Forget Green Gables

Grabbing the Bull by the Horns

"I'm going to talk to Rebecca today," Jamie says as I am putting on my makeup. Jamie almost shakes and looks ghastly pale.

"Do you want me there?"

Jamie gives me a relieved look. "Yes, please. Would you bring Jessie? She needs to hear this too."

I nod, applying brown eyeliner to my lids. "I'll grab her from breakfast. Do you want me to get Rebecca too?"

"No; since our fight she's been hiding in the art room in the mornings. Will you guys meet me there?"

"Yes. It'll be okay, Jamie."

"I hope so."

"So, um, I forgot to ask," I start, widening my eyes and mouth to apply mascara to each lash, "...but you dumped Carl, right?"

Jamie, for the first time in a long time, gets the impish grin that I know and love. "Ayep."

"Do I even want to know why you're smiling at me like that?"

"Let's just say he doesn't have to worry about all that Mt. Dew he drinks making him sterile."

Jessie anxiously breaks Cinnamon and Sugar Pop Tarts into pieces when I plunk down across from her. "We need to go to the art room," I say.

Jessie raises her eyebrows. "I hate art."

"Don't care. We need to go there."

Jessie shrugs, collects her Pop Tart mess into a paper towel, and throws the whole thing away. Silently, we weave across the hallways and into the art room where Rebecca adds paper Mache to a piñata, because Cinco de Mayo has been claimed by the school as some pseudo holiday. She looks up, sees us, and looks back down.

"Hi, Rebecca," I say, sitting down across the table. "Me gusta su piñata," I offer in Spanish.

Rebecca raises her eyebrows but says nothing. Jessie looks horrified. I have no idea what exactly I am trying to accomplish, but I know this cold war cannot continue.

The door opens and Jamie walks in, takes a deep breath, and marches determinedly over to us. Jessie and Rebecca both visibly tense and despite their months of silence, Jessie wordlessly moves closer to Rebecca.

"Before anyone says anything, I want to say I'm an idiot. And I'm sorry." Jamie spreads her hands out, palms up. "I am...mea culpa." The Catholic admission of guilt captures her complex feelings remarkably well. A tear slides down, and then another and another. "Rebecca...I am so, so, so sorry. You...I..."

To my utter amazement, Rebecca is out of her chair and has Jamie in a bear hug before Jamie gets a chance to finish the sentence. "It's okay," Rebecca says quietly as Jamie cries on Rebecca's shoulder. Jessie and I look at each other, reminded of our own conversation after the play.

"I'm sorry, Jessie," Jamie finally manages to say, pulling out of her bear hug with Rebecca. Jamie pulls me into the same bear hug that she pulled Jessie into before grabbing Rebecca too.

"I'm sorry too," Jessie says. "I should have tried harder."

"And I'm sorry for not trying to talk more," I pipe up.

"I'm sorry too," Rebecca says.

"It's not your fault," each of us says to the others, "it's my fault."

"I think we can all agree that we're all equally at fault here," Jamie finally says. "Well...mostly equally."

"We should probably wipe our noses...we look like Rudolph," Jessie says, grabbing the Kleenex box and passing it around. We laugh through their tears as we trumpet into the Kleenex.

"I'd rather be a quartet of Rudolph's with you guys than spend another morning in here by myself," Rebecca states. "Stupid piñata. I hate art."

"It'll be fun to break it to pieces with a softball bat," Jamie offers.

We probably would have stayed in our four person huddle, me between Rebecca and Jessie across from Jamie, protected from the world, forever. If the bell had not rung, we would have stayed together all day. Reluctantly, we let go of each other and collect our binders, bags and jackets.

"My house tonight at 7 PM." Rebecca says as we go our individual ways for the day.