front of him, like a line of scrimmage.

  This annoyed me. Charlie is not dense. He knew what I wanted to talk about, and he was making it as hard as possible for me. I narrowed my eyes at him.

  He lowered the paper then. “Kristy —” he began.

  I didn’t let him finish. “It’s not fair, Charlie. What right do you have to … to … to sabotage the plans for the wedding?”

  “He can have the wedding without me. Just like I can have a life without him.”

  I knew Charlie was angry at our father, but I had never heard him speak so bluntly or so bitterly. I took a deep breath, feeling hurt for Charlie and maybe for all of us. But I wasn’t going to let that stop me. “You can have a life without Patrick,” I agreed. “We all can. But he’s invited us to his wedding. It’s important to him for us to be there.”

  “Then tell Mom how important it is,” Charlie said, his own eyes as narrow as mine now.

  “You know she won’t change her mind. And you know, maybe she’s right. If only two of us show up, what are we supposed to say? Sorry, Charlie is so angry at you that he’s not coming?”

  “That’s his problem.”

  “Charlie!” Frustrated, I jumped to my feet and slapped both palms against the top of his desk. “Listen. This is important to me. It’s important to Sam. And it’s important to you, whether you’ll admit it or not. If it wasn’t important, you wouldn’t be so angry. You just wouldn’t care.”

  Charlie opened his mouth, shut it, glared at me.

  “If you’re afraid to see Patrick …” I went on.

  “I’m not afraid. I just don’t want to see him. I have nothing to say to him.”

  “Then go and don’t say anything,” I said. “But please, please don’t keep us from going to the wedding. Because maybe I want to go and see if I do have something to say.”

  “This isn’t fair,” said Charlie.

  “No, I guess it isn’t,” I agreed, to my own surprise.

  I caught Charlie by surprise too. He stared at me, his face pale, with spots of color on his cheeks, the way he always looks when he’s really intense about something, which isn’t very often. I had a sense that Charlie could explode at any moment. I braced myself and waited.

  Finally, he said, “I don’t owe him anything.”

  “No,” I said neutrally.

  “If I went, it wouldn’t be for him, it’d be for you and for Sam.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, although I didn’t think that was entirely true.

  “Fine,” said Charlie abruptly. “I’ll go. I’ll go, but I won’t like it. If you’re imagining some kind of cozy family reunion, count me out.”

  I let my breath out all at once. I hadn’t realized I was holding it. “You will?” I said, just to make sure. “You’ll go to the wedding with Sam and me?”

  “I’ll go,” said Charlie, raising The Sporting News again.

  “Thanks!” I said. I leaned over and punched him on the shoulder.

&nbs
p; He made a face at me.

  I turned to leave. “Hey,” I said, stopping at the door.

  He kept his eyes on the newspaper.

  “Thanks.”

  “Yeah. Right,” said my oldest brother.

  I decided not to push my luck. I left, closing the door quietly behind me.

  Sam hadn’t moved. “Two out, bases loaded, top of the sixth,” he said. “Our man at the plate is trying for a walk.”

  I sat down on the sofa and leaned back. I watched the batter begin to play a waiting game with the pitcher, scuffing his feet, stepping out of the box between each pitch.

  I played a waiting game too.

  The batter fouled the seventh pitch straight up and the catcher caught it for the third out.

  Sam said, “Well?”

  “He’ll go,” I said. “He doesn’t like it, but he’ll go.”

  “I don’t like it so much either,” my second-oldest brother said. He waited.

  I waited.

  Sam added, “But I’m glad. Thanks, Kristy.”

  “Yeah. Right,” said his eldest younger sister.

  I should know how to pack to go to a wedding, even one in California, right? I’m a veteran attendee of weddings: Mom and Watson’s; Mary Anne’s dad and Dawn’s mom’s; Dawn’s dad’s, in California.

  But as I hurried to the car, dragging my suitcase, I was sure that I had forgotten something. Stopping on the sidewalk, I pulled the packing list out of my pocket and checked it once more.

  I hadn’t forgotten a thing.

  From behind me Watson said, “Ready to put that in the van?” I nodded, worried for a moment that he shouldn’t be lifting my suitcase because of his heart. Then I realized I was being a tad overprotective and forced myself not to protest. Sam was leaning against the van, looking bored.

  “We’re not late, are we?” I asked. “Where’s Charlie?”

  “We have plenty of time,” Watson assured me. He smiled. “No backpack? No books for the plane?”

  “My pack!” I yelped, and raced back into the house.