The Divorce Express Page 5

  I feel grown-up after the talks, like I can handle anything. I think that kids who have gone through divorces are more used to handling problems. Maybe kids who haven’t would disagree, but that’s my opinion.

  I think of a greeting card that I sent my mother once from the Woodstock Framing Gallery. It was when the divorce thing got really heavy. She still keeps it on the mantelpiece. It says WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH . . . THE TOUGH GO SHOPPING.

  I walk out to the living room where my mother’s waiting to find out what’s going on and say, “Tomorrow let’s use your credit cards and hit the stores.”

  She looks at me for a minute like I’m off the wall or something. I usually don’t like to go with her, since our tastes are so different.

  I point to the mantelpiece. “The card, remember.”

  It dawns on her. She walks over and hugs me. “I only hope that whatever this is can be cured with an outfit, not a whole wardrobe.”

  I rub my head on her shoulder as she strokes my hair. “I think so.”

  It’s kind of funny. I know that shopping doesn’t take away bad feelings. It’s just a symbol for keeping on with life.

  It won’t be so bad though to get some new clothes out of this. Maybe she’ll feel so sorry for me, she won’t bug me about buying stuff I don’t want to wear.

  Only forty-eight hours till I’m back in Woodstock.

  CHAPTER 9

  “How was your weekend?” Rosie asks when I sit down next to her on the bus returning to Woodstock.

  She doesn’t realize what she’s getting into. I tell her all about Katie and Andy. About buying a pair of boots. How when my mother realized I wasn’t going to the party, she called Duane, who tried to get an extra ticket to the play, but they were all sold out. How Duane and my mother said they wouldn’t go, but I told them to. How she called during the intermission to make sure I was all right. How I stayed in my room and cried a little, then took the picture of Andy and me and went out into the hall and threw it into the compactor and then felt bad that I did that.

  “I feel better now. I think I’ve worked it all out of my system. And they still are my friends. They both called and wanted to stop by, but I already had plans.”

  “Wow, I would have ripped off their faces.” Rosie shakes her head. “I can’t believe that you didn’t scream at them, mangle their bodies into tiny pieces, and throw them to the rats to gnaw. That’s what I would have done.”

  “What if the rats are veggies?” The thought of cannibal rats makes me ill.

  “They’re not. Those rats’d probably even eat cafeteria food,” Rosie says. “I think you’re being a regular saint about Katie and Andy. I wouldn’t earn a halo on this one.”

  I make a mental note never to go out with anyone she’s involved with, not that I ever would.

  “You must have been really angry and hurt. Confess, weren’t you?”

  Thinking first, I say, “No. I really do like them both. Maybe if Andy were my first boyfriend, it would have been different. But he wasn’t. My first boyfriend was Danny O’Hara in the fourth grade. We went steady until he traded me to Arnold Berman for one of those electronic toys. That time I got really angry. I tried to put Silly Putty up his nose until the teacher stopped me from doing something dangerous.”

  Rosie starts laughing and then I start.

  People look at us and then turn away.

  We keep looking at each other and laughing. We’re all the way to Paramus, New Jersey, before we calm down. After the weekend I’ve just been through, it feels good to laugh.

  “How was your weekend?” I ask.

  “Fair. Listening to my father play was great. I’m so proud of him. But it’s not easy. My father’s new wife has two kids from her first marriage. They’re seven and five, and they call my father Daddy. Sometimes they’re brats, but mostly they’re pretty okay. It’s kind of weird though, like they’re a full-time family and I’m a part-time visitor.”

  “That must be hard,” I say.

  She nods. “And I’m a lighter color than any of them. It’s okay, but sometimes it makes me feel a little strange.”

  I think about what it must be like for her. I think she’s wonderful and has everything going for her, so she should have no problems. But I guess everyone has some.

  We turn the lights on over our seats to get some homework done.

  A little kid in front of us, Stevie, is bus-sick. There’s no parent with him, so one of the older kids, who’s also alone, helps him.

  There’s a couple halfway back in the bus who are making out like crazy.

  Finally the bus driver blinks the lights on and off to let them know they have to stop.

  Doing homework under these conditions isn’t easy, but it’s the only real choice.

  Two hours and then the bus pulls into Woodstock.

  My father’s standing there, waiting for me.

  So’s Rosie’s mother.

  We pile out of the bus and hug our parents.

  “Want to go for pizza?” my father asks.

  I think of the big dinner that my mother made, but that was hours ago. “Sure.”

  “Want to join us?” he asks Rosie and Mindy.

  They accept.

  We walk across the Green. It’s much less crowded. Most of the tourists have gone. There are still some street people playing music.

  My father takes my suitcase from me.

  We go inside and get the little round table by the window.

  My father pretends to take orders like a waiter. He goes back to the counter and places the order and then comes back and looks at the bulletin board, where the standings of the baseball teams are listed. Lots of the men in town play. It’s a really big thing. My father says that when he gets to know more people, he’ll join next summer.

  When he comes back to us, I’m showing Mindy and Rosie my new boots, which are red and knee-high.

  He sits down. “Your mother got those for you, I take it.”

  I nod.

  “Are they lined?”

  “No.”

  He shakes his head. “Winters get cold up here. Wouldn’t lined ones have been more practical? At least these don’t have initials. Sometimes I wish Kathy thought more. We’ll still have to get boots that will work up here.”

  I wish I’d left them in New York, but then my mother would have felt bad.

  Mindy says, “Sometimes it’s nice to have something that may not be practical but just makes you feel good when you wear it. I have a hand-quilted vest like that.”

  Everyone gets very quiet at the table. I hope this doesn’t turn into a disaster because my mother’s bought me an expensive pair of boots.

  The guy in the back yells out that our order is ready.

  “Come on, Jim. Let’s wait on our kids.” Mindy gets up. “I’ll help carry it. I’m not a stranger to waiting on tables.”

  My father and she walk to the back. I can tell that she’s saying something to him but can’t tell what it is.

  Rosie says, “Don’t get depressed. You know that’s the way divorce parents get sometimes. I’ve been living with it for years. You’ll get used to it.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You will. I promise.” She watches as I put the boots back in the box. “Phoebe, you know all those novels about divorce? They’re mostly for the kids who are just starting it. There should be one about a kid who’s lived with it for a long time. Then you’d see that we all survive it.”

  Jim and Mindy return.

  I don’t know what she said to him, but he’s in a much better mood.

  Placing the pie in front of us, he says, “There it is—Woodstock Pizzeria’s famous whole wheat pizza, with half extra cheese and the other half sausage. You know which part I want.”

  “The whole half.” I pretend to faint.

  He pretends to revive me. “No—just no sausage. Honey, your boots are very pretty. Tomorrow let’s go to Woodstock Design and get a pair of leg warmers to go with them.”


  Rosie and Mindy start to laugh at the same time.

  As my father sits down he says, “Let us in on the joke.”

  Mindy wipes a dab of sauce off her chin. “That sounds so familiar. Sometimes I buy something for Rosie that she doesn’t need or even want because her father’s just bought her something.”

  “Anything you can do I can do better?” My father hands her a napkin. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it. I thought I was over doing that.”

  Rosie and I look at each other.

  “I kind of like it,” Rosie says. “It’s one of the advantages of being a divorce kid.”

  “Me too.” I pick up a piece of pizza. The extra cheese slithers onto my hand. “How about a trip to Hawaii? Then Mom’ll have to take me to Europe.”

  “So much about divorce revolves around money. But then so did marriage.” Mindy takes a sip of my father’s apple cider before she realizes that it’s not her Coke.

  Finally we stop talking about divorce and I ask Mindy how her book is going.

  She frowns. “It’s rough. I’ve got a writer’s block; nothing’s working. The only writing I’ve done lately is graffiti.”

  “Graffiti.” Rosie shakes her head as she puts red pepper on her slice. “My mother writes on walls.”

  “You try to bring parents up right, and this is the way they act.” I pretend to sound stern. “Mindy, do you write dirty things on the wall?”

  My father says, “I could always do the illustrations to go with the writing.”

  I shake my head. “She probably writes them on ladies’ room walls. We’d have to get you into a disguise.”

  “A long blond wig,” Rosie suggests.

  “What do you write?” my father asks, starting to put salt on his pizza and then remembering he doesn’t use it anymore.

  Mindy picks up the salt and puts some on her slice. “My grandfather, who spoke very little English, had a favorite expression for all occasions. Writing it down is a way of keeping his memory alive.”

  “I have a feeling that I’ve seen it,” I say.

  She fills my father in. “I write ‘Hoo ha—six o’clock.’”

  We end up talking about all the stuff that we do that could get us into trouble. I tell the Krazy Glue story. Rosie tells about the time she had to stand in front of the room with gum on her nose as punishment for blowing a bubble in a class where the teacher did not allow gum. That reminds my father of the teacher who said, “Brooks, I want the gum in the garbage can in three minutes or you’ll have detention.” My father said, “But the flavor’s not gone. What if I stand in the can—I can still chew it and the gum will be in the garbage.” He never expected the teacher to say yes, but she did.

  Finally my father says, “I hate to break up one of the best times I’ve had for a while, but there’s homework to be done, and the kids have to get up at the crack of dawn.”

  “Hoo ha—six o’clock,” I say as we leave.

  CHAPTER 10

  Joyce Kilmer High School—it’s so different from my school in New York. There are some things that are alike, but not many.

  It’s so big, from seventh grade up, in one building. That’s like my old school, but here there are about three thousand kids. I’m used to about five hundred, from kindergarten up.

  My old school was in a small brownstone building. Kilmer looks like it was once a giant car factory, only here they turn out students instead of cars.

  My old school didn’t even have a song. Here they sing one based on a poem by Joyce Kilmer, “Trees.” I hate it.

  About the kids—most of them are okay, but a few, who act as if they have a screw loose, should probably be recalled. There are about six towns that the kids come from, so there are eleven different types, like at most schools. There are the jocks, the brains, the skidders (who hang out in Woodstock, kind of hoods—the name comes from Skid Row, and there was once even a sign in some store that said NO SKIDDERS ALLOWED), the in crowd, the social outcasts (who don’t have a friend to their names), and the regulars.

  I guess I’m a regular, who some people think is a brain. I’m not sure I like being put in any group, but it’s certainly better than being a social outcast.

  I’m sitting in a boring math class, trying to figure out what the letters in my name spell when rearranged. Phoebe Anna Brooks. It’s so hard. Finally I get one—Phone breaks a boon. That explains why I like to make telephone calls in between doing different homework assignments.

  The bell rings.

  Rush to lunch to get in line.

  Try to get in front. The few edible things go fast, like cottage cheese and fruit, which they haven’t yet figured out how to ruin.

  Today’s lunch is chicken a la king. Yesterday’s was chicken croquettes. The day before that was chicken. I bet tomorrow we’ll have spaghetti with chicken sauce. Puke. I’d bring my lunch, but nobody does, except for Alfie Fitch and he’s a social outcast who totes his in a Strawberry Shortcake lunch box.

  After paying for a meal that they should pay me to eat, I join Rosie and the other kids.

  There’s only one seat left, and it’s at the end of the table next to Dave. He’s in some of my classes—smart, funny, and very cute. Once I asked Rosie about him, and she said he used to go out with her friend, the one who had to move away because of the custody decision. “Now,” she said, “he’s up for grabs. Lots of girls would love to go out with him but he doesn’t seem interested.”

  Even though it doesn’t show, I’m a little shy and nervous when I like a guy in the beginning. I just try to act as if I’m not.

  I set my tray on the table and sit down, acting very calm.

  Calm, ha! I’m so calm, I forget that I’ve got my knapsack on my arm. I’ve just hit Dave in the head with it. I can tell he’s noticed, since he looks like he’s trying to cover up pain.

  “I’m so sorry. Would it make it any better if I just died right here and now of embarrassment?” I whisper.

  He touches the left side of his head. “You don’t have to do anything that extreme. However, you’ve just knocked out all the stuff I’ve ever learned by hitting me on the left side of the brain.”

  That’s what we just studied in science, how the brain works.

  “I’ll be glad to tutor it all back into your brain again.” I go along with his kidding. “However, a lot of what we learn in school isn’t worth remembering.”

  “When I was little and got hurt, my mother always kissed the part that hurt.” Dave looks at me.

  “I’m glad I didn’t drop the knapsack on your feet.” I open up my milk container.

  “I think my memory is returning. A miracle. I’m going to remember that you owe me a kiss,” Dave says.

  There are worse things, I think, and look down at my tray.

  Rosie’s complaining. “This food’s awful.”

  “So what’s new?” Pete holds up a piece of wilted lettuce.

  “But it’s getting worse,” a girl named Jill says, and shakes her curly head. “Ever since the new company got the contract, it’s to vomit over.”

  Sarah, who’s in my English class and is very serious about becoming a ballerina, is getting ready to eat her creamed corn. “Do you mind? I’m trying to eat lunch.”

  “It looks like somebody’s already vomited over it.” Alex takes off his glasses and pretends to use them as a magnifying glass.

  Sarah puts her fork down and pushes the tray away.

  We all look at the food. Nobody’s eating except Milton Myers, and I hear that even his own mother calls him Garbage Gut.

  “I think we ought to do something about this.” Dave bangs his fist on the table. “We’ve tried to talk to the administration, but they don’t care.”

  Garbage Gut asks Sarah for her creamed corn. She passes it to him. Everyone else at the table gives theirs to him too.

  He burps.

  “Gross,” Sarah says.

  “Thank you.” Garbage Gut takes another spoonful of corn.

  Sometimes I don�
�t understand how people get into groups. Garbage Gut’s a perfect example of someone who should be a social outcast but isn’t, and I bet there are lots of nice people who shouldn’t be social outcasts but are.

  I listen to the complaints and debate whether to get involved. After all, when I got here, the Principal called me in and said, “Phoebe Brooks, your record precedes you. I want no trouble. If I so much as see you with a tube of Krazy Glue in your hands, you’ll be suspended.”

  Possession with the intent to use. Suspension. It sounds like a drug charge. I promised to be good. But the food is awful and school is so boring.

  Finally I decide. “Listen, we had this problem at my old school, and there were certain things we did—and they worked.”

  Everyone’s staring at me.

  “Well, don’t keep us in suspense. Tell us,” Rosie says.

  Dave has his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, and he’s staring at me.

  I have a feeling that this is one time I should keep my big mouth shut.

  “Well, it’s this way . . .” I begin.

  CHAPTER 11

  It’s all set up. There’s a meeting today, and I can go even though it’s Saturday and I’m supposed to be in New York.

  It wasn’t easy getting my mother to agree. At first she asked if I didn’t want to come in because of the thing about Katie and Andy. I told her no. Then she wanted to know if I still loved her. I told her yes. She reminded me that if I didn’t go this time, we wouldn’t see each other for a total of three weeks, since she has to work out of town next weekend. Finally she gave in when I promised that we’d have a really great Thanksgiving together.

  It kind of bothered me when she said, as long as I wasn’t coming in, she’d go out to the Hamptons with Duane, to call her there if I needed her. The Hamptons—Duane’s got a beach house out there. It’s all so fashionable and rich, and I can’t stand it because the one time the three of us went, my mother and Duane slept in the same bedroom. After that I told her I didn’t ever want to go again.