We Run the Tides(42)

“My mom cares,” Julia says.

“So she’s going to pretend there’s a bridge out there? Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

“Were you planning on going out?” Julia says, hinting.

“Yeah, I’m going to go donate some of these boxes,” Gentle says.

“The boxes have things in them,” Julia says. Her eyes look intensely blue. They get that way when she’s worked up.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m going to give them away.”

“I think Mom was planning to sell them,” Julia says.

“Well, they’re mine,” Gentle says.

“Did it occur to you that Mom might want to sell them?” Julia says. She doesn’t use the word need in front of me. She’s already embarrassed enough about their relative poverty.

“They’re not hers to sell,” Gentle says. She picks up the biggest box. “Can you get the door, please?” she says to Julia.

“No, I’m busy,” Julia says, holding a small, dark sequin up above the side of her mouth, like it’s a beauty mark.

Gentle puts down the box, opens the door, picks it up again, and leaves.

Strangely, the scent of her patchouli is stronger once she’s gone.

“Let’s go check out her room,” Julia says and jumps up from the table so abruptly that the wooden floors shudder.

To get to Gentle’s room you have to take a ladder to the attic. “It was her choice to live up here,” Julia says, climbing up ahead of me. “Attics are where a lot of nutty people live. They feel at home there with the bats.”

The rungs of the ladder are half circles and hard on my hands and bare feet. As I ascend, the smell of the incense grows stronger. I prepare myself for the mess I expect is waiting for me at the top of the ladder. I picture beads hanging from doorframes, a waterbed, bell-bottoms, and platform shoes tangled on a shag rug—vestiges from wherever last night’s adventures took her.

But Gentle’s room is surprisingly neat. It’s neater than my room. “Do you have a housekeeper?” I ask Julia.

“Not anymore,” she says, slightly out of breath from the climb. She gets out of breath surprisingly fast for an athlete. She’s at the ice rink four afternoons a week.

A Grateful Dead poster is framed. The floral-patterned teacups set out on her desk look more British than Haight-Ashbury. Poor Gentle, I think. She’s failing even at being a hippie.

“I have to show you something hilarious,” Julia says. She opens Gentle’s top desk drawer carefully and extracts a ledger of graph paper. “She keeps a chart of everything that was better in the seventies than the eighties.”

The line down the middle has been drawn with a ruler. The pencil writing is extremely neat.

1970s

1980s



Pillows on floor

Chairs



Fondue

Churros



No watches

Watches



Free love

No love



Records

Cassettes



Tie dyes

Ties



“Isn’t that hilarious?” Julia says. “I mean, who keeps lists like this?”

“Let’s write her a valentine,” I suggest.

“Who should it be from?”

“The seventies.”

“Ha!” Julia says. We descend the ladder, return to the dining room, and get to work. We use all the beads. “We miss you!” we write, “Love, All the dirty hippies.”

It’s dinnertime, and I know I should leave. Julia and I are friends again and I feel very tall and brilliant. On my way home from Julia’s I take a small detour and walk past Keith’s house. The lights are off, the car gone: he’s still in Yosemite. After dinner and before bed I sneak out of the house while my mom’s doing dishes and my dad’s in the study. There’s still a Christmas wreath hanging on the door of Keith’s house, and the lights are on, but it’s too late to knock. I circle the house, hoping he’ll see me. I make all the calculations—he’ll see me crouching in the bushes, late at night, and he will love me. He will come out and I’ll tell him all about the wonderfully witty and subversive valentines I made with Julia, my friend again.





23


At Monday morning assembly I hear my classmates’ whispers. Blood. Axel. Party. Slut. Everything happens very fast. I am untouchable. No one can quite believe I’ve shown up for school after bleeding all over a boy at Maria Fabiola’s celebration. The disgust surrounds me like a sulfurous fog. Julia walks right by me without saying hello.

By the end of first period, boarding school seems more necessary than ever. Weeks ago, I submitted my applications and enclosed cash as my admissions fee. I ironed the bills so they would look like adult money. All that’s left for me to do is request teacher recommendations—no small task. Ms. Livesey’s will be good, but two of my top choice schools require letters from an English teacher. At lunch I go to see Mr. London.

His door is propped open even wider today. He takes a deep breath when he sees me—his cheeks deflate as he inhales.

“I wanted to let you know my plans,” I say, sitting down in the chair on the other side of his desk. “I’m applying to boarding schools for next year.”