Surviving Valencia

“Do you want to come over after school and work on it together?” Marnie asked me. Her voice was like slow honey, and already she was gaining attention from all the boys in school. Were she and I possibly going to become friends?

“Sure,” I said, acting like it was no big deal.

Marnie was the oldest of nine children. I rode the bus with her to her house, a three story Victorian in an old neighborhood, listening to her chatter the whole way there. Everyone on the bus within hearing distance stared at her and eavesdropped. Her accent was so foreign, so mesmerizing to us Midwesterners, that she may as well have been from some other planet.

“My daddy works on computers and my mama stays at home. She’s a great cook and we’re having homemade pizza tonight, you’re going to love it. She makes a few different styles so there’s something for everyone. Watch out for the ones with the whole-wheat crust. Yuck. She likes to get creative and once she even tried putting corn on it. It wasn’t as bad as you’d think, but she didn’t try it again. My sister Karlie is eight years old and you’re going to have to play with her rabbit; it’s just something she makes everyone do when they come to our house for the first time…”

It went on and on. Marnie was perfect. Bright and cheerful, accepting and non-questioning. I had never had an insta-friend before. It seemed too good to be true. By her second week of school, everyone loved her. She nonchalantly scooped up friends like we were discarded seashells, as likely to choose a scummy broken seashell (me) as a rare piece of yellow seaglass. From the first time we rode the bus to her house together, she approached our friendship as if it were a sure thing. She had none of the self-doubt that weighed me down and caused me to assume that of course no one would want me near them.

She openly said hello to me in the hall and sat by me at lunch, oblivious to the rule of ignoring me. Some days she hung with the popular crowd; other days she slid into the seat next to me in study hall as if it were the most natural thing in the world. How could someone be fifteen and just not care about the social structure of high school? Even more befuddling, her behavior seemed to trump all the other rules in place. The popular girls took her back again and again without question, even if she’d just been seen talking to me or some other nerd. Why did they let her do what she wanted to do?

Her family was much the same. One of those made-for-TV clans, a house filled with pets and laughter, the constant smell of food cooking, the sounds of violin lessons and video games. There were so many people coming and going that I could take a second piece of chicken or laugh a little too loud without feeling paranoid.

Marnie’s mother listened to our speech about the Sahara Desert while she cleaned up the kitchen one evening. It was almost ten o’clock. We had been working on the speech for two weeks and had to present it the next day. I was spending the night, which meant I would get to show up at school getting off the same bus as Marnie, and everyone would know what great friends we were.

When we were finished, Mrs. Hopkins rinsed her dishcloth out in the sink and said, “That was great, girls. Two A-pluses for sure. I especially liked the facts about camels.”

“Thanks, Mama,” said Marnie. She got up to help her mother put away a mixing bowl up a high shelf. It would not have occurred to me to help my mother put away a bowl, even if I were taller than her. I wondered if there was anything someone small could do, to be as helpful and considerate as Marnie. I decided if my mother lost something down in the couch, I would reach my skinny arm down there and get it for her.

Mrs. Hopkins then turned her attention on me. It was the first time there’d been much contact between the two of us; normally, there was too much going on in their house for that. “I’m sorry to hear about your sister and brother,” she said. I was caught completely off-guard.

“You have a sister and brother?” asked Marnie. She had never been to my house, but if she had, she would have seen plenty of pictures of Van and Valencia. Still, I had assumed someone from school had probably filled her in about me. At that point we were well into the school year.

“Uh, well, they’re…”

“They passed away in an accident,” Mrs. Hopkins told her daughter. She turned back to me, “I’m sorry if I’m upsetting you. I just mentioned your name at church, said you were Marnie’s best friend, and some of the ladies there told me what happened.”

“Mama!” exclaimed Marnie.

“What?” asked Mrs. Hopkins.

“She’s not my best friend,” whispered Marnie, her face red and angry.

I rode the bus to school with her the next morning, but aside from two more awkward encounters as geograbuddies, we did not talk much after that.

Chapter 46

There are memories that come and go, memories with the hazy doubt of dreams. Once when I was about eight, I went downstairs into the laundry room. I was looking for my mother. Instead, I saw my father standing there by a basket of dirty laundry. He had a blue, wadded ball of fabric pressed to his face. What was he doing? He was inhaling.

“Dad?”

He spun around, letting go of what he was holding. Valencia’s Ms. Pac-man bikini undies fell to the floor.

“Don’t sneak up on people. Go upstairs and do your homework.” He looked at me like I disgusted him.

So I went upstairs and did my homework; I did not argue.

Now when I think of this, I tell myself it cannot fit. Like a spare part left over after some vehicle or appliance is reassembled. Was this valve really part of this? Well, it works better now without it.

Chapter 47

It had been seven days since Jeb and I met in the Golden Dragon parking lot, and I had yet to hear back from him. He had either skipped town with my money or been a victim of some unfortunate circumstances. Figuring out which was high on my mental list of things to do. But not quite as high as readying our home for a baby.

In that time, Adrian and I went from a couple with a messy, crowded storage room to prospective parents standing in a periwinkle nursery. He had let me have my way on everything. It was outfitted with white Pottery Barn furniture and cashmere baby blankets. A copper Friendship mobile from The Abstract Home moved lithely above the crib. The closet had already begun to accumulate an adorable selection of boy clothing and girl clothing. Whichever we did not need could be saved for our next time around, or regifted, or, well, who could think that far ahead?

“I’m off to the post office,” I called to Adrian, grabbing my purse. With the installation of the gate and Frisky, our mailbox was out of commission. That felt lucky to me. Bad things had happened in that mailbox.

I had ordered, rush delivery, several baby items and about twenty maternity outfits. Hopefully something would be waiting there for me. Well, not the maternity clothes; they were from France and would surely take longer. I wondered if other pregnant women knew about French maternity clothes. I hoped not! They were so much better than the stuff we had here. It was like, in France, they realized you could still be a stylish woman even if y