When (v5) - Rebecca Stead

I was walking back toward the stairs, quietly inhaling the smell of the thirty-two freshly copied diagrams of the New York City water system, when Marcus came out of the stairwell reading a book.

“Hey,” I said, but he walked right by me, past the main office, and around the corner to where the dentist’s office is.

Back in class, I passed out the diagrams like Mr. Tompkin asked me to. I accidentally ripped Julia’s before I gave it to her, and accidentally crumpled it a little too. Alice Evans was squirming in her chair like she was doing a hula dance. I rolled my eyes. No wonder she was the only sixth grader who had to bring an extra set of clothes to school.

Things You Hold On To

According to Jimmy, there’s a two-dollar bill in circulation for every twelve one-dollar bills.

“But people hold on to them,” he said while I was putting on my jacket to go to the store. The lightbulb over the sink in the back room had burned out, and Jimmy didn’t have any extras. “People think two-dollar bills are special. That’s why you don’t see them around much.”

Yeah, I thought. People like you! But I kept my face blank, because I wasn’t supposed to know what was in his Fred Flintstone bank.

“They hate ’em over at the A&P, though. No space in a cash register for a two-dollar bill. They gotta pull out the tray and store them underneath. And they always forget they’re in there. That’s why you have to ask for them.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll ask.”

Annemarie was behind the counter with her apron on, looking happy. Some kids from school had come in—paying customers—and she was writing their names in mayonnaise on their sandwiches before pressing her perfect V-tops down onto them. Colin was next to her, doing the same. Annemarie gestured me over. I noticed that she was either very warm or she was wearing makeup.

“I’m going to ask Jimmy if we can have meatballs for lunch,” she whispered. “Since it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow”

“Great,” I said, even though I didn’t find those meatballs any more appealing than my usual cheese sandwich. They just sat there in the pot, day after day. “I’ll be back in a minute,” I told her. “If anyone orders hot chocolate, tell them to wait for me.”

There were no two-dollar bills at the A&P, and when I got back to Jimmy’s with the lightbulbs, the kids were gone and Julia herself was standing in front of the sandwich counter. Annemarie and Colin had started making their lunches already. Jimmy had said no, I guessed, to the meatballs, because they were picking through the cheese.

Julia, who was pretending I hadn’t just walked in, seemed to be in the middle of a long speech about how American cheese wasn’t even real cheese, strictly speaking. I saw her long fingers gesturing toward the not-cheese, and I knew instantly that her V-cut would be flawless, that by Monday she would be behind that counter with Annemarie and Colin, and that her apron, the same kind that looked gray and baggy on everyone else, would somehow be perfect on her. She would have a way of tucking it up to fit, some trick a waiter in Paris had taught her.

Then Jimmy came out from the back room holding a stack of dripping plastic trays. “You.” He pointed at Julia with an armful of trays. “Out. I already told you once.”

Julia snatched her hand back from the setup tray. Annemarie flushed. “We’re just talking,” Annemarie said. “There’s no customers here now.”

“Actually, I’m a customer,” Julia said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I came to buy a sandwich. I have money.” She stuck out one pretty boot so that the green leather tip pointed at the ceiling.

“Out,” Jimmy said, practically growling. “Now.”

After she left, I pretended along with Annemarie that Jimmy was a little bit crazy, but as we walked back to school with our cheese-and-lettuce sandwiches, I carried a new warm feeling inside. Jimmy could be a grouch, but he saw right through Julia, just like I did.

Salty Things

On the Friday after Thanksgiving there was no school, but Mom still had to go to work. I’d been trying hard not to think about them, but I spent a good chunk of that morning worrying about your notes. I held one in each hand and read them over and over. The part about writing a letter wasn’t too scary. The scary parts were “I’m coming to save your friend’s life” and “Oh, by the way, where do you keep your keys?” and “P.S. Don’t ever tell anyone about any of this.” Seeing my name written out on the second note was also pretty creepy, because I was still trying to pretend the notes weren’t really meant for me. And also where you wrote “I won’t be myself when I reach you.” I didn’t like that part at all.

Come to think of it, there were a lot of scary parts.

After a long time, I put the notes away and turned on the television. I had been watching TV for two hours when I heard Louisa’s regular knock.

“Potato-chip drop,” she said when I opened the door. She was in her uniform, holding up a plastic bag.

Louisa is always bringing Mom food from the nursing home where she works. She doesn’t steal—it’s leftovers from lunch, mostly little bags of potato chips or animal cookies. The health department says that once something has been served on a tray, it has to be thrown away even if no one touched it. So Louisa takes all the little bags home and gives them to Mom, who brings them to the pregnant-jailbird “parenting group” she runs downtown.

Once a month, Mom takes the subway down to this actual jail and talks to criminal pregnant women about what to expect after they have their babies. They all think she’s some kind of saint for bringing them potato chips and animal cookies. Mom says that jail is a hard place, and that it can make people hard, too.

“It changes them,” she told me once. “Jail stops them from becoming who they might grow to be.”

“Isn’t that the whole idea?” I asked. “It’s supposed to stop them from being criminals!”

She shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. A lot of people make bad mistakes. But being in jail can make them feel like a mistake is all they are. Like they aren’t even people anymore.”

Her bringing the chips and cookies is supposed to help somehow. It’s not really the cookies, she says. It’s the fact that someone brings them.

I took the plastic bag from Louisa.

She smiled at me. “You know what? You’re getting tall.”

I leaned against the doorway. “You think?”

She nodded. “I miss you, Miranda.” It was the first time either of us had said anything about the fact that I was never at her apartment anymore.

“Yeah.”

Her saying she missed me made me feel sort of hopeless for some reason. When she left, I lay on the couch with the TV off and my eyes closed, and I listened for Sal’s basketball. Hearing it made me feel better, for once. That sound was like the last thread connecting us.

Mom didn’t talk much at dinner that night. She was still in her work clothes, a denim skirt and a T-shirt with a picture of a coffee cup on it and the words Get Your Own underneath. Richard had brought strawberries over for dessert.

“Darn it.” Mom threw down a strawberry. “SSO’s again.”

“I bet the grapes are delicious.” I gave her a fake smile.

“Don’t start, Miranda. I had a lousy day.”

“You did?” Richard’s eyebrows went up. “I didn’t know that.”

“How would you know?” Mom asked. “You were in court all day. It isn’t much to you if the copier breaks, is it? Did anyone ask you to type three copies of a sixteen-page document?”

Richard shrugged. “But you’re done now. It’s over. Why let it wreck your whole evening?”