Halloween was coming. There was not a holiday I hated more, other than perhaps Valentine’s Day. Costumes. Pretending. Covering up the covering up. Thank God for Petiquette.
Another night at Petiquette. And: another funny thing about Stella B? She drove a white Ford Fiesta.
“Don’t.” She shook her head when I watched her park. She rolled down her window. “It’s my mother’s car. It’s totally my mother’s.”
Greta and my mother were already inside, but I waited for her. I laughed. I mean I covered my mouth and full-on laughed.
“I added the accessories,” she said. A hula girl hung from the rearview. And one of those bobbing dogs was on the dusty dash.
“But anyway? This is kinda who I am too.” She sort of cackled as she poked the hula girl’s skirt, making her dance, and then unlocked the door to get out.
“I get it,” I said as we all four went inside, entering the hallway of paper pumpkins and chunks of white cotton that were somehow supposed to represent spiderwebs. Who decided that? Because they don’t look like spiderwebs at all. “I totally do,” I said, and it was true, I really got Stella B. She was just so clear to me.
Greta’s novice class always went at least ten minutes long, and it’s amazing how much of getting to know a person you can pack into those ten minutes when you’re not in school or near school or with people from school. It’s like being on a plane with someone. Or a hospital. Alt universe, enclosed space, anything goes.
We waited on the bench outside and we both kicked at the pavement. Stella was going through a breakup with this guy she’d been with since her freshman year. “Forever,” she said. “Before I was even a person. I was an unhatched egg. A little downy chick.”
I couldn’t picture it. Stella all sweet and yellow and soft and breakable. “Why’d you guys break up?” I asked. “I mean, in three sentences or less?”
“He’s in college.”
My heart skipped at the thought. So old and far away. And so close. Stella was just so much older than I was in experience years, though I supposed I’d gained some time in sickness years. Though I do think I got some time in there with the sickness. Serious sick years.
“And just away,” she said. “He’s away now. That’s all.”
I nodded.
“And he started dating someone at school.”
“What an asshole,” I said.
“Yes and no. I mean, I’m a little relieved. It’s been a long thing. Complicated, I mean. What isn’t, right?” She laughed, but it was a dry, brittle laugh, branches cracking.
“I see,” I said. “Where is he?”
“UPenn.”
“Name?” I said.
“Jared.”
College. It really wasn’t like where Connor was. It seemed like such a faraway magical place. Oz-like.
I told her about Connor then. About the hospital and about how far away he was. In all ways. What I left out was the Thing. I left out the part about the Thing.
“I’m going to go see him,” I said. “This weekend. My parents are taking my sister to look at her last few schools. I’m supposed to stay at a friend’s, but maybe I won’t.”
“That sounds like a shaky plan. I’ve got some experience here, and that is a weak plan.”
“I know. I haven’t thought it through exactly,” I said. And I hadn’t. I just knew I wanted it to take place.
“Shaky.”
I wanted to talk more to her. “Hey, should we go out for, like, hot cider or something?” I asked.
“I guess,” she said. “Why not?”
“Well, this is a little embarrassing, but I’d actually need you to take me back. I live just over the bridge. Is that a total pain?”
She squinted at me, her head tilted. “It’s okay.” She rolled her eyes. “The one thing about the mother’s Ford Fiesta is it loves to be driven. And me? I love to drive it. It’s such a bizarre thing. I just fucking love to drive. So now I have somewhere to drive to tonight.”
That’s when my mom came trotting out with Greta. “She’s doing great!” she said.
“We’re going to go get tea, Mom, okay?” I pointed at Stella and then back to myself.
“You said hot cider,” Stella said, pretending this was a deal breaker.
“Cider. Hot cider, Mom.”
My mother was not laughing at our joke. And I could see her gears turning. She was thinking: Hmm. Where will they go? Will it be tea or will it be cider? Why have I come all this way only to return home alone? And then, I saw her settle on something. Post-hospital rules, I was sure.
She shrugged. “Sure,” she squeaked out.
“Great,” said Stella.
“Greta, sit!” my mother said.
But there was no sitting. Just a lot of tail wagging.
“Sit!” She pointed her finger at Greta.
Stella B laughed. “I can tell it’s really working, Daphne!” She stood up and eased Greta’s leash out of my mother’s hand. Her rusted bike chain bracelets clinked together. She had the teeniest stick ’n’ poke at the tender place between her thumb and her index finger: a crescent moon. Without touching Greta, she lowered her hand a bit to indicate a sitting position. And Greta sat and stared at Stella, stars in her pearly eyes.
“Dog whisperer,” my mother breathed, clasping her hands together.
“It’s about authority,” Stella said, and we all nodded our heads. “Confidence.”
Stella had this power. It was a different power than Nora had. Far as I could tell, it was being used for good.
“It really is,” my mom said, taking back the lead. Instantly Greta jumped up and strained to free herself.
My mom was untangling herself and Greta. I looked over at Stella. She was a mess. I mean a cool mess, but still a mess, all smudged and smeared and cut and pasted. And yet I don’t think I knew a being more together than Stella. Who was more together than Stella B?
Maybe Mabel, but anyway, we were all together now.
Well, we were . . . existentially together, because my mom took the dogs, and I went with Stella and Samantha. “There’s a Starbucks near my house,” I said. “I mean, since you’re going to drop me there anyway.”
“I don’t do Starbucks,” she said, opening the car so Samantha could jump in back. We both got in front, and Stella started the car and then scanned her music with purpose.
“I’m queen of the world, I bump into things, I spin around in circles, and I’m singing, and I’m singing, I’m singing.”
“Okay,” I said.
“This good?” Stella eased out of the lot, and as she waited to get onto the road, she hit the gear shift with her ringed fingers. The Ford Fiesta was a stick shift. Lame car and so not a lame car at the exact same time.
“The music?”
“You don’t know Ida Maria?”
“Nope.” When would I actually know the right song and the right band and the right, right, right way?
“She’s good.”
“I like,” I said. I did. Queen of the world was a good strong person to be.
“In a punky, poppy way. More pop than punk, right?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Anyway, Starbucks, it’s just gross, you know? There are a million. Let’s go somewhere where there is only one or two of them in the world.”
“Let me restate,” I said. “There’s this café not so far from my house. Since you have to take me back anyway.”
“That sounds great!” Stella said. “Where?”
“I’m looking,” I said. I took out my phone. “Because actually I usually just go to Starbucks.”
“Ha,” said Stella.
“Ha-ha,” I said as I directed her to Greenleaf. “There are three of these in the world. Will that still work for you?”
“Three? Hmm.” Samantha thrust her head between the front seats, panting. “Yes. Three is the cutoff,” she said. “Three.”
Samantha stayed in the car, which Stella had parked just outside the café. We took a seat by the plate glass window, and it was almost like we were all there together. Almost but not really.
“They have great hot chocolate here,” I said. “You want one?” I stood up and patted my jacket pockets, looking for the little pouch I put money and dog treats in.
“Really? Sure. I thought you’d never been here.”
“That’s what the phone told me,” I said, making my way to order, orange streamers and witches’ masks and cutouts of beheaded heads dangling from the counter.
After refusing the invitation to “pumpkinify” my drink with that relentless autumn flavor I have always despised, I came back with two normal hot chocolates, regulared, swirled high with whipped cream.
“I despise Halloween,” I said as I handed Stella hers.
“Is it Halloween?”
“Thursday,” I said. “Cannot wait.”
“I’m in costume all year long,” Stella said. “This day is no different, right?”
“Hmm.”
“So.”
“So tell me about Jared.”
“Oh, what for? I need a life. I’ve got, like, no friends because of that guy. It’s kind of nice to just sit here in fucking Greenleaves or wherever we are with someone my own age.”
“I think you’re older.”
“Roughly,” she said.
I nodded into my hot drink. “My sister’s age.”
“Anyway, your plan. Why don’t you stay with me!” she said.
“That’s a nice offer, but I’m not really staying with anyone,” I said, blowing on my hot chocolate. “I mean, I guess I’ll be staying with Connor.” The thought exhilarated and panicked me.
“Well,” she said. “Just as like a base camp. Whatever you decide.”
I took a sip and a huge swipe of the cream. “He wants to meet in Annapolis,” I said. “So weird. He’s coming from New Hampshire.”
“Huh. Is he really into crab cakes?”
“I have no idea,” I said.
“So how are you getting there?”
“Hadn’t thought about it yet,” I said, though my first thought had been Tim. He would have done it. But then I would have had to tell him why.
“I’m thinking out loud here. I mean, why Annapolis? How on earth does a person get to Annapolis?” Stella asked.
“It’s not that far. But it is, umm, an unusual destination.”
“Yeah. I know a couple of people who got fake IDs in Annapolis. But that’s kind of it.”
“So you,” I said. “Are you going to get back with the Philly boy? With Jared?”
Stella went dark. Like the lights went out. “Doubt it,” she said.
“Okay then,” I said.
At first I thought it was the heat of the chocolate, making its way, like, through my body as I went to ask her more about this development, but I soon realized that was not in fact what I was feeling. “Oh my God,” I said.
“It’s not a big deal. I just don’t want to talk about him now.” Stella clearly had not heard me. She took a massive gulp of her drink.
It was still happening. A warm rush down my leg. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t move. I didn’t know which would be worse. To get up and run to the bathroom, leaving a trail of who knows what behind me, or to sit there and just, I don’t know, die.
“Stella,” I said quietly.
“I’ll totally take you.” She nodded at me like it was a pact no one could break. “Like I said, I just really dig driving. Listening to music on my own.”
“Hey,” I said again.
“What’s wrong?”
I can’t say what my face revealed in that moment. If it appeared as stricken with horror as I was, or if it looked as sad, or as in disbelief, as I also was. I can’t say anything about that moment other than I hope I never have one like it again.
“Lizzie, what’s wrong?” I heard the swoosh of her jacket as she reached across the table to touch my arm.
“It came undone.”
Stella looked around the room. “What?” she said. And then I saw her look of recognition.
I nodded.
“It’s okay.” She stood up. “It’s not a big deal at all.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“It’s okay. Let’s just go to the bathroom. Take my coat and wrap it around your waist.”
“It’s not my back that’s the problem. I didn’t get my fucking period. It’s my front.” I was back in the land of illness and weakness and not knowing. Just back like I had never again been anything other than this.
“I’ll walk in front of you then, and you’ll follow me to the bathroom.”
“Okay.”
Stella stood in front of me and grabbed one of my hands from behind, and I stood and followed behind her. I can’t say if there was any evidence of this undoing, as I just looked ahead and went to the bathroom behind Stella B.
I ran into the stall and locked it sort of violently and sure enough, the clasp had come unclasped. I must not have secured it properly. I closed it now, grateful that I had emptied it before Petiquette so it was not the mess it could have been. I tried to clean myself up.
“What do you need?”
“Paper towels,” I said.
And just as soon as I’d said so, a huge brown wad of them appeared at the top of the stall door. “Here,” she said. “Take.”
And then another batch. “Wet with soap and just wet,” she said. “Pick your poison.”
I could work with both and I did and after several minutes of cleaning and then trying to gather myself up, get myself gathered, I opened the door.
“Hi,” Stella said.
“Hey.” I looked down and went to the sinks. I washed my hands for a long time.
Stella put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said. “This is nothing.”
I shrugged her hand off.
“Hey.” She placed her hand back on my shoulder. “This is nothing.”
I looked at Stella then. This new friend, a new person who had been on the moon with me, even if it was just for a brief visit. Connor was not the only one. Perhaps there could be others. “This is not nothing,” I said. “So not nothing. It should come with a trigger warning.”
“I hear you,” Stella said.
“I can’t go back to that. That feeling. Being sick again.” I tore some paper towels from the dispenser and then wiped my hands and stood up straight and looked in the mirror. It was my actual face now. No steroid hair and freakish round face. My regular Birdy hair. Me. I bent in. I wiped my red eyes with the harsh paper towel. “I’m okay,” I said now, backing up from the mirror and again facing Stella.
“You’re more than okay. You’re a survivor,” she said. “This is just a little reminder of that fact.”
I nodded. “Thank you,” I said.
“No need. A survivor. Don’t you forget that.”
“Okay.” I threw out the towels.
“And now, we’re friends.”
I smiled a pathetic little smile. “Poor Samantha,” I said.
“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
I followed Stella out of the bathroom and toward the door. I looked back with a pang of guilt for not having cleared our table: two hot chocolates still covered in cream, barely sipped at. Two girls whose outsides were so different from their insides. All girls. All kinds of scars. All kinds of ways to keep our secrets safe. My secret was safe. Safe, with Stella B.