Aces Wild (3 page)

“That we know of,” I added ruefully.

I didn’t mention the sleepover part. Sleepovers were a sore spot for me. It seemed like every weekend since sixth grade began, there was another sleepover party that Allie was invited to and I wasn’t.

In New York, all my friends lived in tiny apartments like me, so nobody I knew had sleepovers—the kind you see in movies with pillow fights and toenail painting and lots of girls. In Vermont, people lived in houses and had rec rooms, and it was a different story. Sleepovers happened and they were important. Or so I’d come to understand, since—truth be told—I hadn’t been invited to many sleepovers. Any, in fact, except for at Allie’s. Allie said this was just because I
hadn’t had one of my own yet. According to Allie, who had it on good authority from her big sister, Julia, once you had one, every girl you invited would invite you back. Until then, I was out of luck.

“Zelly! Hey, Zelly, wait up!”

I turned at the sound of my name and saw a giant blue marshmallow with legs sprinting down the street toward us.

“Hey, Jeremy,” I called back, watching my breath freeze in the air. I wasn’t wearing a real coat because nobody in middle school in Vermont seemed to wear a real coat, on account of the fact that it wasn’t, technically, winter yet because there was no snow. Well, almost nobody.

With one hand on his head, an oversized down parka, and an even more oversized backpack, Jeremy Fagel was unmistakable, even from a distance. Jeremy was what Ace liked to call a mensch, which is Yiddish for a nice guy who’s also kind of a dork.

Dorky how? Well, for example, on the first day of sixth grade, otherwise known as the first day of middle school, Jeremy showed up at my house with his braces, glasses, wavy hair, and buckteeth … and the brightest, greenest T-shirt on the planet.

“
BEWARE OF THE GREEN MONSTER
?” I read out loud. “Like on
Sesame Street
?”

“Green monSTAH,” he corrected me. “Fenway Park. You know, where the Red Sox play?”

“Oh,” I said. I guessed that would go over okay. But when I looked down, yikes. Jeremy’s white-and-red-striped socks
were pulled all the way up to his knees. As soon as we got outside, I said, “No offense, but maybe you should fix your socks.”

“Fix them?” Jeremy looked down. “Why, are they broken?” he joked.

“Jeremy!”

“What?”

Was he really that clueless? I bunched up my own socks to demonstrate. “Like this,” I said. “Scooch them down a little. So they don’t go all the way up to your knees?”

“But they’re kneesocks,” protested Jeremy.

We walked on in silence from there, though out of the corner of my eye I could see Jeremy glancing downward. At the corner, he bent down to retie his sneaker even though I hadn’t noticed it was untied. It looked like maybe he was adjusting his socks while he was down there, which made me relieved, but then I noticed something else.

“What’s that on your head?” I asked.

Jeremy was still bent over his shoe, but one hand flew up and he squinted at me through his glasses.

“You mean my kipa?” he said. It sounded like
KEY-pa
.

“I guess,” I said.

“What about it?”

“It’s just— You don’t wear one.” By which I also meant that I had never seen a boy in Vermont wear one. Possibly because Jeremy was the only Jewish boy in Vermont I knew, except for Sam.

“I don’t always. In the summer, it’s too hot.” It was typical of Jeremy to see this in purely practical terms.

I leaned in to examine it. The yarmulke looked like someone’s grandma had knitted it. It had Hebrew letters and a blue and red and white design that looked familiar.

“Is that … a Red Sox yarmulke?” I asked.

“Yup,” said Jeremy proudly, tilting his head.

“And are you wearing … barrettes?”

“Yeah. To keep it on. Why?” He stood up.

I stared at him, dumbfounded. I wasn’t sure which would get him teased worse: the yarmulke or the barrettes.

When we got to school, we stood around outside awhile. I introduced Jeremy to some of the other sixth-grade girls, who nodded politely, then went right on talking like he didn’t exist. Some of them compared cell phones they got over the summer. Some whispered and giggled about the boys.

Then, all of a sudden, Megan O’Malley yelled, “Hey, Brendan!” Her brother, who was in fifth grade, came running over. Megan pointed at Jeremy and said, “Check out what he’s wearing!”

Brendan stared.

Oh no
, I thought.
Here it comes. What was it going to be, the kipa or the barrettes? Or the goofy kneesocks, for that matter
.

“Green monstah, yeah!” said Brendan. “Were you there when they won the series?”

“Uh-huh,” said Jeremy.

By the time the bell rang, Jeremy was telling stories about catching foul balls in the alley behind Fenway Park, and he had all the boys eating out of his hand too. At lunch, Jeremy
waved at me from across the lunchroom and came and sat at my table, even though he was the only boy. And he didn’t get teased for that, either!

It felt really strange, watching Jeremy go off after lunch to play wall ball with Scott Cooper and the rest of the boys. On the one hand, I was happy for Jeremy. If anyone deserved to make friends, it was him. But it didn’t seem fair, somehow, that I’d had to put up with so much teasing when I was new and Jeremy hadn’t had to put up with any. I cringed, remembering how Nicky Benoit had made fun of my name and got all the boys in the cafeteria laughing about it. Meanwhile, by day two, Jeremy was firmly established at the boys’ lunch table and wall ball game, as if he’d been here forever. Red Sox yarmulke still clipped to his wavy hair, braces and glasses and the whole megilla, as Ace would say, with nobody—not even nasty old Nicky—saying anything about it.

And it wasn’t just that first week. Here it was, six weeks later, and Jeremy was still walking to school with me, and nobody ever said anything. No other boy in our grade walked to school with a girl, unless she was his little sister and he had to!

“Your grandpa has
three
girlfriends?” asked Jeremy once I caught him up on the story about Ace.

“That we know of,” repeated Allie, smirking.

“All right already,” I said in protest. It was one thing for me to say it, but that didn’t make it okay for her to say it. “You guys can’t tell anyone. Promise,” I said, staring straight at Allie.

“Okay, okay,” said Allie, looking insulted that I would even suggest she might blab.

“It’s nuts,” I continued. “Number one, my grandma hasn’t even been gone a year yet. Number two, he just had a heart attack. And number three, he’s old. It’s totally inappropriate.”

I ticked these off on my fingers while Allie nodded sympathetically.

“Why?” asked Jeremy. He kicked a horse chestnut down the sidewalk like a soccer ball, shooting a pass to me but missing by a mile. Allie and I looked at each other and shook our heads. Boys could be so dumb sometimes. Allie fished the horse chestnut out of a pile of leaves and started it rolling again.

“It just is!” I said. “He shouldn’t have one girlfriend, much less three.”

“Ever?” asked Jeremy, kicking the horse chestnut back to Allie.

“Yes! Because of Zelly’s grandma,” explained Allie. She passed our “ball” to me, and I kicked it back to her.

“Exactly,” I said. I looked up at the sky, which I do out of habit whenever I think about Bubbles. I don’t exactly believe in heaven, but for some reason I always picture her up in the sky sitting on a fluffy white cloud. She’s wearing her paint-spattered overalls and she’s picking little tufts of the clouds and eating them like cotton candy. Thinking about her, I wondered if she spent a lot of time looking down at us. And, if she did, was she mad at Ace for forgetting all about her
and running around trying to find someone new? Or several someones.

It was hard to imagine Bubbles mad. She was always smiling, always laughing. Always making presents and painting paintings and baking goodies for other people. She took care of everyone around her—that’s just how she was. Bustling around her kitchen whenever we visited, even after she got sick, stocking treats like homemade rugelach and Barton’s Twin Almond Kisses for me and Sam. Long after we got old enough to tell her what we liked and didn’t like, she’d pull my mom to one side, asking, “Does he want cottage cheese? Nem a bissel. I have melon, does she want melon? A schtickl lemon cake, maybe?” And if there was only one piece of cantaloupe—her favorite—there was no way she’d eat a single bite herself. She put all of us first: me, Sam, my parents, and, of course, Ace.

I was pretty sure that if anything would make her mad, it would be this. I mean, who could blame her? After all her years giving all that love and kindness and generosity to Ace, this was the ultimate betrayal.
I haven’t forgotten about you
, I told Bubbles silently, hoping this would cheer her up.
And I never will
.

“So, he shouldn’t be allowed to get married again?” asked Jeremy.

“He’s not getting married!”

“You know what I mean. He should be alone forever?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, maybe. I don’t know!” I said in exasperation. Jeremy was a lot like Ace sometimes. He loved to
debate things, and he had a way of twisting things around so I wasn’t so sure of what side I was on. “You just don’t get it,” I told him. “You’d feel the same way if it was your grandpa.” It was true, but I didn’t want to say any more because I didn’t want Jeremy to feel sad. His grandparents were no longer around.

“Plus it’s just weird,” added Allie. “Old people kissing and stuff? Eww!”

“Allie!” I hadn’t even thought about that. “Yuck!” I added, making a face and trying to push the idea out of my mind. “Can we talk about something else, please?”

“Okay,” said Jeremy agreeably, trying to snag the horse chestnut back from Allie with his foot. “Hey, did I tell you I got my date?”

“You’re going on a date? With who?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
First Ace, and now Jeremy?

“My bar mitzvah date,” explained Jeremy. “They assigned them at Hebrew school yesterday.”

“Oooh! Zelly, you should have a bar mitzvah,” said Allie. “Julia went to one. She said it was the best party ever. There was a chocolate fountain, and a DJ, and everything!”

“She can’t,” Jeremy informed her.

“Why not?” asked Allie.

“Well, for starters, she’s not a boy. Girls have
bat
mitzvahs. Also, Zelly doesn’t go to Hebrew school. Plus they give out dates about two years in advance.”

“I could if I started going to Hebrew school,” I said.

“Are you going to?” asked Jeremy. “You should do it! I could help you catch up, if you wanted. You could come check it out
this Sunday morning. You could come too,” he said to Allie generously. “I mean, if you’re curious.”

“I can’t,” said Allie. “I’ll be at Simone’s.”

“You will?” I asked, feeling my heart sink. “Sleepover?”

“Uh-huh. It’s her birthday. Sorry—I’d rather hang out with you, Zelly, but I already said yes.”

“It’s okay,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. Simone Matthews was in Allie’s homeroom, not mine, but still. She usually sat with both of us at lunch. I even traded her a blueberry mini-muffin for a speckled banana once—which was a really bad deal—just to be nice.

“Hey, you should ask your parents if you can have a sleepover next weekend!” suggested Allie.

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. That minimal encouragement was all Allie needed. She started jumping up and down.

“Do it! Do it! Do it!”

“Okay, okay. I said maybe. It’s not like I haven’t asked before.”

“This time they’ll say yes,” insisted Allie. “I can totally see it. I’m psychic, you know.”

“Oh yeah?” said Jeremy. “What are they serving for hot lunch today?”

Allie stared at Jeremy. Then she stopped walking and scrunched up her eyes tight, deep in concentration.

“Turkey tacos,” she finally said.

Jeremy shook his head. “It’s pizza.”

Allie shrugged. “Nope, my psychic energy is definitely picking up turkey tacos.”

“Maybe you’re so psychic you’re predicting tomorrow’s lunch,” said Jeremy. “According to my mom and the menu in the newspaper, today’s pizza day.”

“We shall see,” said Allie mysteriously. “Zelly, you believe me, don’t you?”

“Sure,” I said, because she is my best friend. But then I kind of forgot about it when we got to school. Until lunchtime rolled around and I got in line to pay for my milk. Standing there, I noticed that the board announcing the hot lunch said:

TURKEY TACOS

I got a spooky little chill looking at it. Allie couldn’t really be psychic.
Or could she?
I guess I must have looked funny because the cashier said, “Were you hoping for pizza? We’ll have it tomorrow.”

Allie had a huge grin on her face. “You see!” she said, pointing triumphantly to Kristin Garrett’s hot lunch tray when I sat down next to her. “Now you have to ask them about the sleepover when you get home!” said Allie. “They’re going to say yes!”

“What sleepover?” asked Jenny Hood.

“Zelly’s going to have a sleepover,” announced Allie.

“Allie!” I said.

“You are?” asked Megan O’Malley, who was Jenny’s best friend. “When is it? Can I come?”

“Sure! But, I mean, it’s not a done deal or anything. I still have to—”

Megan glazed over before I finished speaking. She turned to Jenny. “Are you bringing your bathing suit to Simone’s? I
heard her dad works at the Radisson and is going to take us swimming there.” She paused, then added, “At
midnight
.”

“No WAY!” yelled Jenny. Allie shrieked with excitement, and Megan swacked her to keep the lunch ladies from coming over.

“I’m definitely having a sleepover,” I found myself saying, louder than I meant to. My heart was beating fast, but I told myself it was okay since Allie had predicted my parents would say yes. “I just need to figure out when. I mean, my family’s pretty busy.”

“Well, you better invite me,” said Megan.

“And me,” said Jenny.

“I promise,” I told them. Then I went to throw away my trash so I wouldn’t have to hear another word about Simone and her sensational sleepover plans.