Where'd You Go, Bernadette(41)
“Nobody ever goes to the Space Needle restaurant!” she shrieked. Which is true, because even though it’s at the top and it revolves—which should make it the only restaurant you’d ever go to—it’s totally touristy and the food is expensive. Then Kennedy did her growl thing, and tackled me.
It had been at least ten years since I’d been to the Space Needle restaurant, and I’d forgotten how awesome it is. We ordered, then Mom reached into her purse and whipped out a pencil and piece of white cardboard. In the middle, she’d written in different-colored markers, MY NAME IS KENNEDY AND I’M TURNING FABULOUS FIFTEEN.
“Huh?” Kennedy said.
“You’ve never been here, have you?” Mom asked Kennedy, then turned to me. “And you don’t remember, do you?” I shook my head. “We put this on the windowsill.” She propped the card against the glass. “And we put a pencil next to it. While the restaurant revolves, everyone will write something, so when it comes back around, you’ll have a card full of birthday wishes.”
“That’s so cool!” Kennedy said at the same time that I said, “That’s no fair!”
“We can come here for your birthday next year, I promise,” Mom said.
The birthday card slowly left us, and, oh, we had so much fun. We did the one thing that Kennedy and I always do when we’re with Mom, which is talk about Youth Group. Mom was raised Catholic and became an atheist in college, so she completely freaked out when I started going to Youth Group. But I only went because it was Kennedy’s idea. Kennedy’s mom spends half her life at Costco, so they have these huge bags of candy bars and drums of licorice at home. Plus, they have a giant TV with every cable channel, which means I spent a lot of time at Kennedy’s house eating candy and watching Friends. But then one day Kennedy started thinking she was fat and wanted to go on a diet, and she was, like, “Bee, you can’t eat licorice because I don’t want to get fat.” Kennedy is totally crazy like that, and we always have the craziest conversations. So she made this huge declaration that we weren’t allowed to go to her house anymore because it makes her fat and instead we had to go to Youth Group. She called it her “Youth Group diet.”
I kept it secret from Mom as long as I could, but when she found out she was furious because she thought I was going to turn into a Jesus freak. But Luke and his wife, Mae, who run Youth Group, aren’t into that at all. Well, OK, they’re a little into that. But their Bible talk lasts only, like, fifteen minutes, and when they’re done we have two hours to watch TV and play games. I kind of feel sorry for Luke and Mae because they’re all excited to have half of Galer Street coming over on Fridays. But they have no idea there’s nowhere else to go because Friday is the one day there’s no sports or extracurriculars, and all we really want to do is watch TV.
Still, Mom hates Youth Group, which Kennedy thinks is the most hilarious thing in the world. “Hey, Bee’s Mom,” Kennedy said. That’s what she calls Mom. “Have you ever heard of poop in the stew?”
“Poop in the stew?” Mom said.
“We learned about it in Youth Group,” Kennedy said. “Luke and Mae did a puppet show about drugs. And the donkey was, like, ‘Well, just one little puff of marijuana can’t hurt.’ But the lamb said, ‘Life is stew, and pot is poop. If someone stirred even a teeny-tiny bit of poop in the stew, would you really want to eat it?’ ”
“And those featherheads wonder why people are fleeing the church? Puppet shows for teenagers—” Before Mom could totally go off, I grabbed Kennedy’s hand.
“Let’s go to the bathroom again,” I said. The bathroom is in the part of the restaurant that doesn’t revolve, so when you return, your table isn’t where you left it. That time, we were walking back, all like, “Where did our table go?” and we finally spotted Mom.
Dad was there, too. He was wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a parka, and he still had his Microsoft badge around his neck. Some things you just know. And I just knew Dad had found out about the mudslide.
“Your dad is here!” Kennedy said. “I can’t believe he came to my birthday party. That is so nice.” I tried to stop Kennedy, but she squirmed away and bolted over.
“Those blackberries were the only thing holding up the hillside,” Dad was saying. “You knew that, Bernadette. Why on earth would you denude an entire hillside in the middle of the wettest winter on record?”
“How did you find out?” Mom said. “Let me guess. Your admin is pouring poison in your ears.”
“Keep Soo-Lin out of this,” Dad said. “She’s the only reason it’s even feasible for me to leave for three weeks.”
“If you’re interested in the truth,” Mom said, “I had the blackberries removed in accordance with the specifications of Bugs Meany.”
“Bugs Meany from Encyclopedia Brown?” Kennedy said. “That’s so awesome!”
“Will you stop treating this as a joke?” Dad told Mom. “I look at you, Bernadette, and I’m scared. You won’t talk to me. You won’t go to a doctor. You’re better than this.”
“Dad,” I said, “stop freaking out.”
“Yeah, really,” Kennedy said. “Happy birthday to me.”