"I see," said George. "A previous engagement"

"I guess so," I said.

"Too bad," said George. "She's missing the roses. Maybe next time."

"Maybe," I said. "But probably not She does things with this other friend practically all the time now. So I-" I stopped.

"I-" I tried again. "I'm-" The tears were right there, ready to pour out if I said another word.

"You're all alone in the universe?" George suggested helpfully.

His voice was gentle and kind, and when I looked at him, his face was solemn. So the only way I can explain what happened next, which is that we both burst out laughing, is that sometimes laughing and crying are almost the same thing. They're not all that far apart sometimes. I was laughing and crying both, and then I started to hiccup, too.

As I was trying to catch my breath, I said, "I came here to cry in the roses."

"Looks like you got what you came for," said George. "One way or t'other."

"What's everyone laughing about?" asked Mrs. Martha Brown, who was back with a tray full of napkins, sparkling silver, frosted gla.s.ses of iced tea, and delicate china.

"Debbie is alone in the universe," said George.

Mrs. Brown smiled. "That always makes me laugh, too," she said. She set the tray on a low wall nearby and gracefully moved its contents onto the shady gla.s.s tabletop. After sitting down, she sprinkled powdered sugar over her blueberries, then poured thick cream on top. She put a spoonful in her mouth. She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head slowly.

"Magnificent," she p.r.o.nounced. "The most magnificent blueberries I have ever tasted. Tell me what you think."

She sat waiting for us to try them. The mountains of blueberries waited, too, dusky, round, and bluish purple in the porcelain bowls. Why did they look so odd? Then I knew.

"Are these raw?" I asked.

Mrs. Brown lowered her spoon. "Fresh," she corrected me. She looked at me curiously and said, "Don't tell me you've never had fresh blueberries."

"I don't think I have," I said. "Only in pie. And pancakes."

"You don't say," she said in wonderment. "Well, here." She reached over and sprinkled my blueberries with the sugar and poured the cream over them. "Try that," she said.

"I don't think I've ever had real cream before either," I said.

She looked over at George and said, "This country really is falling to pieces, isn't it?"

"In a handbasket," he said.

"I've had iced tea," I said.

Mrs. Brown chuckled. "All is not lost then," she said.

I tried a spoonful of the raw fruit and milk. It seemed like a weird idea, but it would have been bad manners to refuse.

The taste was incredible. I closed my eyes for a moment. I shook my head slowly and said, "Magnificent." I wasn't trying to copy Mrs. Brown; it was just all there was to say. Suddenly I wondered if the huge bowl of berries would be enough. Then I wondered if everything rich people had was better than what regular people had.

"Are blueberries expensive?" I asked.

"A little," answered Mrs. Brown. "But I think an occasional bowl of blueberries is within the reach of most people. A small compensation for being alone in the universe. Which, by the way, you aren't, you know."

"I know," I said.

"I'm here," said George. "At least I think I am. Though sometimes it's open to question."

Mrs. Brown's smile held traces of pink lipstick. There was a sort of light blond peach fuzz on her tanned face, and her blue eyes were calm and thoughtful when she turned them my way.

"But tell me, Debbie," she said, "what is it that's making you feel so lonely today? Can you tell us?"

I hesitated. What was I even doing here? I didn't know these people. But I hadn't been able to talk about it with anyone I did know. A few yards away a squirrel had found a piece of frayed rope. He had dragged it in his teeth to the trunk of a tree, and now he was trying to climb up with it. We all watched him while I tried to think how to answer. There were some things I didn't want to say out loud because if I did, it might mean they were true.

The squirrel kept dropping the rope. Each time he scurried down and tried again. Some time had pa.s.sed now, and I thought I should say something. My throat hurt, and I felt I had to say it fast.

So I told them about how the person who had been my best friend since the third grade was spending all her time with this other person now. I might have said some unkind words about the other person.

"I can't believe it," I said. "I'm just left by myself, like we were never friends, like I don't even exist." I didn't understand, I said, how someone could just forget about a person.

It was more than I meant to say.

The rope fell to the ground again.

"George, help that poor squirrel, will you?" said Mrs. Brown.

George lifted the rope and draped it over the branch. The squirrel fled, then cautiously returned and scrambled up the tree. I wondered if they had even heard me. I was wondering why I had bared my soul to total strangers when Mrs. Brown nodded her head thoughtfully.

"I had a husband who did the same thing" she said to me. "I got a house out of the deal," she added, nodding in the direction of the house, "but all in all, I would have preferred the husband. It's very painful, isn't it?"

I nodded. George was nodding, too. We were like a field of tulips in a breeze.

"And hard to let go," she went on. "There's no getting around that. But you must remember, even if you never understand what happened, what went wrong that you will have friendship again, good friendship. Because you are a person capable of friendship. And sooner or later there will be someone who deserves you."

"There's n.o.body like Maureen," I said.

"No, of course not," she replied. "Apples and oranges. In the meantime, we can eat these nice berries and enjoy one another's company. Wouldn't you say so, George?"

"By all means," said George. "With a few moments set aside here and there for earning a living. Which I had better get back to directly before the weeds grow right over us."

"Yes," said Mrs. Brown. "I have some things to do, too. But make sure Debbie sees the lower garden. Especially the path to the river. That's my favorite."

To me, she said, "It was lovely to meet you, dear. Please come back"

And off she whisked again, down the red brick path. Like a fairy G.o.dmother. Mine maybe.

It was late in August, when we were tired of watching reruns, that my dad and I tuned in a dance performance on Channel 13. Mom and Chrisanne would have flipped right past, but Dad and I like to watch cultural programs now and then. We had a TV tray with chip dip and pop.

The dancers were spinning around in a big group, and then two of them, a man and a woman, were in the spotlight as they climbed up onto a sort of pedestal. They were in love. The man lifted the woman into the air and held her there with one hand. She arched her back and her knees were bent so that her toes pointed up.

"How come you never lift me up that way?" joked my mother, who had come into the room to empty the wastebasket.

"Call the ambulance," said my dad. "I'll give it a try."

The man and the woman had been dancing for quite a while when suddenly another woman was on the pedestal with them. You could tell there was not room for three people to fit up there, although they did some amazing contortions trying.

"I think one of them's going to fall off," said my dad.

"I hope it's the new one," I said. "She's b.u.t.ting in."

But it wasn't. The man started twirling with the new one, and when the first woman tried to pry them apart, the man gave her a little push, and off she flew. He acted as if it were an accident, but I could tell it was on purpose.

"That wasn't very nice," said my dad.

She landed in a graceful heap and sat there looking gracefully back at her lost love and his new flame as they flounced around.

She was so b.u.mmed. She felt so alone. Slowly, so slowly I didn't notice it at first, the circle of light that she was sitting in widened, and there were all those other dancers, still dancing around. (Probably they had stopped while they were in the dark.) A few of them spotted her and tried to get her to join them. She didn't want to, but finally she did in a halfhearted way just so they'd stop pestering her. Bit by bit she started to be happy again.

The two on the pedestal were having an argument now.

"Serves them right," I said. But the one who had been dumped didn't even notice. She was having too much fun.

Sometimes you see something at just the right time. On another day I might have looked at those dancers and noticed what good shape they were in and wondered how they kept their costumes on. But this time, as I sat there, I thought I knew just how she felt, the one who had fallen from the pedestal. My dance on the pedestal was my friendship with Maureen. I still wasn't sure how I had lost my balance and fallen off. Or whether I was pushed. Everyone around me was trying to get me to dance again. The thing was, I hadn't quite given up on getting back up there. I still believed it was the only place where I could be happy.

seven.

I HAD THIS IDEA THAT IN SEPTEMBER MAUREEN AND I WOULD walk to school together the way we always had and the awfulness of the summer would just end. Two days before school started, I braced myself and called her on the phone.

"Sure," she said. "Where have you been? Did you go on another vacation?"

"No," I said. "I've been around. Just hanging out I guess." I tried to say it lightly. As if I hadn't been left behind and forgotten. A grain of sand at the beach. A footprint on dry cement.

"See you Tuesday then," I said, all carefree and cheery.

"Great!" said Maureen.

It sounded pretty good. It felt like old times. Maybe I really had imagined things. I could probably get used to Glenna. Maybe I could even learn to like her. Stranger things have happened. Astronauts have walked on the moon.

Three wasn't such a bad number. It had to be better than one. Even the Three (three!) Dog Night song, "One is the Loneliest Number," says that two can be bad, too, but I don't think it mentions anything about three. The Three Wise Men seemed to get along all right. Also the Three Little Pigs; Peter, Paul and Mary; the Three Stooges (maybe not the best example); Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry, whoever they are. I would give it a try. How bad could it be?

So off we went, the three of us together, heading down Prospect Hill Road, side by side by side. Maureen was in the middle. It was a tight squeeze on the narrow sidewalk. Every few yards, roots from the sycamore trees had lifted up chunks of the concrete, and only two people could pa.s.s. Glenna and I both maneuvered ourselves to try to make sure it was the other one who had to go ahead or behind for a couple of seconds, all the while chatting in an offhand way about this and that. Then, just when I thought I was doing okay, Glenna looked back over her shoulder at Maureen and said, "I wonder if we'll see the Event today." Maureen laughed.

"What event?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing," said Glenna. To Maureen, she said, "I saw Handsome Walker and Lips at Tastee-Freez yesterday."

"Were they holding hands?" asked Maureen.

"They had their arms around each other's waists," said Glenna. "The Nose was there, too, and you should have seen him giving them the hairy eyeball."

"The Nose?" I asked. "What are you guys talking about?"

"I can't tell you," said Glenna. "It's a secret."

I turned to Maureen. "Can you tell me?" I asked.

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret," she said.

"But I'm your friend, too!" I blurted out.

"I promised I wouldn't tell anyone," she said.

Glenna smiled sweetly.

"Maureen!" I pleaded.

"Maybe you could guess," she said. "And I could nod my head if you guessed right."

So that's what we did for the next three or four days. Maureen and Glenna had spent the last month making up a secret code to talk about people and their girlfriends and boyfriends. It was stupid. I was desperate to know it anyway.

I started to bring up topics that would leave Glenna out I told Maureen about going back to George's garden, though I didn't mention why I had gone there. I talked about chorus, which Glenna wasn't in, and gym, which she wasn't very good at. Glenna came up with new secret words I had to guess and made plans with Maureen that, for all sorts of reasons, couldn't include me. I brought up things Maureen and I had done together over the years. Glenna had fresh things.

It was junky. Maureen didn't see why we couldn't all just be friends. I would have thought that, too, if I were the one everyone liked.

On a morning that seemed at first like all the others, I walked to the corner of Maureen's street. My feet paused as I looked up toward her house. Then, to my surprise, my feet started up again and headed down Prospect Hill Road. What am I doing? I wondered. The rest of me wasn't feeling nearly as independent and free-spirited as my feet seemed to. They stepped forward in a determined way, and the rest of me, since it was attached, couldn't help going along.

From Moyhend Street down to Birch, my feet trotted past the new brick houses and the cinder alley, then the older houses with porches and front yards that are lower than the sidewalk.

From Birch Street down to Lillian. Small clumps of kids drifted from their houses and the side streets onto the broken sidewalks. My feet, still moving briskly, stepped out onto the bare roots and dirt between the trees to go around them.

From Lillian Street down to Pine. Ahead of the crowd now, I let gravity pull me down to the bottom of the hill. Only a few kids were sitting on the steps and benches outside the school. I walked past them, pulled open the heavy door, and went inside.

Now, what? I thought.

"Where were you this morning?" It was Maureen, accompanied by her faithful leech, Glenna. I looked up from where I was squatting, searching for change in the bottom of my locker. My Maureen. Not my Maureen. But Maureen still. At least this time she had noticed I wasn't there.

That's something, I thought.

That's not enough, said a voice inside me.

It's all I have, I thought back.

You will have friendship again, said a third voice. Good friendship. Who said that? I wondered.