When You Reach Me

Tied-Up Things

“You two have certainly gotten close,” Mom said the following weekend while she helped me tug the roll-away cot from the overstuffed hall closet. “That’s nice, right?”

Annemarie was sleeping over for the first time.

“Don’t you ever vacuum?” I said. “There’s dust bunnies behind all the doors.”

“Give me a break, Mira,” she said sharply.

“I mean it—I saw a roach in the bathroom this morning. This place looks gross.”

Mom glared at me. A whole angry conversation seemed to pass over her face. Then she said, “You know what? Do this yourself,” and walked away.

I pulled the cot into my room and lined it up next to my bed the way Sal and I always had. Then I wondered whether that was the way other girls did it. Was the cot supposed to be against the far wall? Should I make an L-shape with my bed, so that just our heads were together? I decided on the L-shape, stood back, adjusted the angle, and then went to get the sheets out of the bathroom closet.

* * *

Starting when we were really little, Sal and I used to beg to have sleepovers on the weekends, and lots of nights I fell asleep happy with Sal next to me on the roll-away.

But he was never there in the morning. I would wake up and see the empty cot with its tumbled-up striped sheets, and Mom would tell me what had happened—he’d woken up with a stomachache, or a headache, or a bad dream, and wanted to go home.

She’d hand me a tissue and say, “I don’t know why we keep doing this. Sal cries in the middle of the night and then you cry in the morning.”

A couple of weeks later, we would try again. And I always believed that this would be the time Sal would still be there in the morning. Eventually we stopped trying, and then those striped blue sheets made me sad to look at.

But they were the only ones we had that fit the cot. I tucked them in and went to Mom’s room to take one of her pillows. She was still being angry in the living room. I fluffed the pillow, placed it carefully on the cot, and stood back. It looked okay.

I was still standing there when the buzzer rang, and I got this clear mental picture of Annemarie and her dad in our lobby with the cigarette smell and the ugly ceiling light full of dead bugs. It was like a vision, almost.

I went to the intercom and pushed the Talk button.

“Who is it?”

Her dad’s voice: “It’s Annemarie and her unshaven father!”

I buzzed long and hard in a way that was supposed to say “you are extra welcome to be here.” Also, the lobby door is so heavy I wanted to give them time to get it open.

Mom came and stood next to me by the front door, saying nothing and running her fingers through her hair. She was wearing jeans and had changed her T-shirt for a black turtleneck sweater.

It was at that moment, standing next to her, that I figured out the truth. The truth was that Mom saw it too: the peeling paint, the cigarette butts on the stairs, everything. It soaked into me like water into sand, fast and heavy-making.

But I still couldn’t apologize for what I’d said. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even smile at her.

“Welcome!” Mom sang to Annemarie’s dad. “I’m so glad Annemarie can spend the night with us.”

Annemarie’s dad had a cardboard box full of stuff, little containers and plastic bags, which he offered to Mom. “I’m sure Miranda’s mentioned that Annemarie eats a special diet,” he started.

“Oh!” Mom looked at me. “Actually …”

“Never fear!” He pushed the box at her again. “I’ve brought all sorts of appropriate goodies. Feel free to sample them yourself. They’re not bad, if I do say so myself!”

Mom smiled and took the box. “That’s wonderful. Thanks. Had I known …”

“Never fear!” Annemarie’s dad said again. I saw that the things inside were tied up with purple and green curly ribbon, like Christmas presents.

Annemarie and I played some records in my room, and Mom brought in a special platter with Annemarie’s snacks on it, and a bowl of chips for me, and then we watched TV in the living room for a while before bed. We were watching Love Boat when we heard something hit the kitchen floor, followed by a bunch of cursing from Mom.

A minute later she popped her head in and looked at Annemarie. “Sorry. You didn’t hear that, okay? I dropped some frozen grape juice on my foot.”

Annemarie smiled a wide smile. “No problem.”

“Your mom is so cool,” she said later, when we were in our beds and her face was resting on Moms pillow. “I like her a lot. She’s like a real person, you know? And she treats you like a real person too. My dad still acts like I’m a baby.”

“I guess.”

But who wants to be treated like a real person? I thought. I wanted to be treated like Annemarie and have all my snacks tied up with ribbon.

When I opened my eyes in the morning, Annemarie was still there. I felt this big rush of relief, like I’d been worrying all night that she would disappear. Maybe I had been, without realizing it.

“Thank God you’re awake!” she said, her head propped up on one arm. “I’ve been poking you for twenty minutes. You sleep like the dead.”

“What time is it?” I asked, throwing off my blanket.

“Time to eat,” she said. “I’m starved.”

“Can you eat cereal?” I asked. “All I know how to make is cereal and toast.”

“Nope,” she said. “Can’t eat either one. Got any eggs?”

We went to the kitchen to check.

“Good morning!” Mom was standing in front of the stove, making bacon. “Annemarie, I called your dad last night, and he told me that you have a thing for bacon omelets.”

“Yum!” Annemarie said. “That smells great. No wonder I’m so hungry.”

I was staring. Mom had serious bed head and her eyes were puffy with sleep. But she was up at seven-thirty in the morning, making us bacon omelets. I wanted to hug her. But didn’t.