Most Nights Are Crystal Clear, But Tonight It's Like I'm Stuck Between Stations

Every day now, we made a sweep through the grade eight locker hallway after school. Robert Brewster would stride down from the Bs, usually pausing en route to chide Marty Bukowski for shoving some wannabe into a locker as he passed. From my locker in the G section, we would sweep down to the Ms to grab Stacey McGill. Stacey and I always took a long time at our lockers – makeup, reorganizing books, redressing my absolutely adorable Barbie locker magnet – and, without fail, Alex would always be up from the Zs before Stacey and I had finished fixing our hair. I took solace in the fact that if Alex had been in gym class during last period, he would take just as long at the end of the day. That fact that Stacey and I didn't have gym was irrelevant. Sometimes Sheila would join up with us at Stacey's locker – depending on if she was "on" with either Marty or Wayne at the time – but, always, the four of us made up the core group.

A few months into the eighth grade and this was already our routine as if it had always been this way. Of course, it hadn't. When we started the year, Stacey was just the New York girl in my Math and English classes. Alex and I weren't dating. Until RJ Blaser noticed her and drew her to The Group's attention, Stacey was barely a blip on Robert's radar. Honestly, she was barely a blip on the social radar. It was the babysitting – the Babysitters' Club – thing. It's hard to be anything when you sit with the same people every day at lunch and hang out with seven year olds during your extracurricular time. I'm not being mean. It's just... one of those things, you know?

But. There was a fight. A big one. I didn't know all of the details – Stacey wasn't really forthcoming with them with anyone by Robert – but there was something about the fallout of Robert and quitting basketball and then the babysitters were upset because she was spending too much time with us, I think?

And Stacey chose us. It became Sheila and Mia, Jacqui and Heather... and me and Stacey. Stacey chose us... but more important, she chose me. Alex and Robert were best friends and now me and Stacey were too. It was perfect.

That day it was just Stacey and me. Robert had caught my eye from down the hallway and mimed shooting hoops before jerking his thumb at Marty – who was admirably not shoving around anyone smaller than him that day. I winked at Robert and tossed my bookbag over my shoulder before clicking down the hallway to deliver the message to Stacey. I was far too grownup for a backpack. "Robert's going to play ball with Marty tonight," I announced, leaning against Wayne McConville's locker beside hers and trying to peer past Stacey to look in her locker mirror. My ponytail may have wilted on the way down the hallway, past all those smelly teenage boys.

"Oh good," Stacey replied, a relieved smile crossing her face. She leaned forward, obscuring my view of her mirror, and fluffed her blonde hair. "I have a baby... a thing tonight, so that makes it way easier. Where's Alex?"

Ah. Wasn't that the million dollar question of the day? Biting down on my lower lip, I admitted, "I don't know. He wasn't in school today and he didn't..." And he didn't call me? Wasn't it a little bit ridiculous of me to expect Alex to call me in the morning if he wasn't going to be at school that day? It wasn't something he did before he asked me out, why would it start after he did? "Anyway, I think I'm just going to swing by his house before I go home and see if he's okay. Maybe he's sick and needs cookies or something."

Stacey rolled her eyes, but she didn't call me 'Sparkle Princess' or make fun of my new love of baking the way I'm sure Jacqui would have. All in a loving and supportive friends-forever way, of course. "We can walk together." She slammed her locker closed and adjusted her black corduroy bag as she slid her math textbook into it. We had matching bookbags. Best friends. As we headed out of the school, the click of my heeled boots barely audible in the loud hallway, Stacey lowered her voice, "I have a babysitting job tonight and it's right by Alex's house so it works out well."

"Oh, Stacey." I was aiming for sympathetic, but I think my voice came out slightly tinged with judgment. No wonder she had been so thrilled that Robert was going to play basketball – babysitting wasn't something to brag over. "I thought you quit the club."

"I did." Stacey's reply was mild, but I still immediately felt guilty. Best friends weren't supposed to judge each other's recreational activities. "It's just this one girl, Charlotte Johanssen, that I'm really close with so her parents still keep calling me. We call each other almost sisters." Stacey turned her face briefly to look at me, an abashed smile twitching across her lips.

The smile struck me. Her voice hadn't changed at all, but the smile made it clear that this was a confession. Stacey trusted me enough to share her less than completely cool hobbies. Besides. If anyone could understand the appeal of "almost sisters", it was definitely me.

"Anyway," she continued in an airy tone, fluffing her blonde hair once again. Cold Connecticut weather wasn't the kindest on volume – especially when our volume came mostly from blow drying our hair upside and maybe perming it (if we were Stacey). "If it turns out that your boy isn't desperately in need of your Florence Nightingale-ing, you should come over to my place after dinner. We can do our homework together. I'll help you with your math."

My nose had automatically crinkled at the mention of homework – so evil, so necessary – and my forehead joined the crinkled expression when she mentioned Math. "Stace, as hard as it may be to believe, I'm good in math. I might be your only friend who doesn't need your help."

"Riiiiiight," Stacey replied in a very wry New York way, trying to arch one eyebrow at me, but mostly just pushing the other eyebrow down. After a moment of trying not to giggle at her ridiculous face, her expression softened some and she looked at me curiously. "You are good at math. How come you never answer questions in class?"

I shrugged, tucking my hands into my coat pockets. Our math teacher's writing on the board was really small and I didn't want to run the risk of misreading one of the numbers. People always thought pretty girls were dumb anyway, why would I want to feed into that?

Luckily, we reached Alex's street just then, saving me from having to explain the math situation. "Gotta go. The boy awaits his nursemaid. I'll see you at, like, seven, okay?" Math was forgotten. Stacey and I exchanged hugs and waves, as teenage girls are apt to, and then I clicked down Alex's road alone.

At Alex's doorway, our special knock – born from years of friendship – itched at my fingertips. At the last moment, I knocked normally without fully knowing why. And thank goodness I had, because it was Alex's mom who opened the door. Shouldn't she have been at work still?

I had known Alex's mom for my entire life. She was my own mama's closest friend. She had never looked like this before. Her face was tight over her cheekbones and forehead, as if her skin had somehow shrunk since the last time I had seen her. For what felt like an eternity, we gaped at each other before I realized I should say something. But for a second, I had forgotten why I was there.

"Alex is upstairs, Andi," she finally said simply, answering my unspoken question. Thank goodness.

I hurried past the older woman, flashing her a closed-mouthed, awkward, smile. Wait. That wasn't right. I turned back and reached out to gently squeeze her arm. She bared her teeth at me in a vague facsimile of a smile. Oh gosh.

"Alex, is your mom okay?" I broke off as I nearly burst through the door into his room. My voice, usually sweet and light, sounded far too loud in the silence of his house.

Alex was laying on the middle of his bed, staring up at the ceiling with his headphones in. When he pulled them out and sat up at my invasion, I was afraid he would have the same tightness as his mother. He didn't, thank goodness. His undereyes were just smudged black. "How did you get in?"

"Your mom let me in," I replied, much more quietly. I twitched my mouth, biting down nervously on my lower lip. There was something going on. Something with both of them and... "Alex, what happened?"

He ran a hand through his dark hair, causing it to stick up haphazardly and directed his gaze to somewhere at the wall behind me. "My dad left."

"Oh Alex!" If everything had been running slowly and tentatively before, it had suddenly been thrown into fastforward. I rushed over to the bed, pulling my boyfriend into my arms, trying to pat down his hair, urging him to melt into my arms. I didn't know what else to do.

And then I realized that he wasn't quite melting. He was sitting up dead straight, like a stone sculpture in my arms, completely unyielding. Of course. Stone couldn't melt. Maybe he just needed more than I was giving him. I rose onto my knees to give myself a little height and ran my fingers through his hair, trying to press his head against my chest. My poor poor boy.

With a shudder that seemed to rattle his bones, Alex's eyes slide shut. "Andi. Can you go please?"

Oh. Oh. That wasn't quite what I had expected. My arms quickly dropped away from him as if I had been burned. "Umm... yeah. Of course." I quickly scrambled off the bed, crossing to where I had left my bag against the wall. "Um," I repeated, the bag clutched tightly in both hands, uncertain of what to do. Just leave? Finally, I crossed the long distance between his door and his bed maybe a little bit too fast, pressing an awkward kiss to his forehead when I arrived. "I'll call you tonight, okay?"

Alex nodded, but I wasn't sure if he actually heard me.

Once outside, walking without a direction in mind, I realized I was blinking furiously against tears. Which wasn't a surprise, really, I had always always been a crier for as long as I could remember. At least I hadn't cried in front of him.

I just... I hadn't expected it to be so bad. And life-changing. I just thought he would be a little bit sick. The flu, maybe. The flu, I could handle. Make some soup, smooth down his hair, run ice cubes over his hot lips. But this – what was I meant to do? What could I say? How could I fix it? Was I even supposed to fix it? How was I supposed to be there for him the way that he needed me to if he couldn't even speak and –

I realized with a shock that I was standing directly in front of the door to Stacey's babysitting house and knocking frantically on the door. My head was lost, but my body seemed to have had some idea of what to do. Stacey had divorced parents. She would know. She would know what I could do and what he would need. Sucking in a deep breath, I wrestled my face back into order and forced my tears back under control.

Stacey pulled the door open, her eyes widening and then narrowing in a split second. "Andi. We are supposed to meet at my house, I'm babysitting right now. And I'm not supposed to have friends over."

Oh. Right. Just because my world was falling apart and Alex's world was falling apart, didn't mean – "Sorry," I replied in a tiny voice, my face immediately beginning to crumple. "That makes sense. Yeah. I'll go, I just..."

And Stacey knew. My attempts to be strong were falling apart immediately and she reached out to hold both of my wrists. "Andi, are you okay?" A small brown-haired girl appeared by her elbow, but I barely noticed.

I shook my head frantically, blinking against the tears that had snuck back up as soon as I stopped paying attention to controlling them. "Alex is... he is no good right now and his parents are di—and his dad is go—and Stacey, I don't know what to do!"

And she hugged me, pressing my head against her shoulder, trying to get me to melt against her, the same way I had been doing with Alex. But I melted. "Oh, Andi. I wish I weren't babysitting right now, but –"

"I really need to practice my piano right now, Stacey," the small girl at Stacey's elbow announced suddenly, staring up at us with big solemn eyes. "My mom and dad will be very upset if I do not do it. So I should go practice it and you should help your friend."

Oh. Stacey took my hand and led me into the front room – and I understood why she was willing to keep babysitting this one particular little girl. She was going to help me and I understood her and everything was going to be okay and that's what best friends were all about.