"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that word from you. It'll be easy because I'll never hear it again. Right?"
Kate couldn't help wishing she was like Tully. She'd never back down so easily. She'd probably light up a cigarette right now and dare her mom to say something.
Mom dug through the baggy pocket of her skirt and found her cigarettes. Lighting up, she studied Kate. "You know I love you and I support you and I would never let anyone hurt you. But Katie, I have to ask you: What is it you're waiting for?"
"What do you mean?"
"You spend all your time reading and doing homework. How are people supposed to get to know you when you act like that?"
"They don't want to know me."
Mom touched her hand gently. "It's never good to sit around and wait for someone or something to change your life. That's why women like Gloria Steinem are burning their bras and marching on Washington."
"So that I can make friends?"
"So that you know you can be whatever you want to be. Your generation is so lucky. You can be anything you want. But you have to take a risk sometimes. Reach out. One thing I can tell you for sure is this: we only regret what we don't do in life."
Kate heard an odd sound in her mom's voice, a sadness that tinted the word regret. But what could her mother possibly know about the battlefield of junior high popularity? She hadn't been a teenager in decades. "Yeah, right."
"It's true, Kathleen. Someday you'll see how smart I am." Her mom smiled and patted her hand. "If you're like the rest of us, it'll happen at about the same time you want me to babysit for the first time."
"What are you talking about?"
Mom laughed at some joke Kate didn't even get. "I'm glad we had this talk. Now go. Make friends with your new neighbor."
Yeah. That would happen.
"Wear oven mitts. It's still hot," Mom said.
Perfect. The mitts.
Kate went over to the counter and stared down at the red-brown glop of a casserole. Dully, she fitted a sheet of foil across the top, curled the edges down, and then put on the puffy, quilted blue oven mitts her Aunt Georgia had made. At the back door, she slipped her stockinged feet into the fake Earth shoes on the porch and headed down the spongy driveway.
The house across the street was long and low to the ground, a rambler-style in an L shape that faced away from the road. Moss furred the shingled roof. The ivory sides were in need of paint, and the gutters were overflowing with leaves and sticks. Giant rhododendron bushes hid most of the windows, runaway junipers created a green spiky barrier that ran the length of the house. No one had tended to the landscaping in years.
At the front door Kate paused, drawing in a deep breath.
Balancing the casserole in one hand, she pulled off one oven mitt and knocked.
Please let no one be home.
Almost instantly she heard footsteps from inside.
The door swung open to reveal a tall woman dressed in a billowy caftan. An Indian-beaded headband circled her forehead. Two mismatched earrings hung from her ears. There was a strange dullness in her eyes, as if she needed glasses and didn't have them, but even so, she was pretty in a sharp, brittle kind of way. "Yeah?"
Weird, pulsing music seemed to come from several places at once; though the lights were turned off, several lava lamps burped and bubbled in eerie green and red canisters.
"H-hello," Kate stammered. "My mom made you guys this casserole."
"Right on," the lady said, stumbling back, almost falling.
And suddenly Tully was coming through the doorway, sweeping through, actually, moving with a grace and confidence that was more movie star than teenager. In a bright blue minidress and white go-go boots, she looked old enough to be driving a car. Without saying anything, she grabbed Kate's arm, pulled her through the living room, and into a kitchen in which everything was pink: walls, cabinets, curtains, tile counters, table. When Tully looked at her, Kate thought she saw a flash of something that looked like embarrassment in those dark eyes.
"Was that your mom?" Kate asked, uncertain of what to say.
"She has cancer."
"Oh." Kate didn't know what to say except, "I'm sorry." Quiet pressed into the room. Instead of making eye contact with Tully, Kate studied the table. Never in her life had she seen so much junk food in one place. Pop-Tarts, Cap'n Crunch and Quisp boxes, Fritos, Funyuns, Twinkies, Zingers, and Screaming Yellow Zonkers. "Wow. I wish my mom would let me eat all this stuff." Kate immediately wished she'd kept her mouth shut. Now she sounded hopelessly uncool. To give herself something to do—and somewhere to look besides Tully's unreadable face—she put the casserole on the counter. "It's still hot," she said, stupidly, considering that she was wearing oven mitts that looked like killer whales.
Tully lit up a cigarette and leaned against the pink wall, eyeing her.
Kate glanced back at the door to the living room. "She doesn't care if you smoke?"
"She's too sick to care."
"Oh."
"You want a drag?"
"Uh . . . no. Thanks."
"Yeah. That's what I thought."
On the wall, the black Kit-Kat Klock swished its tail.
"Well, you probably have to get home for dinner," Tully said.
"Oh," Kate said again, sounding even more nerdy than she had before. "Right."
Tully led the way back through the living room, where her mother was now sprawled on the sofa. "'Bye, girl from across the street with the cool neighbor attitude."
Tully yanked the door open. Beyond it, the falling night was a blurry purple rectangle that seemed too vivid to be real. "Thanks for the food," she said. "I don't know how to cook, and Cloud is cooked, if you know what I mean."
"Cloud?"