Welcome back maple mehta.., p.10
Welcome Back, Maple Mehta-Cohen, page 10
“Sorry. One of the major symptoms of Kawasaki is red eyes. Yours look all right, fortunately.”
The thermometer beeps. “And . . . 99.5. Pretty normal, Maple.”
“Technically, 98.6 is normal.”
“It’s a little warm in here. I’m not worried.” He leans back on his heels. “What’s up, Maple?”
“How did you become a nurse?”
“Nursing school.”
“Do you find you’re treated differently as a man in a female-dominated profession? Why didn’t you want to be a doctor?”
“I like the nursing parts of nursing.” He opens his mini-fridge. “Passionfruit?”
“Apple, please.”
“A traditionalist. I like it.” He passes me a juice. “Maple, what’s bothering you?”
I jab at the box with the straw. “I didn’t want to risk exposing my classmates to Kawasaki. Really.”
“Maple, Kawasaki isn’t contagious. Also, the main symptoms are a high fever, very red eyes, and a full-body rash. None of which you have. So why are you actually here? Or should I send you straight back to class?”
I take a long swallow, buying myself some time. “Fine. I needed a break from social interaction.”
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain birthday party invitation that got sent around today, would it?”
Another long swig. Nurse Marcus sure does have his ear to the ground. He always knows what’s happening.
“Maple?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You’re not usually a person who doesn’t know the answer.” He shakes his head and lets out a sigh. “School really isn’t the place for those kinds of invitations to be sent around, you know. I don’t know why parents let their kids do that. We should have a rule about it.”
I shrug. “I’m not in her class this year, so I didn’t expect to be invited. It’s just sixth-grade girls. It’s fine.”
Nurse Marcus sinks into his desk chair and furrows his brow. “That’s a very mature response. I’d probably be mad.”
“You would?”
“If one of my oldest friends didn’t invite me to her party? Sure. Maybe I’m not as mature as you are.”
“You’re an adult.”
“I know, and it’s killing me.”
I smile involuntarily, and Nurse Marcus smiles back. He grabs himself a juice box. “You know, Maple, Ms. Littleton-Chan is a great teacher. You’re pretty lucky to have her two years in a row.”
“Am I, though?”
He laughs. “Maple. No one thinks less of you because you got held back.”
The words never lose their sting, no matter how many times I hear them. Held back. It just sounds so obviously bad. You don’t want to hold someone back. Why would you want to do that? Normally, you want to propel people. Especially in a school setting. It’s kind of the definition of school, isn’t it? A place where people learn. They grow. They move forward with their lives. “My school has really held me back” is hardly an enthusiastic endorsement.
“You sure about that?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“You said no one thinks less of me. Are you sure? They don’t even want me at the sixth-grade parties.”
“You just said that was fine.”
“I know, but . . .”
“Maple, listen. You’re the same person, no matter what grade you’re in. If people don’t see that, that’s their problem.”
I suck down the last of the apple juice and think of that beautiful letter-pressed invitation. Then I crush the empty juice box in my fist.
“I guess I should go back to class.”
“Good choice.” Nurse Marcus takes my trash and tosses it across the room toward his wastebasket. It bounces off the rim and onto the floor. “Ohh! I was robbed!”
“That was terrible.”
“I got kicked off the seventh-grade basketball team,” he says. “We all have different gifts.”
I resist the temptation to roll my eyes. “Uh-huh.”
He winks at me. “Get thee back to learning, Maple Mehta-Cohen.”
“I’m going, I’m going.”
Nurse Marcus hands me a fresh hall pass with his signature scribbled on it. “Oh, and Maple?”
I’m already halfway out the door, but I stop and turn around. “You know, maybe you should just assert yourself.”
“Huh?”
“Tell Aislinn how you feel. Be the bigger person. Speak your truth.”
“Okay,” I scoff. “Sure.”
“I’m serious. Maybe she’s just being thoughtless. Or maybe she thinks you don’t want to go. Or, hey, maybe it was just an oversight. You two have a lot of years of friendship behind you. It can’t hurt to be honest.”
Right. I give Nurse Marcus a thumbs-up and close the door behind me.
The leaves crunch under my feet as I shuffle toward my house, taking the three blocks slower than usual. It’s a nice day, at least—bright and cloudless and perfectly fall—and I try to remind myself to enjoy it. This is the best time of year.
I wonder if she told her mother she hadn’t invited me. Or if she pretended she did invite me. Or if she just told her mother I wasn’t cool enough to hang out with anymore, and her mother said okay. No problem. Abandon one of your almost-lifelong friendships. Shrug.
It seems like a blatant betrayal of the pact Marigold and Aislinn and I have always kept, never to let either of the others get picked last. I mean, this is even worse than that. I didn’t get picked at all, never mind last. Aislinn’s always kept that pact, even when it meant losing soccer games because I’m a terrible goalie who lets my mind wander during games and watches the ball soar right past me into the net. She always kept our pact. In fact, she was the one who came up with that pact in the first place, back when we were in third grade.
Maybe she just forgot me.
Then again, it’s only a party. It doesn’t matter, anyway. If I’d been honest with myself, I would’ve known I was never going to be invited, because they’re in sixth grade and I’m in fifth, and it’s true that most people only invite their own class to their birthday party. That’s just the way it is. If I’d had more realistic expectations, maybe I wouldn’t feel so disappointed.
I kick a rock a few feet ahead of me, catch up to it, and kick it again.
On my way out of class at the end of the day, Ms. Littleton-Chan asked who I was considering for the autobiography project. I really needed to make a decision, she said, because we were going to get started working on it soon. She’d offered me a few suggestions: Marie Curie, Sally Ride, Dorothea Lange. None of them sounded all that interesting to me. (I didn’t even know who Dorothea Lange was—a photographer from the Great Depression era, apparently.)
Plus, all of Ms. Littleton-Chan’s suggestions were white women. I doubt she would’ve suggested all white women to Sonia Shah, since Sonia’s full Indian on both sides. But since I’m half, I get white by default. And it’s not that I have a problem with white ladies—my mom is one, obviously—but it’d be nice to be able to pick someone who represents who I really am. Half and half. Indian and white. Hindu and Jewish. A human masala, like the mix of spices Ba throws in almost every dish she cooks. A little bit of many good things.
Unfortunately (for the world), there aren’t that many of us. Or fortunately, I suppose, because it makes me cool, except for right now, when I wish there was some famous Hin-Jew woman in history. It’d be nice to have the chance to teach my whole school that someone like me can do something really extraordinary. Instead of just being in the baby reading group. Since I’m the only Hin-Jew most of my classmates know, they probably think I represent the whole group.
I kick another rock, and watch it disappear into a grate on the sidewalk. Then I get back to my story.
13:48
When Mira pulled the van door open, Jake whipped around, his face blank with shock. A man and a woman sat in the front seats, each wearing a serious-looking headset. The rest of the van was completely stripped of anything van-like — no seats, no seat belts. Instead, it was full of equipment: video monitors, speakers, wires going in every direction. As Mira looked more closely, she realized three of the monitors were playing live scenes from inside and outside the Bingham. A fourth showed the front of a house that looked familiar. It took her a moment, but then she realized it was Ashley’s house.
“Mira! What the —?” Jake exclaimed.
“Uh, ma’am, we have a problem,” said the man into his headset. “Civilian in the van. We’ve been made.”
“I knew you were up to something, Jake Bells,” Mira said. “Spill the beans.”
Jake bit his lip and looked from the man to the woman, then back to Mira. “If I tell you . . . I’ll have to kill you.”
“Oh, stop.” Mira rolled her eyes. “No one actually says that. Who are you, Jake Bells? If that is your real name.”
It wasn’t his real name, of course. Jake was working as an undercover agent for the FBI, monitoring the activities of Dr. Finnian McIntosh, Ashley’s father. Dr. McIntosh was a distant member of the Irish royal family, living in the United States, where he was the CEO of a promising new biotech company. A little too promising, it seemed. He was suspected of embezzlement, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit fraud.
Jake laid it all out for Mira in the van. And now that she knew, he said, Mira was going to have to help. She had an in with Ashley. She could be an asset.
I chuckle to myself. I know there’s not really a royal family in Ireland, but sometimes Aislinn’s family acts like royalty. At least compared to mine. And it’s my story, anyway.
When I get home, the apartment is empty, as usual. I call up to Mrs. Kelley from the kitchen. Then I make myself a hot chocolate. It’s almost chilly enough outside to justify hot beverages now. The smell through the apartment has shifted from summer air to fall. Soon the heat will come on in the early morning, loud clanging as steam pumps through the old radiators.
I sit on my bed and blow on my hot chocolate.
What did Nurse Marcus say, exactly?
You’re the same person, no matter what grade you’re in.
And then, Maybe you should just assert yourself.
I take a sip. It’s still too hot and burns the roof of my mouth.
Maybe he’s right. I am Maple Mehta-Cohen, after all. People like hanging out with me. Or at least they used to, and what’s changed? Mira Epstein-Patel wouldn’t take this lying down—that’s for sure.
That’s when I decide. I’m going to pull a Mira Epstein-Patel and do the brave thing.
On the Saturday of Aislinn’s party, I lay everything out carefully on my bed: my polka-dot pajama bottoms with the drawstring waist and a T-shirt with one of Dad’s discontinued designs: a big, glowing full moon in the center, with the words Good Night in cursive across the top. Toothbrush, travel-size toothpaste, dental floss. Clothes for tomorrow, if I survive that long: leggings, a long T-shirt, underwear. Then I pack everything gently in my overnight duffel bag and zip it shut.
“You ready?” Mom pokes her head in the door.
Ready for a party. Sure.
“I don’t know why you didn’t remind me about Aislinn’s party, Maple. We could’ve gone to Target and gotten her a present.”
I nod. The thing is, I didn’t want to go to Target and get her a present, because the last thing I need to do is show up uninvited at Aislinn’s party with a present from the clearance bin.
“It’s okay, Mom. She said no gifts.”
Mom crinkles her forehead. “You’re sure? Is that a new thing? No gifts?”
“I guess it’s a sixth-grade thing.”
She brightens. “Well, I think that’s great. Why perpetuate our country’s rampant consumerism when you can just have fun with your friends, right?”
“Mmm-hmm. Exactly.”
“Want a ride?”
“Mom, it’s not that far.”
“It’s far enough.”
“That’s okay. I can walk.”
Mom smiles at me. “I’m so glad you’re spending time with your old friends, Maple. Just because you’re not in their class this year, it doesn’t have to change your relationship.”
When she closes the door behind her, I take the last thing to pack out of my bedside table. It’s still in the blue jewelry box it came in, now carefully tucked inside a recycled gift bag: my charm bracelet. The most valuable thing I own and probably the nicest. No, definitely the nicest. If I’m going to show up at this party, I have to bring my A game.
The McIntyres’ neighborhood isn’t far from ours, but it feels different. There’s more space between the houses, and the sidewalks are paved with red bricks. My neighborhood is mostly two- and three-family houses, where we live stacked on top of each other (or sometimes side by side). But the McIntyres’ house is all on its own. From the outside, it looks really old (and it probably is), with tall double doors in the front and stained-glass windows. But inside, they’ve fixed it up so it’s all sleek and modern.
It takes me about ten minutes to walk there. From the street out front, I can hear them in the backyard: a dozen girls, their voices pinging up and down like the peals of a dozen bells.
Instead of going around the back and through the latched gate, even though I’ve done it a thousand times, I go up the front steps.
Breathe, Maple. Breathe.
You do you.
Assert yourself.
Do the brave thing.
Just as I lift the heavy knocker, the door opens in front of me. It’s Mrs. McIntyre, dressed in an extravagantly floral maxi dress and a chunky knitted cardigan. Her blond hair looks professionally blow-dried. Her makeup is perfect. Her face looks surprised.
“Maple! Hi! I was just . . . well, anyway. Hi!” She parts her lips over her very white teeth in a gleaming smile. I’ve always thought Mrs. McIntyre could do toothpaste commercials. “The girls are out back already.”
She ushers me into the house, through the familiar living room and dining room and sparkling kitchen with its huge marble island and white cabinets. This kitchen always makes my mother uncomfortable whenever she’s here. I can tell. I don’t think it’s the appliances, even though they all match (unlike ours: one black, one white, one stainless), or the fresh fruit that’s always on display in a huge wooden bowl but somehow never seems to attract fruit flies. I think it’s something about the space, how expansive and light and airy it is. It feels like the kind of kitchen you’d see on TV or in a design magazine. My mother doesn’t care about material things; it doesn’t bother her that our appliances don’t match or that our table came from a Facebook group where rich people offer to “gift” free stuff they’re otherwise going to leave on the curb on trash day. None of that matters to her. But she’s an artist, and she loves a bright, light, open space. The McIntyre kitchen is the kind of room where my mother could make beautiful things. I think it makes her uncomfortable because she wishes it were hers.
“When Aislinn told me you were going to be out of town today, I was so disappointed! I told her, ‘It’s hardly a party without Maple Mehta-Cohen!’ I mean, it wouldn’t be the same without you! I’m so glad you could make it. Does Ash know you’re coming? She didn’t mention it to me.”
Mrs. McIntyre babbles on as she leads me to the back of the house and pulls open the French doors to the yard.
“Girls! Look who’s here!”
Twelve heads swivel toward me. I know most of them, but there are a few girls who went to other elementary schools whose names I don’t even know. As I take them all in, I see Marigold’s eyes widen, and then watch Aislinn’s face go through an entire spectrum of reactions all in one second: surprise, then a flash of annoyance, and then a sugary smile slides across her face. She reveals teeth as white as her mother’s, freshly freed from the braces she wore starting in third grade.
“Maaaaple, you’re back.” She looks from me to her mother and back again, grinning as hard as she can. “You didn’t tell me you could make it after all.”
I swallow. “Our plans changed.”
“We’re so glad!” says Mrs. McIntyre. “And it’s no trouble at all! We’ll just make you a place at the table. Girls, scrunch over.”
The sixth graders are gathered around a banquet-length table, draped in a heavy white tablecloth. A long gold doily runs down the middle, like a giant valentine. There’s a row of glass jars full of big, round pink flowers, not a browning petal in sight. Each girl’s place setting has a sushi mat, a stack of white plates in three sizes, silver utensils and chopsticks, and a huge goblet filled with bubbly pink lemonade and topped with fresh berries and a sprig of mint. There’s a garland of pink flowers wrapped around Aislinn’s chair at the head of the table. And even though it’s pretty warm for October, there’s a row of heat lamps beaming down on them, keeping them toasty.
Aislinn sparkles all over. Her tiara glints in the sun. I think she’s wearing some kind of shimmer on her eyelids. She looks, well, radiant. (Radiant: shining or glowing brightly.)
I look down at my outfit—a mustard-yellow dress with polka dots that fit better last year and my old red shoes. A small seed of doubt plants itself in my stomach, just waiting to be watered.
Mrs. McIntyre appears beside me with a spare chair and nestles it between Marigold and Lucy, who ignores me. The other girls’ chairs match the table: white with shimmering gold-and-pink cloth draped over the backs and tied with elaborate bows. Mine is a regular folding chair from the McIntyres’ basement. Smudged gray plastic.
“Perfect!” says Mrs. McIntyre, a little too loudly. “You girls keep chatting away while we bring out the hors d’oeuvres.”
I imagine my mother resisting the urge to roll her eyes at Mrs. McIntyre’s use of “hors d’oeuvres.” “Can that woman just admit she doesn’t live in Paris, order some pizzas, and call it a day?” she’d say, like she has about so many of Aislinn’s birthday parties in the past. “It’s not a wedding,” she’d say. “It’s a twelve-year-old’s party.”
Even with my mother’s voice in my head, though, I can’t help feeling like everything is perfect here. Everything except me.
