Number One Best Friend

by Erica Barmash, Copy Editor

When Heather told me that her brother Paul had made her touch his penis, we were walking home from school because my mother was late to pick us up again. Except she didn't say penis, she said thing, and she said it so loudly and suddenly that it seemed like it was her voice shaking leaves loose from the trees and not the crisp fall wind. She didn't say anything beforehand. She didn't even make me swear to keep it a secret. She just opened her mouth as we passed the mailbox on Coyle Street without even slowing down.

"Oh," I said to her. I wanted to ask if she was lying. Heather lied a lot, which was the reason why up until that school year she had been only my number three best friend. But that summer Janine, who had been my number one best friend, moved to a house with an in-ground swimming pool in New Jersey, and Kara, my number two best friend, got sent to Catholic school, so that left me with Heather, who I didn't even like that much but who lived in the same apartment building I did and had been in my class since pre-kindergarten.

"Do you believe me," she asked, looking down, avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk. Last week she had told me that her mother had once been a famous soap opera star and that technically her character was still in a coma, waiting for a brain transplant. When we were younger she had told me that her father owned every 7-11 in Brooklyn and some in Staten Island, and that all she had to do was mention his name to get a free cherry Slurpee. When I asked her how come she had paid for one the last time we were there, and how come her dad never came to visit even though we lived right near a 7-11, she just stared at me and started talking about why cherry Slurpees are better than Coke Slurpees. All you had to do was ask her a question and it was easy to figure out if she was lying.

"Of course I believe you," I said. I wasn't sure if I did or I didn't, but now that she was my number one best friend I felt like I had to take her side. "When did it happen?" I asked.

Heather stared up at the sky like she was counting the days backward in her head. "Two Tuesdays ago," she said. "After the Brownie meeting." Heather and I were both Brownies, which was one level below Junior Girl Scout. Our troop, Troop 244, met every Tuesday in the basement of the Korean church across the street from the Key Food, even though most of us were Jewish and none of us were Korean. It was always cold in there, and I was still mad that Katie Rosen had beaten me for troop president. I hated everything about being a Brownie including my stupid brown uniform with the stupid brown beanie, so I was glad whenever Paul picked us up instead of my mother, who was always late if she even showed up at all. Even though it meant we definitely had to walk, because Paul was only 13 and obviously didn't have his drivers' license yet.

"How did he make you?" I asked. We were almost home, walking past the high school football field.

Heather didn't say anything. She shifted her blue and green backpack from one shoulder to the other.

"Well," I said, poking her arm a few times. "How?"

"What do you mean, how?" she asked nervously.

"Well, like, did he hold you down? Or tie you up or something?" Last summer at the swimming pool behind our building Tommy Price had said I had to kiss him. He tried to grab my wrists but I kicked him in the stomach and then he started crying.

"No." She scratched at her knees.

"Well, then how?"

"He just said I had to. And he said he would kill me if I told anyone. And he said he would kill the person I told, too." She said these sentences so fast I could hardly understand what she was saying.

"Well then why did you tell me, then?" I wasn't really worried that Paul would kill me, because he was only 13 and he couldn't even carry groceries home without complaining half the time that they were too heavy. But then again, he did know where I lived, and the fire escape led right to my bedroom window, which had a broken lock.

"I don't know," she said. "I just wanted to tell somebody." She was chewing on her bottom lip furiously. "I won't tell him I told you."

We were home. We turned into the courtyard, sliding through piles of leaves to the buzzers. Neither one of us was allowed to have our own key. I leaned against the button for 4B. My mom's voice came through the speaker, fuzzy. "Emily, is that you?"

"Yeah, Mom, let me in." The buzzer rang and I opened the door. I waited until I heard my mom hang up the intercom before saying anything to Heather.

"So what do you want me to do about it?" I asked.

"Nothing, I just wanted to tell you." She smiled. "Wanna come over?" she asked

"Maybe later," I said. "I'll call you in a little while." Heather stared at me like she wasn't sure if I was telling the truth and I wondered if maybe now she understood what it was like to be best friends with someone who lied all the time. I headed for the elevator and Heather started walking to the stairs since she only lived one flight up.



When I got off the elevator, I saw that my mom had left our door open a little bit so she wouldn't have to get up again once I got upstairs. I could hear Oprah blaring from behind the door. When I walked in she was lying on the couch with the latest issue of Soap Opera Digest spread out on her stomach.

"Hi, honey," she said. "I was just about to leave to go pick you guys up. How was school?"

There was no point in yelling at her for being late. She would apologize but just do it again the next day anyway.

"It was ok," I said, sitting down in our brown velvet rocking chair.

"How was your social studies test?" All the kids at school thought my mom was a bad mother just because she showed up late all the time and sometimes never showed up at all. They didn't know it was because she was depressed and had chronic fatigue syndrome which are real diseases even though some people say they aren't. So it wasn't her fault, and she made up for it by helping me study for all my tests and letting me buy anything I wanted on Ebay. That's what my mom did for a living, selling things on Ebay since it was easy to do from the house.

"It was ok. Mostly the stuff we studied."

"Oh good, sweetie. Do you have a lot of homework?" She had started reading Soap Opera Digest again.

"No, just some math."

She nodded. "Do you want to go over to Heather's then?" We had a rule that I was allowed to go over to Heather's only if I didn't have that much homework.

"I don't know," I said, kicking my legs against the legs of the rocking chair. I didn't want to go down there. Not because I was afraid that Paul would be there. I was afraid Heather was going to keep talking about it, and that she would ask me again if I believed her. I would definitely say yes, but I still wasn't sure if I did believe her, and I didn't want to lie.

"Is something wrong? Did you two have a fight?" She pushed the mute button and Oprah was silent.

"No," I said. I wanted to tell her about Heather and Paul, so that she could tell me whether or not I should still go over to their house, whether I should believe Heather, whether I should still be friends with her. I didn't know if I was allowed to tell her, but Heather hadn't specifically said "Don't tell your mom." She hadn't even told me to keep it a secret. Maybe she wanted me to tell. Maybe it was the right thing to do.

"Mom, Heather told me something today." I didn't know exactly what to say. My mom leaned forward like she was expecting some kind of juicy gossip or a particularly good lie.

"Really, what did she tell you?"

"It was about her and Paul."

"What, are they secretly space aliens or something?"

Normally I would have laughed at my mom's joke, but I just sighed. Why couldn't she guess the right thing so I wouldn't have to say it?

"Ok, Emily, I give up. What did she say?"

My fingers gripped the armrests of the rocking chair tightly. "She said he made her touch his penis." I waited for my mom to say something, but she just sat there, her finger still holding her place in the magazine. I waited for her to decide what we should do.

"Oh Emily, are you sure she was telling you the truth?"

"Not really," I said.

"That's a very serious thing to accuse someone of." She closed the magazine and patted the couch cushion next to her. I got up out of the rocking chair and sat on the edge of the couch, my back up against her legs.

"Has Paul ever tried to do anything like that to you?" she asked. The only time Paul and I had ever been alone together was walking home from Girl Scouts once. It was a long walk, 20 blocks exactly, and about halfway through Heather had suddenly said she really really had to go to the bathroom and she couldn't hold it in until we got home so we stopped off at Connie's, the pizza place. When Heather was in the bathroom, Paul asked me what my favorite flavor of ices was and I said vanilla chip. He took three dollars out of the pocket of his jeans and bought ices for the three of us. When he handed me mine our fingers didn't even touch.

"No, he's never tried to do anything like that to me," I said. My mom looked relieved. She reached for the cordless phone on the end table next to the couch and cradled it in her lap.

"Are you going to call the police?" I asked.

"Well, no, I don't think so," she said. "I was going to call Carol." Carol was Heather and Paul's mom. She worked at our dentist's office, answering phones, and she had to always wear white. My mom called Carol her best friend, but I never knew if it was because she really liked her or because she lived in the building and my mom was usually too tired to go out anywhere else.

"I don't want to get Heather in trouble," I said.

"Oh, don't worry honey, it'll all get worked out," she said as she dialed.



Within ten minutes there was a knock at our door. My mom hadn't really told Carol anything on the phone, just that she needed to talk to her about something important and that she should come up to our house if she wasn't too busy.

I opened our door. Carol was wearing a blue button-down sweater over her white uniform. Heather had already changed out of her school clothes and into her pajamas.

"Hi, Emily!" Carol said, patting me on the head. Her hands smelled like cigarettes. "Heather was just about to take a nap but when I said I was coming up there she decided to come, too."

"Where's Paul?" I asked as Carol headed over to my mom on the couch.

"Oh, he's out riding his bike or something," Carol said. "Why don't you girls play out on the terrace while I talk to Andrea?" Our apartment had a small terrace. Sometimes my mom and I would sit out there on beach chairs, tanning. I also kept my jump ropes and some colored chalk out there. When we walked through the screen door, Heather sat down in one of the chairs and crossed her arms.

"Do you want to jump rope?" I asked. She shook her head. I could hear our moms' voices through the window screens but I couldn't make out what they were saying.

"Why not?" I asked. Heather just shrugged.

"What does your mom want to talk to my mom about?" she asked.

"I didn't want to lie. "I told her what you told me before. About Paul."

"Why did you do that?" She sounded like she was going to cry.

"I thought it was the right thing to do," I said. "Besides, you didn't tell me not to tell anyone." I wasn't going to let her make me feel like I had done something wrong.

"Now I'm going to get in trouble," she said, and I didn't know if she meant with her mom or with Paul. Heather was looking past me off the terrace and when I turned around I saw Paul riding his bike downstairs around the parking lot of the motel next to the 7-11. The parking lot only filled up on weekends so all the kids in our building rode their bikes there. Paul was the only one there then, though, and he was riding around and around in circles, avoiding the few cars that were there. He didn't seem to know we were watching him.

Heather stood up and went inside, slamming the screen door. I waited a minute before following her, still looking at Paul, but I got back inside in time to hear Heather tell our moms that she had never told me that Paul did anything to her and that I was a liar.

"Mom!" I said. "She's lying!"

Heather had started crying. Carol stood up and walked over to her and Heather hid her face in the white fabric of Carol's pants. "It's ok, honey," she said. "I know."

"But I'm not lying," I said, stamping my foot on the ground. "I'm not!"

"Maybe we should go," Carol said, heading for the door and pulling Heather along with her. "I'll call you later, Andrea," she said. Heather didn't even look at me. Carol closed our front door softly.

"Mom, you know I wasn't lying, right?" I sat down next to her on the couch again.

"I know," she said, reaching for the remote. I laid my head on her stomach and watched the end of Oprah. The next day at school when I tried to sit next to Heather at lunch she got up and sat by herself, and she took the bus home from school. Katie Rosen became my new number one best friend, and the only times I saw Heather outside of school were when I watched her and Paul from my terrace, riding their bikes in circles.