The Goodbye Time by Celeste Conway Page A

going. She goes over to the boys and says something like “Hey, Dylan, your shoe’s untied,” and he falls for it, of course, and everyone starts laughing and soon we’re having fun. But Katy wasn’t here, so everybody kept standing in their boy-girl corners.
    Then all of a sudden Kendra’s mom announced that the crepes were ready. She waved us into the dining room to a table where there were lots of jars and bowls and plates and stuff. Another lady came in—Kendra’s famous aunt, of course—with a big tray of pancakes. She was wearing a huge apron with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it, and was all smiley and cheerful-looking. She set down the tray; then Katy’s mom told us to gather around. She demonstrated how to fix a crepe with whatever filling we wanted, then fold it up to eat. There was Nutella and about ten different kinds of jam and sauces and bowls of chopped-up nuts and stuff. There was also a plate of sliced lemons and a sprinkle jar of powdered sugar.
    Suddenly no one was shy anymore and everyone jumped right in to take some crepes. It was so crowded around the table that I decided to wait a little while. I knew I wanted one crepe with Nutella and one with lemon and sugar, which Kendra’s mom had said was the way real French people like them best. I wandered out of the dining room and back into the living room to get some soda. Kendra’s family didn’t seem to like furniture much. In the living room there was just a couch and a couple of chairs facing a TV and some big modern paintings on the wall. There was a lot of empty space, only partly covered by a huge, exotic-looking rug. The place was so bare and echoey that the soda pouring into my plastic cup sounded like a waterfall. Or maybe everything just felt weird and wrong not having Katy there with me.
    I took my soda and headed toward the window. It had no blinds or curtains, and I bet that at night people looked right inside while Kendra and her parents were watching TV. I took a sip of soda and when I turned back to the room, Michael was standing there alone.
    “Hi,” he said.
    “Hi.”
    “You can’t get near the table in there.”
    “Yeah, I know. I figured I’d wait.”
    He nodded. “So where’s Katy? I never see you without her.”
    “She couldn’t come.”
    “She sick?”
    “No,” I said. “She just couldn’t come.” He was waiting for me to say something else. I cleared my throat. “She was painting her room.”
    “She didn’t
want
to come, you mean.”
    “Yeah, I guess.” And then I remembered that Kendra was throwing the party to welcome him back to town. “No, it’s not that she didn’t want to come. Her mom just wanted her to paint.” He was looking at me, unconvinced. Like he didn’t believe me. I felt I had to explain. “Do you know about her brother?”
    “Kinda, yeah. My mom said he’s kind of slow.”
    “It’s worse than just slow. He can hardly do anything for himself. He’s like a baby except he’s big.”
    “Wow,” said Michael softly.
    “And yesterday they put him in some kind of home. No one really wanted to, but things were so bad they had to.”
    “That’s sad.”
    “I know.”
    “I can understand how she wouldn’t feel like going to a party. I didn’t really want to come.”
    “You didn’t?”
    “Nah. My mom said I had to ’cause Kendra and everyone meant well and went to so much trouble.”
    “We’re all glad you’re back.”
    “Yeah, thanks. The thing is, we’re not really back. We’ll be here till graduation, but after that we’re moving to New Jersey. My mom just told me yesterday.” I tried not to look upset, but the truth is, my stomach dropped right down to my toes. Another person going away! It seemed like it would never stop. “I guess it’ll be all right,” Michael went on. “My mom’s gonna buy a house and stuff. And like I said in that letter I wrote, the school out there is pretty nice.” Michael’s eyes went to the floor. “That letter I wrote but