“That’s a real job?” TeeTee came right behind her. I can’t front, I was thinking the exact same thing.
“I hope so. If not, I don’t know where my parents are all the time.” Becca laughed, but only a little. There was something about her face in that moment that was weird, like something invisible was pinching her underarm. I knew that face. Saw it in Ghost. And some people say they saw it in me. Shoot, it was probably the face I made at lunch. The might-be-sick face.
So I pointed at a cluster to my left. Becca hopped up. “Oh, that looks like Pegasus.” And that did it. No more Frida. Becca was off, spazzing around her room, pointing out different star clusters and planets, explaining why we can’t see all of them where we live, straight up nerding out, and I was into it. But I guess T-N-T . . . not so much. They were basically just sitting there texting, and I figured they were texting each other talking trash about it all, but when Taylor blurted, “My mother’s here,” I realized who they were really texting.
“Already?” Becca asked, still not tripping about the way the girls had treated her. It was like nothing really bothered her, which I admired. “But you didn’t even have any cookies.”
“No, um, no . . . that’s okay,” TeeTee said, as if the cookies were going to be black too. Honestly, I was so caught up in her room that I’d forgotten all about the cookies.
“Yeah, it’s cool. We just . . . have to go. Sorry,” Taylor said, not seeming sorry at all.
“Well, let me walk you down,” Becca insisted.
I checked the time and knew that the two-hour mark was coming, and one thing about Momly was she was never late. She was the most on-time person in the world. So it made sense for me to head downstairs too. And halfway down the fancy round-and-round steps with the crystal chandelier hanging over us like ice frozen in the air, my phone buzzed. It was Momly. She was here.
Becca opened the door, and Maddy was outside talking to someone.
“Mrs. S, what are you doing here?” Maddy squealed, as me, Becca, Taylor, and TeeTee came through the door. Maddy was standing at the passenger-side window of the other car in the driveway. The one that came for T-N-T. At least I thought it had come for T-N-T, but why would Maddy’s teacher be here for them?
“I’m here to pick up my daughter, Taylor.” What? Daughter? Taylor? “And this is my sister, Mrs. Dorsey. She teaches at the school too. Fourth grade.”
“Hi, Madison. I’ve heard so much about you. Hopefully, you’ll be in my class in a few years.” Wait a minute. Taylor Stein. TeeTee Dorsey. Bestie-cousin-sisters. And daughters of . . . no way . . . teachers? Teachers. Tuh. Well, well, well. T-N-T. Regular girls.
I looked at the queen hair flippers, but guess what? They wouldn’t look at me. Just shot off the step and trotted over to the car. And that’s when I knew they knew they were caught. Gotcha! I could tell they knew what I was thinking. They knew I knew they’d been fronting this whole time. Ain’t no teachers rich, and I knew that because at Barnaby, they told us all the time. They don’t pay me enough to teach you and babysit you. Now I got why T-N-T were acting all weird in Becca’s house. Taking selfies at the piano and all that. Chandelier shots for days. I turned back to Becca. It was like she hadn’t even noticed. She just waved at them, while at the same time Maddy waved me over.
“Patty, it’s my teacher, Mrs. S!” she said as I walked toward the car.
“I see! Hi, Mrs. S.” I tried to keep my cool. “Happy early birthday. Taylor says y’all got plans tomorrow. Hope you have a great time!”
And before I got in the car, I looked up at the sky. Still cloudy. But I looked for stars anyway. Of course, I didn’t see none. But now, for some reason, it felt good just knowing there were more up there than I’d ever known.
TO DO: Be introduced to Momly (like, for real)
I HAD NEVER talked so much at dinner, but I was going on about Becca’s house, how beautiful it all was, and how Becca’s room was nothing like I expected.
“Stars everywhere. It was like being at the science center or something,” I explained. “And did y’all know rocket scientists were real?”
Momly laughed and Uncle Tony joked me, talking about, “It don’t take a rocket scientist to know rocket scientists are real, Patty.” I admit, he got me.
I tried to explain to Maddy what constellations were, telling her they were stars connected in the sky to make pictures. She said her teacher told them about constellations before, which of course made me go in on her teacher’s daughter. Bony McPhony and her cousin, Lie-Lie. All this time I’d been thinking about Taylor and TeeTee like they were some kind of royalty, when really they were just . . . regular girls pretending to be something they not. Cornballs.
“But you don’t know, maybe they have fathers that are doing well?” Momly suggested, her voice tired.
“Come on, babe,” Uncle Tony cut in. “If I hit it big, you think you’d decide to be around all them snotty noses—matter fact, snotty, snotty noses—every day?” Then he quickly added, “Not you, Maddy. And I’m not trying to be mean, but . . . come on, y’all know what I’m sayin’.”
“Well, how exactly do you plan on hitting it big?” Momly threw one of her zings that sound too sweet to be a zing, which makes it zingier.
“Oop!” I yelped, just to get Uncle Tony back for the rocket scientist burn.
“And also,” Momly added, “Tony, you know me better than that. There’s nothing I love more than a snotty nose. Snotty or not.”
After dinner, I wanted to help Momly with the dishes, sensing how tired she was. Uncle Tony had cleared the table and was now helping Maddy get ready for bed. She was probably talking his ear off about going to the farm in the morning. I couldn’t wait to hear what she thought of it, only because I remember when I went—every school in the city goes to the same one. Maybe it’s because they got so many cows, and that’s cool, but milking cows might’ve been the grossest thing I’ve ever done. I mean . . . yeah. It’s up there.
I ran the water in the sink.
“Oh, don’t worry about the dishes, Patty. I’ll take care of them in a minute,” Momly said, now bending down, sweeping nothing into a dustpan.
“I got it.”
“No, it’s okay,” she insisted. But I was already squirting green liquid soap on everything.
“Seriously, it’s fine. I can do it.”
Momly didn’t say nothing to that. Just emptied the dustpan in the trash, then put the broom back in the kitchen closet. She snatched a hand towel from the oven handle.
“Then I’ll dry.”
I scrubbed each plate, then handed it over to Momly, who wiped it, then put it back up in the cabinet. We did this over and over again with dishes and silverware, until there was nothing left but cups.
“I just can’t believe those girls,” I went on, handing Momly a glass. Just couldn’t get over it.
“I can.” She set the glass down. “I knew a lot of girls like that. Shoot, I was almost one of them.”