Coming Apart Read online

  Ruby ran all the way back to the Row Houses that afternoon, and the moment she was safely in her room she withdrew her personal and private self-improvement plan from her desk drawer and studied it.

  1. Be neater.

  Ruby grinned and silently congratulated herself. She was already neater. She had kept her room and her desk tidy since the moment she had drawn up the plan. Just that morning Min had poked her head into Ruby’s room and said, “My land.” Usually this was followed by, “Did something explode in here?” But this time she’d exclaimed, “I’d hardly know this was your room, Ruby. I can see the floor.” Then she’d smiled and added, “Good for you, honey. I really appreciate this. You should be very proud of yourself.”

  2. Go to all lessons and rehearsals unless I am sick.

  Well, she hadn’t had too many lessons and rehearsals in the past few days, but she hadn’t missed any of them, so that was good.

  Ruby skimmed the rest of the list. She was working as hard as she could. She was trying to be polite and not sarcastic, to plan ahead, to think before she acted, blah, blah, blah. Frankly, it was a little tedious. But Ruby did enjoy the compliments she was getting. She had handed all her homework in on time since making her list, and her teacher had noticed.

  “Ruby, I’m impressed,” she’d said, smiling, on Monday morning when Ruby had handed in her weekend homework. “I didn’t need to give you any reminders.”

  Thinking about this, Ruby allowed a smile to spread across her face.

  “Ruby!” called Flora from downstairs. “Phone for you!”

  “I’ll take it in Min’s room!” Ruby called back.

  She ran down the hall and picked up the extension by Min’s bed. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Ruby? This is Rudy Pennington. Are you available to do some work over the weekend?”

  “Sure,” said Ruby.

  “I just heard about the storm and I was wondering if you’d be able to help me with shoveling.”

  “Definitely,” replied Ruby. She carried the phone into her bedroom and found a pad of paper. “Let me write this down. We can figure out when you want me to come after we see how bad the storm is.”

  “Very businesslike of you,” commented Mr. Pennington.

  “Thank you,” replied Ruby. She had just hung up the phone when it rang again. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Ruby. This is Dr. Malone. Would you be able to take care of Twinkle and Bandit when we go away in a couple of weeks?”

  “Of course,” said Ruby, who was already reaching for her pad.

  At dinnertime, her homework finished and a third job lined up, Ruby joined Min and Flora in the kitchen.

  “If it’s all right with you, I’m going to practice for tap class after dinner,” she announced. Before Min could say anything, Ruby added, “My homework is done. You can check it if you want. Oh, and I started my book report, but it isn’t due until Friday, so I have plenty of time to finish it.”

  She looked with satisfaction at her sister and her grandmother, both of whom had stopped what they were doing and were actually staring at Ruby. She smiled at them and began to set the table.

  Olivia was moody. Moody wasn’t a word with which she was very familiar, but if it meant that her moods swung back and forth for no reason at all, and that she felt crabby and wanted to be alone more often than she felt content and friendly, and that she was often tempted to slam her bedroom door — preferably in someone’s face — well, then, moody described perfectly the way she’d been feeling lately.

  She had heard her parents talking about her one evening when they thought she’d gone to sleep.

  “Olivia’s been awfully moody lately,” her father had said.

  “Moody isn’t the word,” her mother had replied, and Olivia had thought, It’s exactly the word. Exactly. And she’d felt unreasonably annoyed when her mother had laughed then, even if she had laughed fondly.

  A moment later her mother had said something about hormones and teenagers, but Olivia, who was standing at the top of the stairs, trying to hear a conversation taking place on the first floor, couldn’t quite catch the rest of what was said.

  She supposed she should have been happy to hear anything about herself connected with the word teenagers, since Olivia longed to be older, taller, more shapely, more worldly, all those elusive teenage things. But when her mother used Olivia, teenagers, and hormones in the same sentence and then laughed, fondly or otherwise, Olivia felt only the desire to slam her bedroom door.

  She didn’t slam it. But she did stalk back to her room, climb into her bed, and lie there miserably, thinking dark thoughts about boys in general, Jacob in particular, Melody and Tanya, and even Flora and Nikki. She wondered if, next door, Flora was still awake, maybe sitting at her desk, finishing her homework. It was Wednesday night, and Flora had said on the way home from school that she had so much homework she wouldn’t be able to spend time with Janie that afternoon.

  Olivia placed her ear to her wall and listened for sounds from Ruby’s bedroom. She thought that if Ruby was up, that might mean Flora was up as well. But she heard nothing.

  Olivia flopped onto her bed again. She still hadn’t told Flora or Nikki about her date with Jacob, at least not the truth about the date. She had said, “It was fun,” and, “The movie was great.” But what she longed to say was, “It was horrible. Melody and Tanya were sitting right behind us, but that wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was that Jacob held my hand during the show. The entire show. His hand was sweaty, and I couldn’t concentrate on the movie, and he was just trying to be nice to me, but all I wanted was to get away from him. What’s wrong with me?”

  She imagined Flora saying, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Why was holding Jacob’s hand worse than sitting in front of Melody and Tanya for two hours?”

  Of course, that wasn’t really what Flora would say. But it was what Olivia had been thinking for four days.

  Maybe that’s why I’m so moody, thought Olivia. I’m being awfully mean to myself.

  Olivia lay in her bed, feeling as if she didn’t belong in her own body. As if she’d gotten too big for it, or it had gotten too big for her, or maybe she was in someone else’s body altogether. She didn’t fall asleep until long after her parents had tiptoed upstairs and turned out their light.

  The next morning, to her surprise, considering the small amount of sleep she’d had, not to mention her dark mood of the night before, she awoke feeling rather cheerful. And as she and Flora walked to school, she made a decision. Today, no matter what, she was going to tell Jacob that she and Flora and Nikki needed to eat lunch alone. They needed to talk. Nikki, Olivia knew, needed moral support from her friends. And Olivia could have used a little herself. At the very least, she wanted to tell them how she was feeling about Jacob.

  Olivia’s good mood lasted through the morning, and at lunchtime she marched resolutely into the cafeteria, determined to tell Jacob that she couldn’t sit with him, but that she’d call him that evening. She picked out her lunch, paid for it, and carried it to the table by the windows, where Nikki and Flora were just settling in with their own lunches. Jacob wasn’t there yet, which was fine. Olivia could snag him before he sat down. She turned, scanned the cafeteria for Jacob but couldn’t find him, and when she turned back to the table, Melody and Tanya were there. Two seconds later, Jacob had joined them.

  Olivia sagged. She couldn’t leave Jacob with Melody and Tanya. That would be like leaving a baby bunny with two hungry foxes.

  Olivia, Jacob, Melody, and Tanya all sat down at once, Jacob sliding into the seat to the right of Olivia, the hungry foxes directly across the table.

  Olivia glanced at Flora, who was sitting on her left. Flora was looking back at her with wide eyes, brows raised, as if to say, “How did this happen?”

  Olivia shook her head. What on earth were Melody and Tanya doing, getting in such close range of Jacob? Were they going to snag him right in front of her?

  “Hey, Olivia,” s
aid Melody.

  “Hey, Olivia,” said Tanya.

  Olivia unwrapped her sandwich and half of it fell apart, tomato slices sliding across the tray. “Hey,” she replied.

  “So, what do you have going for the weekend?” Tanya asked.

  Olivia, attempting to reconstruct the sandwich, detected an awkward silence. She glanced up. Everyone was looking at her. “Who, me?” she said.

  Tanya smiled sweetly at her. “Yeah. Any plans?”

  Olivia cleared her throat. “Well, the blizzard …”

  “Oh, that’s right. The storm,” said Melody. “I can’t wait. I love big storms.”

  “So do I,” Olivia replied cautiously.

  “Really? You like storms, too?”

  “Well, sure.”

  Tanya crunched on a carrot stick. “What’s your favorite thing about a storm?”

  Olivia squirmed. Was this a trick of some kind? Melody and Tanya usually discussed clothes and boys and ways to get to the mall without their parents.

  “Um,” said Olivia, “I don’t know.” What was the right answer? Surely not sledding with her brothers. Or making paper dolls with Flora, which they had done twice the winter before. “No school?” she said finally, as if she’d been called on in class and had to guess at the answer.

  Tanya grinned at her. “Yeah, a snow day is the best.”

  “We’re not going to get a snow day out of this storm, though,” Jacob spoke up, just as Olivia was thinking that this had to be the lamest conversation ever. She continued to wait for a trap to reveal itself, one she would step in spectacularly — saying something that would cause her to hang her head, cheeks burning with embarrassment.

  “Oh, well,” said Melody. “I don’t care if we don’t get a snow day. I like just lying in bed on a snowy morning, looking at how the light in my room is different, kind of silvery. You can always tell when it’s snowing. Even when the blinds are down you can tell.”

  Olivia said nothing and eventually realized that Melody and Tanya were watching her again. But they appeared friendly enough.

  Something was expected of Olivia here. She was supposed to say something. Anything.

  “One of my favorite books in first grade,” said Olivia, “was Snowbound With Betsy. It was about this little girl, Betsy, and her sister Star, and they get snowbound the week before Christmas….”

  Uh-oh. This was it. The trap. Olivia had just mentioned the most uncool and babyish thing possible.

  She glanced across the table and saw that, sure enough, Melody and Tanya were gaping at her. Tanya’s mouth was actually open.

  “I mean …” mumbled Olivia, who had no idea what to say next.

  But Melody brightened. “Yeah, I used to like that book, too.”

  Tanya swallowed a bite of her sandwich and said, “So who’s going to the game next week?”

  What game? thought Olivia.

  “I am,” said Jacob.

  “Cool,” said Tanya. “We’ll see you there.”

  Apparently, there was to be a basketball game on Wednesday. Olivia wasn’t sure who was playing. Two Central teams? Central against someone else? But Jacob was going and so were Tanya and Melody, and as they talked about it, a thought came to Olivia that made her feel chilled all over. What if she and Jacob broke up but remained friends, and then Jacob started going out with Tanya or Melody? How could Olivia stand that? The answer was that she wouldn’t be able to stand it. And that would be the end of her friendship with Jacob. She didn’t want Jacob for her boyfriend, but she definitely wanted him for her friend, and she realized now that she could never be like — who was that star? Bruce Willis. That was it. Bruce had continued to hang around with his former wife even after she started going out with another guy. Olivia couldn’t do that if Jacob’s next girlfriend was Melody or Tanya.

  “Hey, Olivia, you and Jacob should come with us to the game next week,” Tanya said suddenly.

  “We should come with you?” Olivia squeaked. She attempted to lower her voice. “Jacob and I should come with you?”

  “Sure. It would be fun.”

  “Well …”

  “We’ll let you know later,” replied Jacob. “Thanks.”

  “You guys,” said Olivia to Flora and Nikki that afternoon as they headed out of school, loaded down by books, “Tanya and Melody were actually nice to me at lunch.”

  “What? About the game?” said Flora. “You guys aren’t going to go with them, are you?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Why not?”

  “Why not?” exclaimed Nikki. “Because … because Melody and Tanya remind me of my father. He’s been giving all these presents to Mae for some reason. I don’t know why, but there’s something behind it. He’s up to something. And I think Tanya is up to something, too.”

  “Oh, so she can’t be nice to me just because she likes me? Hello, Tanya invited Jacob and me to the game. Together. Why do you think there’s anything behind that?”

  “I —” Nikki started to say.

  But Olivia was already marching away from her friends. They watched her stalk out the front door of the school and across the lawn toward Main Street. By the time she reached Sincerely Yours — alone — her moodiness had returned, sprouting like a poisonous mushroom. Maddeningly, she knew that her friends were right. Melody and Tanya were up to something. And if Olivia went to the game with them, she would step directly into their trap.

  Willow Hamilton deposited her groaning backpack in her locker atop a stack consisting of shoes, loose papers, and an unfinished art project. Then she withdrew a single book from the shelf. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The afternoon rush at Camden Falls Central — more harried on a Friday than on any other afternoon of the week — had ended, and the halls were growing quiet. A footfall here and there. A last-minute reminder: “Don’t forget to call me after you ask your mother!” A door closing, the lock snicking into place.

  Willow carried her book to the end of the hall and stood by the window. It was a tall window, stretching from the ceiling almost to the floor, and afforded Willow a view of the front lawn of the school and of the road beyond. The school buses had lined up in the lane beside the road, and now, doors closed, everyone aboard, were pulling into the traffic one by one.

  She shifted her gaze to the lawn and saw a girl running across it, her hand planted on her head to hold her hat in place. The wind was blowing ferociously. Willow could hear it whistling around the corner of the building. She glanced at the sky, which was heavy with clouds, and she shivered.

  Storm coming.

  It was time for the next meeting of the seventh-grade book club. Friday wasn’t their usual meeting day, but it had worked for everyone this month, and Willow didn’t mind staying after school for another hour on a Friday afternoon.

  She looked at her watch. Ten minutes until the meeting.

  Outside, branches lashed back and forth, and Willow watched one crack from its trunk and hurtle to the ground, startling a red squirrel that leaped nearly a foot in the air before scurrying across the lawn. She wondered what her mother would do during the storm, if life in the hospital would be changed by a blizzard, or if maybe her mother’s routine — surely there was a routine — would march along whether the snow fell or not. She hoped her mother would enjoy the storm. Willow planned to. She and her father and brother had already talked about the weekend, and her father had bought canned soup and peanut butter and bananas, things that wouldn’t spoil if the power went out. He’d bought popcorn, too. “We’re going to make it the old-fashioned way,” he’d said. “In the fireplace.”

  “You can make popcorn in the fireplace?” Cole had asked incredulously.

  “Absolutely,” Mr. Hamilton had replied. “People have been eating popcorn for thousands of years. They popped it over open flames long before there were microwaves.”

  “What else are we going to cook in the fireplace?” Cole had wanted to know.

  Mr. Hamilton had cleared his throat. “Well, I think the popcorn will be
enough. But maybe we can have a picnic in the living room.”

  “And eat on the floor?”

  “And eat on the floor.”

  This was exactly the kind of conversation the Hamiltons would never have been able to have before Willow’s mother had gone to the hospital. Willow recalled, with a familiar lurching feeling in her stomach, the years spent with her mother, trying to understand the bewildering, ever-changing rules with which she ran their household. Not to mention the orderliness, the tidiness. Her mother would never have allowed a picnic on the living room floor.

  Willow tried to focus on the weekend, which was certain to be exciting. (The biggest storm in forty years!) But her mother had found her way into her thoughts and now Willow recalled the conversation she’d had with her father the previous weekend. It had taken place on Sunday afternoon while Cole was playing outside with the Morris boys and Willow was deeply involved in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which she thought was one of the best books she had read in her entire life.

  “Knock, knock,” her father had said, standing in her bedroom doorway.

  “You could actually knock,” Willow had told him, smiling.

  “I know. I guess ‘knock, knock’ is corny. Can we talk for a minute?”

  Her father had sat on Willow’s desk chair, and Willow, who had been lying on her bed, had straightened up and set the book aside. “Is something wrong?” she’d asked.

  Her father had shaken his head. “No. But I promised you I’d keep you informed about your mother, and I had a conference with the doctors on Friday. I thought you’d like to know what we talked about.”

  Willow, who had been comfortably settled in Francie Nolan’s world of Brooklyn more than a hundred years in the past, had felt her chest tighten. “Okay,” she’d said. “I mean, yes, tell me what the doctors said.”

  “They think your mother will be ready to come home in about three months — the middle of April. She’s making good progress.”