The Starfish Sisters: A Novel(9)

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Love,

Phoebe

Suze

It was a rainy, horrible day, but Beryl called to let me know the diary had come from Phoebe, so I huddled into my raincoat and my rubber boots and walked the half mile there after school.

Beryl flung open the door when I knocked. A cinnamon-scented cloud of steam escaped. “Come in, come in!” she cried.

I shook off my coat in the foyer and left my boots and followed her into the kitchen.

“I made cinnamon rolls,” she said. “They’re almost ready. Are you hungry?”

“Yes!” I climbed up on the stool at the kitchen counter, feeling all my troubles and tensions fall away to the floor, as they always did in this room.

Beryl wore a thick blue-and-white sweater, and her hair was tightly braided in a rope that fell over her shoulder. She poured milk into a red tin glass without my asking and set it down in front of me. “How’s school going?”

I shrugged. “Everybody thinks I’m weird, so I don’t really have any friends.”

She leaned on the counter with one hand, the other propped on her hip. “Is that true? That everybody thinks you’re weird?”

I gestured to my stupid dress that came to the middle of my shins. “Weird clothes. Weird hair. Preacher dad.”

She stroked my face with both hands. “So pretty.”

It warmed me. In truth, Beryl provided the warmth in my world. My father was hard and cold and punishing, a fact I tried to keep to myself. “Thanks.” I lifted my head. “I do have one friend. His name is Joel. Nobody likes him, either, because he’s new like me.”

“Is that right? Tell me about him.” She pulled the cinnamon rolls out of the oven, giant and fluffy, and while they were still hot, she spread thin orange-flavored frosting over the top.

My mouth watered, but I said, “Well, he’s friendly and saves me a place at the lunch table, and never says a word about my weird clothes. He’s really smart, I think, because the teachers all call on him and he always knows the answer.”

“He sounds like a pretty good friend.”

“The other kids are mean to him, too,” I say, wiggling my fork in my hand. “He has really bad acne.”

“That must be rough.” She settles the pastry in front of me. “Bring him over sometime.”

“Yeah! He likes to draw.”

Beryl sat down next to me and bent in to smell the cinnamon roll. “That’s a good scent, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. It was the fragrance of love. After we finished, she brought me the diary and as always hugged me before I left. I swear, I lived for those hugs—her softness and the solidness of her arms, the smell of paint and spice and some layer of powder or something I couldn’t name. She didn’t rush. Her cheek rested on my head, and she rocked me ever so slightly back and forth, like I mattered.

September 8, 19—

Dear Phoebe,

I picked up the diary today from your grandma’s house. It was the first time I could go over there since you left, since my dad is getting ready for the anniversary week of the church, and I had to help the ladies of the church clean everything. We even washed under the pews! It was so gross. Mrs. Armstrong was there, bossing everybody around, and I know she likes my dad! She’s gross. She wears a girdle!

I asked your grandma to check if GO ASK ALICE is in the library, and she said she would. I found some books to read at the school library, and Beryl is keeping them in her house for me, and I snuck one into my room to read at night, THE TROUBLEMAKER. Have you read it? It’s so good, about this guy who is kind of an outcast and plays guitar.

I miss you so much! School is awful. I wish I had something to wear that didn’t make me look so stupid, but my dad says girls have to be modest. I’m sick of doing all the things his way. I don’t think Jesus would care if I wore modern clothes!

I’m taking home ec and maybe I can learn to sew good enough to make me something else. We looked at patterns today that the teacher has, and she told us to go to the fabric store and see what we like. I might walk over there after school tomorrow. My dad can’t get mad if it’s for school.

When do you get to come back?

Love,

Suze

October 1, 19—

Dear Phoebe,

I FORGOT—don’t ever say you’re boring. I like how you think about things, like REALLY think about them, and you don’t talk about shallow ordinary things, but always important stuff like books and ideas and art. I never read too much before I met you. Now, in less than one year, I’ve read 52 books! That’s huge! I feel so much smarter.

I wish I didn’t have to leave them at Grandma’s house. (She told me to call her Grandma, because Beryl doesn’t sound right coming from me.) At least I can have them there, though, and sometimes I sneak one home in the back of my underwear. You can’t see it under my hair.

School here isn’t great either. I’m friends with one person, Joel, who is weird, too. He’s Coos Indian on his dad’s side, but he lives with his mom here. She works as a receptionist at the Sleepy Cove motel, and I can tell she doesn’t like me, and not even because my dad’s a Pentecostal preacher, but because I’m me. Joel just moved here, too. He seems sad. We walk all over, talking and not talking. I think you would like him. He likes art, too.