Among Friends Read online

  After school Mother and Aunt Isabelle and I went to Lord & Taylor’s to get a few things for winter. Mother would like to ski in Italy this year. Jared wants me to stay at his family’s condo in Colorado instead. At least whatever clothes I buy will be right for either one. I’m so glad that bright rich colors are in this season; I look my best in strong colors.

  For purposes of organization, each day will be divided into categories.

  1. Car: Another week, I’ll have ten thousand miles on it. Remember to phone for mechanical check. First really cold day this year—heater works well. Funny jokes on morning radio.

  2. School: Physics dull, lunch disgusting, English this assignment, Spanish B plus in quiz, did lay-ups all gym period, I hate basketball.

  3. Girls: Ansley wore her new outfit, which looked exactly the same as what she wore yesterday, but luckily I didn’t say that. Ansley always looks good to me. Jennie, too. Jennie was being crazy in the halls again today—lurching around with her old Awesome Threesome like they were still in the third grade. At first I thought they were showing off for Paul Smith, who annoys me, but Jennie gave me her special grin when they passed me. She’s got a way of making you feel like God when she smiles at you. There are guys in this school who work hard to get one of Jennie’s smiles and she doesn’t even know.

  The girls all know it, though. And boy, do they keep track of who has a crush on Jennie now! If I want Ansley to stay my girlfriend, Rule Number One is—don’t refer to Jennie.

  Jennie has written a musical; they were talking about it in the band room. The drummers were working on a percussion duet she wrote just for them. Think they don’t worship her! Miss Clinton, the band director, has been helping her. Miss Clinton said, “You know, in eleven years of teaching I’ve never had a Jennie. It’s just plain exciting to be around her.”

  My mother thinks that one day we will point across the street and tell people that Jennie Quint grew up there, and they will gasp and say, “You know Jennie Quint?!?”

  Unwise to say this to Ansley.

  Very, very unwise to say this to Emily or Hillary.

  4. Home: Dad’s still in Los Angeles. Mom’s still waiting for the construction crew to begin the addition.

  5. Weather: Autumn turning fast to winter: high winds, trees bare, the yard men took the last of the leaves while I was at school.

  A diary.

  Scary. I don’t want to do it. Once it’s on paper, it’s public. As long as your thoughts are hidden inside, you’re okay. But diaries—Miss MacBeth is going to read them. A lot of assignments I don’t feel like doing, but I’ve never had an assignment before that makes me want to run. The thoughts I’m having now are bad ones. I can’t even think them, let alone write them!… And yet … I have this intense desire to write the best diary of all.

  I like to be good.

  Wrong.

  I like to be terrific.

  Wrong.

  I have to be terrific.

  And that’s wrong. I can feel that I am going to pay. Some awful price is waiting for me, like a monster in the dark.

  Just for the hell of it, I followed Paul R. Smith home today. I used to think it was funny how he won’t tell anybody anything, up to and including his real name, but it’s getting next to me. Especially the way every girl in Westerly High is falling under his spell. Most of the guys don’t tease him—I guess it helps to weigh in at 170 and be built like a wrestler.

  Coach asked Paul why he doesn’t go out for sports, because they could really use him. Paul said he was needed at home. That kind of answer stops a teacher short. Says nothing, closes subject. You’ve got to admire Paul. He’s got this technique down.

  Wendy thinks Paul might have a parent in prison, and doesn’t want to admit it. Keith thinks Paul’s family might be in drugs—either selling or using. Hillary Lang thinks anybody named Paul Smith is definitely a fake, and the mother and father are in the CIA. Or else, in another country’s secret service, here under false passports! Now, I ask you—is this ridiculous or what?

  We were talking about it in the locker room, and Billy Torello says he heard that Paul is just very poor and has all these little brothers and sisters he has to go home to after school and take care of, like Abe Lincoln or something. I didn’t remember Abe Lincoln having a lot of little brothers and sisters, and Billy Torello punched me and said that wasn’t the point. So now I have a cracked rib all because Paul Classified won’t tell anybody why he goes straight home every day.

  One thing. He’s not too poor to have his own car. He doesn’t take the school bus. After all, it would have to stop near his house, and that would give things away. We might—oh, gasp!—find out something about him.

  So I followed him.

  I think I have a lot to learn about the undercover business.

  First, I probably shouldn’t be driving a new red Porsche. Conspicuous, you know?

  Anyway, Paul R. Smith spotted me, waved, parked in a municipal lot and strolled into the department store. The guy’s crafty. Tomorrow in English, I can’t exactly say, “Listen, I was following you, and you outfoxed me; give me another chance today, huh?” Anyway, it’s always possible his mother made him stop to buy towels, right?

  Categories, forgot my categories.

  School: No change.

  Family: No change.

  Car: Too red.

  Weather: Who cares?

  Thank God for school. Seven hours a day of freedom.

  Bet I’m the only kid writing that in my journal.

  She’s worse.

  They fired her.

  I don’t blame them.

  I would never have hired her to start with.

  She’s sort of stuck between the bedroom and the kitchen. She wanders back and forth trying to think of something to do, someplace to be.

  Aaaaah, change the subject. You think about this all day, don’t put it in the diary, too.

  I have physics and English with The Awesome Threesome, but only Jennie is in German with me. I signed up for German figuring the only questions would be grammar and vocabulary. Wrong. I didn’t know there would be a Jennie in the class. A Jennie who can ask me about my past and my present just as easily in one language as another.

  Today in German I tease Jennie. “You really think you can learn something without Hill and Em?”

  That trio has been together since all three of them went to the finest nursery school. Learned to ski and play soccer, learned piano and jazz dancing, learned pottery and diving and Chinese cookery.

  Jennie’s always ready for a chance to flirt. “Guess you’ll just have to help me,” she says, and all of her is teasing me: her eyes, her smile, her shoulders twisted toward me. “Every night, Paul Classified. Without fail. My place or yours?” Jennie laughs. She has this terrific laugh, very airy, using up so much breath that afterwards she gasps to fill her lungs again. I always have this crazy desire to hold her up when she laughs so her lungs won’t collapse.

  I never do.

  One thing might lead to another.

  For sure, we can’t study at my place.

  “Come on,” I tell her, looking at her earrings instead of her eyes: she’s wearing tiny delicate gold hearts. “You learn by osmosis. You just look at the page and it’s part of you.”

  Jennie is incredibly smart. I don’t mean your ordinary high marks, good tests kind of smart. I mean genius smart.

  People like to be near her brilliance. As if the glitter of her star might shower on them.

  Emily and Hillary are just there for the ride. They don’t know that. I’m not sure Jennie knows that. One day they’ll wake up and find that the Awesome Threesome has only one awesome member, and what happens then?

  The Awesome Threesome is a little civilization all its own. There are girls who would sell their souls to be part of The Awesome Threesome. But there aren’t any vacancies. Jennie told me that in seventh grade she and Hill and Em used to be really cruel to girls who tagged after them. “We were crude, too,�
�� she said. “It makes me quiver to think of us now. You know what we used to say to those girls?”

  “No. What?”

  “Here comes toilet paper, wiping up the rear.”

  It was so mean you had to laugh. “At least you know you’ve outgrown being mean, Jennie,” I said.

  In a queer frightened voice, Jennie said, “I don’t know that.” She looked at me so intensely, with those brown eyes that focus so much harder than other people’s, and see so much more. “Paul?” she whispered. “Are you ever afraid of what you are?” As if she could see into a future she didn’t want.

  “Not to worry,” I said, which was a joke. Worry is my profession.

  Another time, she showed me a notebook full of ideas for a musical she wants to write: book, lyrics, music, costumes—the whole works. I felt as if I were reading an English lit. assignment, it was so professional. “Jennie, you’re going places, aren’t you?” I said, leafing through the notebook.

  “Yes, I’m going places.” Jennie fastened her eyes on me till I looked back, hypnotized. Softly, analyzing me, waiting for answers, she breathed. “But you’ve already been places, haven’t you, Paul Classified?”

  I’m on an iceberg, where the edge breaks off and falls into the sea. The ice will crash and float away—but I, I will drown.

  If I had just one problem, I could face it. But there are so many, and they hurt so much that I have to turn my back on them.

  So I abandon Jennie. I don’t even answer her. Rude—and yet I can get away with it, because they all call it “mysterious” instead.

  So I go home and pick up the pieces nobody else wants and apply a little more glue that never holds.

  Today I know I am a very fortunate person. I have all that I want. I am rich and thin and beautiful and I have Jared. I am also the only happy person in this auditorium.

  I’m taking a risk, writing my journal in the dark during the dress rehearsal, but there’s so much happening and I want to get it all down. The auditorium is not yet dark. A dozen teachers, half as many parents, perhaps twenty kids are sprinkled among the five hundred seats. Jennie stands in front of the pit orchestra tapping the baton against the palm of her hand. If she is nervous, you can’t tell. Jennie has incredible poise.

  A head peers between the curtains. “Another five, Jennie,” calls the stage manager. “We have two more kings to dress.”

  Jennie nods. She turns slowly, like a model on a runway showing off to the audience, sets her baton on the rim of her music stand and walks around the rows of seats toward Emily and Hillary. Everybody is watching. Jared and I are sitting in the row behind Em and Hill, and Paul Classified is about five seats to Jared’s right. Emily and Hill are doing their algebra. They know perfectly well Jennie is about to join them, but they don’t look up.

  “I always wonder what sex they are, don’t you?” says Hillary.

  “What sex they are?” Emily is laughing. She and Hill have dressed alike: deep blue turtlenecks under huge white sweaters, tons of jewelry, immense earrings. Hill’s red hair gleams and she looks excellent, but it’s too much for Em, you can hardly even see her. I’d love to take Emily shopping. Here, Emily, I’d say sternly, stop wearing yellow, stop wearing blue, throw that jewelry away and cut your hair. You have potential, but who ever wanted potential? A person should look good right now.

  Anyway, Hill and Em are leaning so close their noses are almost touching, doing their math on the same clipboard with the same calculator. If Jennie wants to sit down, she’ll have to ask permission.

  The Awesome Threesome. The only known trio in high school history. Rapidly becoming a duet.

  “Yeah, you know. Just why are A and B driving separately to Chicago?” says Hillary, waving her algebra problems in the air. She and Emily click pencils like swords. They don’t move an inch apart to let Jennie in. “If they’re both boys,” Hillary goes on, “then maybe it’s a car race and they’ve got a bet on who finishes first. But if they’re both girls, the whole thing is impossible. Girls would drive together, talking the whole way. It wouldn’t matter whether A or B got there first because girls wouldn’t care.”

  Jennie, the outsider. Boy, that must be a new experience for her. I mutter this to Jared and he mutters back, “Don’t gloat.” Jared and I kiss in the dark. Jared is wearing a jacket and tie and looks like a future Wall Street wizard. I don’t tell him I love him, I’ve been saying that too much lately and it’s his turn. But I decide that for our Janiversary I’ll get him a shirt that uses cufflinks instead of winter camping junk. If you’re preppy, you should go all the way and really prep their socks off, right?

  “But if A is a boy,” Hillary says darkly, “and B is a girl, then I want to know what went wrong between them.”

  Emily is giggling. I’ve always liked Emily’s giggle. It’s one of her redeeming features. “It’s probably A’s fault,” said Emily. “He was rotten and rude and she won’t associate with him any more.”

  “Then I demand to know why they are headed for Chicago,” says Hillary. “I see no reason to continue with this algebra assignment until I have all the facts.”

  It’s funny; we’re all laughing. But it’s horrible, too, because it’s a little skit they’ve made up in order to keep Jennie out. For the first time in our lives I see Jennie scared. Jennie Quint, afraid? And of her two best friends? Nice way to launch a Christmas pageant.

  “So, Jennie, what is the answer to this algebra problem?” says Emily. Math is Jennie’s only weakness. Now, when Jennie is shining like a star in the east, her best friends are going to throw her only failure at her.

  Jared gets involved. “Now, now, girls. Forty-five minutes since school ended, five minutes before her own dress rehearsal, and you think Jennie’s had time to do her algebra?”

  See why I like Jared? He’s not strong on emotion, but he can be a nice guy if he wants. (Yeah, and who’s he being nice to? Jennie Quint, of course. Would he step in for anybody else?)

  Paul Classified says softly, “Break a leg, Jennie.”

  We’re all startled. Paul Classified doesn’t usually talk unless pressure is applied. But of course, we’re talking Jennie here. A person forgets that Jennie Quint is the exception to every rule.

  Jennie tells Miss Clinton she wants to sit in the audience and watch this time instead of directing herself. So it’s Miss Clinton who lifts the baton, and nobody thinks anything of it—except us; we know Jennie is trying to make friends with her friends. Some task.

  Slowly, oh so slowly, the first king leads the procession, his gift held high in front of him. His robe of midnight velvet is flecked with silver, and the second king wears crimson satin and glittering brocade.

  “Jennie!” I gasp. “Those kings are stupendous! Where on earth did you rent those costumes?”

  “I didn’t.” Jennie is bursting with pride. “I designed them this summer and I just finished sewing them last week.” I am mega-impressed. New York, get ready. Jennie Quint is coming to fashion.

  “In your spare time, I suppose?” Emily says resentfully.

  “We don’t even need a star in the sky for this pageant,” mutters Hill.

  “You’re right,” says Emily. “We could just hang Jennie here in the east and let her blaze.”

  Jared is laughing. “We get two plays for the price of one,” he whispers in my ear. I’m sort of enjoying it too, but I’m feeling sorry for Jennie. I mean, a person usually has a team she can count on to root for her. Jennie’s team just walked.

  “Uh. Wait just a minute here,” says Emily. “Jennie, a fourth king just came on stage.”

  Jennie nods.

  “And a fifth king!” cries Hill. “Jennie! Don’t you know that—”

  “No,” says Jennie. “I looked it up. Matthew doesn’t tell how many wise men there were. He just says there were three gifts. I guess people have always decided there was one king per gift.” A person should never argue with Jennie Quint. Jennie always has more facts than the rest of us.

&n
bsp; “So how many kings do you have?” says Hill.

  “Seven.”

  Emily and Hillary roll their eyes at each other. “Trust Jennie to do something to excess,” says Hill.

  “Honestly, those costumes,” mutters Emily. “I’d have to take ten years of sewing classes, rip out each seam twice and still my costumes would look like old sheets. Why seven?”

  “I had so much fabric. Plus this way there’s such a great selection of kings. We’ve got our black king, our Laotian King, our Swedish king, our—”

  “Three of your kings are queens,” observes Paul Classified, his voice soft in the darkness.

  And all seven, like Jennie, are breathtaking.

  The orchestra plays a march cold and frightening, full of power and splendor.

  I tremble, forgetting the so-called Awesome Threesome.

  The kings draw near the stable and now the music becomes fragile. We will break just listening. Jennie, drawn by her own music, takes the baton after all. The music slides into a lullaby that moves us all to tears.

  Jennie, Jennie, how do you do it?

  Christmas means presents.

  Listing, buying, wrapping, giving.

  My mother is not going to make it.

  Scarlet stockings and a tree, twinkling lights and letters to Santa? History. This year I’ll get her a box of Kleenex and we’ll listen to carols on the radio.

  I wonder if I’ll hear from Dad.

  Does he think about us?

  And Candy, does she think at all, let alone about us? Does she know that Mom hurts so much it’s going to kill her?

  I am sitting in this auditorium for the peace of it, the quiet, hoping the pageant will make me feel better. And it does. I don’t know if it’s the idea of Christmas, or the sound of Jennie’s music, or just not going straight home. But I could sit here for hours in the dark, not thinking.

  Jennie is like a candle; she lights a room all by herself. Listen to Jennie’s music. Stare at Jennie’s costumes.