Free Will the Real Raisin Rodriguez Please Stand Up? by Judy Goldschmidt Page B

didn’t used to bother me, but now it’s kind of starting to. Maybe it’s because we’re three thousand miles apart, and I can’t see his face, so the weirdness doesn’t get balanced out by the gooourgeoussssitttttyyyyy—” I lost my footing and went down again. Flat on my butt.
    â€œWhose gorgeousity?” I heard someone say as Pia and Claudia reached down to help me up. But the only other person on the ice besides us was some girl spinning through the air. As she landed perfectly on her left foot and finished off with a final twirl, I was able to see her face. It was Vivvy, with an acute case of professional-ice-skater-itis.
    â€œWe were just talking about CJ,” Pia said.
    â€œAnd his talking deficiency?” Vivvy asked.
    It bothered me a little that Vivvy felt so comfortable bringing up CJ’s faults. And also, maybe I’m imagining this, but she said “talking deficiency” like it was a bad thing. Instead of just a fact. I wish I had remembered to think of typo. Then maybe her comment wouldn’t have bothered me so much.
    But then she actually said something helpful. She told me that sometimes Jackson comes down with Talking Deficiency too, and she just says to him, “Jackson, honey, talk to me, and then he does.”
    â€œCJ, honey, talk to me,” I said, just to hear the sound of it. “Not bad, maybe I’ll try it.” Now the three of us were circling the rink. I decided not to let her get to me and to do the polite thing and make conversation with her.
    â€œWhen is Jackson getting here anyway?” I asked.
    â€œSoon. He’s playing basketball with some friends, so when he’s finished with that,” she answered, and then she suggested that we all go get some hot cocoa.
    As the four of us sat around the table drinking our chocolatey deliciousness, I felt myself warming to Vivvy. Maybe I was seeing her through hot cocoa goggles, but I was beginning to get why Pia and Claudia thought the two of us were so similar. We both have divorced parents, we both love Pia and Claudia, we both have boyfriends (one talks, the other one doesn’t; I’m still counting it as a similarity), and we both share a love for Vivvy’s hair. Not that she ever said she loves it, but how could she not?
    Pia was just finishing up telling us about this girl in her ballet class who eats cotton balls dipped in water to fill herself up so she won’t eat food—“That is so yuck,” I said. “Excuse me while I go Purell my brain”—when a very cute boy with brown hair and blue eyes walked up behind Vivvy and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
    â€œI’m Jackson,” said the boy as he extended his hand to me. “Nice to meet you, Mervis.”
    I stiffened. Vivvy, Claudia, and Pia looked a little panicked. “That is a very impolite thing to say to someone,” I barked. “Why are you calling me that?”
    Jackson looked very confused. “What else would I call you?”
    â€œWhat else would you call me?” I barked again.
    â€œI don’t think you understand, Rae,” Claudia said.
    â€œThat’s right, I don’t understand. Why would he call me that? What did I ever do to him?” I asked.
    â€œRaisin, he’s not calling you a Mervis. He’s calling you Mervis because he’s confusing it with your name,” Vivvy explained.
    â€œOops,” said Jackson.
    â€œOoooooooh,” I said, realizing what had happened. I’d gotten so used to referring to that part of the body as Mervis that when I hear it, I automatically think vagina. In the exact same way that I think vagina when someone says vagina. I forget that the rest of the world just thinks of it as a regular old first name.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I told Jackson. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. When I hear Mervis, my mind goes straight to . . . something else.”
    â€œI’m