Confessions of a So-called Middle Child (9 page)

She Loves Me! She Loves Me Not?

Later that afternoon I slipped into gym practice to see what everyone was getting all worked up over. Except for the spotlights on the mats, the room was dark and cold. There was no noise except for the slap of a mat, the hard, fast running of a vaulter, and the yelling of the coach. From a darkened corner, I watched them like a fly on the wall. Erica was tall and about as limber as a rubber band. She was so beautiful to watch; you almost forgot she probably ate babies for breakfast. Her cartwheels were like the slow spin of a wheel. Precise and exact. The girl called Tanya was fast and short, all power. Lillian was a perfectionist. But Monique was the worst of the bunch. Even I could tell she was sloppy. She put on lip gloss and checked her phone more often than I breathed. I bet she would be the one they'd drop first.

Lillian was mad again. She screamed at the team like an evil stepmother. “You're so fat; you look like a slob!” She berated Monique on her floor exercise. “Coach will throw you off if you keep it up.”

When I turned to leave, I almost missed Marta sitting behind the curtain. In her eyes was an intensity that was almost scarier than her pink socks and Crocs. Was she just obsessed with being like Lillian, was that it? I could totally get that; Lillian was everything she wasn't. But in Marta's eyes there was more than envy. I couldn't figure it out. Did she really think she could do this? Marta? She was such a klutz, she could barely get down the stairs without tripping over her roller suitcase or the backs of someone's shoes.

Oh, poor Marta, I thought as I saw the pained look in her eyes. How long have you been hiding in here and fantasizing about being Lillian? It made sense; I would have hidden in here too if I were Marta. I was just about to go over to her when the door opened and a triangle of afternoon light came in. Trixie called me over. “Hey, Charlie, want to come to my house?”

My heart leaped—her house? “Your house?”

“Yeah”—she pointed—“it's just up the road. You can walk home after if you want to, or my housekeeper can drive you home. Here”—she handed me her iPhone—“call and ask.”

My God, I loved her. What a self-starter, what an independent, what a cool chick. I called, and when my dad answered, I turned my back to Trixie. There was no dignity in begging.

“Hey, Dad. Can I please, please go over to Trixie's today? She invited me.”

“Is her mother there?” Dad asked right off the bat.

“Her housekeeper, who is basically like her mother, is there, we can walk, it's super close, and”—I walked away so Trixie wouldn't hear me—“I will so cut both my wrists if you don't let me go. Please, Dad, please.”

“Well, your mom isn't—”

“Dad, please. I've done everything you wanted me to. Please, please.”

There was total silence on the line. And then he let out a deep breath. “All right, just call me when you get there,” he said matter-of-factly. “And have fun.”

I can't tell you how those words warmed me. “Thanks, Dad.”

Trixie's Mega-Mansion, Here I Come

I handed her back the phone, and we started walking up the hill. “So, you like gymnastics, huh?” she asked.

I was huffing and puffing like a fat, old man.

Trixie increased her pace. “It's life or death to some people here. You just wouldn't believe what they'd do to get on that team.” She turned, and we started walking up narrow Wonderland Park Avenue to Trixie's house, our book bags low and heavy. “The new coach was really famous once. His name is Igor Nemov; he coached the top teams in Russia, came here, and was on the Olympics path.”

All this Olympics talk made me want to get to the nearest sofa and crack open a
giant
bag of Doritos.

“Coach got into a huge fight with Big Bela, who controls the Olympic team; they fired him, and Pickler hired him to start a team here. It's the first of its kind.”

Boy, I so did
not
care. But I pretended to care.

 

 

So I glanced over, wiping the puddle of sweat off my forehead, and I asked like I really cared, “The first of what kind?”

“A school with its very own Junior Olympics team. He's grooming it to be the best in the world.”

I shrugged. “I thought it was just a school.”

“Are you kidding me?” Trixie laughed. “Every gymnast in LA wants to come here for the opportunity to train with the great Igor Nemov.”

We walked more. I had to stop and catch my breath. These hills were killer. “Yeah, even Marta. She was watching the team and looked a little scary.”

“Yeah, poor Marta.” Trixie rolled her eyes. “She's delusional; she actually thinks one day she'll make the national team and go all the way. Last year she made such a fool of herself. She wore this horrible leotard—it was all stretched out and faded, and her hair was a wreck. She got tossed out before she even tried out, because you have to look good, right?”

“Of course!”

“Anyway, her face turned bright red. She totally flipped out; she screamed in a weird language; it wasn't pretty.”

And then it came to me. Maybe Marta was a complete nut. Maybe I could be relieved of my duty altogether! And by the way, man, was it fun to gossip. “Can she even do gymnastics?”

Trix laughed. “Poor thing can't even walk the stairs without tripping.”

Wasn't that the truth? I definitely needed to hook her up with Scales. We kept walking up, up, up, like two sweaty teenagers, and I was feeling like I was about to seriously explode from the swelling I was experiencing in my fingers and toes, when she said in a totally cool movie star voice, “So how long were you at Malibu Charter? You did say Malibu Charter, right?”

My hair went up like a cat's, yeah, that's right. Had she been Googling me? I changed the subject. “I'm dying. How much farther?”

She pointed to the tight left turn. “Oh, come on, tell me. I can find out in a second, you know.”

She was right, of course, there was no use in hiding it, but the trick I was trying to pull off was to get her to not even
care
. “Yeah, Malibu Charter.” I pointed to a house with a drawbridge. “What's up with that?”

Trix's eyes popped. She smiled, like she'd just gotten ahold of something really good. “So you were there when that girl put laxatives in the lunch food, and the school exploded in diarrhea?”

Now it was getting a little sticky. I couldn't lie, 'cause everyone in the entire city knew about it; forget the fact that I was the one who did it. “Yep, I was.”

Trixie grabbed my hands, thrilled. “Oh my God! You know, I go to summer camp with the girl from Malibu Charter who was the best friend of diarrhea girl before she went psycho and poisoned the whole school.” She laughed like it was funny, which it wasn't.

 

 

I laughed, pretending to act surprised and interested in all her little details of my downfall, but all I could think about was how long I had until she called Roxy and told her she knew me. Trixie would then have all the ammo she'd need to make my life miserable when the time came. Sadly, the time always came.

We walked up a steep bend and then veered off to the right. A car came speeding past. “Watch it!” Trix threw her hand in front of me and pushed me off the street. “They're maniacs around here.”

The thought of getting hit by a car came as a welcome relief.

“Roxy told me they actually tried to put that girl”—Trix stopped—“what was her name?”

“No idea,” I said.

She kept walking. “I'll find out. Anyway, they wanted to put her in some kind of mental facility, but they couldn't, so they kicked her whole family out of the school district. Can you imagine getting kicked out because you have a crazy sister?”

I thought of Penelope and how much she hated me for it. “No, I can't.”

Trixie cocked her head and gave me one of those sideways looks. “You know what I think?”

Uh-oh. Here it comes.

“She's kind of a coward.”

“Coward?” I jumped at the word. I was many things but not, I repeat, not a coward.

“My sources said she would have totally gotten away with it if she hadn't tried to stop the kindergartners from eating it. Seriously?” Trixie looked at me like she knew it was me. “I mean, really! Follow through; if you're gonna do something, at least follow through!” She pointed to a huge, towering block of white capitalism and announced, “This is me.”

I melted. “You?” I stared at it like it was a castle in the desert. “Lucky you.”

 

 

Her housekeeper answered the door, and—wait for it—we rode up in an elevator, yep, you read it right, Chica,
elevator
. It opened onto a room of cream carpets, cream sofas, and curtains. I was practically speechless. There were huge paintings with splotches of bright color and a single family photo of three, just
three
.

“My parents are both shrinks.” She pointed to a series of super serious double doors. “They work in there.” She paused heavily. “They
live
to help people.”

The house was so dang silent. “Are they there now?”

“Yep. But they have a separate entrance.” Trixie shrugged. “And it's soundproof. See?” She screamed at the top of her lungs and no one noticed at all. Not even the housekeeper came to check on us.

It was grand! No one cared—imagine that?

She took my hand, and we ran to her palatial room. My mouth fell open. My God, was life unfair. Her closet, her clothes, her
king-size
bed! I mean, kill me now. A pop star could live here. She threw her stuff on the floor. “Just drop your things here,” she told me, and I did. Within minutes the uniformed housekeeper came in with a tray of cookies and milk just for us. It was so quiet in here; the truly peaceful life of an only child. If I lived in this perfect room, I could be the next president of the United States or Russia if I so desired. Or a top model.

Trix plopped onto the bed. “So tell me, what are your talents, Charlie Cooper?”

“Besides compassion and fashion?” My new motto.

Trixie pushed on the
bindi
. “Yep.” “I know my way around a computer.”

Her eyes lit up; she picked up her laptop. “Oh, oh, add me as a friend!”

Now here's where I thank God in heaven my mother never allowed me to get a Facebook page. There would be no escaping my past. “I don't do Facebook—”

“What?” She looked totally freaked, logged on, and up popped her page. I quickly looked at her pictures, and my heart fell through the floor when I saw none other than Roxy Daly's face. I hadn't seen her since the day I'd been expelled from that school to a standing ovation. Her last words,
You can run, but you cannot hide, Cooper.

Trix saw my face. “Oh yeah, that's my friend Roxy.” She went to Roxy's page. “She's the one who I told you about who went to your old school.” Then her face got all crinkled up. “It's kinda weird that you don't know her.”

“Yeah, well”—my face was getting hotter by the second—“I was in a special section, gifted—”

Trix gave me the look. “Oh, please, don't tell me you're gifted.”

I knew that look. It was the way I looked at my sister every day. “No, God no, the total opposite. They just put me in there because of the computer stuff.”

Trixie clicked off and rolled onto her back. “Well, she's a super cool girl, Rox.”

The thought of her still made my heart hurt. I loved her, I did. I'd never forget that first day of kindergarten when we were five years old. I walked into the room, wearing the outfit I'd been planning all summer, and I saw her, and she saw me. Something passed between us, like we both knew at the exact same time that we were going to be best friends, with the whole world waiting just for us to team up and take it over.

Cut to six years later. The friends you'd known all your life, the ones you locked eyes on all those years ago, split BFF necklaces with, had sleepovers at each other's houses,
could not live without
, they ran away from you, lied about their birthday parties, crank called you from those very same birthday parties no one told you about. Horrible.

Trix shook me. “Uh, hello. Earth to Charlie, come in, Charlie?”

I took a deep breath, looked around the room, and remembered that was then and this was now. It was all over and would
never
be repeated again.
Ever
.

She jumped up on the bed. “So team tryouts are coming up. There's gymnastics, of course, and soccer; there's even basketball.” She looked me over in a not-so-flattering way. “You'd be really good at basketball—”

“I'm not into competition.” Truth was I never tried out for a team in my life. At my last school, everyone did surfing, which was one of the stupidest sports in the world besides golf. Freezing water, hungry sharks, and huge waves that dragged you along the rocky ocean floor. How stupid do you have to be?

She stretched her legs over her head. “This year I'm making the team or I'll kill someone, swear it.” She bounced. “There's one spot open, and it's mine. Lillian promised me, so I have nothing to worry about, right?”

“Yeah, right,” I said, but in all truth, she was looking a little creepy.

Trixie got up, pulled open the double doors to her closet, found an entire basket of bathing suits, and tossed them on the bed. “You feel like swimming? The pool's on the roof.”

Pool—did someone say
pool
?

 

When I got home, I was faced with a huge hole that took up the entire yard. Dad was hunched over his plans, all sweaty in his shorts and jean shirt. Not exactly Trixie's house, that's for sure. When he saw me coming down the driveway, he put aside his shovel and gave me this funny look.

I laughed. “What?”

“You know you're acting like you're sixteen these days, with all this independence, walking to and from school and your friends' houses.” He gave me a huge hug. “Your hair's all wet, you smell like suntan oil, you're smiling—where's my kid Charlie?”

“What can I say?” I gave him a kiss and opened the door. I was hit by a wall of odor so delectable, so wonderful, it made me stop cold. I sniffed the warm air like a hound. “Oh Mom, oh Mom. What is this ambrosia?”

“Polenta with Gorgonzola. Happy?”

“Ah, thank God.” Now we were talking.

Mom came over and hugged me. “How was Trixie's house?”

How to put this without going over the top? “
Vogue
magazine worthy. Creamy perfection, only-child attention to neatness, a housekeeper called Esmerelda who served us snacks while we floated on silver and gold rafts in the rooftop pool—”

Pen walked into the kitchen in her pajamas, opened the fridge, poured some juice. “Elitist pigs.”

Mom interrupted. “Penelope—”

“A kid being served while floating in a pool is savage,” Pen said, outraged. “We're raising a bunch of entitled kids who use the Mexicans as labor and then want to kick them out. This country has lost its way.”

I just stared at her. Seriously. Can I please catch a break over here; must she always fight for the little guy? What about me?

 

 

Pen's face got all scrunched up. “And on top of it all, I think Trixie Chalice is using you.”

“Using me?” I laughed. “Did you not hear she has a pool on her roof? A dedicated servant by the name of Esmerelda? What could I possibly have that she doesn't?”

“I've been watching her.” Pen inhaled like she meant business. “She's mean, on the lower yard when you're not around; she's a bully, especially to Marta—” Pen paused.

“Not everyone can be held to your standards of Amnesty International, Pen.” I grabbed a glass of grapefruit juice, my absolute favorite. I downed the glass.

“Marta is the punching bag of the entire school because she's from a poor family; she's not from here—”

Pen was getting all red and foamy like she was gonna stroke out.

“I got it,” I said just to shut her up. Sure, it was all true, and I did feel sorry for Marta. Heck, I practically adopted her and her toilet every day at lunch, but wasn't I allowed to have a little reprieve, a little rooftop fun?
Ever?