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  “Stop it,” Steffi said.

  Tammy dropped her foot to the floor. She lifted up her right leg, the one that was closer to Steffi, and put her foot in the middle of the screen.

  “Stop it,” Steffi said. “Move your foot.”

  Tammy walked her foot, heel-toe-heel-toe, wiggling it across the screen until it was even more on Steffi’s side.

  “Move your foot,” Steffi said.

  “I am moving it.”

  “Move it off the TV.”

  Tammy was enjoying the fact that there was no one home for Steffi to run complaining to. That’s when Tammy got the idea. Why should she stay here? She should just go to Gretchen’s and be back before her mother and Nick got home. Steffi might tell, but she might not. She might want to save it and use it later to get something out of Tammy that she really wanted. There might be something she wanted Tammy to do and she’d say, do this for me or I’ll tell about Gretchen’s party. If Steffi were smart, that’s what she’d do.

  Tammy let her combat boot slide to the floor. It made a squeaking sound along the screen and she thought it might leave a black mark like a bike does when it skids to a stop, but it didn’t. She got out of her chair and clomped to the back door. She didn’t bother getting her coat; she thought, why should she since no one would know, and she walked out.

  Steffi opened the back door while Tammy was still on the steps.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Gretchen’s.”

  “You can’t. You have to stay here.”

  “I’ll be back later.”

  “Tammy, you can’t go!”

  When Tammy made it out of the yard, she turned and walked to the corner of 43rd Street. She looked back and saw Steffi and Hugh standing in the doorway. They looked like black cutout silhouettes, one tall, one short, because the light from the TV room was shining behind them. Steffi yelled out, “You can’t go! You’re not allowed to do this!” but Tammy didn’t care about what she was not allowed to do. She wanted to do something as if she had no sister or brother at all. She crossed 43rd Street and heard Hugh call out, “Tammy, come back!” in his little high-pitched voice. He even gave one last, “Tam-meeeeee!” that sounded as though it could break a wine glass like the singer on the “Is it live, or is it Memorex?” cassette-tape commercial. Tammy didn’t turn around. She was sick of being stuck with them.

  Tammy rang Gretchen’s bell and Gretchen’s mom answered the door. She didn’t say anything at first and Tammy wondered if she was mad because Tammy was late.

  “Hi, Tammy, I didn’t recognize you for a second,” she said as she held the door open. “Come on in.”

  Gretchen’s mom walked her through the living room where a couple of other moms were sitting on the couch drinking wine and eating cheese and crackers. Tammy didn’t know mothers were invited too. Gretchen hadn’t mentioned anything about it and there was nothing about it on the invitations Gretchen handed out at school. Maybe only these mothers were invited and Tammy’s mother wasn’t.

  “Everyone’s downstairs,” Gretchen’s mom said.

  Tammy walked down to the basement rec room. Gretchen was there, along with Heather and Monique, and Kenny, Colin, and Josh from class. Kenny wore a suit jacket with a bowtie and a top hat. Other then that, no one else was wearing a costume.

  “What are you supposed to be?” Kenny asked.

  “A hobo.”

  “You mean a bum?” he said laughing. “You came to the party as a bum? Oh man!”

  Gretchen was staring at Tammy. The girls were dressed up, but they weren’t wearing costumes. They were wearing skirts. Monique scrunched her eyes at Tammy and whispered something to Gretchen like, “What is she wearing?”

  Gretchen’s mom came down with a plate of little triangle-shaped sandwiches. When she left, Heather suggested they play Seven Minutes in Heaven. They would draw names out of a hat, one for boys and one for girls, and then they would go into the laundry closet and turn off the light for seven minutes. Tammy got Colin the piano player. Gretchen got Josh, but Tammy thought she rigged it. Everyone knew Gretchen liked him. Heather probably came up with the whole thing so that Gretchen could go into the closet with him. Tammy asked what they were supposed to do in there and Kenny said, “Suck face.”

  Gretchen and Josh went in first. When they came out, Gretchen didn’t say anything, but she was obviously trying to hide a smile. Then it was Tammy’s and Colin’s turn. Gretchen and Heather led them into the laundry closet and switched off the light. It was pitch black in there since it was in the basement. Tammy reached out her hands to feel her way around. All she felt was the dryer and the ironing board. She brushed against something, she thought it was Colin’s hand, and they found each other in the dark. Tammy thought maybe he would try and kiss her, but he kept reaching out with his hands until he found the pull string and switched on the light.

  “Are you supposed to do that?” Tammy asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Colin hopped up on the dryer to sit. Tammy didn’t know what to do now. Colin kept looking at his digital watch that ticked off time in nanoseconds. At one point he looked up at Tammy. She tried to smile at him. Maybe it would turn out that he liked her and he would send her notes in class. Tammy thought she was a little pretty, she wasn’t into makeup or dresses or anything, but she wasn’t fat or ugly.

  Colin gave her a weird look. Then he looked back at his watch.

  “Seven minutes,” he said and slid off the dryer. He put one hand on the doorknob, switched off the light with the other, then opened the door and walked out.

  “Did you suck face?”

  “I don’t want to kiss a bum!” Colin said and all the boys laughed really hard.

  Tammy wasn’t sure if she was supposed to laugh with them or shrug it off and pretend like she didn’t want to kiss him either. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to like boys or think they were gross. She thought Gretchen was her friend, but Gretchen was looking at Tammy as if she didn’t like her. Tammy felt like everyone could see everything that was wrong with her. It was as though she had farted in class, and everyone had heard it, and there was nothing she could do about it and no one was going to stick up for her and say, no, she didn’t fart, it was just her sneaker rubbing against the floor.

  Tammy said she had to go. She wanted to get out of there before they did a second round in the closet and someone else didn’t want to kiss her. She thought someone might ask why she had to leave so early, but no one did.

  “Are you leaving, Tammy?” Gretchen’s mom asked when Tammy headed through the living room to the front door. “Do you need to call your parents to come pick you up?”

  “No,” Tammy said. “I’m going to walk.”

  “Oh no,” another mom perked up. She was actually Kirin’s mom. “No, no, you can’t walk home in the dark.”

  Tammy walked home in the dark all the time. And all Tammy wanted to do now was walk out the door and go home. But now she had to make something up. She couldn’t call home for a ride because no one was there. Even if her mother and Nick were home, they probably wouldn’t come pick her up. They just didn’t do it unless it was really late or really far. Tammy couldn’t tell the group of mothers that this was normal because Kirin’s mom thought it was dangerous. And then they would all think she was weird.

  “You can use the phone in the kitchen Tammy,” Gretchen’s mom said.

  Tammy looked over to the kitchen and could see the phone perched on the wall by the window. She could pretend to call home and say no one answered, but then they would ask why. She could say it was busy, but then they would tell her to wait. She could pretend to talk on the phone and make up a story about how they had to rush out somewhere. They had to take Steffi or Hugh to the doctor or something like that. It was hard to decide what to do.

  “You know what?” said Kirin’s mom, standing up. “I’ll drive her home.”

  “Are you sure, Valerie?” Gretchen’s mom asked.

  “Sure
I’m sure,” she said. “Come on, Tammy.”

  Valerie’s car was parked right outside because she and Kirin lived next door to Gretchen. Tammy got into the front seat and bucked the seatbelt across the army jacket. Valerie didn’t wear a seatbelt.

  “Okay,” Valerie said. “Where to?”

  Tammy thought maybe she was joking. She had picked up Kirin from Tammy’s house dozens of times. But Valerie didn’t say anything, so Tammy gave her the address. Valerie just sat there staring out the window. Maybe she was pulling some long practical joke, but it was taking a long time to get to the funny part.

  Kirin’s mom finally looked over at Tammy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’ll drive you home, Tammy. I said I would.”

  “You don’t have to,” Tammy said. “I’m allowed to walk.”

  “No, I’m just a little nervous. I was in a car accident a little while ago and I’m just a little nervous about cars still.” She looked over at Tammy. “But we’re not going to get into an accident. Don’t worry.” She released the emergency brake and turned the car into the street.

  Valerie came to a complete stop at every stop sign. Tammy’s mother and Nick usually just slowed down and checked to see if anyone was coming and then kept going.

  “I’m sorry no one else wore a costume,” Valerie said. “That wasn’t very nice of them.”

  “It’s okay,” Tammy said.

  “It’s more fun to wear costumes. It doesn’t have to be Halloween. You can dress up whenever you want. It’s good for your imagination. Like on Mister Rogers you can take the train to Imagination Land.”

  It was called the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, and it was a trolley, not a train, but Tammy didn’t feel like correcting Valerie. Hugh watched Mister Rogers sometimes, but Tammy was way too old for that show and she hadn’t watched in years.

  “It’s hard growing up,” Valerie said. “No one wants to talk about anything anymore. Everyone just wants to get ahead. It can be very lonely.”

  “Can we turn on the radio?” Tammy asked. She felt awkward talking to Valerie. If Steffi or Kirin were in the car it would be different. But it was very weird to be talking to a younger kid’s mom for no reason.

  “Yeah, sure. We can turn on the radio. Sure.” She reached down and turned the knob. They were in the middle of a song. Valerie knew the words and she sang along with the chorus at the ending.

  “That was sad,” Valerie said. “When he died. John Lennon. From the Beatles. That was sad.”

  “My stepfather was sad about it,” Tammy said.

  “Last nail in the coffin of the sixties. That’s what they said.”

  Everyone was always bringing up the sixties, but Tammy wasn’t alive then so she usually found the conversation boring.

  Valerie turned to Tammy. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Okay,” Tammy said.

  “When you walk to school, with Steffi and Kirin, you follow all the rules, right? You don’t talk to strangers, you walk straight to school, you’re careful crossing the street . . . things like that?”

  Tammy understood now why Valerie acted so funny. She was an overprotective mother. That’s what Tammy’s mother called some of her friends’ mothers who wouldn’t let them come over in the afternoon if no adults were home. “She has an overprotective mother,” Tammy’s mother said to try and make her feel better. “It’s not your friend’s fault.”

  Valerie stopped at the stop sign on the corner of Bemis and 43rd Streets. She looked over at Tammy, waiting for an answer.

  “Yes,” Tammy said. She knew it was the answer an overprotective mother wanted to hear.

  Tammy got out of the car and walked around to the back of the house. Valerie followed her in the car and waited until she climbed the back steps, fished out her key from under her hobo shirt, and let herself in.

  Steffi was in the TV room just as she was when Tammy had left. Hugh wasn’t there; Steffi must’ve gotten him to go to bed somehow. Steffi looked over at Tammy and then back at the TV. She was sitting up straight with her hands on her knee-socked knees as though she were playing the part of someone watching TV. It was like she was faking watching TV. Steffi kept her eyes glued to the screen. She had a perfectly blank expression on her face. Tammy knew Steffi was up to something, but decided she didn’t care what, and walked past her into the kitchen.

  Her mother and Nick were sitting on the couch in the living room watching TV. Nick stood up as soon as he saw her.

  “Where’ve you been?” He walked up to her, put his hands in his pockets, and stooped over so he could look her in the eye. Tammy didn’t say anything back and he gave her a sharp “Huh?” trying to get her to say something.

  Tammy didn’t speak. She stared at the floorboards between her combat boots and the toes of Nick’s brown shoes.

  “Did you go to the party after we said you couldn’t?”

  There was no way Nick could prove anything. She could say she’d been sitting on the back porch and they just hadn’t noticed her. That would technically still count as being home, even though she wasn’t inside. That would still count as being on the property. But for some reason, Tammy thought if she told the truth, that it would be okay. That she wouldn’t be punished. After all, her mother and Nick were the ones who got the dates mixed up. And it’s always better to tell the truth. If Tammy told the truth they would realize she was a good person. Even if she did something bad, they would realize she was at least trying to be good.

  “Yes,” Tammy said in a very small voice.

  Nick yanked his hand out of his pocket and smacked the wall right by the side of Tammy’s head. He hit it so hard the red wall-mounted phone jumped out of its holder and fell to the kitchen floor. Tammy jerked a little when he did it, but she didn’t yell out or make any sort of sound. Her mother stood up and Tammy thought she might be coming to her rescue and was going to tell Nick to stop hitting things. But her mother only stood there, not even very close by, while Nick started yelling about how irresponsible Tammy was, how selfish she was, how she only thought about herself, and how she was going to have to learn that she doesn’t always get what she wants in life. But most of all Tammy had to learn about responsibility. She was the oldest and she had the most responsibility. When there was a break in his yelling speech, Tammy stuck in a tiny “Okay,” but Nick cut her off and said, “No, it’s not okay. It’s not okay to leave your brother and sister alone at night. What if something happened?”

  “Like what?” Tammy didn’t say this to be smart. She really wanted to know, like what? What could happen?

  “TAMMY!” Nick shouted. Tammy thought he was going to shout something more, or maybe actually spank her. She hadn’t been spanked since the fourth grade. Or maybe the third. It had definitely been a year. She thought it was over. Once when she was eight, he told her to turn off the TV, and then he spanked her hard across the butt. She was reaching to turn it off when he spanked her. Tammy asked him why he did that and he said she wasn’t turning it off fast enough.

  Nick took a deep inhale through his nose that sucked up some of his mustache hairs and said, “Go to your room.”

  Tammy trudged past her mother and Nick. When she put her first foot on the stairs she tripped on the boots again and said, “Shit,” under her breath. She said it quietly and no one heard her.

  “Tammy,” her mother called after her, “think about what could’ve happened if Steffi had had an asthma attack. Hugh wouldn’t have known what to do or how to call an ambulance. She could’ve died.”

  Tammy kept clomping up the stairs and didn’t answer anything back. She had never heard of anyone dying from an asthma attack before, but she supposed it could happen since Steffi did have to go to the emergency room sometimes. And so what if Steffi did die? Life would be easier if she did. No one would be walking through Tammy’s room all the time. And she could spread out and use both rooms and keep the separator door open.

  Her mother and Nick came upstairs a few minutes later and to
ld Tammy they had decided on a punishment for her. Tammy had forgotten about a punishment because usually they gave it right away, they usually yelled out, no dessert, no TV, you’re grounded, or something like that. She knew “go to your room” was not a real punishment, it was just something they said when they couldn’t think of anything else.

  They stood in the doorway to Tammy’s room and said that Tammy’s punishment would be watching Hugh next week—every day. Her days and Steffi’s days. Tammy said that was unfair. Why should Steffi get something for free? It wasn’t as if Steffi had done something super good. They said that it wasn’t fair to Steffi that Tammy left her alone with Hugh. They thought this was an appropriate punishment. Oh, and she wasn’t allowed to go the slumber party tomorrow either. Then they shut the door and went back downstairs.

  Tammy wanted to break something, but she had been sent to her room and she didn’t want to mess up any of her own stuff. She didn’t feel like reading so there was nothing left for her to do but go to bed. She got into bed without washing off her makeup beard because the last thing in the world she wanted to do was to walk into the hallway and see any of them. She preferred to get into bed, close her eyes, and pretend that since she couldn’t see anyone, no one could see her.

  TAMMY AND STEFFI spent the weekend of Spring Break at their dad’s apartment. It was also Tammy’s eleventh birthday. Tammy had wanted to have a party at home, but most of her friends were away because it was Spring Break. Tammy was a little upset about it, but her mother said, “I’m sure your dad will have something special planned.” When they got to their dad’s apartment, a lady was sitting on the couch reading a magazine. Tammy and Steffi asked who she was, and their dad said, “That’s Cindy. She’s a friend of mine.” Tammy and Steffi didn’t know their dad had friends. When they had visited him before, no one else was ever there. Tammy thought maybe they were dating, but her dad said “friend”; he didn’t say “girlfriend.”

  They drove to King’s Dominion amusement park near Richmond and stopped at a McDonald’s for lunch. Cindy wore lipstick and it left a red mark on her straw. At King’s Dominion, Tammy and her dad waited in line for the roller coasters while Cindy bought Steffi cotton candy and sat on a bench. When it was getting late, their dad said they had time for just one more ride. Tammy and Steffi wanted to go on the log flume, but Cindy said, “I’d rather not get my hair wet and be soaked for the whole ride home,” so they ended up going to the house of mirrors, which Tammy thought was boring because all she had to do was look at the floor and she could figure out where the mirrors were. Tammy was the first one out.