When I first met Paul, I thought she was a Jesus freak because of her shirt. The shirt was screaming neon yellow, the kind of shirt they give you at camp because you need to be able to find your campers again after letting them loose in a roadside history museum or food court, and it was too big because they only ever make camp shirts in one size. It said “TAG — YOU’RE IT!” on the front, with a big screen-printed cross. It was kind of threatening.
My mom put her hands on my shoulder and gave a firm little push, saying “Go give your cousin a hug.” I went even though I’m pretty sure this was not my cousin (we weren’t even the same race?), but she dodged back before we could touch.
“Gotta catch me first,” she said, and then turned tail and bolted up the stairs. The back of her shirt read “MAGIC MOUNTAIN BIBLE STUDY.” The big lady beside her who had, upon first noticing my mother, screamed and then grabbed her in a terrifying embrace, chuckled and said, “My youngest.” She swept her hand around the room; I twisted to look. “Youngest” implied a whole battalion of Jesus-camp-shirt-clad kids that I definitely couldn’t catch.
“I just have the one,” my mom said, extending an arm to me without looking where I was and pawing the air for a second. “My Joy.”
“She’s such a little lamb chop,” cooed the lady. “Go on, you can go play with Paulette.” I looked at my mom, who said, “Go ahead.” She beamed at me, beamed at the lady. I could either hang around and watch them clutch each other's elbows and scream like teenagers, or I could go find Paulette, who I assumed was the kid, but could also be a dog. I followed the stairs upward and found a second level of the house that looked almost exactly like the first. I’m pretty sure we had just been in the dining room downstairs, but here I was in another dining room. The wall was half windows, which were all like twice my height. No girl, though. Another, different girl entered from the far end of the room, which scared me viscerally because people can just materialize out of nowhere in this mansion, and I really hoped that this was one of the older kids and not an entirely different one. “Hiiiii,” she said, and when she got close she was the exact copy of the woman downstairs, regressed twenty years. Same intimidating height. I had to crane my neck back a little. “I’m Patience. And you’re Joy.” In addition to being scared, I was embarrassed that this girl 1) knew my name, and 2) was also named after a virtue. Maybe she really was my long-lost cousin? She reached out and rubbed my shoulder through my T-shirt. “You and Paulette are the same age. You should play with her. PAULETTE!” she screamed, transforming momentarily from all-American angel into shrieking banshee. “She’s around. Wanna lemonade?”
“Okay,” I said. She walked over to the massive dining table, laden with napkins and crystal glasses for a dauntingly large number of people that I had yet to meet, and picked up a pitcher. She grabbed a glass at random and poured, spilling a little on the nice tablecloth, which I saw now had a plastic cover. I took the glass with both hands, surprised at its heft and intricacy; we didn’t have any crystal at home. I sipped. The lemonade was lukewarm and tasted like sweat, but that was also probably because I was sweating heavily. South Carolina was so much hotter than Boston, and we’d only been here for a day.
Someone moved in the massive drapes. Patience zeroed in on it like a hawk and marched over, yanking the heavy green cloth aside. Paulette streaked out from under her arm and got clear to the center of the dining room. “Paulette! Go play with Joy. You guys are both eight.”
“You play with her,” Paulette said, inching backward towards the door, keeping her eyes territorially on the two of us.
“I’m eleven. I’m too old,” Patience said emphatically, and smoothed her fingers over her plastic pink headband, her flower print sundress. “There’s toys in the attic.” Paulette remained where she was. Patience turned her back on me, so I set my heavy lemonade down and started slowly moving toward Paulette, trying not to scare her off again. She stood there and watched me approach. She resembled the lady downstairs, too, if she’d de-aged and chopped all her hair off. I wondered if she played basketball. When I got close enough, Paulette put out her palms to ward me off, said, “No hugs,” and hotfooted away. Patience stamped her jelly sandal. “You’re so annoying,” she said to the empty air. “Grammy’s in there.” She pointed to the hallway that Paulette had disappeared down. I guessed that was my cue, so I went.
The hallway led me to a fancy room, bizarrely decorated with an array of burnished bronze pots and pans, which contained one stooped old woman and one kid somewhere in between Paulette and Patience in terms of age and height. The old lady didn’t even register me. The kid looked up and said, “Who’re you?”
“Um, I guess I’m your cousin from Boston,” I said, taking a guess on his identity. He looked me up and down. “We’re not really cousins. Our moms are just sisters.”
I frowned.
“Sorority sisters. Kappa Alpha Theta?”
“What?”
He ignored me and made his way over to the old lady. He bent like he was about to whisper something in her ear, or kiss her on the cheek, but then he bellowed, “GRANNY, WHEN’S DINNER? I’M HUNGRY.” I realized that the room was actually a kitchen, just bigger than any I’d ever set foot in. Bigger than my whole room.
She twitched slightly. “Twenty minutes, Ronnie-bunny.” Quivering, she reached out to pat his hands, which he permitted before pulling away. He pointed at me. “What are you still doing here?” I glanced around, now terrified for my life. I spotted Paulette standing stock still in a niche in the kitchen wall. I looked back at Ronnie-bunny, who was now uncomfortably close. “Hey, what type of Asian are you?”
Paulette shot out of her alcove and, for the first time, touched my elbow. My skin practically fizzled, like I was made of pure nerves where she touched me. “Go away, lame-o. We’re gonna play.”
“Are you Chinese? There’s a Chinese restaurant on Figtree.”
Paulette gave my arm another tug, and my stomach fluttered, my skin shivered. “C’mon.” I let her lead me out of the room and into yet another maze of rooms. The two of us went through at least two more doors until I was thoroughly lost, and then ended up in a bedroom dominated by a four-poster bed as big as a car. Paulette dropped my arm and clambered up onto the massive bedspread, and I locked my fingers in the wrought iron bed frame and followed.
“Ron’s boring and Patience is boring,” she said.
Boring was not the word I would have used, but I said, “Okay.” Paulette tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling. “Are you gonna be boring?” she asked.
“I hope not,” I said. The longest sentence I’d managed since I got here. Paulette lolled her head back to me and met my eyes. “Cool.”
The two of us sat in silence for a moment, and then she said, “Do you watch TV?” I ran my fingers over the scratchy bedspread.
“No, not really. I read a lot.” Already failing to not be boring.
“Read what?”
“Uh, do you know Warriors? Like the cats?”
Her whole face split into a grin. I got that electric shock feeling again, and grinned back. We discussed our favorite Clans (Obviously ShadowClan are the bad guys but they are also the coolest), our favorite cats (we agree Firestar’s overrated), what our warrior names would be, what role we’d play. “I’d wanna be leader some day,” Paulette said, swiping the air. I shuddered. “That’s too much responsibility.” She sat back on her haunches. “You can be deputy then.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Cause you’re smart and cool.” She shrugged, and my heart leaped like a cat. “Can I ask something?” I said. I pointed at her shirt; I was feeling bold. “Why does your shirt say TAG?”
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Oh, it’s cause my mom sends me to Bible camp? Like every summer. But it’s sooooo boring. And last year the theme was “TAG, YOU’RE IT?” And it was like, the Lord tagged you and now you have to go out and tag everyone else. With his love, I guess?”
“Weird!” I said.
“You mean you don’t go to Bible camp? I’m so jealous.” I opened my mouth to tell her about my personal summer torture at piano camp when I heard a familiar full-throated screech. “PAULETTE!”
“Ugh,” Paulette said. “Dinnertime.” She slid down off the bed, then suddenly changed her mind and crawled beneath it. “Uh, Paulette? What’re you doing?”
“Shh!” she hissed, crouched in the darkness. “I’m hiding!” She seized my wrist. “Hide with me!” I stuffed myself in the gap between the floor and the box springs, my side pressed to hers. “Can you call me Paul?”
“Huh?” I said, caught off-guard.
“Instead of Paulette. I like Paul better.”
“Sure,” I replied, my exhale carrying a dust bunny to her nose. She snuffled and giggled, and I laughed, too, and then she slapped a hand over my mouth and said, “Shh! We’re hiding,” and I couldn’t help dissolving into laughter, and then she was dissolving too, and we were
touching. I was a Fourth of July sparkler. I was Coke, she was Mentos. I was PopRocks and she was the mouth. Ew, no. Rice Krispies and the milk? Nothing existed except for this nook under the bed until Paul’s dad marched in the room, a mountain of a man bigger even than his wife, and said “WHEEEEEERE’S MY LITTLE GIRL?” and Paul whisper-shrieked “Daddy!” and he caught us. We were summarily booted from the master bedroom and slapped into two chairs across from each other at the dining table, still frilled with dust bunnies. My mom saw me and moaned with dismay. “Joy! You’re dirty,” and my pseudo-auntie just laughed and said, “You know how it is with kids.” We were joined by Ronnie-bunny and Patience, and then the stooped old ‘Grammy’ and a brand new person I’d never seen before, ‘Grampy’, and served meat in a thick cinnamon-colored goo with glistening yellow cubes of cornbread and wedges of something out of a casserole dish topped with a thick skin of cheese. Thankfully, no legions of mystery people arose to take the empty chairs; they’d been set just for looks.
“It’s time to say grace,” boomed Mr. Mountain, Paul’s dad, and everyone stretched their hand out to the nearest person. Picking up on cues, my mom took my hand on one side, but I had no one next to me. I looked over the table and Paul met my eyes. She winked and mouthed, boring, extending her palm. I reached out over the Cheese Pit Dish and grasped it. My body tingled and Mr. Mountain said grace.