The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away Read online

  “No, we’re not a thing,” Kate said, sounding sort of defensive about it. “We’re friends. We have a lot in common.”

  “But you wish you were a thing, right?” Marylin prodded. She knew she was making Kate mad, but sometimes Kate’s don’t-make-such-a-big-deal-about-everything attitude got on her nerves. Since when was it against the law to ask your friends if they liked somebody?

  “I don’t wish anything.” Kate frowned and looked out the window. “Not everything is about hearts and romance, Marylin. It’s okay just to be friends with people.”

  Marylin nodded. “Definitely. But it’s okay to be in love with them too. Even if you’re just friends. I mean, no one’s going to arrest you if you say you’ve got a crush on somebody.”

  “Maybe they should,” Kate muttered, but now she didn’t sound so mad. “Maybe it would be a good idea if people talked about something else for a change. I mean, we’re in seventh grade. It’s not like we’re going to meet the person we’re going to marry. So why not just hang out with other people instead of having to put a label on everything?”

  Marylin shrugged. “Sure, if that’s what you want to do. But I think it’s okay to like a guy even if you’re not going to marry him. It’s like practicing for when the guy you’re going to marry comes along. And you never know—maybe Benjamin and I will get married someday.” Marylin paused. That thought was a little scary even to her. “I mean, after we’ve dated other people and gone to college and all that.”

  “I guess practicing at love is good,” Kate said, sounding like she halfway believed it. “I get that. But being friends is good too. Living your life is good.”

  “Right,” Marylin agreed. “We can agree. Both ways are good.”

  Marylin leaned back in her seat, feeling pleased that for once in their lives she and Kate had come to a compromise. She especially appreciated it after the past few months of being bossed around by Mazie and the other cheerleaders. She’d almost forgotten what having a real friend was like.

  And then inspiration hit her. “I’ve got a great idea! Why don’t you spend the night at my house tonight? We can watch movies and eat a ton of pizza. And we could even do a makeover. Not that you need a makeover! I didn’t mean it like that. But I could show you how to put on just a touch of eyeliner, maybe a little bit of blush. And maybe you could borrow some of my clothes?”

  The idea of giving Kate a makeover made Marylin happy. Maybe she was on Mazie’s bad side, but she could still do some good in the world.

  “I like my clothes,” Kate said, sounding stubborn. “Besides, all the eyeliner in the world won’t make me beautiful. Which I don’t even care about, by the way.”

  Marylin wagged a finger. “But it would turn you into a prettier Kate. And I know you’re like this poet and everything, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be pretty, too, right? Because you are pretty, Kate.”

  “Really?” Kate looked at Marylin as though she desperately wanted to believe her. “Do you really think so?”

  Marylin nodded. “I know so. So what do you say? Sleepover?”

  “Okay,” Kate said, sounding a little reluctant. “I guess.”

  Excellent! At last Marylin was going to give Kate the makeover she’d been dying to give her for years. “Listen, after I get through with you, you can have your pick of guys. Just you wait.”

  “You know, it’s possible you need professional help,” Kate said, hugging her arms to her chest. “I mean, you’re starting to scare me.”

  “Good,” Marylin said, laughing. “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

  How long had it been since Kate had spent the night at her house? Marylin wondered as she made up the second bed in her bedroom later that afternoon. Well, there was the sleepover last summer, but Kate had spent the whole time watching TV with Petey. They’d had a sleepover once in sixth grade, with Brittany and Kyla and Emma. That seemed like ten thousand years ago. Marylin had still been friends with Flannery then, which was almost impossible to believe. How had that happened? One day, she’d been best friends with Kate, the next day Flannery had moved in across the street and taken over Marylin’s life.

  “Kate’s such a baby,” Flannery had said a week or so after meeting Marylin. “I don’t know how you can be friends with her.”

  The thing was, Marylin had sort of been thinking the same thing. Kate seemed like a little kid, and Marylin was ready to grow up. She was ready for makeup and group dates and Seventeen magazine. Kate was ready to spend all weekend watching the Mythbusters marathon and making rubber-band balls. Marylin was starting to feel like she’d sort of outgrown Kate. So when Flannery came along, a year older, a year more sophisticated, a room stocked with Seventeens and Teen Vogues and every color of nail polish imaginable, well, it had seemed like fate to Marylin. Flannery was clearly the next step for her to take.

  Now she felt bad for the times she and Flannery had given Kate the silent treatment; in fact, Marylin liked to skip right over that part of her life. She hoped Kate wouldn’t bring it up tonight. Although Marylin did sort of want to ask Kate about Flannery, since the two of them had become friends. Not best friends—these days Kate seemed to be best friends with that girl Lorna—but definitely friends. How had that happened?

  Seventh grade was so different, Marylin thought as she slipped Kate’s pillow into a pillowcase. Everyone just seemed to go their own way. Marylin had started it, she supposed, by becoming a cheerleader last spring, but look at Kate. How many years had she eaten at the same lunch table with Marcie Grossman and Brittany Lamb and Amber Colbaugh? And suddenly, just like that, last October she and Lorna had become lunch buddies, sitting by themselves at a small table near the exit, laughing and chatting away.

  Flannery hung out with the eighth-grade delinquents, of course. Come to think of it, Marylin had seen Kate sitting with them earlier in the week. She really hoped Kate wasn’t going to start taking drugs. Kate wouldn’t do that, would she? She wasn’t that kind of person. Sure, she was independent and maybe a little rebellious, but you could be those things without living a life of crime, couldn’t you?

  Marylin suddenly wondered if inviting Kate to spend the night had been such a good idea. What if Kate had cigarettes and wanted to smoke them in Marylin’s bathroom? She so did not want to go there with Kate. They’d known each other since preschool. It would be too weird if Kate wanted to smoke. It would be like the girl Marylin had known all her life was gone, replaced by a stranger.

  I miss Rhetta, Marylin thought, falling back on her bed and staring at the ceiling. But she didn’t just miss Rhetta, she realized; she missed Rhetta’s family. Sure, Rhetta’s parents were strict, but they were also nice and funny and there. Right now Rhetta was bowling with her family and other families from her church. Marylin wondered if she could get her parents to start going to Rhetta’s church. They wouldn’t have to sit together, but maybe on bowling nights, Marylin’s dad could come over and pick up Marylin, her mom, and Petey, and they could be a family together that way. And Marylin wouldn’t have to worry about anyone smoking, because people didn’t smoke when they were doing church stuff.

  “Marylin, Kate’s here!” Petey called from downstairs. “I’m going to show her my gecko!”

  Please don’t want to smoke cigarettes, Marylin thought, standing up and checking her hair in the mirror. Please just be Kate.

  She found Kate in the kitchen, where she was getting a lecture on the care and feeding of lizards.

  “Pretty fascinating, huh?” Marylin asked, rolling her eyes.

  Kate shrugged. “It is, sort of. I mean, reptiles aren’t exactly my thing, but I get why Petey’s into them.”

  Petey beamed. Marylin was pretty sure he had a secret crush on Kate. Probably because Kate was the only one of Marylin’s friends who acknowledged his existence.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Marylin said. “My mom’s going to order pizza in a little while.”

  When they got to Marylin’s room, Kate put her bag down on the bed and sta
rted looking around. “It’s different in here,” she said. “You took down your Hello Kitty posters. Didn’t you used to say you would always love Hello Kitty, even when you were fifty?”

  “Did I say that?” Marylin didn’t remember ever saying that, but she supposed she could have, especially around fourth grade, when she was Hello Kitty obsessed. “Well, I’m thirteen now, and I’m pretty much over Hello Kitty already. But who knows? Maybe when I’m fifty, I’ll get really into it again.”

  “Or maybe when you’re eighty, right before you die,” Kate said, sitting down at Marylin’s desk. “The circle of life and all that stuff.” She picked up Marylin’s ballerina snow globe. “I remember this! Gracie McRae gave it to you in second grade, right before she moved.”

  “Because we took ballet gather,” Marylin said, nodding. “Only she was really horrible. She just sort of clomped all over the place. But it was nice of her to give me the snow globe.”

  “It’s weird how well I can remember her,” Kate said, shaking the globe and watching the little flakes fall on the ballerina’s head. “She and George Kenley had the same birthday, and George’s mom brought cupcakes with M&Ms on them, and Gracie’s mom brought banana muffins, and everybody wanted the M&M cupcakes. Do you remember that?”

  Marylin shook her head. “No, not really. But I remember that she always smelled like peanut butter.”

  “See, I don’t remember that at all.”

  Marylin plopped down on her bed and faced Kate. “I wish they’d given out yearbooks in elementary school, so we could compare everybody back then to how they are now. Like, I remember Laurie Wochek from kindergarten, and she wasn’t even the least bit cute. She was round and pudgy with two million freckles. But now she’s really pretty. It’s like it happened overnight.”

  “I think it’s weird to see Franklin Boyd with zits,” Kate said. “It’s not like they’re that bad, but they just look weird on him. I’ve known him since preschool—what’s he doing with zits?”

  “He’s always had a baby face,” Marylin agreed. “Zits seem entirely out of place.”

  They lapsed into silence. Was this what it meant to have a history with someone? Marylin wondered. To be able to remember all the same things from preschool and second grade? Maybe. She liked how it made her feel comfortable with Kate, sort of like they were family.

  Almost as if she’d read Marylin’s mind, Kate said, “It’s weird to be here without your dad in the house. Because if your dad was here, by now he would have popped his head in the room and said something silly. You know, ‘We’re having barbecued beet loaf for dinner—hope you brought your appetite!’ ”

  “Yeah,” Marylin said, her voice catching a little bit in her throat. “He liked to clown around when you were here. When he was growing up, his mom had bad migraines all the time, and he couldn’t ever have friends come over. So it made him happy when our friends were in the house. We don’t know anyone where he lives now, so that’s not going to happen anymore, I guess.”

  “Do you think—?” Kate started, then stopped herself.

  “What?”

  “Well, that your parents might get back together? Because they did hang out on Christmas Eve, right? So maybe they’re thinking about it?”

  Marylin looked at her feet. “I don’t think so. The weird thing is they sort of get along better now than before they were divorced. They sit at all the home games together to watch me cheer, and the other night they were talking on the phone and my mom was laughing her head off. After she hung up, she said, ‘Your dad cracks me up,’ and then she sort of looked like she wished she hadn’t said it, like she didn’t want us to get the wrong idea.”

  “Maybe they’re starting to like each other again,” Kate suggested. “Who knows what might happen?”

  Marylin nodded, swallowing hard. “I just don’t want to get my hopes up.”

  The phone rang two seconds later, and Marylin wondered if it might be Benjamin. Maybe he’d thought over her cheerleading uniform idea and decided he liked it. “I better get this,” she said, reaching over to pick her phone up off the desk.

  “It might be Benjamin,” Kate said, echoing Marylin’s thoughts again. “Maybe he’s going to ask you to the prom.”

  “Like we even have a middle-school prom,” Marylin complained. “All we have is the stupid spring dance. They have a real prom at Githens, did you know that?”

  “The news media had not alerted me to that fact,” Kate replied dryly. “I’ll go write my congressperson immediately.”

  Marylin ignored Kate’s sarcasm and looked at the phone’s screen. “It’s Mazie,” she reported. “I guess I should talk to her. She’s not very happy with me right now.”

  And just like that, the feeling between Marylin and Kate changed. Marylin could feel it. The friendly vibe that had filled the room disappeared.

  “I dare you not to answer,” Kate said. “I dare you to say no to Mazie Calloway for once in your life.”

  “You don’t understand,” Marylin said. “That’s not how my life works.” She held the phone up to her ear. “Hey, Mazie!” she said in her best, cheerful middle-school cheerleader voice, a huge smile plastered across her face for good measure. “What’s up?”

  “Me and Ruby are about to go to the mall and get mani-pedis,” Mazie announced. “You’re coming with us. Ruby’s noticed that you don’t really seem to be keeping up your appearance lately. You’re getting sloppy.”

  Marylin was taken aback. She’d just done her nails two days ago! “Maybe I had a bad day on Wednesday,” she said, trying to placate Mazie. “But I did my nails that night, and I’ve worn preplanned outfits every day this week. I don’t think that’s sloppy at all.”

  “Ruby thinks you should come,” Mazie said. “She is captain of the squad.”

  “Well, I can’t,” Marylin said, doing her best to sound sorry about it. “I’ve got—stuff.”

  “Are you going over to your dad’s tonight?”

  “Um, yes, uh-huh,” Marylin said. She was suddenly very conscious that Kate was listening to the conversation. “That’s right.”

  “So why did you tell Ashley to pick you up at your mom’s house in the morning?” Mazie replied in a gotcha! tone of voice.

  Marylin scrambled for an answer. “My dad’s bringing me back later.”

  Kate leaned toward her and whispered, “Do you want me to talk to her?”

  “Who’s that?” Mazie sounded scandalized. “Is that Kate Faber? What is she doing there?”

  Marylin panicked and said the stupidest thing in the world. “She’s just dropping something off.”

  Kate stood up. “That’s right,” she declared in a loud voice. “And I’m leaving now.”

  “Mazie, I’ve got to go,” Marylin said, wildly waving at Kate to stay put. “I’ll call you later.”

  “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Mazie told her. “You better be ready.”

  Marylin could hear Kate stomping down the stairs in her big black boots.

  “I really can’t,” she told Mazie. “I’ve got—”

  “Yeah, I know, you’ve got stuff. Well, get unstuffed. I mean it, Marylin. You’re crossing the line. You’re totally out of control.”

  And with that, Mazie was gone.

  The door slammed. Kate was gone too.

  Marylin walked over to her desk and picked up the ballerina snow globe. This was it. This was when she had to make the decision. Mazie wasn’t going to let her straddle both sides of the line forever—in fact, she wasn’t going to let her straddle both sides of the line for ten more minutes. Even if Marylin delivered new uniforms to the squad every season, even if she got on Ruby’s good side and became the second most powerful girl in the school, Marylin was going to have to choose, cheerleading and popularity versus everything else—Benjamin Huddle, Rhetta, Kate, Student Government.

  Marylin turned the globe over and shook it up. Gracie McRae. She’d been the worst ballet dancer in the world! Marylin wondered what she was li
ke now. Had she gotten pretty? Was she still nice? Was she a cheerleader? A jock? No, probably not a jock. You had to be a lot more coordinated than Gracie McRae to be a jock. Maybe she was one of those girls who spent their Friday nights baking cookies for the homeless shelter. Marylin had always assumed those girls—Rebecca Levin was one, Isabelle Burkett was another—baked cookies because they didn’t have anything else to do. You could be sure Mazie Calloway wasn’t going to call them up and see if they wanted to go to the mall for a mani-pedi.

  But as she watched the snow drift down through the water and land on the ballerina’s tulle skirt, Marylin wondered if Rebecca and Isabelle—and maybe Gracie McRae, for all she knew—baked cookies because they were good people. Really good. Not fake-smile good, not good so that everyone would like them good, but good because they had good hearts. Because they really wanted to help.

  Marylin put the snow globe down on her desk. She’d spent her whole life having to choose sides. Flannery or Kate? Mazie or Benjamin? She’d had to choose who to talk to in the hallways, who to pretend she hadn’t seen. She had to choose who to smile at, which boys to say hi back to.

  And in second grade, walking home from ballet with Gracie McRae, when Gracie had asked if she wanted to hold hands, Marylin had had to choose whether she wanted everybody in their class to think she was friends with the girl who stomped across the floor like a rhinoceros.

  “My hands are cold,” Marylin had told Gracie, quickly shoving her fists into her pockets. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” Gracie had said. “I don’t mind.”

  Marylin rushed out into the hallway. “Kate!” she yelled from the top of the stairs, even though she knew Kate was already out of the house. She ran down the steps two at a time. “Kate! Come back!”

  Kate was standing on the front porch, her overnight bag at her feet.

  “Why?” she asked Marylin, and Marylin was shocked to see that her eyes were filled with tears.

  “Because,” Marylin said, trying to catch her breath. “Because I need someone here with me when I tell Mazie no.”