Free What Every Girl (except me) Knows by Nora Raleigh Baskin

uncomfortable. Why was I feeling like the villain? It was Ian; he was the problem. Not me.
    “Just because he doesn’t talk about it, doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking about it. Missing her,” Cleo said softly. Now I was really angry. I couldn’t miss my mother if I wanted to. And Ian didn’t, either.
    Though once a long time ago, when Ian and I were visiting our grandparents before Nana died and Grandpa got married again, we were alone and we were talking. Ian asked me if I remembered anything.
    Did I remember that morning she died?
    “What morning?” I asked.
    “When we tried to wake her up?”
    “How did we do that?”
    “Do you remember when we went in the elevator?” he asked.
    “We did?”
    “Do you remember the doorman?”
    “The what?”
    Ian stopped talking then. But ever since, I’ve had my own memory of riding in an elevator with Ian. Everything is dark all around us, and then there is a bright light. It’s so much like a memory—and I know it isn’t real. My brother asked me some questions, and so I made up some pictures in my mind to go with it. Now it’s stuck there in my brain, calling itself a memory even though it’s not.
    Cleo pulled up the brake and jiggled her stick shift. We were three cars behind the drop-off to the New Paltz middle school. Two apple trees away.
    I saw Lynette get out of her truck just ahead. She had her knapsack and a Grand Union grocery bag in her hands.
    Oh, crud! I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to bring the heavy cream for my group’s final home economics project. My project group was Amber, Lynette, and me.
    Of course, Amber will have her ingredient. Look, even Lynette remembered. Oh, damn, I thought. I closed my eyes against the worry, against facing the home ec. teacher and Amber, who would be furious if I ruined the rice pudding.
    “What’s the matter?” Cleo asked.
    If Cleo were my mother she would run to the Grand Union right away, as soon as I mentioned that I had forgotten something. She wouldn’t think twice. And she’d get me what I needed and bring it to the office, labeled with my name.
    But I couldn’t ask. She might not be able to go, and then Cleo would be uncomfortable having to tell me she couldn’t do it. Or worse: She’d say no, and I’d have to feel terrible that I had asked and she said no.
    No, I couldn’t even imagine asking.
    But wouldn’t it be nice if I asked and she had smiled and said, “Yes, of course. I’ll get you whatever you need.”
    “So are you getting married to my dad or not?” I asked as I opened the car door to get out. As if I cared anymore.
    “Yes. Yes, I am,” Cleo said firmly.
    I was so glad. Soon, real soon, I’d be able to ask for heavy cream, if I ever forgot to bring it again.

Chapter 19
    “I can’t believe it,” Amber was saying. She put her hands up to her head and rocked it back and forth as if she’d just learned that someone had dumped nuclear waste into the town’s water supply.
    “It’s not that big a deal,” I said.
    Lynette, Amber, and I were in kitchen unit number seven, the one in the far corner by the window, where the rain outside hit steadily against the panes. Each kitchen unit had a stove, a sink, and a wood-block table. There was only one refrigerator for everyone, and that was in the main kitchen area. Mrs. Drummond, the home ec. teacher, was in kitchen unit number three helping Peter, Kevin, and Booby with their baked Alaska. (That’s his name—Booby, as in booby prize. His real name is Abe.) From the sound of things, the baked Alaska wasn’t going well.
    “By the time she gets to us, she’ll be in a really bad mood,” Amber wailed. “How could you forget one little container of cream?”
    I turned to look at Amber with my don’t-start-with-me look, but Lynette was suddenly in the way.
    “It will be all right,” Lynette recited, “Three tablespoons of butter and seven-eighths of a cup of milk.”
    Amber paid no attention. As far as she was concerned,