TATTOO ON ARM

Heloise had been avoiding Mercedes since Sunday. It was Tuesday and she still hadn’t gone over to her house after school like she normally did. She had a good excuse. Her riding class could have switched from Wednesday to Monday but that wasn’t why because it hadn’t really switched. Mercedes pretending to be George was why.

George was the boy Heloise liked and was, officially, according to the big book they kept for such things, dating. According to the book, and according to George’s official ask between Holmes Dale and Lenox Avenue, Heloise was dating George. Even just saying that made her feel squishy inside. She didn’t know much about George other than he had a last name and a street name that seemed pretty attractive. Amanatides. Goerge Amanatides who lived on Essex Street. She mouthed them over and over again. A — MAN-a-TIDES meant a man with the tides, like Goerge was a MAN. And that he lived on Es-SEX Street was pretty obviously a nudge towards puberty if there ever was one.

Mercedes’ parents were never home, which then made for the scenario in which Mercedes could pretend to be George. But obviously, the only reason why she had a nanny was because of her much younger siblings. One was actually a baby. And, clearly, a baby would need a babysitter.

Mrs. Lupa watched television while watching the three much younger siblings of Mercedes. There was the Baby, and then twin five year olds. The Baby was a girl who they called Baby Eve, or BE for short. And the twin five year olds were boys. As I said, Mercedes house was busy.

Mrs. Lupa was not even a babysitter. More like a maid and a nanny rolled into one person because she did a lot of the laundry when she was at the Cohen house. When Heloise had a birthday for her Shetland Sheepdog, Mercedes could not come because her mom was having a baby. An actual baby.

Heloise’s mother wasn’t having a baby anytime soon. She was too busy going to places like China. She was probably on birth control. Especially since Heloise could hear her parents almost at an alarming rate doing what Goerge’s street name made explicit. That could not be normal. What was normal was having siblings. And have birthday parties. And go skiing. Mercedes went skiing. And went to Catholic girls’ school. Even though she was Jewish and had an aunt with a tattoo on her arm with a number just like Heloise’s grandparents did.

At any rate, Mercedes didn’t have siblings so she had a dog and she had birthday parties for the dog. But she envied Mercedes going to important family events like the birth of a baby sibling. Mercedes couldn’t go to dog birthday parties because she had normal events, not like parents in China, more like the birth of a fun even if slightly gross, baby brother. But she did pretend to be George and that was weird, right? To pretend to be a boy, and want to touch a girl in your parents’ bed, must be weird right? Even for someone who always, always, always scored home runs — up to 12 points ahead against the other team, and up to Little League Championship, on a weirdly named Grandma Pie’s Little League team? Sounded weird to Heloise.

At any rate, Heloise was avoiding her the reasons for which should never not ever be mentioned in the stories written about her. So, for now, Heloise, was pretending to be busy. Pretending it was her horseback riding that was preventing her from walking home with Mercedes.