What Every Girl (except me) Knows by Nora Raleigh Baskin

back.
    “We won’t,” Taylor shouted. Then she quickly jumped up. The milk was gone, for the most part. The cookie was stuck to the seat of her pants.
    “Hurry, get a paper towel,” Taylor whispered, and she ran into her room.

Chapter 13
    By the time Mrs. Tyler came back, the milk was gone, the glasses were in the dishwasher, and Taylor was in a new pair of pants.
    “So how was school?” Mrs. Tyler asked us both later, when we were in the kitchen eating dinner. I could tell she meant me, too, because she looked right at me when she asked.
    “Good,” I answered.
    “Taylor, did you get your vocabulary test back?”
    “Mom, you know I did,” Taylor said, slipping her napkin onto her lap.
    I did the same. Napkin in lap.
    “You already looked in my binder,” Taylor continued. “You know I got an eighty-two.”
    “You lost points on spelling,” Mrs. Tyler said between chewing. Mrs. Tyler ate more slowly than anyone I had ever seen, as if she didn’t really enjoy it. She set her fork down on the edge of her plate after almost every bite. I almost never put down my fork till I am done eating.
    But I did then.
    After we finished eating and had cleaned up, Mrs. Tyler announced we were having ice cream sundaes for our just-the-girls night. She put out two kinds of ice cream, vanilla and coffee, and three toppings—hot fudge, chocolate crunchies, and whipped cream. She made Taylor wait until I had made my sundae before she could eat hers. Maybe Mrs. Tyler was liking me a little more. Or maybe that’s just another thing girls have to do—wait till everyone is served before eating. Then Mrs. Tyler made herself one, too. A huge one. And we all dug in. Three girls eating lots of ice cream.
    Mrs. Tyler turned to me. I got ready.
    “Gabby, I read about your father in the paper this week,” she said. She smiled. She looked so much like Taylor, I could see, not just her hair. When she smiled, she had the same squinty-eyed smile.
    “I read that he’s in the faculty art show,” Mrs. Tyler told me.
    “Oh, yeah,” I said, but it was the first I had heard of it. It upset me that Mrs. Tyler knew more than I did about my father.
    “The opening is in two weeks. Are you going?” she asked me.
    As she spoke I had this clear image of standing before a painting, a single brush stroke across this huge canvas. It was a long time ago at a gallery opening. I was looking up at this enormous, empty painting, while my dad stood next to me and explained its place in postmodern history. It almost made sense to me the way he said it, and I stood for a moment taking it all in, trying to understand. I reached up to take my dad’s hand. But it wasn’t my dad! While I had been thinking, my dad had walked away and someone else was standing there. I was holding the hand of some total stranger.
    I must have had that same lost look on my face; I wasn’t listening to what Mrs. Tyler had just said.
    “Is the gallery open to the public, do you know?” Mrs. Tyler asked, and, by the way, she sounded as if she had tried more than one time.
    “Oh, yeah. Anyone can go,” I said. “You should come.”
    “Yes, I’d love to.” Mrs. Tyler took another scoop of ice cream and drizzled hot fudge all over it.
    “Ice cream is my one weakness,” she said, licking the spoon.
    I could believe that one. Mrs. Tyler didn’t seem to have many weaknesses.

Chapter 14
    Taylor and I lay in bed that night, in the darkness, talking. Taylor’s bedroom (which I hadn’t gotten to see on my first visit) was perfect. It was symmetrical. Two twin beds, one on each side of the room, exactly the same distance from the walls; matching bedspreads that also matched the curtains; two white, warm rugs for our feet when we stepped out of bed; tightly tucked blankets to keep us under the covers like little pastries.
    After dinner, after some more TV and a little time on the computer, Mrs. Tyler had told us to go to bed. No talking. It was late. We brushed our teeth,