Just Friends Read online

  “Oh, come on, Mo. That was in second grade!”

  “They almost threw us out!”

  “But it wasn’t fair the way they treated the birds. Somebody had to say something.”

  “Have you noticed that it’s always you?” The bird sanctuary wasn’t the last time something like that happened. “I swear, I’ve lost count of how many places we’ve been asked to leave because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.” Her hair brushes his face as she shakes her head. “You wouldn’t last ten minutes in any self-respecting dictatorship. Somebody like Kim Jong-un would have you for breakfast.” She yanks open the door and waves him through. “Which I guess is one of the things I … like about you.”

  They get their teas and go to their usual table in the corner – neither of them likes to sit in the window like a mannequin. Ramona puts her cup down and plunks herself into an armchair. Josh takes the seat across from her.

  “Wow, that was a great class, wasn’t it?!” Ramona stretches her legs under the table, accidentally kicking his foot. “I really feel energized.”

  “I’m glad you feel energized,” says Josh. “I wasn’t sure I’d make it across the street. That double downward dog nearly cut my young life tragically short.” Her feet placed not on the ground but on his back. He was terrified he was going to bring them both crashing to the floor. In which case she’d probably crush him – or at least crack a couple of ribs.

  “Oh, please… It was great and you know it.” She kicks him again, this time intentionally. “You’re a walking contradiction, you know that, Shine? You’d correct God if you thought He’d made a mistake or something. But you always think you can’t do things you can do – usually really well. I don’t know why you’re like that.”

  “I lack confidence and have a poor self-image when it comes to anything physical. Except playing the guitar.” He carefully scoops the teabag from his cup and squeezes it against the spoon. “I thought you’d know that by now.”

  “Oh, I know it.” Ramona pulls her bag out by the string and chucks it at the side of the saucer. “I just try to ignore it.” She takes a packet of brown sugar from the bowl on the table. “Anyway, everybody else was really impressed even if you weren’t. I can’t wait to see Mayana’s pictures.”

  Mayana is their teacher. She changed her name from Mary when she got the yin-yang tattoo on her ankle and the crescent moon stud in her nose.

  “I can. I’m not really at my most photogenic when I have you balancing on me.”

  “You’re too modest.” She shakes the sugar into her cup, scattering grains over the table. “Mostly all anyone’s going to see is the back of your head, and that is your best side.” She stirs her tea. “Anyway, I’m really glad we have the yoga even if you think it is life-threatening. I’ve hardly seen you since school started. Not to talk to for more than a couple of minutes. We don’t even have the same lunch period. Yoga’s all we have left.”

  “Our loss is the post-postmodernists’ gain.” Ramona’s other friends and lunchtime companions are artistic types, all eccentric clothes and personally decorated portfolios.

  “Not so. I still have Zara to eat with, but the rest of them have been shoved around by the bureaucratic powers, too.” She’s still stirring. “I miss you.” If she doesn’t stop stirring she’ll put a hole in the bottom of the cup. “Zara never gripes about meat-eaters and she’s crap at Name That Tune.” Two activities at which Josh excels. “And even if you and I didn’t always eat together, at least we saw each other every day and had a chance to do more than wave across a corridor.”

  Josh takes a sip of his tea. “I didn’t know you cared.”

  Ramona’s spoon falls to the table; her laugh jumps. “Don’t worry, Shine, I don’t care. It’s more like missing a headache. I guess I got used to hanging with you in the summer.” He’s wondering if he’s tasting liquorice or fennel and doesn’t respond. “You know,” she persists, “when we went up to the lake?”

  Her tone makes him look up. “For Christ’s sake, Mo, it’s only September. Did you think I forgot already?”

  She picks up her cup, tea sloshing over the side. “Well, you didn’t say anything.”

  “Sorry. I got distracted for a second. Of course I remember the summer. This’ll amaze you, but it almost feels like yesterday.” Carver was away protecting some trees, Sal was taking a film course and Josh’s band had broken up for the summer, so he got talked into spending a couple of weeks at the Minamotos’ cabin in the Adirondacks. Summer is a busy time in the world of botanical medicine and Mr Minamoto was away, too. As Josh’s mother put it, it was “Just us girls.” Just us girls and Josh.

  This time Ramona’s laugh rattles more than leaps. “But it was fun, wasn’t it?”

  That depends on your concept of fun. Chopping wood (at which he’s useless), being bitten by insects (for which he has a natural aptitude) and lying awake at night listening to the thumpings, rustlings and howlings (certain that every wildcat and coyote in the state was trying to get in).

  “Yeah, it was good.” It wasn’t the blues festival that he would have preferred, but it was a lot better than he’d been afraid it would be. Josh’s pioneer spirit is easily satisfied with a chorus of “Old Dan Tucker”, but Hannah Shine and Jade Minamoto like to wallow in nature. They hike, they paddle, they hunt for edible plants. His fear was that he’d be force-marched through the woods or strapped into a raft and shoved downriver – two activities with the potential to end really badly. He would either get lost and starve to death before the rescuers found him, be attacked by a bear and have to be identified by his teeth, or simply drown. Josh knows an appropriate song for each of those scenarios, but of course he’d have been dead and in no position to play them.

  Ramona stops smiling. She looks at her cup as if it’s let her down. “You didn’t enjoy it?” Ramona more than enjoyed it. If she has any complaints about the vacation it was that it could have been longer. Which is because the only fault she can find with Josh is that he makes her look even taller than she is (though this isn’t something she holds against him). “I thought you did.” If Ramona were the weather it would be overcast with the possibility of showers. “I thought we had a really good time.”

  Damn, now he’s hurt her feelings.

  “I didn’t mean I didn’t have a good time, Mo. Of course I did. It was great.” Which actually is true. More true than he would have believed possible. Fortunately for his health and safety, it rained a lot so the hikes through tick- and poison-ivy-infested woods and the rides on raging rivers were limited. He and Ramona were left to their own devices while the mothers visited every antique store, junk shop and barn sale in a hundred-mile radius. Josh and Ramona’s own devices were playing board games and music. Ramona is easy to hang out with, and not only plays a decent game of chess but is unbelievably good at Risk for a girl who once wore peace-symbol earrings. “It was cool watching you achieve world domination. But the best was the jamming.” He’d heard her play before, of course – she’s been in one orchestra or another since elementary school – but it was always at concerts, formal as tuxedos. He’d never played with her or realized what a mean fiddler a girl who trained as a classical violinist could be.

  The clouds pass and the smile reappears on Ramona’s face. “Me, too. It was totally chill.” She pauses as if choosing her words – as if she has something important to say – but what she says is, “So how are you doing now that we’re back in the real world? Everything good?”

  “I’m okay. Busy. Not much time for bowling or ice hockey, but we all have to make sacrifices. It’s a big year for the chess club. And there’s the band of course. We want to try and get some gigs this year. We’re already booked for the garden in the spring.”

  “Madison Square?”

  “Jerym Jefferson’s.” It’s Carver’s father’s birthday in May and he’s willing to have them play at his party if he gets to sit in on the kazoo. “So if you’re interested in joining us we could use an ace fiddle pla
yer.”

  “Really?” Her voice sounds like a yes, but her face looks like a no.

  “Yeah, really. It would be phenomenal to have you in the band.”

  “Gees, I wish you’d asked me sooner. I’d love to play with you. But I’m pretty busy right now, too. You know I joined the drama club.”

  “I do?”

  He wonders if his mother taught her to sigh like that.

  “Didn’t Sal tell you?”

  “Sal?” When did she see Sal without Josh?

  “You guys… It’s amazing that men invented telecommunications when you find it so hard to pass along basic information.” She sighs again. “Yes, Josh, I’m in the drama club. Mr Boxhill, you know he’s the advisor? And he directs all the plays?” Josh nods. He knows it now. “Anyway, Mr Boxhill asked me if I’d be in charge of the costumes for this year’s play. They’re doing Bye Bye Birdie.”

  “Bye Bye Birdie!? Isn’t that a musical?” He thinks of Ramona as more an Ibsen or Arthur Miller kind of girl.

  “That’s right.” She bobs her head back and forth. “There are a lot of peppy songs and dancing.” She laughs. “It’s not my choice, obviously. If it were up to me we’d be doing Sweeney Todd or West Side Story. But I said yes before I knew what they’d picked. He just stopped me in the hall and asked me if I’d take the job. Said he’s always noticed my clothes.”

  Of course Boxhill’s noticed her clothes; he’d have to be either blind or living in Russia not to. Everybody notices Ramona’s clothes. What she doesn’t find in thrift and vintage stores, she designs and makes herself. Today, for example, she’s wearing leggings, a short skirt and a long-sleeved T-shirt with a tunic over it. The leggings, skirt and tunic are in different patterns and colours; the T-shirt, in yet two more colours, is striped.

  “So anyway,” Ramona continues, “I’m going to be pretty involved with that for a while. Zara’s going to help me with the shopping. You know, because unlike some people she doesn’t have a phobia about it.”

  Some people being Josh. “It’s not a phobia, Mo. It’s just a gut-wrenching fear.”

  She makes a whatever face. “Well, anyway, even with Zara’s help it’s going to be crazy for a while.”

  Possibly because of the shopping-phobia crack he says, “I still can’t believe you’re working on Bye Bye Birdie. Isn’t it kind of hokey?”

  “Not everybody thinks so.” Though Ramona isn’t one of them. “And at least they’re making some changes. Sal’s idea is we should set it in the late sixties, early seventies. Put more of an edge on it. Which I would really like. You can get pretty wild with clothes in the sixties but the fifties? It’s all ponytails and poodle skirts and squeaky clean. So I’m really glad he signed on for assistant director, even though it was a massive surprise. I mean, Sal? Who’d a thunk, right?”

  Josh got a little lost among the ponytails and poodle skirts but now he says, “Sal’s assistant director?” Why would Armando Salcedo suddenly join the drama club? He doesn’t want to act. He doesn’t need another extracurricular activity to look good on his college applications. He’s always saying what lousy films plays usually make.

  “Oh, you have to be kidding.” Her eyes widen. “You mean he didn’t tell you that either?”

  “No. He did. I’m pretty sure he did.” Josh has a vague memory of Sal saying something last night, but it must have been when Josh wasn’t really paying close attention. “No, he definitely did.”

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I was pretty amazed,” says Ramona. “I thought he was a total cinephile. Hardcore. Remember that movie he made in eighth grade instead of writing a book report?”

  As if he could forget. Josh was the only one who wore glasses, so he was made to play Harry Potter.

  Ramona’s laugh isn’t the hot-fudge-sauce ripple that Jenevieve Capistrano’s is but more like a needle-scratching-a-vinyl-record cackle. “I swear, I can still see Mrs Gillespie’s face when he handed her the disc. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  What Josh remembers is tripping over his wizard’s robe (Jade Minamoto’s black kimono) and falling into the Salcedos’ pool.

  “So what made Sal do it?” asks Ramona. “He can’t’ve given up his obsession with the movies. I would’ve noticed that the Earth stood still.”

  “I don’t know.” Josh shrugs. “I think he said something about a play being just like a movie but without car chases and tracking shots.” And in this case with singing.

  “Jesus.” If she were a cartoon her caption would be: Ramona is exasperated. “That’s it? You know, if you guys are communicating telepathically, it isn’t working.”

  “That’s all I remember.”

  She’s definitely sighing more than usual today. “Well, I think it’s way weird,” says Ramona. “It’s so out of character. But I have to admit, it’s also nice to see a friendly face. Tell you the truth, I’m already finding it a little stressful.”

  “But it’s what you want to do.” Not fashion, of course, not Ramona Minamoto, the girl who believes that fashion is fascism. Ramona wants to be a costume designer.

  “Yeah, I know. But it’s kind of a nightmare and a dream come true at the same time, you know? It’s a big challenge. I’ve only ever dressed myself before.” She makes a here-comes-the-bad-news face. “It’s not just that, though. The club isn’t exactly a tranquil and meditative scene. There are a lot of drama queens flouncing around. I mean, you know who else is in the club. Of course.”

  He has no idea. “Is this a trick question?”

  “Oh, Josh. You do too know. She’s starred in every play since elementary school. She’s the biggest prima donna of them all. If egos generated electricity she could solve the energy crisis all by herself.”

  “Oh, shit. Are we talking Tilda Kopel here?”

  “Duh! Who else could it be?”

  No one. The fact that he didn’t think of her right away is proof that hormones are eating away his brain.

  “You know you’re not the only one who has an ugly past with her. I never got along with her. Not since elementary school when she told everybody I had head lice. Now just the sound of her voice sucks the joy right out of my heart. She’s always so bouncy and bubbly – unless she’s criticizing someone – she’s like human Alka-Seltzer. Only on a nuclear scale. And remember that big fight we had a couple of years ago…”

  Ramona launches into a detailed account of her most recent historic fight with Tilda Kopel and the events leading up to it. Normally, Josh would find this story tears-in-your-eyes funny, but today – although he’s looking right at her and he nods and smiles as needed, he isn’t giving her his full attention. Although he hasn’t given Jenevieve Capistrano a thought all morning the mention of Tilda Kopel has put Jena back in his head. His mind starts formulating what is almost a geometric proof. Tilda Kopel and Jena are friends. Friends do things together. If Tilda Kopel is in the drama club, then Jena may join, too. If Jena joins the drama club, she and Ramona will get to know each other. If Jena and Ramona get to know each other, then they may become friends. Which would exponentially increase Josh’s chances of meeting Jena and becoming friends with her as well.

  As postulations go it might not be probable, but it is possible. He can get to know her and break the spell. Instead of imagining what she’s like, he’ll know what she’s like. She won’t be special because she’s a new girl with some pink in her hair; she’ll be just like all the girls he’s been at school with for ever and never looked at twice. There will be things wrong with her; things he doesn’t like. He’ll find out that not only has she never heard of Robert Johnson but also that the only music she listens to is radio-put-me-in-a-coma-lalala. And then he has an image of the two girls together and instantly realizes how ridiculous that is. Ramona Minamoto and Jenevieve Capistrano are not going to become friends. Not on this planet, and not in this lifetime. For God’s sake, Jena’s a normal teenage girl, and Ramona’s Ramona. There’s more chance of finding a yeti in your backyard tha
n there is that the two of them will ever share a bag of potato chips let alone a secret.

  A shadow falls over him, as if the lights really have gone out, and Josh looks up. Ramona is on her feet.

  “My God, will you look at the time,” she’s saying. “I have to skedaddle. So you’ll do that for me, okay?”

  “Do it?” Obviously, not everything she was talking about happened in ninth grade.

  Ramona groans. “Oh God, Josh. You weren’t listening to a word I said, were you? You’re just like my dad.”

  He is nothing like her father. Frank Minamoto wears a necklace and clogs (unless it’s snowing) and plays the zither.

  “I guess I lost track for a minute.”

  She sighs. “Yeah, right.”

  “So what is it you want me to do?”

  “It’s no big deal.” He can tell that her smile is supposed to reassure him. Which, naturally, makes him wary. It’s going to be something he won’t want to do. “Just take my yoga stuff to the gallery because I’m babysitting all afternoon and I don’t want to lug it with me.”

  It is a big deal. She knows her parents make him nervous when Ramona isn’t around to act as a buffer. Her mother is always giving him lectures on things like lucid dreaming and Pueblo ceramics, and her father is always trying to get him to study things like t’ai chi and herbalism. Josh gives her a do-I-have-to? look. “Ah, Mo…”

  “Please, Josh. It’s just Jade today, so you won’t be outnumbered. You don’t have to get into a long conversation about astral projection. Just tell her you’re in a hurry, drop off my stuff and run.”

  He can’t very well refuse. Not now. Which is what happens when you don’t pay attention and get caught. You not only lose those crucial three seconds to come up with a good excuse, you also have to deal with the guilt.

  “Okay. Sure.” Maybe he can just throw her things from the doorway. Sorry, Mrs Minamoto, can’t stay … emergency in one of the outer galaxies…