Free Absolutely Normal Chaos by Sharon Creech

next week. We’re going out to dinner first—on his birthday, that is—and then back to his house for a little get-together” ( get-together ??) “with his parents and grandparents. They’re such a nice family. I think I’ve met just about everyone in his family: his parents—they asked me to call them Betty and Bill—his brother, Gregory, of course—that’s Judy’s boyfriend—hisgrandparents—they asked me to call them Nonna and Poppa—his aunt Jean and uncle Roy; his aunt Catherine and uncle Bob. I think that’s about it. Oh, and his best friend, whose name is Jerry—and Jerry’s girlfriend, Molly. We’ve doubled with them a few times. Not too many times though, because Derek doesn’t really like Molly. She talks so much.”
    Molly talks so much??? Have you ever heard anyone go on like Beth Ann does? How does she think of all those things to say? I am interested in what Beth Ann does, but really, should I be expected to care what Derek’s grandparents want her to call them? Or what Derek’s best friend’s girlfriend’s name is???
    But I did pretend to be interested. You have to suffer through a few dozen of those things with Beth Ann in the hopes that she’ll finally get to something meaty. I had to prompt her a little.
    “So,” I tried, “what do you and Derek do when you go out?”
    “Oh, lots of things. We go to the movies and sometimes for a hamburger and—”
    “You already told me all that. I meant what do you do , like, after ward?”
    She gave me one of her funny smiles that meant “Oh, I get it,” and then she looked around to see if Dougie and Tommy were near enough to hear. They weren’t. She said, “Well—it is sort of personal….”
    “Beth Ann Bartels,” I said, “I am your best friend, or at least I thought I was, and if you can’t tell me…” I put on this real hurt look.
    “Well—it’s just that Derek wouldn’t like it if I talked about Us like that,” and she glanced at me, but I was still doing my hurt look, so she said, “but I know I can trust you.”
    “Well, I hope so!”
    “Okay, then, but promise…”
    “I promise ! Geez, what do I have to do, swear on a Bible?”
    “Okay, okay, don’t get upset. Let’s see. We talk a lot.”
    I rolled my eyes.
    “Well, we do . He’s a very interesting person, you know. He tells me all kinds of things, like about…”
    “Beth Ann!”
    “Right. You don’t want to know about our conversations—you just want to know all the sordid details.”
    If anyone else had said this, I probably would have been mad, but she was being so ridiculous and of course I wanted to know all the “sordid” details, so I just fell over laughing and then she fell over laughing and we were finally getting back to being good friends. Or so I thought.
    Then I told her how much it had been bothering me that she hardly ever talked to me anymore andthen when she did, all she could do was moon over Derek and talk like Megan and Christy: “di-viiiiine” and “truly wonderful” and all that. It felt good to tell her, and fortunately she didn’t even seem to mind. She just laughed about it and said she was sorry and that she hadn’t meant to sound so drippy and all.
    But then I really blew it. I don’t know what came over my brain, but I guess I thought I could go on being one hundred percent honest, and I said, “Well, maybe I was a little jealous. Maybe I was. When Maggie told me that she saw you and Derek at the party and that you were hanging all over him and that he was sort of a j—” All of a sudden I could tell by the look on her face that I had gone too far.
    Boy, did she get mad! She straightened out her little mouth so fast into this flat little line and scrunched up her eyes and jumped up and said, “God, Mary Lou! Who do you think you are, anyway?!”
    I started to apologize, but she wouldn’t let me talk at all.
    “I was NOT hanging all over Derek—believe me, I don’t have to do that. And Derek is NOT a