Trouble is a Friend of Mine

‘No outfits from the Make-Ur-Bear for the dance, either.’ Boy, am I glad I made that clear, because his face fell and he made a disappointed ‘Ohhhhh’ sound.

The dance itself sounded like it might be cool. When Sloane’s mother had dropped off the check, she declared the theme to be ‘Guys and Dolls’ and avoided the usual Enchantment-Under-the-Sea cliché. People were confused at first, but after everyone googled it, the whole school was talking about gangsters and flapper dresses.

I found a pink dress that had a twenties-y shape at the Goodwill and glue-gunned tons of feathers to the bottom of it during a Gilmore Girls marathon that Saturday.

I made a headband using three of Mom’s rhinestone necklaces and the lace from an old pair of tights and then joined together strings of plastic pearls to make one long knee-dusting necklace.

Mom took out a sequined clutch bag from a tissue-lined box. ‘I slept in on dibs-day after Grandma died, and this was the only nice thing I ended up inheriting. It’ll look perfect with your outfit. And I’ve got the perfect shoes too.’

She’d shined up an old pair of her pearly white tap shoes that were basically high-heeled Mary Janes.

‘Are these loud?’ I was worried because the metal taps on my soles click-clacked as I walked around.

‘The music will block it out,’ Mom said.

‘When did you tap dance, anyway?’ I said.

‘I was trying to lose weight, but I never tapped fast enough to burn any calories,’ Mom said.

Speaking of failed attempts to exercise: it was November and out here, that meant cross-country season.

‘You can win a race without coming in first,’ the gym teacher said. He and his assistant teacher were leading a small group of the sporty students in my gym class through a stretching routine.

The rest of us were in the back, doing half-hearted versions of their moves. Our class had been divided into two groups: the social runners and the competitive runners. They supposedly did that so the social runners wouldn’t be pressured to run beyond their abilities. Really, though, it was so that they could use class time to drill runners who had after-school practice for other sports. They didn’t need us slowing them down. I sometimes ran the course, but after tweaking my ankle on the uneven path through the woods, I began to fake-start the run and then circle back to do homework before I fake-crossed the line ten or so minutes after the fast runners finished. I had my Spanish homework folded up in my pocket and I had a grassy knoll all picked out.

The teacher’s pep talk wasn’t for me. ‘The intensity has to come from within,’ he said. ‘Attack the course. Push past the pain.’ And with a weird tribal screech, the fast pack were off.

There was a bunch of kids who, like me, skipped the runs. I looked at us, straggling off in different directions, and wondered why all the lonely people didn’t just get it together and decide not to be lonely anymore. But I guess that’s the problem with individualism.

Suddenly, I heard, ‘Hey, Princeton. Up here.’ There was Digby, looking down at me from the top of a rise leading to the dirt road beside the trail. ‘Come over here.’

‘That’s super-steep. Why don’t you come down here?’

His breathing was labored. ‘Can’t. Just come up, okay?’ And then he disappeared from my line of sight.

I expected to see him looking down, laughing at me as I struggled up the slope, but he didn’t reappear. For every three feet I gained, I slid back down two. It was only by pulling myself up by the exposed tree roots that I finally managed to make progress. By the time I got close to the top, dirt was caked under my fingernails.

I said, ‘I don’t understand why you couldn’t have come down –’ I stopped short when I summited and saw Digby lying flat on his back. ‘Oh, my God, Digby. What happened?’

Digby grunted but seemingly couldn’t get the words out to answer me. I ran over and in a weird reflex, opened his jacket to take a look at his chest.

Digby was gasping. ‘Get … off … I haven’t been … shot.’

‘Then what –’

‘Can’t … can’t … I’m having an anxiety … attack …’

I rifled through his jacket pockets. ‘Is there a pill you take or something?’

Digby shook his head. ‘No … no … you got to … you got to sit … on my chest …’

‘What? Digby, is this some kind of scam?’

‘No … no … I got to … got to slow my breathing … please …’

I’d never seen that look on his face before. It was scary. He really was in trouble. I climbed over him and straddled his chest. At first, I was too scared to put my whole weight on him but gradually, I was fully sitting on his ribs.

Digby closed his eyes and sure enough, after a few minutes, his breathing slowed down. I started to wonder if he’d fallen asleep.

‘Digby?’

He just sighed.

‘Are you feeling better?’ I said.

He nodded, blissed out.