“This is a moot point, because you will be on that bus and back at Madame’s in no time.”
“A what?” I said, wondering how I would ever learn all of these vocabulary words.
“Look it up,” he said.
I know that ballerinas and saints have to sacrifice a lot and suffer both physically and mentally. Maybe I would become the Patron Saint of Ballerinas and ballerinas from all over the world would leave me offerings of toe shoes and leg warmers.
I decided to write another letter to the Pope. I told him about my idea. I told him I would be in Italy in June. I signed the letter, The Future Patron Saint of Ballerinas. Then, because that sounded a little too smug, I added a question mark. Then an exclamation point. Then I mailed it and waited for him to answer.
When we lived in Boston, I had three best friends—the girls with flower names—and eight regular friends, which made eleven friends total. Eleven friends was the perfect amount. But when we moved to Providence I had exactly no best friends. Sometimes I got invited to someone’s house after school, but it never worked out. I would tell them about my miracles and they would want to watch reruns of Friends. I would discuss various saints; they would discuss Teen Vogue.
For a while I thought Eliza Harrison would be my best friend. Her mother is my mother’s best friend—read: only friend—here. While our mothers sit in the Harrisons’ basement drinking white wine, Eliza and I go up to her room on the third floor. She has the whole floor, which sounds very fancy, but it’s really the attic of their house, so it’s just a big open space covered with stuff from Target. She pronounces it Tar-jay, which is really annoying. Eliza should go and work at Target because she loves it so much.
One day she said, “Have you seen the dollar bins at Tar-jay? I got all this stuff for pedicures there and it only cost thirteen dollars.”
When I didn’t answer because I didn’t really know what to say to that ridiculous piece of information, Eliza said, “Duh, all of these things were only a dollar each.”
I said, “I hate Target.” This wasn’t actually true. I am neutral about Target.
“Madeline,” Eliza said, “why do you have to be so weird?”
This was from a girl who wore peds with her sneakers, those strange little socks they make you use in shoe stores to try on shoes. Eliza also only read books on the summer reading list; she had no imagination. Also, she played field hockey all the time. In the summer she went away to field hockey camp and during the school year she played field hockey on about a thousand different teams. Her thighs looked like tree trunks. I could have told her that. I could have pointed out my own delicate legs, how ballet gave you grace and poise while field hockey only allowed you to run around with a stick and get thick thighs. But I didn’t. Instead, I acted saintly.
I said, “Eliza, when I am a saint we’ll see who’s weird,” which made no sense but it was the only thing I could say without crying from frustration.
When my mother finally finished drinking wine with Mrs. Harrison and we went home, instead of giving me sympathy, she said, “Maybe she’s giving you a helpful hint.”
“Not everything fits under a magazine headline,” I told her. “You can’t buy a personality at Tar-jay.” Then I said, “I bet Daddy would understand.”
“Your father,” my mother said, shaking her head, “has ruined everything for everybody.”
I started to go to church every Sunday. My mother thought I was just getting some fresh air, something she put far too much value in. My research revealed that even though I hated to admit it, she had been right about something: Saints were all Catholic. So Catholic that they died defending the religion. These were called martyrs. I liked the idea of martyrdom, but I didn’t want to die. So I started giving up little things: Twizzlers, for one. Sleeping late on Sundays, for another. Instead of staying in my bed, piled up with blankets the way I liked, I got up and put on a nice skirt, and went to church.
One day in spring, with everything draped in purple for Lent and somber white lilies up on the altar, I found myself sitting next to Antoinetta Calabro. The first thing I noticed about her was that she was alone, too, like me. Most kids our age were squeezed into pews with their parents and little sisters and brothers. The next thing I noticed was how different she looked from anyone else I knew.