Very late Kristy-round fic: "Mary Anne the Terrible Liar"
Title: "Mary Anne the Terrible Liar"
Author: tartanshell
Fandom: Baby-Sitters Club
Pairing: Kristy/Mary Anne
Spoilers/Timeline: Spoilers through Dawn's Big Move. Set during BSC series, post-Dawn's Big Move. But also a little AU.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Note: Written for wisdomeagle in the Kristy round of short_takes, who requested Kristy/Mary Anne with loneliness and Tigger. Sorry I'm so late, Ari! I hope you like this anyway. :)
Summary: What is Mary Anne's secret?
Words: ~ 3,200
Mary Anne the Terrible Liar
"All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray..." Sharon's music blared out of the stereo downstairs, and I winced. I was upstairs in my bedroom, but even with the door shut, I could hear the words clearly. It was this old song by a band that Sharon--she's my stepmother--and my father like to listen to, called "California Dreaming."
It might sound babyish, but, since I was alone in my room and already lying facedown on my bed, I went ahead and put my pillow over my head before I could hear the chorus, which was about "California dreamin' on a winter's day." Then I screamed into the mattress. (But quietly, so I wouldn't alarm Sharon.)
You might be wondering who I am and why a song about California would make me so upset. Well, here is me "in a nutshell," as my father would say. I'm Mary Anne Spier, and I'm thirteen years old and an eighth grader at Stoneybrook Middle School in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. I'm on the short side, and I have brown eyes and brown hair that my father recently allowed me to cut into a short, cute style that I love.
As for why I was so upset…well, that's a more complicated story. My mother died when I was very little, so I was raised by my father, Richard Spier. For a long time it was just the two of us, and my father had a difficult time trying to raise a daughter on his own, so he was very strict. He used to have a ton of rules for me--I wasn't allowed to talk on the phone after dinner unless it was about homework, I had to be home by nine o'clock, and, worst of all, I had to wear boring little-girl clothes like corduroy skirts and blouses and penny loafers, and I had to wear my hair in braids.
But he has loosened up a lot recently. At first he just let me stay out a little later and start wearing trendier clothes (but just boot-cut blue jeans and khakis and cute t-shirts and hooded sweatshirts, not anything like the wild outfits my friends Claudia and Stacey wear), but then he even let me get my hair cut and start wearing a little bit of makeup.
This was partly because I was able to show him that I am mature and responsible, and partly because he met my stepmother, Sharon. Actually, I should say "re-met." See, he and Sharon were sweethearts in high school, but they lost touch with one another after graduation. Dad married my mother, and Sharon went to California, where she got married and had two kids. One of them is my stepbrother, Jeff, and the other…is Dawn Schafer, who is not only my stepsister, but also one of my best friends! The funny thing is, Dawn was my best friend before she was my stepsister. In fact, Dawn and I are the ones responsible for bringing my father and Sharon together again!
Dawn is also thirteen and an eighth grader, and, like me, she's a member of the Baby-Sitters Club (I'll explain later). Other than that, though, we couldn't be more different. Dawn is tall and slender, and she has straight, silky blonde hair that's so light it's nearly white and so long she can almost sit on it. She's pretty in an unusual way, with sparkling blue eyes and sparkling white teeth and a great smile, and if you think it sounds like she's a real California girl…well, you're right.
And if you've put two and two together and guessed that Dawn had something to do with me being miserable about hearing "California Dreaming," well…you're right again. Dawn's parents got divorced when we were in seventh grade, and Sharon, Dawn, and Jeff moved from California to Stoneybrook. Just a few months later, though, Jeff realized that he really missed his father and his friends and his life in California, and so he moved back to live with his dad. So, for quite awhile after our parents got married, it was just Dad, Sharon, me, and Dawn, living together in Dawn's old (circa 1790!) farmhouse, which has tiny rooms (very fresh, as my friends and I say) and a haunted secret passage (definitely not fresh)!
Even though Dawn and I are so different--she likes alternative rock music and I like folksy girl singers with pianos, she likes action movies and comedies, and I like romances and romantic comedies, she likes going for a run and I like curling up with a good book--it was wonderful having one of my two best friends living right down the hall. Whenever I needed to talk, I could always go into Dawn's room and sit on her bed and tell her everything. Sometimes I didn't even need to go to her (she says I have a very expressive face). I'd be ready to cry into my pillow in the middle of the night, or just lying awake thinking, and she'd knock softly at my door and come listen, or just sit with me.
I've needed to talk to someone a lot, lately. And that's why I was so upset about the song. A few weeks ago, Dawn realized that she just missed her dad and Jeff and, well, everything about California too much to be happy here in Stoneybrook. She's gone back there for vacations, of course, but this was different. She decided to move back to California for six whole months. Half a year. And I'm not even sure she'll come back to live here permanently. Every time I've talked to her on the phone, she sounds so happy.
I'm not happy, though. In fact, I'm miserable with her gone. And not just because I miss her, though that's most of the reason. The other thing is that I have a secret. And Dawn is the only person in the entire world who knows (though even she wasn't supposed to--she found out by accident, but that's another story). Now that Dawn isn't here, and this secret isn't something I can talk about on the phone, where Sharon or my dad might hear, or even over e-mail, since those can go to the wrong places, I feel more alone than I've ever felt in my entire life. Even more alone than when I first met Dawn, when the four original members of the Baby-Sitters Club had such a horrible fight that we couldn't even have regular meetings, since we weren't speaking to each other.
What is the Baby-Sitters Club? Well, in a nutshell (again), it's this great idea that my other best friend, Kristy Thomas, had when we were in seventh grade. After watching her single mother try for hours to find a baby-sitter for Kristy's younger brother, David Michael, Kristy had an Idea: What if parents could call just one number, at certain scheduled times, and reach a whole group of baby-sitters? So, Kristy asked me and our friend Claudia Kishi to join, and Claudia suggested that we add her new friend, Stacey McGill, who had just moved from New York City, and...the Baby-Sitters Club was born!
We asked Dawn to join soon after she moved to Stoneybrook (after our big fight was over), and then Stacey's dad was transferred back to NYC, so she moved away and we replaced her with two sixth graders, Mallory Pike (a former sitee) and Jessica (Jessi) Ramsey. But then Stacey's parents got divorced, and she moved back to Stoneybrook and rejoined the club.
And it was the seven of us, a happy, close-knit group--almost a family--until recently, when Dawn moved away.
Just thinking about Dawn was enough to make me start crying. My friends tease me sometimes for being such a crybaby--I've been known to tear up at Coke commercials--but lately they've been a lot more understanding. Which is a good thing, since all it takes sometimes now is seeing the bottle of dish detergent behind the kitchen sink for me to start sobbing. And we don't even buy Dawn-brand soap.
"Ohmigosh! Mary Anne!"
I jumped, knocking the pillow onto the floor, and sat up and wiped at my hot, swollen face. Sharon was standing in my doorway, arms full of folded clothes, looking somewhere between shocked and concerned.
"Honey, are you feeling all right?" she asked. "I thought you were at the Baby-Sitters Club meeting."
I gasped. Then sniffled. Then looked at my clock, which said 6:02. The BSC meets every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5:30 until 6:00. I wasn't even late. I had missed the entire meeting.
I shook my head and smoothed my hands over my rumpled hair, wondering if I looked as awful as I felt. "I'm okay, Sharon," I said, and I tried to smile. "I just…I was tired, I guess, and I sort of…decided not to go."
I hated lying to her (I hate lying to anybody, and I'm terrible at it), but Sharon was the only person in Stoneybrook who missed Dawn more than I did, and I didn't want to upset her.
She nodded, though she didn't look like she believed me. "Well," Sharon said slowly, setting the pile of clothes on my desk chair, "I was just about to order some Chinese food for dinner. I thought that would be a nice treat, since it's the weekend. Is there anything special you'd like?"
"No, thanks. Whatever you and Dad want is fine."
"Okay. But if you--"
Sharon was cut off by someone ringing the doorbell. Then the door opened. "Mary Anne?" Kristy called, her voice carrying clearly up the stairs. "Mary Anne? Are you home?"
"Up here!" I replied, loudly. I never would have almost-yelled in the house if my father had been home (he's still strict about some things), but I knew Sharon wouldn't mind. She just smiled and squeezed my shoulder on her way to the door.
"I'll order extra food," Sharon said as Kristy thundered up the stairs, "in case Kristy wants to stay for dinner. And if not, we'll have some leftovers."
"Thanks." This time, my smile came a lot more easily.
"Thanks for what?" Kristy asked. "And hi, Mrs. Schafer," she added as she and Sharon squeezed past one another in the narrow hall.
"Sharon said you can stay for dinner," I replied. "We're ordering Chinese."
Kristy frowned and folded her arms across her chest. Then her frown deepened as she tried to re-arrange her arms.
See, Kristy…well, recently, and suddenly, she developed, as our school nurse puts it. After being not only the shortest but also the flattest girl in our class for what seemed like forever, all of a sudden, Kristy not only caught up to Stacey and Claudia (the only BSC members who really need bras) but then, she passed them. She also grew a rear end, which she hates almost as much as her chest, since now she can't wear boys' jeans unless she buys them big enough so that the waist sits low around her hips.
Anyway, Kristy finally got her arms situated, and she gave me a Look. "You aren't sick," she said flatly.
"I know. I--" My voice was still scratchy from crying, and I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry. I sort of lost track of time."
Kristy's face went from irritated to worried as she came to perch on my bed beside me. "Mary Anne?" she asked, peering at me. "Is everything okay?"
The softness in her tone, the way her big, dark brown eyes seemed to get even bigger as she tilted her head and looked at me, were all it took for my face to crumple and my breath to start coming in short, ragged gasps again. I closed my eyes and shook my head, since my mouth was working too much to speak.
"Oh, jeez, Mary Anne…" Kristy murmured. The mattress dipped as she scooted closer, and then her arm came around my shoulders. I was wearing a sleeveless sweater, and her palm rubbed small, slow circles on my bare upper arm. Her hand was warm, and I shivered and got goosebumps even as I sniffled and tried to pull myself together.
Kristy hugged me tighter. "Mary Anne, silly-billy-goo-goo," she pressed, in a pleading, sing-song voice just like Claire Pike, one of our sitting charges, uses when she wants something. I had to smile. "Come on. What's up?"
I shrugged and rested my cheek on her shoulder. Her old, soft red sweatshirt smelled like laundry detergent, and her neck smelled vaguely like perfume. Not the sweet, flowery and candy scents that Stacey and Claudia like, or even the clean, "aquatic" stuff that Dawn buys, though. Kristy's perfume smelled warm and spicy and woodsy. The way the forest at Camp Mohawk smelled, in the afternoon, with the sunlight filtering down through the trees.
I took a deep breath and tried to think of how to explain. "I miss Dawn," I blurted out at last.
Kristy stiffened, and her hand stopped rubbing my arm. And I think even someone one-tenth as sensitive as I am could have figured out that I'd said the wrong thing. "Oh," she said at last, flatly. There was an awkward silence, and I pulled away and stared at my lap. Kristy picked at a loose thread on my bedspread. "Well."
I looked up at her, and she gave me a small, tight smile. "I understand," Kristy added. "I mean, I miss her, too, and she's not my stepsister. The whole BSC misses her. And we could really use her back, too, with all the jobs we've been giving to Sha--"
I took another deep breath. I hate swimming, and I felt like that's what I was doing. Trying to keep from sinking, having to take big gulps of air to keep going. "Kristy?" My voice came out a squeak, this time. I couldn't look at her. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded."
"What? You don't miss Dawn?"
"No, of course I do. But…that wasn't why I was crying. Not exactly," I whispered.
"Mary Anne?" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her hand move slowly, hovering over the bedspread, until it came to sit on my knee. 'Tentatively' was one of our vocabulary words last semester, and when we learned it, I thought immediately that Kristy was the opposite of 'tentative.' She never hesitates for a second. Not about saying what's on her mind, or organizing a project, or righting a wrong, or even announcing to basically the entire school that she wants to date girls, not boys.
But her hand did move tentatively. Despite other areas growing, her hands have stayed tiny. They're hardly bigger than Charlotte Johanssen's and she's only eight! But even though Kristy's small wrists and slender fingers look girly, I've seen her pitch a no-hitter, throw a football farther than her brother Sam, and make ten baskets in a row. And even though she won't paint her nails even with clear polish anymore, her hand still looked pretty, with her short, rounded fingernails and her big SMS class ring.
Kristy's hand tightened, gently squeezing my knee. "Mary Anne?"
I swallowed and wondered if I was going to start crying again. I knew it was time to tell her my secret. For one thing, I'd probably feel better having someone else know, now that Dawn was gone. For another…it was time.
But how, I wondered, do you tell your best friend--your first friend--that you can't stop thinking about her? That you love her as more than just a friend and want to go out with her to the movies and to the Rosebud Café and for pizza, and you want to go on romantic moonlit walks in the woods the next time you go to camp, and you want her to go with you to Sea City and play ring-toss and win you big, silly stuffed animals?
That you want to make huge cards for her on Valentine's Day and look at her across the barn the next time you have a Secret Admirer party for the kids and exchange a secret smile as you eat cupcakes with too much frosting and clean up spilled punch?
That you want her to take you to the next SMS dance? (After all, you know she won't ask you to actually dance, if you don't want to.)
That you want her to kiss you, right here in your bedroom, right this very second?
I closed my eyes and only distantly heard the doorbell ring. "Kristy," I began shakily, "I have to tell--aaugh!"
I yelped as Tigger darted out from under the desk and leaped up on my lap. He jumped back down, gave me a wild-eyed look, batted at nothing, and then lay down in the doorway and started licking his tail.
Normally, Tigger is the most adorable, sweetest, friendliest gray kitten in the entire world. Sometimes, though, he goes a little crazy (it's a cat thing) and seems to see things that nobody else does. I usually think it's cute, but right now…
Kristy giggled. "Is there a full moon tonight?" she asked, watching as Tigger began stalking another invisible thing out in the hall.
I shook my head, still feeling shaky all over. "I don't think--"
"Mary Anne! Kristy!" This time, Sharon interrupted me, calling quietly from the bottom of the stairs. "Our dinner's here."
I jumped to my feet, grateful for the distraction, but paused in the doorway when I realized Kristy wasn't with me. I looked back to where she was still sitting on my bed, looking at me with a thoughtful expression. She smiled a little when she saw me looking.
"I thought you were going to tell me something?"
"I--" I shrugged. Now that I'd had a minute to think it over, maybe telling Kristy wasn't a very good idea. And, I have to admit, I was afraid. What if she laughed at me? Or worse, what if she was proud of me for liking girls, but she didn't like me back? "It wasn't, um, very important."
I could feel my cheeks getting hot, and I hoped Kristy wouldn't notice how red my face was. I blush as badly as I sunburn, and Kristy knows me well enough to know when I'm telling a big, fat lie.
"Sure. Uh-huh." Kristy nodded and gave me a warm, slow smile as she stood. "Do you think I could spend the night? I'm sure it'll be okay with Mom and Watson."
"I guess," I said slowly. Tentatively, even. Kristy had that Look she gets when she has one of her ideas, so I was nervous.
"Fresh!" she exclaimed. Kristy draped her arm around my shoulders again as we went down the hall, and I looked at her in surprise. She saw my expression and grinned. And then, to my shock, she leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "I'm looking forward to playing a nice, long game of 'Truth or Dare' later," she murmured.
Then she laughed and dropped her arm. "Last one to the table is a rotten eggroll!" she exclaimed, already running.
I followed more slowly, smoothing my hair as I went down. I wanted to give myself enough time to stop grinning, just in case Dad or Sharon asked why I was so happy. After all, I'm a terrible liar.
Author: tartanshell
Fandom: Baby-Sitters Club
Pairing: Kristy/Mary Anne
Spoilers/Timeline: Spoilers through Dawn's Big Move. Set during BSC series, post-Dawn's Big Move. But also a little AU.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Note: Written for wisdomeagle in the Kristy round of short_takes, who requested Kristy/Mary Anne with loneliness and Tigger. Sorry I'm so late, Ari! I hope you like this anyway. :)
Summary: What is Mary Anne's secret?
Words: ~ 3,200
Mary Anne the Terrible Liar
"All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray..." Sharon's music blared out of the stereo downstairs, and I winced. I was upstairs in my bedroom, but even with the door shut, I could hear the words clearly. It was this old song by a band that Sharon--she's my stepmother--and my father like to listen to, called "California Dreaming."
It might sound babyish, but, since I was alone in my room and already lying facedown on my bed, I went ahead and put my pillow over my head before I could hear the chorus, which was about "California dreamin' on a winter's day." Then I screamed into the mattress. (But quietly, so I wouldn't alarm Sharon.)
You might be wondering who I am and why a song about California would make me so upset. Well, here is me "in a nutshell," as my father would say. I'm Mary Anne Spier, and I'm thirteen years old and an eighth grader at Stoneybrook Middle School in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. I'm on the short side, and I have brown eyes and brown hair that my father recently allowed me to cut into a short, cute style that I love.
As for why I was so upset…well, that's a more complicated story. My mother died when I was very little, so I was raised by my father, Richard Spier. For a long time it was just the two of us, and my father had a difficult time trying to raise a daughter on his own, so he was very strict. He used to have a ton of rules for me--I wasn't allowed to talk on the phone after dinner unless it was about homework, I had to be home by nine o'clock, and, worst of all, I had to wear boring little-girl clothes like corduroy skirts and blouses and penny loafers, and I had to wear my hair in braids.
But he has loosened up a lot recently. At first he just let me stay out a little later and start wearing trendier clothes (but just boot-cut blue jeans and khakis and cute t-shirts and hooded sweatshirts, not anything like the wild outfits my friends Claudia and Stacey wear), but then he even let me get my hair cut and start wearing a little bit of makeup.
This was partly because I was able to show him that I am mature and responsible, and partly because he met my stepmother, Sharon. Actually, I should say "re-met." See, he and Sharon were sweethearts in high school, but they lost touch with one another after graduation. Dad married my mother, and Sharon went to California, where she got married and had two kids. One of them is my stepbrother, Jeff, and the other…is Dawn Schafer, who is not only my stepsister, but also one of my best friends! The funny thing is, Dawn was my best friend before she was my stepsister. In fact, Dawn and I are the ones responsible for bringing my father and Sharon together again!
Dawn is also thirteen and an eighth grader, and, like me, she's a member of the Baby-Sitters Club (I'll explain later). Other than that, though, we couldn't be more different. Dawn is tall and slender, and she has straight, silky blonde hair that's so light it's nearly white and so long she can almost sit on it. She's pretty in an unusual way, with sparkling blue eyes and sparkling white teeth and a great smile, and if you think it sounds like she's a real California girl…well, you're right.
And if you've put two and two together and guessed that Dawn had something to do with me being miserable about hearing "California Dreaming," well…you're right again. Dawn's parents got divorced when we were in seventh grade, and Sharon, Dawn, and Jeff moved from California to Stoneybrook. Just a few months later, though, Jeff realized that he really missed his father and his friends and his life in California, and so he moved back to live with his dad. So, for quite awhile after our parents got married, it was just Dad, Sharon, me, and Dawn, living together in Dawn's old (circa 1790!) farmhouse, which has tiny rooms (very fresh, as my friends and I say) and a haunted secret passage (definitely not fresh)!
Even though Dawn and I are so different--she likes alternative rock music and I like folksy girl singers with pianos, she likes action movies and comedies, and I like romances and romantic comedies, she likes going for a run and I like curling up with a good book--it was wonderful having one of my two best friends living right down the hall. Whenever I needed to talk, I could always go into Dawn's room and sit on her bed and tell her everything. Sometimes I didn't even need to go to her (she says I have a very expressive face). I'd be ready to cry into my pillow in the middle of the night, or just lying awake thinking, and she'd knock softly at my door and come listen, or just sit with me.
I've needed to talk to someone a lot, lately. And that's why I was so upset about the song. A few weeks ago, Dawn realized that she just missed her dad and Jeff and, well, everything about California too much to be happy here in Stoneybrook. She's gone back there for vacations, of course, but this was different. She decided to move back to California for six whole months. Half a year. And I'm not even sure she'll come back to live here permanently. Every time I've talked to her on the phone, she sounds so happy.
I'm not happy, though. In fact, I'm miserable with her gone. And not just because I miss her, though that's most of the reason. The other thing is that I have a secret. And Dawn is the only person in the entire world who knows (though even she wasn't supposed to--she found out by accident, but that's another story). Now that Dawn isn't here, and this secret isn't something I can talk about on the phone, where Sharon or my dad might hear, or even over e-mail, since those can go to the wrong places, I feel more alone than I've ever felt in my entire life. Even more alone than when I first met Dawn, when the four original members of the Baby-Sitters Club had such a horrible fight that we couldn't even have regular meetings, since we weren't speaking to each other.
What is the Baby-Sitters Club? Well, in a nutshell (again), it's this great idea that my other best friend, Kristy Thomas, had when we were in seventh grade. After watching her single mother try for hours to find a baby-sitter for Kristy's younger brother, David Michael, Kristy had an Idea: What if parents could call just one number, at certain scheduled times, and reach a whole group of baby-sitters? So, Kristy asked me and our friend Claudia Kishi to join, and Claudia suggested that we add her new friend, Stacey McGill, who had just moved from New York City, and...the Baby-Sitters Club was born!
We asked Dawn to join soon after she moved to Stoneybrook (after our big fight was over), and then Stacey's dad was transferred back to NYC, so she moved away and we replaced her with two sixth graders, Mallory Pike (a former sitee) and Jessica (Jessi) Ramsey. But then Stacey's parents got divorced, and she moved back to Stoneybrook and rejoined the club.
And it was the seven of us, a happy, close-knit group--almost a family--until recently, when Dawn moved away.
Just thinking about Dawn was enough to make me start crying. My friends tease me sometimes for being such a crybaby--I've been known to tear up at Coke commercials--but lately they've been a lot more understanding. Which is a good thing, since all it takes sometimes now is seeing the bottle of dish detergent behind the kitchen sink for me to start sobbing. And we don't even buy Dawn-brand soap.
"Ohmigosh! Mary Anne!"
I jumped, knocking the pillow onto the floor, and sat up and wiped at my hot, swollen face. Sharon was standing in my doorway, arms full of folded clothes, looking somewhere between shocked and concerned.
"Honey, are you feeling all right?" she asked. "I thought you were at the Baby-Sitters Club meeting."
I gasped. Then sniffled. Then looked at my clock, which said 6:02. The BSC meets every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5:30 until 6:00. I wasn't even late. I had missed the entire meeting.
I shook my head and smoothed my hands over my rumpled hair, wondering if I looked as awful as I felt. "I'm okay, Sharon," I said, and I tried to smile. "I just…I was tired, I guess, and I sort of…decided not to go."
I hated lying to her (I hate lying to anybody, and I'm terrible at it), but Sharon was the only person in Stoneybrook who missed Dawn more than I did, and I didn't want to upset her.
She nodded, though she didn't look like she believed me. "Well," Sharon said slowly, setting the pile of clothes on my desk chair, "I was just about to order some Chinese food for dinner. I thought that would be a nice treat, since it's the weekend. Is there anything special you'd like?"
"No, thanks. Whatever you and Dad want is fine."
"Okay. But if you--"
Sharon was cut off by someone ringing the doorbell. Then the door opened. "Mary Anne?" Kristy called, her voice carrying clearly up the stairs. "Mary Anne? Are you home?"
"Up here!" I replied, loudly. I never would have almost-yelled in the house if my father had been home (he's still strict about some things), but I knew Sharon wouldn't mind. She just smiled and squeezed my shoulder on her way to the door.
"I'll order extra food," Sharon said as Kristy thundered up the stairs, "in case Kristy wants to stay for dinner. And if not, we'll have some leftovers."
"Thanks." This time, my smile came a lot more easily.
"Thanks for what?" Kristy asked. "And hi, Mrs. Schafer," she added as she and Sharon squeezed past one another in the narrow hall.
"Sharon said you can stay for dinner," I replied. "We're ordering Chinese."
Kristy frowned and folded her arms across her chest. Then her frown deepened as she tried to re-arrange her arms.
See, Kristy…well, recently, and suddenly, she developed, as our school nurse puts it. After being not only the shortest but also the flattest girl in our class for what seemed like forever, all of a sudden, Kristy not only caught up to Stacey and Claudia (the only BSC members who really need bras) but then, she passed them. She also grew a rear end, which she hates almost as much as her chest, since now she can't wear boys' jeans unless she buys them big enough so that the waist sits low around her hips.
Anyway, Kristy finally got her arms situated, and she gave me a Look. "You aren't sick," she said flatly.
"I know. I--" My voice was still scratchy from crying, and I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry. I sort of lost track of time."
Kristy's face went from irritated to worried as she came to perch on my bed beside me. "Mary Anne?" she asked, peering at me. "Is everything okay?"
The softness in her tone, the way her big, dark brown eyes seemed to get even bigger as she tilted her head and looked at me, were all it took for my face to crumple and my breath to start coming in short, ragged gasps again. I closed my eyes and shook my head, since my mouth was working too much to speak.
"Oh, jeez, Mary Anne…" Kristy murmured. The mattress dipped as she scooted closer, and then her arm came around my shoulders. I was wearing a sleeveless sweater, and her palm rubbed small, slow circles on my bare upper arm. Her hand was warm, and I shivered and got goosebumps even as I sniffled and tried to pull myself together.
Kristy hugged me tighter. "Mary Anne, silly-billy-goo-goo," she pressed, in a pleading, sing-song voice just like Claire Pike, one of our sitting charges, uses when she wants something. I had to smile. "Come on. What's up?"
I shrugged and rested my cheek on her shoulder. Her old, soft red sweatshirt smelled like laundry detergent, and her neck smelled vaguely like perfume. Not the sweet, flowery and candy scents that Stacey and Claudia like, or even the clean, "aquatic" stuff that Dawn buys, though. Kristy's perfume smelled warm and spicy and woodsy. The way the forest at Camp Mohawk smelled, in the afternoon, with the sunlight filtering down through the trees.
I took a deep breath and tried to think of how to explain. "I miss Dawn," I blurted out at last.
Kristy stiffened, and her hand stopped rubbing my arm. And I think even someone one-tenth as sensitive as I am could have figured out that I'd said the wrong thing. "Oh," she said at last, flatly. There was an awkward silence, and I pulled away and stared at my lap. Kristy picked at a loose thread on my bedspread. "Well."
I looked up at her, and she gave me a small, tight smile. "I understand," Kristy added. "I mean, I miss her, too, and she's not my stepsister. The whole BSC misses her. And we could really use her back, too, with all the jobs we've been giving to Sha--"
I took another deep breath. I hate swimming, and I felt like that's what I was doing. Trying to keep from sinking, having to take big gulps of air to keep going. "Kristy?" My voice came out a squeak, this time. I couldn't look at her. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded."
"What? You don't miss Dawn?"
"No, of course I do. But…that wasn't why I was crying. Not exactly," I whispered.
"Mary Anne?" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her hand move slowly, hovering over the bedspread, until it came to sit on my knee. 'Tentatively' was one of our vocabulary words last semester, and when we learned it, I thought immediately that Kristy was the opposite of 'tentative.' She never hesitates for a second. Not about saying what's on her mind, or organizing a project, or righting a wrong, or even announcing to basically the entire school that she wants to date girls, not boys.
But her hand did move tentatively. Despite other areas growing, her hands have stayed tiny. They're hardly bigger than Charlotte Johanssen's and she's only eight! But even though Kristy's small wrists and slender fingers look girly, I've seen her pitch a no-hitter, throw a football farther than her brother Sam, and make ten baskets in a row. And even though she won't paint her nails even with clear polish anymore, her hand still looked pretty, with her short, rounded fingernails and her big SMS class ring.
Kristy's hand tightened, gently squeezing my knee. "Mary Anne?"
I swallowed and wondered if I was going to start crying again. I knew it was time to tell her my secret. For one thing, I'd probably feel better having someone else know, now that Dawn was gone. For another…it was time.
But how, I wondered, do you tell your best friend--your first friend--that you can't stop thinking about her? That you love her as more than just a friend and want to go out with her to the movies and to the Rosebud Café and for pizza, and you want to go on romantic moonlit walks in the woods the next time you go to camp, and you want her to go with you to Sea City and play ring-toss and win you big, silly stuffed animals?
That you want to make huge cards for her on Valentine's Day and look at her across the barn the next time you have a Secret Admirer party for the kids and exchange a secret smile as you eat cupcakes with too much frosting and clean up spilled punch?
That you want her to take you to the next SMS dance? (After all, you know she won't ask you to actually dance, if you don't want to.)
That you want her to kiss you, right here in your bedroom, right this very second?
I closed my eyes and only distantly heard the doorbell ring. "Kristy," I began shakily, "I have to tell--aaugh!"
I yelped as Tigger darted out from under the desk and leaped up on my lap. He jumped back down, gave me a wild-eyed look, batted at nothing, and then lay down in the doorway and started licking his tail.
Normally, Tigger is the most adorable, sweetest, friendliest gray kitten in the entire world. Sometimes, though, he goes a little crazy (it's a cat thing) and seems to see things that nobody else does. I usually think it's cute, but right now…
Kristy giggled. "Is there a full moon tonight?" she asked, watching as Tigger began stalking another invisible thing out in the hall.
I shook my head, still feeling shaky all over. "I don't think--"
"Mary Anne! Kristy!" This time, Sharon interrupted me, calling quietly from the bottom of the stairs. "Our dinner's here."
I jumped to my feet, grateful for the distraction, but paused in the doorway when I realized Kristy wasn't with me. I looked back to where she was still sitting on my bed, looking at me with a thoughtful expression. She smiled a little when she saw me looking.
"I thought you were going to tell me something?"
"I--" I shrugged. Now that I'd had a minute to think it over, maybe telling Kristy wasn't a very good idea. And, I have to admit, I was afraid. What if she laughed at me? Or worse, what if she was proud of me for liking girls, but she didn't like me back? "It wasn't, um, very important."
I could feel my cheeks getting hot, and I hoped Kristy wouldn't notice how red my face was. I blush as badly as I sunburn, and Kristy knows me well enough to know when I'm telling a big, fat lie.
"Sure. Uh-huh." Kristy nodded and gave me a warm, slow smile as she stood. "Do you think I could spend the night? I'm sure it'll be okay with Mom and Watson."
"I guess," I said slowly. Tentatively, even. Kristy had that Look she gets when she has one of her ideas, so I was nervous.
"Fresh!" she exclaimed. Kristy draped her arm around my shoulders again as we went down the hall, and I looked at her in surprise. She saw my expression and grinned. And then, to my shock, she leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "I'm looking forward to playing a nice, long game of 'Truth or Dare' later," she murmured.
Then she laughed and dropped her arm. "Last one to the table is a rotten eggroll!" she exclaimed, already running.
I followed more slowly, smoothing my hair as I went down. I wanted to give myself enough time to stop grinning, just in case Dad or Sharon asked why I was so happy. After all, I'm a terrible liar.