Read Online Among Friends by Caroline B. Cooney - Free Book Online

it. But thank you for asking me.”
    How do you know they have plans? I didn’t tell you what day the party is
.
    Paul Classified went on translating, as if it mattered.
    How could he have turned me down?
    How could he have wanted to hear my pageant three times but not want to go out with me?
    The pounding in my heart got worse because I wanted to run away. But I had to sit there, being exactly like Paul R. Smith. Being nothing important to anyone.
    I can’t tell Em and Hill about the good things in my life. I have too many. They’re jealous. But I can share the bad things. They’d like that. I can tell them Paul Classified turned me down, and that will make them happy.
    But what a price to pay!
    Is that what life requires?
    You can have two friends again, kid, as long as you agree not to get Paul
.

    McDonald’s.
    Now if that isn’t a normal everyday unthreatening place, what is? You wouldn’t think your life could collapse at a McDonald’s. I even chose the one in Stamford so we wouldn’t run into anyone we knew.
    Wrong. Emily has a job there. Emily got our order.
    Of course Mom could not have looked worse. She went to her new job today, but she didn’t dress right, andthere are terrible circles under her eyes, and I couldn’t talk her into putting on makeup or brushing her hair. I wanted to tell Emily—Mom didn’t used to look like this! She used to be pretty and she used to laugh.
    Emily was all bright and cheerful, of course: partly McDonald’s behavior to customers, and partly Emily. She beamed at us. Her hair was pretty: soft, cloudy. I thought that after I paid for the hamburgers I would tell her that. Emily said, “Hi, Paul. Is this your Mom? Hi, Mrs. Smith.”
    My mother started crying.
    Right there at the McDonald’s.
    Patrons six deep at five lines, and my mother is sobbing on the counter.
    Emily looked at my mother in horror, and then at me.
    I closed my eyes for a minute to get strength. I didn’t get any. “Mom, pull yourself together,” I whispered. Please God, please let her stop crying. I can’t even take this at home, how can I take it in front of fifty people at McDonald’s?
    My mother just shook her head and kept on sobbing. She didn’t make a whole lot of noise, but she went limp, as if she planned to take a nap on top of the brown tray where Emily had put a Christmas placemat.
    We had to get out of there. “Mom, let’s go back to the car,” I said, trying not to scream, because if Mom panicked it would just get worse.
    People were staring at us. “Is she having a fit or something?” demanded a fat woman next to us, pulling away in case it was catching. The line we were in dissolved. Customers moved to other registers. People who were afraid of fits looked away, and people who weren’t stared as hard as they could.
    The manager came scurrying out. “Can I help you,ma’am?” My mother just lay there. By now nobody was talking, not the customers, not the McDonald’s crew, and most of all not me. The manager was about eighteen years old and terrified of women collapsing on his counters.
    By now I knew that if I was going to move my mother, I’d have to pick her up. I’m trying to stay in control, right? I’m trying not to yell at her or at the strangers around us, I’m trying to get her out of there. She’s not doing anything but sobbing. All of a sudden I know I’m going to fall apart, too. I can’t think or move.
    Emily said to the manager, “Steve, take my register.” She came around, put an arm under my mother, and said to me, “Let’s get her into the ladies’ room, Paul.” All I could think of was that Emily would have to go into the ladies’ room with her—for a whole minute, maybe two, I would not have to be responsible. We got out of line and staggered to a table back by the restrooms, folding my mother into one of those plastic chairs. I held Mom up by the shoulders while Emily knelt on the other side and rubbed Mom’s hands. All I wanted to do was go