"Who's that?" Frances asked. Danielle's door was not quite closed. She could hear two voices, low and hushed, but distinct enough. "I thought you said your parents were still sleeping?"
"They are," Danielle said, looking alarmed. She rushed over to the door and peered out. "Oh. It's just Dave. He's Matt's friend. Well, not really. They're not school friends, just home friends." She waved her hand holding the nail polish. "You know what I mean."
Frances did. At school, you had to be friends with the right kids, and if you made a mistake and hung out with the wrong ones, it could cause problems for you in the long run. The jocks and the brains and the art kids and the drama kids, they didn't mix. Frances' school friends were the second-tier popular crowd, the ones who hadn't quite made it to the top of the social pyramid, but were ready to move up into the upper echelons of status if anyone got knocked down from their spot. Just last week, for example, Joscelyn Rogers had come to school with the most unfortunate of haircuts, and by the end of the day her spot at the popular kids' lunch table was occupied by someone else. Joscelyn wouldn't be eligible for her spot for some time, and there was no way Frances or any of the other second-tier girls would be caught dead hanging out with her. She ended up sitting alone at lunch, which was the kiss of death.
But at home, you could be friends with anybody you wanted, and there was nobody to tell you you couldn't - except your parents, sometimes. Frances and Danielle were both school and home friends, but that was unusual; most kids didn't have very much crossover between the two. Usually home friends were kids who lived on your block, kids you'd grown up with, friends of your parents, or even kids from other schools. You could walk with home friends to school, but once you were there, you weren't obligated to talk to them.
Frances liked it when she would be assigned to do projects or groups in class with home friends, because it meant she could spend time in school with home friends without fear of reprisal. And sometimes school friends could get invited to your house to work on homework, and became home friends. That had happened with Danielle.
Danielle's parents were super strict. They went to a church that wouldn't let them do all kinds of things. Danielle's brother Matt had gone through a huge fight with them just a few months ago when he wanted to join the Glee club; he wasn't supposed to dance, which Frances thought was ridiculous. Danielle wasn't allowed to paint her nails, so when Frances slept over, she always brought nail polish with her. She worried about getting in trouble, but Danielle promised she'd take the heat if they got discovered. It was easier in the winter when Danielle could wear gloves to school and cover up her nails before she left the house.
"I think something funny is going on between Matt and Dave," Danielle said in a whisper.
"What?" Frances asked, sorting through the nail polish to find the colors her mother would let her wear. Muted tones she could get away with, and sometimes a little glitter on top of the pastels, especially now that it was nearly Christmas. She chose pink and a creamy pearl color.
"I think they're doing stuff," she said, and her tone was awed and a little confused.
Frances glanced at the door to Danielle's room, as though the stuff would suddenly be there for her to see, like a movie. Not that she wanted to see that kind of stuff. She wrinkled her nose. "No way," she said. "I don't think so. Aren't they football players?"
But even as she said it, she thought about Sarah's brother, Puck. He was a football player too - she'd seen him in his letterman jacket. And he had a boyfriend. Kurt. Kurt was kind of like a girl, so she guessed it made sense that he would be dating a football player. But two football players together? That didn't seem right.
"No, really," Danielle insisted. She pointed one magenta-painted finger at Frances. "I saw them in Matt's room. They were kissing."
They made twin noises of shock and disgust. Frances had never kissed a boy, but she wasn't particularly eager to try it. Boys didn't smell very good, to begin with, and the things that came out of their mouths were seldom pleasant.
"Have you kissed a boy?" she asked Danielle, waving her hands to dry the base coat.
"At Dominique Ford's birthday party. We played a game where you had to go in the closet for seven minutes. I went with Archie Turnbull."
"What... did he do?" Frances had the same feeling that she'd had in biology lab when they dissected frogs: it was kind of gross, but fascinating at the same time.
"It was nice. I don't know. I can't really remember." The vague look on Danielle's face made Frances wonder if she'd really done anything at all, if maybe she was just making it all up. Danielle did that sometimes; Frances thought she didn't like to look like she didn't know something. Then she laughed. "That was the party where Sarah dumped the punch on Greg Tate's head."
That sounded like something Sarah would do. "Did he try to kiss her?"
"No, he was trying to kiss Amy Lewis. Sarah was really mad at him. She threatened to cut off his fingers and feed them to Dominique's Siberian husky."
Again, Frances wasn't surprised. Sarah was always standing up for kids who were getting pushed around. Skinny, shy Amy Lewis against Greg Tate's obnoxious bravado was a recipe for disaster. Sarah wouldn't have tolerated it.
Danielle looked at Frances with her customary seriousness. "I can't believe her mom's really dead."
"I guess she was sick," Frances said. As though that made it okay.
While they finished their nails, Frances thought about Sarah's phone call, and about what Puck had said to her. She wondered if he'd ever come home on Friday night. She wondered how Kurt was doing, if he missed his boyfriend. She wondered what it would be like to have a boyfriend, someone who cared about her like that. But maybe he didn't really care so much, if he hadn't come home?
But she remembered the look on Kurt's face when he'd shouted Noah from across the cemetery, and the corresponding look on Puck's face when he'd driven away. Yes - he did. He did care.
"How's Sarah doing?" Danielle asked, and Frances looked at her, surprised.
"I don't know," she said. "She's... she's not a home friend." But she wasn't a school friend, either, because Sarah wasn't the kind of person Frances was supposed to spend time with at school.
"But you went home with her the other day, didn't you?" Danielle didn't miss much.
"I cut my finger," she said, "and Kurt gave me a ride home."
"Kurt? Kurt Hummel?" Danielle got a dreamy look on her face. "Oh, he's so cute. He's in Glee club with my brother."
Frances thought about saying he's got a boyfriend, and wondered if that would make Danielle change her mind about Kurt, if she knew he was doing stuff with another boy.
They waited until their nails were dry, then they put on gloves and snuck out to the kitchen. There was a crumpled bag of donuts on the table. "I don't like these kind," said Danielle, handing them to Frances. She ate one, but it was almost too sweet, and she kind of wished she hadn't.
After Frances' mother picked her up at Danielle's house and brought her home, Frances looked up Kurt's number in the phone book. Hummel. There was a Hummel Tires and Lube. She wondered if that belonged to Mr. Hummel. Then there was Hummel, Burt. She called that one.
"Hello?" The voice wasn't Kurt's, or Mr. Hummel's. It was a woman. For a chilling moment, Frances wondered if it was Ruth Puckerman's ghost, haunting them, but the moment passed and she shook herself firmly.
"Hello, this is Frances Preston," she said. "I'm... I'm a friend of Sarah's. I was just calling to see... if she was there."
"Hi, Frances," said the voice. "Sarah's actually staying at my house right now. I'm Carole. Do you want me to give you her cell number?"
"Sure," she said. Carole. She sounded nice. "Thanks."
Sarah picked up on the first ring. "FBI Central Headquarters; what is your ID code?"
"What?"
"Apparently I've received a call from someone with no sense of humor. Who the hell is this?"
Frances huffed. "You don't have to swear at me, Sarah."
There was a pause. "Frances?"
"Yes." Her father, sitting in front of the television watching football, gave her the evil eye. She took the receiver into her room and closed the door.
"How'd you get my number?" Sarah sounded suspicious.
"Carole gave it to me. I called Mr. Hummel's house. Who is she, anyway?"
"She's Finn's mother," she said. Frances thought, Finn - the tall one with the dreamy eyes. He'd been the one standing so close to Kurt, kind of hovering, like he was protecting him. They weren't brothers. Best friends, maybe. "What did you want?"
Frances bit the nail on her finger - a disgusting habit, her mother said, but one that was hard to break - and felt the ridge of the scab where the paper cut had been. "I was thinking about your brother, and hoping he got home okay the other night."
"You called about my brother?" Sarah sounded almost angry. "Sorry, he's taken."
"I know," Frances said indignantly, stretching out on her bed. "He's got Kurt. And I don't like him, not that way. That's gross."
Sarah sighed. Eventually she said, "He's gone."
"What?" Frances whispered. "He - he's dead?" That would just be too much for even Sarah to handle, she thought in horror.
"No!" Sarah snapped. "He's gone, as in out of town. He left notes for Kurt and Finn and took off."
"Oh." She felt relieved. "So when is he coming back?"
"I don't know. Maybe never."
That was almost worse, in a way. "I'm sorry," she said, not knowing what else to say.
"It's okay. He does this sometimes. So did my Ma. They need time to themselves, to think things through."
When Frances was confused about something, being alone and thinking about it just made things more complicated, like stepping in a mud puddle; it just tracked a mess all over the place and made her feel cold and clammy. It wasn't easy to figure out what she was really feeling when she was alone. She wasn't exactly sure what she needed, but being alone was seldom it.
"Was there something else?" Sarah was annoyed again. Frances figured she owed her a little leeway about her attitude, though, because losing one's mother and one's brother in one week was pretty awful.
"I was hoping you were okay. You're not staying with Kurt?" Her nail was getting shorter.
"I'm at Finn's house. He and my brother were together first, but right now they're kind of broken up. They had a big fight."
Broken up? "I thought he was going out with Kurt?"
"He is. And Finn. Except now Finn's just a brother, not a boyfriend. Maybe someday they'll be boyfriends again."
Frances knew that sometimes people did date more than one person at a time. And maybe it was different with boys; who knew? "It sounds complicated."
"It is. But it's awesome, too. I mean, it was. Right now it just sucks." She sighed. "Hanukkah's not supposed to suck."
"Do you want to come over?" Frances wasn't sure what made her say that, but it was giving her an itchy, uncomfortable sensation to hear Sarah sad like that.
"Um."
"You could come for dinner. You don't have to eat special foods for Hanukkah, do you?"
That made Sarah laugh, even though Frances hadn't intended it to. She tried not to feel offended. "No. I mean, sure. I could bring something."
The something turned out to be freshly baked applesauce bread with currants and walnuts. Frances couldn't say it in front of her mother, but it was way better than any bread her mother had ever made. "We're glad you could join us, Sarah," her mother said graciously, buttering another slice. She didn't even make a comment about Sarah's clothes. Tonight she was wearing leggings under a sarong, with what looked like a hospital scrub top with purple and orange cats all over it. Her corkscrew curls were covered with a batik print bandana, and she had all seven earring holes filled.
"Thanks for dinner," Sarah said. She'd eaten reasonably well, considering she was grieving, which Frances knew from books often meant that people didn't want to eat. Sarah didn't really seem any different, actually, other than being a little quieter, which could have been explained by being at a strange person's house.
They went to Frances' room after dinner. Sarah pulled out her iPod and brought up some Lady Gaga songs, but Frances shook her head nervously. "My parents don't like that kind of music."
"I bet they've never even heard it before," she said, urging Frances to take it. "Go on. It's all right; we'll keep the volume down."
Her parents didn't come in to tell them to turn it off, so Frances guessed it was going to be all right. Sarah pulled a blank notebook out of her bag, got out a pencil, and turned to Frances' bed, where her favorite three stuffed animals were lying in repose against the headboard. She started to sketch the animals, outlining their position in broad strokes, then adding detail. She was very good, surprisingly good, Frances thought, though she'd never been much of an artist.
"So why'd you really call me?" Sarah said, not looking up from her picture.
Frances adjusted her sock with annoyance. "What do you mean?"
"We're not home friends," she said. The way Sarah said it, it sounded like something regretful, something she wished she could take back, but there was no way around it, was there? "So why'd you do it?"
"I don't know," Frances said testily. "I just was thinking about you and - and I didn't like you being alone."
Sarah glanced up in surprise. "I'm not, though. Remember? Mr. Hummel, and Mrs. Hudson - Carole - and Kurt and Finn. Not alone."
Frances forced a breath out between her teeth. "Well, fine, then - you can go home if you want; I'm not keeping you!"
Sarah returned to her drawing, a smile playing over her lips. "I know."
It was silent for a little while, and it felt way too easy for it to be like that. Frances listened to the Lady Gaga song that was on and decided she liked it, but she didn't tell Sarah that.
"What's it like to have a brother with a boyfriend?" she asked instead.
"I don't think it's that different from having a brother with a girlfriend," Sarah shrugged. "Noah's dated lots of girls. But none of them were as awesome as Kurt and Finn. I mean, Finn was his best friend for years, since I was a little kid. He's exactly what Noah needs. And things with Kurt - they're just really hot for each other. It's kind of adorable."
Frances felt her face burning. Hot for each other. That was more than she needed to hear. It was like her mother would say, Frances, you're oversharing. At the same time, though, she found she had more questions than she knew what to do with. She chose one of the more innocuous ones to ask. "Two boys together... that's kind of weird."
"No, it's not," Sarah said calmly. Frances waited for her to say more, but that was all.
"Danielle Rutherford said her brother Matt and his friend are together like that."
"Good for them."
Frances turned her head in annoyance. "Come on. Don't you think it's even a little weird?"
"No," said Sarah. "I don't. It's the best thing ever. You'd know what I meant, if you saw them together. It's the kind of love every love song ever written is about."
"I've never heard a love song written about two boys." Frances didn't know why she was arguing so much with Sarah, but it felt almost impossible not to. She wanted her to lose her cool, but Sarah was cooler than a glass of iced tea.
"I don't give a rat's ass about boys," Sarah said emphatically. "Except for my brothers, and Mr. Hummel. Everybody else can take a flying -"
"Sarah," Frances hissed. "My mother will hear."
Sarah glanced at the door, then grinned at Frances. It was that grin that said God, the universe is hilarious, isn't it? Frances usually found it completely annoying, but tonight, for some reason, it made her laugh.
"So you've never kissed a boy?"
"Oh, sure," Sarah said, and from her, it was completely believable. "A couple. Nothing worth talking about, though. I mean, I'm too young to do the stuff my brother does."
What stuff, Frances wanted to ask, but she was too embarrassed.
Frances poked Sarah's leg with her toe. "I heard about you dumping punch on Greg Tate's head at Dominique's party."
Sarah's face, focusing on her drawing, grew hard. "Prick. He just wanted to get to second base with Amy so he could say he'd done something. You don't do that to somebody. It's taking something away from them, just to do it for the sake of doing it. People should wait until they really want to."
"But how do you know you really want to?" Frances picked up her bear, the oldest of her three stuffed animals her mother let her keep on her bed. The rest had been donated to the Salvation Army or thrown out. "Maybe you just think you do, but then you decide you don't. What do you do then?"
"Then you stop. And you kick the guy in the nuts if he doesn't."
Frances laughed again; Sarah's hard expression softened a little, and she grinned too. "Or dump punch on his head?"
"That was just poetic justice because he was bragging about his Justin Bieber haircut all night," she said with relish. "It was so worth it to see him scream like that."
They shared a conspiratorial giggle. Frances couldn't understand why it felt so normal to be here with Sarah, when she'd never even been to her house before.
"I can't think of any guys I'd want to kiss," she said. "They're all pretty disgusting most of the time."
"You're friends with Brian," Sarah pointed out. "What about him?"
"Oh." She hadn't even though of Brian. Brian was a school friend, but his parents also went to church with her family. He was quiet and kind and clean - in short, not much like a sixth-grade boy. "I guess," she said. "He's okay."
"I think you shouldn't kiss somebody just because they're okay." Sarah suddenly stared at Frances, frowning fiercely. "It should be something you feel like you can't live without. Like you have to do it, or you'll die."
Frances took in this appealing thought. That's how I want my first kiss to be. "Is - is that how it was for you?" she said breathlessly.
"No," said Sarah. "I've never had a kiss like that."
So why did you do it? she wanted to ask, but she was too nervous.
Sarah got up from where she sat on the floor and climbed up on the bed next to Frances, laying the sketchbook in her lap. Frances was startled to see, not a picture of the bed as she'd expected, but a series of drawings of herself. One was finished with more detail and smudging; the others were rough sketches, showing little more than movement lines and suggestion. They all made Frances look - she looked -
"Why did you draw me so pretty?" she asked, confused.
Sarah gave her a funny look, but she pointed to the sketch in the bottom right-hand corner, where Frances was laughing. "That's what you should do more often," she said.
"Laugh?"
"Be happy. Like that."
Frances stared at the sketch until Sarah reached out across Frances' arm to take the edge of the paper in her hand and, with a sharp tug, ripped it out of the notebook. The paper wasn't heavy-duty, but it was thick enough to resist tearing. Sarah presented the sketch to Frances. "Here."
"Thanks," Frances said, softly. Sarah's hair brushed her arm as she leaned over, and Frances watched as goosebumps appeared on her skin. She looked up quickly at Sarah's face, then back down to the sketch, face heating.
"I should probably get going," said Sarah. "I have a quiz in science tomorrow. Life goes on, huh."
"Thanks for coming over," Frances said automatically, rising from the bed. She laid the sketch carefully on her dresser, on top of her jewelry box. "I'll ask my mom to drive you home."
It was late enough that her mother said she should stay and get ready for bed while Sarah was driven home, and Frances didn't object. She felt strangely both tired and keyed up at the same time, and the usual ritual of brushing her teeth and taking a shower didn't help.
When she came out to say good night to her father, he gave her a kiss and said, "Your friend Sarah."
"Yes?" she said warily.
He rubbed his chin. "She's the one whose mother just died, right?" Frances nodded. "It's very kind of you to be so charitable and have her over for dinner."
Frances frowned at her father. "I'm not being charitable, daddy. She really doesn't have any other friends right now."
"That's what I'm saying," he agreed. "You're being very generous with your time. A girl like this, she can learn a lot from being around a girl like you."
Frances wanted to tell her father, no, don't you see, she's the one who's teaching me things? But Frances couldn't think of a nice way to say that, so she just went into her bedroom and climbed into bed. Then she climbed back out and picked up the sketch that Sarah had done. In the soft light of her bedside lamp, the pictures of her looked even prettier and less realistic. Feeling somewhat narcissistic, she took some rolls of masking tape from her desk and stuck them to the back of the sketch. Then she affixed the paper to the side of her dresser, so it was right next to the pillow on her bed. She could lay down and look right at it without having to keep touching it and smudging it.
She woke once in the night, holding onto shreds of the dream from which she'd awakened. There were only fragments, but they made her blood run faster, hotter, through her veins, so that she had to stumble to the bathroom to wipe the sweat off her face and neck with a cool washcloth. It wasn't until she was safely back in the dark of her bedroom that she felt like she could even consider them. Then she took them out, one at a time, handling them carefully like her mother's china figures.
It had been another of the hundreds of Sarahs, but this one hadn't been sketching or swearing or crying or cracking a joke. She'd been sitting right next to Frances on the bed, her hair brushing Frances' arm, giving her goosebumps. And then she'd turned to Frances as though to whisper something in her ear, and she'd reached out and gently bent Frances' cheek toward her, and leaned in, and pressed their lips together.
And it hadn't been gross or uncomfortable or scary, thought looking back on it now was giving her heart palpitations. Because she had wanted it, like Sarah had been talking about. Like she couldn't live without it. Like if she hadn't had it, she would have died.
She thought, as she drifted back into fitful sleep, that seeing Sarah at school tomorrow, she might die anyway.