The Princess of Baker Street, page 12
“Well, he isn’t he anymore.” I think, Not that he ever was, but I’m pretty sure it’s okay to keep this detail to myself. “He’s a she, and her name is Shaylee. I saw her today in science.”
Mom nods, and I know she’s putting it all together, so I give her a minute.
“Didn’t Joey… um, didn’t he try to take his own life at about the same time you… well, you know, when you were removed from here?” The guarded tone in her voice tells me she still feels bad about losing me. Mom’s apologized over and over for how she acted, but still, her feeling bad about it kind of makes me feel good.
“Yeah. She’s Shaylee now.” It’s weird how easily Joey has become Shaylee to me. Maybe she was always Shaylee to me.
“You told Dr. Rigby and me that when you beat up Travis Jenkins, you were upset at him for how cruel he’d been to Joey, right?”
“Uh-huh. That’s exactly right.” Looks like I’m coming clean.
“You must have been pretty good friends with Joey to get that angry.”
I shrug. I was actually a pretty lousy friend to Joey.
“Did you do what we talked about—did you say sorry to Travis at school today?”
“Yup. And he took it pretty well.”
“Good. I’m proud of you for doing that. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.” Mom pats her mouth with one of our new red-and-white checkered cloth napkins from a yard sale we went to together on Labor Day weekend. The napkins are faded from being washed a thousand times before we got them, but you still get the “we’re on a family picnic” vibe when you wipe your mouth.
On Thanksgiving Day last year, we used cloth napkins at Joey’s house, back when Shaylee was Joey. Now we use cloth napkins at our house every night. It makes dinner feel special, even if it makes more laundry for Mom.
“I guess you have to figure out how to deal with your feelings for Shaylee.” She sends me one of those motherly glances that reminds me of Emily, and I don’t look away.
If I were the old Eric from last year, I’m pretty sure I’d mumble a swear word under my breath. And I’d pray she’d mind her own damn business. But I’m in high school now, and I’ve grown up a lot since I was in middle school. I know Mom is just trying to help. “I guess I have some stuff to think about.”
“We all do, Eric. Every day I have to live with my regrets about how I let things slip away with you. And no matter how much I want to, I can’t change the past. All I can do is try to come up with ways I can do things better now and in the future.” She stands up and takes our plates to the sink, but I don’t miss how she blinks away the wetness in her eyes. And I reach back and pinch my butt just to check that this is all real. “Now both of us had better get going on our homework if you want to graduate from high school and I want to earn my GED.”
I like it when we do our homework together. Mom makes a decent study buddy too.
23
I’M GETTING into the swing of things at school. There are two guys from Industrial Arts class, Chad and Dewey, I’m starting to hang out with. I remember them from elementary school—we laugh a lot because Chad was in the orange group with me until he got moved into red, and Dewey was in the cursed purple group. Sometimes we say that the three of us cover the rainbow of brain power, but what’s interesting is we all turned out to be pretty decent students.
Chad and Dewy are both thinking of attending the Beverly Technical High School instead of continuing on at Wild Acres High School, and I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Everybody in the freshman class who’s interested in the tech is going on a tour at the end of next week, and I’m already excited because Chad said they have a program called Biomedical Technology that sounds sort of science-y and interesting.
Speaking of science, it’s my hardest class, which makes complete sense. I’m doing okay, not great, but Mom always tells me how proud she is I challenged myself by trying it. Last night, though, I had some major trouble getting my homework done.
In class today, when we switched papers at our lab table and corrected each other’s homework, I was kind of humiliated because Shaylee got my paper. The truth is I had no clue how to answer two-thirds of the questions. So she got a close-up look at my biggest weakness—book smarts.
At the end of class, Shaylee comes over and stands next to my chair while I pack up my stuff. It’s like she’s waiting for something. I feel sort of overwhelmed by her presence behind me—a little bit because she had to mark almost all of my homework answers wrong and she probably thinks I’m stupid, but mainly because of my lingering guilt over how I treated her last year. I know how she had to live as the gender she was given at birth and as a person who wanted to leave the world forever. I also know our history as each other’s first kiss. And I can’t forget I was about the worst friend she could have ever asked for when she needed one the most. I know I let her down in so many ways. All of this knowing makes me feel awkward.
And then there’s the fact that now I don’t think she’s just plain pretty—I think she’s the coolest girl in the whole entire school. This complicates things.
“Hi, Eric.” She smiles, and I melt a little.
“Hey, Shaylee.”
“I hated marking your answers wrong on your homework today.”
“Not your fault. I messed up on it big-time.” I knock on the side of my head as if it’s made of wood.
“Well, if you think back to the beginning of last year, we worked together well as World Geography study buddies, so if you ever want to meet at the Downtown Diner and study together some time, here’s my cell phone number.” She presses a small piece of paper in my hand. And the strange thing about it is I don’t look around to see who caught me taking Shaylee’s phone number. I’m just so glad she doesn’t hate me, because I hate myself a little bit for how I treated her since the summer before seventh grade.
“Thanks to you I survived World Geography with Ms. Paloma, but I’m not sure how much I helped you. So… how about we meet up tonight?” The question pops out of my mouth before I have a chance to choke. “If you can meet me there, we can have dinner, and since my mom works at the Downtown Diner, she can drive us both home at the end of her shift.”
Shaylee looks down at the floor like she’s shy, but I don’t think she really is. It’s adorable how she does it, though, and it brings up prickles on my arms. She says, “Let’s meet at six fifteen. Ballet at Miss Jeannie’s School of Dance is over at six, and I can walk to the diner after.”
This year I’m not playing soccer so I can focus on getting good grades. I can make it to the diner by six fifteen too. I only nod, though, because I’m suddenly tongue-tied.
“See you tonight, Eric.” She walks past, and I watch her with a grin.
When she glances back, I wave.
I USED to care about what everybody thought—it was actually all I cared about in eighth grade, other than staying alive. And I used to blame this on how I was trying to keep a low profile so nobody found out I was living alone and reported me to the cops. But the truth is: I was afraid of being a social outcast. I was afraid of having nobody in my life I could turn to for a smile. I was scared that in every direction I looked, somebody would scowl and turn away, or laugh at me and flip me the bird, or even slug me. Or maybe just stare at me.
So there it is—I was scared.
Then I lost everything I thought mattered.
Living at home: gone in a puff of smoke.
Flying under the radar at school: buh-bye.
Not getting gawked at like I was swimming naked in a giant fishbowl: all over with.
Having a secret friendship with Joey while hiding it from the world: gone, gone, gone.
But I lost more than these things. By turning my back on somebody I really cared about so I could be safe, I lost my friendship with myself. And maybe friendship with yourself is really called self-respect.
I’d kind of like to get my self-respect back.
Mom keeps looking at me—smiling and winking as she waits on customers—all because she knows I’m meeting up with a girl tonight. I fight not to roll my eyes, but it’s an epic fail. My eyeballs disappear into the upper recesses of my eye sockets at least ten times as I sit here in the back-corner booth, waiting for Shaylee to show up. But I guess I’ll live with Mom’s sappy grinning because it’s so much better than her not caring.
Thankfully Shaylee comes into the diner before Mom has a chance to wink at me again. Tonight she’s dressed for dance class—a light-blue leotard pokes out from under a white Miss Jeannie’s School of Dance sweatshirt, and black yoga pants. Her hair is pulled up into a neat bun on the top of her head, and it makes her neck look like a swan’s. When she sits down across from me, I start thinking about a certain swan from grade school.
I don’t even say hello. “Remember when we were little kids and pretended at recess that you were the Swan Princess?” It’s a stupid thing to say, and my cheeks burn.
Shaylee’s face turns pink too before she says, “I remember. I was the Swan Princess because a teacher told me I had to be a bird, not a fairy princess.”
I nod. “That was a pretty stupid thing for her to say, but you managed to sidestep her rule.”
First she smiles, and then she giggles. I actually stop and think that the sight of Shaylee blushing and giggling is cuter than a kitten peeking out of a brown paper bag, which suggests I have it bad for Shaylee Kinkaid. “Mrs. Robinson was probably trying to help me out, but it wasn’t the right way.”
“Mrs. Robinson should have left the kids to be kids and play our games how we wanted. I’m still sort of mad about it,” I confess. “She made me feel like what we wanted to do was wrong.”
“Do you think it was wrong?” Shaylee’s looking at me like I know the cure for the common cold, and I want so bad to give her the right answer, but I decide to give her the truth.
I shake my head. “It wasn’t wrong at all. And stuff like that must’ve been hard for you to deal with… you know, with an adult telling you that you couldn’t play at being a princess—that you couldn’t be who you are.” We’re supposed to be here to get a bite to eat and talk about science, but we’ve jumped into talking about the real stuff. Not that science isn’t real.
“It’s still hard for me, Eric.” This is the first time since she sat down across from me that Shaylee’s gaze slips away from mine. She stares at the basket of rolls Mom brought me when I got here.
I guess there’s no better time than right now to admit something that’s been weighing on my mind, especially since procrastinating might let me wiggle off the hook. “I used to think you set yourself up for the bad stuff that happened to you at school by choosing to dress like a girl, and so you deserved what you got. I get it now that you were doing what you had to do.”
Shaylee stops studying the breadbasket and looks at me again. In her eyes I think I see relief. She knows I understand, or at least, I understand it as well as a person who isn’t walking in her shoes can.
There’s a lot more to say on the topic, but Mom comes to the table. “Mom, this is my friend, Shaylee. She’s helping me study science.”
“Hi, Shaylee. Thanks for helping Eric out. Dinner’s on me tonight, okay? So I expect both of you to eat as much as you can fit in your bellies.” Mom smiles warmly, and I’m proud that she’s my mother.
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Sinclair.”
“Call me Mandy, okay?” Mom’s smile is as pretty as Shaylee’s, just in a different way. “What can I get you kids for supper?”
WE EAT as much as we did last year on Thanksgiving Day, but tonight I can’t exactly unbutton my jeans to let my belly hang out because we’re in public. Plus I think it might be embarrassing to do in front of Shaylee now. When we’re finished, we pull our science textbooks out of our backpacks and go over chapter one. She’s as good at explaining things now as she was when we were World Geography study buddies.
“Time for a study break?” she asks after we review the textbook for about an hour.
“Definitely. Let’s go for a walk.” I slide across the maroon pleather seat and out of the booth. “We can leave our stuff here. Mom will watch it.”
When we’re standing beside the booth, she asks, “Are you sure you want to leave the restaurant with me? We’ll be out in public—someone might see us together.” Her voice sounds sort of angry, and she narrows her eyes when she looks at me. Maybe she’s just letting me know she’s not going to be hidden again.
“I’m sure.” I’m a little mad too, even though I haven’t got a right. On second thought I’m pretty sure I’m feeling guilty, not mad. And guilt sucks.
Without another word, we head out of the restaurant. As I pass Mom, I say, “Study break,” because she keeps track of where I go now.
It’s a warm September night. There are lots of people on the street walking and driving past us, but I couldn’t care less about who’s looking.
“Why did you pick the name Shaylee?” I ask once we’re at the far end of the parking lot. She might tell me it’s none of my business, but still I ask because I’m curious.
I wait for her answer as we head for the main road. When we’re walking along the sidewalk that leads to a small park, she finally answers. “It has meaning to me.”
I want to grab her shoulders and shake the rest of the answer out of her, but I know if she wants to tell me what the meaning is, she will. So I don’t ask her again.
After a minute of thinking, she explains. “The name Shaylee…. Shaylee means fairy princess—it’s an Irish name. It took me a long time to decide on it.”
Her answer is kind of perfect. “Are you thumbing your nose at Mrs. Robinson by picking that name?” I think of Mrs. Robinson again. A wave of anger that a grown woman told a small child she couldn’t pretend to be a princess at recess rolls over me. I want to shout curses into the night at our second-grade-recess monitor, but I don’t swear too much anymore.
“No. I’m just being me.” She tilts her head and adds, “But maybe I’m putting it in everybody’s face a little bit.”
“My face included?”
Shaylee shrugs. “Maybe. I can be who I am now, you know.”
“Why did you do it?” Another impulsive question pops out of my mouth. The O-shape her mouth makes tells me she knows exactly what I’m asking—Why did you try to kill yourself last year? Again she could easily tell me the answer is none of my business.
“Not tonight. I don’t want to talk about it tonight.” She’s not afraid to look at me when she says no.
I’m glad she can be up front with me, so I say, “I get that.”
“What about you?”
I expected her to ask about what happened to me. “You mean where was I for the rest of eighth grade?”
“Yeah. I spent some time out of eighth grade too. I was in the hospital for a while after… what happened in December and….” Shaylee seems to change her mind about explaining the details. “But you never came back.” She stops walking so she can watch me as I give her my answer. It’s almost like she’s giving me some kind of a test. This time I’m going to pass it.
“You told me some personal stuff last year… about how you were really a girl. You trusted me, Shaylee, and so….” I sigh and then do the opening-up thing that’s so hard but so important too. “After everything happened, I went to the hospital for a few days. I had some health problems from not eating right and having too much stress. You know, belly problems.”
Shaylee heads off the path and into the park. I follow her as she makes her way to the swing set, draws back a swing, and leans on it. She’s still watching me. “And then?”
“Then my social worker put me into a foster home because, you know, Mom had moved in with her boyfriend, and I was living on my own.”
“I remember that.”
“And I lived in a foster home in Plainsfield until I finished middle school and for part of the summer.” I sit down on the swing beside hers.
“Was it horrible there?” It feels good to see her forehead wrinkle up with worry over me. “I’ve heard a lot of scary stories about foster care.”
“No, not at all.” I think about Mrs. Marzetti. She’s like an energetic version of Grandma who doesn’t live in an old folks’ home, but in an old house on a cul-de-sac with plenty of bedrooms. “I didn’t mind living at Mrs. Marzetti’s house. The food she cooked was super good. There were a couple other kids, though, and sometimes I wanted privacy. It was hard to find a place to be alone because I shared my bedroom with another boy.”
“Why did you decide to come back to Wild Acres?”
It’s like she’s ripping layers off an onion with all of her questions, and soon she’ll reach the soft moist skinless center where the heart is—where my heart is. But I still answer. “Mom worked hard to fix her life so she could get me back. And she’s my mom, you know. I wanted to live with her again.”
Shaylee blinks once—just once, like she swallowed everything I said in one big blinking gulp. And then she nods. “Let’s swing.”
I guess the inquisition is over. I hope I answered the right way, but I answered truthfully, so I guess that’s going to have to be good enough.
We spend the next half hour swinging like two kids playing in a park.
24
I’M DOING something tonight most kids my age have done a thousand times before, but I’m doing for the first time since I was a little kid on Baker Street. I’m hanging out with all my friends.
“All my friends….” I say it out loud without even realizing, and Mom turns the radio down in her car.
“What about all your friends, Eric?”
“Uh….” I fight the urge to turn away from her and look out the passenger window and pout, but it’s hard. “I was just saying, I have a whole group of friends now.” I steal a peek at her, and she’s smiling.
“I’m so happy that Emily called and set up this roller-skating date.”
