Chapter 1: Good News, Bad News

Fantasy Forest

Chapter One: Good News And Bad News




Thirteen-year-old Paige Tucker smiled at her twin sister, Marie, who had put her book aside to wave at Paige from under the crab apple tree in their back yard. Marie had been excused early from school that day to have an abscess tooth pulled at the dentist’s office. Today had been the very rare occasion that Paige had not at all envied her twin’s early dismissal. She waved back as she bolted through the screen door to tell her sister the biggest, juiciest, most important piece of gossip ever to hit the eighth grade at Park View Middle School. The entire bus ride home, Paige had contemplated how to tell Marie what was sure to be the best news of her young life, and how Marie would take it.
Paige ran out to the crab apple tree, sat down next to her sister, and raised her small hands in a big, dramatic gesture.
“You will never, ever, not in a million years, guess what happened to me at school today,” she assured her twin emphatically. She was so excited for Marie, that she could barely sit still, and the grin on her face stretched crazily from ear to ear.
With a mouthful of cotton balls, still half numb from the Novocain, Marie shrugged her shoulders. She couldn’t imagine why Paige was so happy, and she was in no position to venture a guess. All day long, she had been unable to speak clearly, and people kept asking her to repeat herself every time she’d attempted to talk, so she had given up all efforts of speech about an hour ago out of frustration.
“Well,” Paige grinned even wider, if such a thing was possible. She had always enjoyed a good bit of gossip immensely, and she was in seventh heaven for the moment with this mouth-watering piece of it. She paused, to keep that moment for as long as possible. Marie smiled in grim amusement at her sister’s antics. “Brad Marsh told me today that Tommy Carlucci likes you and he wants you to be his girlfriend!”
Marie jumped up in excitement, forgetting all about her very annoying temporary speech impediment and the pain in her gums where her tooth used to be for the time being. Tommy liked her! How exciting! No wonder Paige had been so thrilled! Marie had liked Tommy since the second grade, and now, ten days before school was to let out, of all times, he had finally decided he liked her back! Well, she supposed it would have to do. She would find a way to see him this summer. He did live close enough for her to ride her bike to his house. So it wasn’t so bad; his timing…
Wait, she thought, what if he didn’t really like her, and Brad was just playing some cruel trick on her?
“Are doo thure?” she asked Paige. “Tommy really liketh me, and Bradth not duth thaying it for fun?”
“Huh?“ Paige cocked one questioning eyebrow, a skill she was immensely proud of for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was a skill that had taken her months to master, and secondly, it was like the only thing she knew of that she could do that Marie couldn’t.
Marie stopped and repeated herself as slowly and articulately as she possibly could.
“Oh” Paige nodded as she began to understand what Marie had been trying to say. She nodded again. “Yeah. Brad said Tommy would kill him if he knew what Brad was telling me. You know what that means.” She gave Marie a knowingly sly smile.
Marie laughed. She knew that meant, all right. It meant the same thing at her middle it did every other school in America. Clearly, Tommy had sent Brad to tell her twin, knowing, of course, that Paige would spill the beans and Marie would go out with him if she liked him. Not that she and Paige were allowed to date or anything. Their parents were so strict that they weren’t to date boys until they got to high school, and no sooner! She shook her head. Well, maybe she could be Tommy’s girlfriend until high school. No, that wouldn’t work.
Darn, she thought. What terrible timing. Well, she could be Tommy’s girlfriend just for now, anyway. She clapped her hands in excitement, and smiled, allowing a lone cotton ball to slip from her mouth and fall to the ground. Both girls giggled, looking down at it.
She sat back down as Paige filled her in on the slightly less significant details as far as what had happened at school after Marie was dismissed, hardly listening to her sister through a dreamy haze of fantasy.
She thought about Tommy, wondering what this could mean. Would he hold her hand as they walked down the hallway together? Would he meet her after school to come over and do homework together? Would he kiss her at her locker in between classes? Would he sit with her at lunch, where everyone would see them and know they were a couple?
Would all of the girls be jealous of her for going out with the cutest boy in school? Would those other girls, popular cheerleaders like Paige was, want to hang out with her and talk about what it was like to be Tommy Carlucci’s girlfriend?
Marie, herself was a studious girl who’d always dreamt of being able to hang out with those other girls and have something in common with them, so that they wouldn’t shun her, or include her merely to laugh about what she’d said the minute she left. Those other girls, who flipped their hair in one swift, fluid motion as they sauntered down hallways they’d forgotten they owned. Those other girls who never got fat, or had zits, or lacked for dates and friends. The ones (you know the type), who seemed to live above the rest of the crowd, just skimming its icy surface in their velvet-lined skates. She barely listened to Paige as she imagined her own delicate, sure-footed figure-eights among those girls, until their mother, Melanie, called them in for dinner an hour or so later.
“Girls,” Mel had called from the back porch, “Dinner’s here.”
It was Friday, which had always been pizza night at the Tucker household. Melanie, proud of her English-Italian heritage, generally cooked a diverse and delicious array of homemade meals for her family. Fridays, however, Mel took a break from homemaking and ordered out. Twice a month, Mel and the twins’ father, Nick, went out for dinner and a movie, or whatever else parents did on dates, and twice a month the Tuckers had a sort of family board game night, which was always a lot more fun. Marie was pretty sure tonight was a ‘family night’.
“Take off your shoes,” their mom yelled from the kitchen as the screen door slammed behind the twins. They literally cringed in anticipation of what was inevitably coming. “And how many times have I told you about that door?” she demanded.
Paige winked at her sister as she yelled back, “I just can’t wait to get a bite of that garlic pizza, Ma.”

Marie stifled a giggle as their mother chuckled out loud. The girls knew that they were off the hook and Marie shot Paige a look of utter admiration. Marie had never understood how Paige always handled their mother so easily. Marie was a Daddy’s girl, hands down, but Paige somehow worked Melanie, who was a lot harder to figure than her husband, Nick. She shook her head and followed Paige into the kitchen, where two large pizzas were waiting on the table. One was always pepperoni and extra cheese for Marie, Paige, and their dad, and one was usually just a veggie pizza, with peppers, black olives, mushrooms, and onions for their mom, who was a vegetarian. Sometimes, unfortunately, their mother was in a mood for garlic, too, which effectively turned the stomachs of everyone she lived with (hence Paige’s joke). These were the only nights on which the Tuckers did not all sit at the table and eat as a family, for the rest of them couldn’t even take the smell. The twins and their dad would take their pepperoni into the living room on those nights, and speak to Mel only from the couch. Marie sniffed the air for garlic, and was glad to report that this was not one of those nights. She saw that her father was already halfway through his first slice, and their mom was just sitting down across from him with hers. The girls each grabbed a slice and sat down to dig in. About halfway through the meal was when the trouble began. It was their mother who started it.
Marie knew that something was up when her mother had put her pizza down and began wringing her hands. She cracked one of her knuckles, and their dad shot her a look like the one she gave him when he chewed with his mouth open. Something just short of fond annoyance, a sharply gentle reminder that this was one of those traits the other half had chosen to ignore when he or she had married you. Marie put down her pizza, too. Something big was coming. She could feel it. Her mouth got dry and her stomach felt all fluttery. Maybe they were fighting. She looked at Paige to see if her sister had noticed the tension that had crept into the room at some point during their meal, but Paige was eating her pizza, blissfully ignorant to what was happening around her.
Here was another thing Marie had always admired and envied in her twin sister. To be ignorant to body language and facial expressions had never been something that Marie could do. Paige was always able to ignore these things, but Marie was simply too perceptive to ignore them. She tried to catch her sister’s eye, to warn her that something was going on, and that she was worried, but it was no use. Paige was busy eating, and her parents seemed to be waiting to drop whatever bomb they held until Paige was finished. Maybe it was divorce, Marie wondered. Half of the kids on the twins’ school bus, maybe more, had parents who were divorced, and Marie had always been rather proud that hers had managed to stay together. She’d heard them fight a couple of times, while she and Paige were in bed, but not enough to want to get divorced. Right? She questioned herself doubtfully. Her knowledge on the subject was really rather limited. How much fighting did a married couple have to do to make them want a divorce? She realized that she had no idea, and that thought made her nervous.
But, wait, she protested to herself, their anniversary is coming up. Soon. People didn’t divorced get near or on their anniversary. Did they?
Maybe they had been fighting more than she thought they were, but she hadn’t heard them because they had been quiet, or she had been asleep, or perhaps it was a little bit of both.
Finally, the moment they’d all been waiting for. Paige threw down the rest of her crust and started licking her fingers, a sure sign that she was done. Marie almost ran out of the room right then. If her parents were getting divorced, she sure didn’t want to hear about it. Certainly not right now, when she had gone through such a seesaw of emotions today alone. Come to think of it, she didn’t want to hear anything they had to tell her. It was bad news no matter what that meant, and Marie hadn’t even had a chance to savor the good news she’d gotten today. No. Scratch that; the great news she had gotten today.
She cleared her throat as she gazed at the half eaten pizza slice on the plate in front of her, hoping that whatever was wrong with her go away without her ever having to hear about it. She looked up just as Paige finally realized what was going on.
“What’s up?” Paige asked, frowning.
Their mom stared down at her plate as Marie had done a moment ago, unable to meet her daughter’s even stares. Suddenly, she jumped up and began clearing their dishes from around the table as she spoke in a very flimsy attempt not to have to look at the twins.
“Well,” she began nervously, “You two know that our anniversary is coming up?” She finally met their eyes for acknowledgement, and they granted it, nodding fairly indifferently. Paige just wanted her mother to get to the point for once, and their anniversary was definitely not the crux of this particular problem.
This is it, Marie thought to herself. Here it comes. Divorce.
“Well, uh, your Dad and I are planning on taking a cruise. A three-week cruise out to Saint Croix Island,” she paused to try and gauge the girls’ faces.
Well, that would be great, Marie thought. Why would Mom be so worried about telling us that?
“Where’s Saint Croix?” Paige asked, already grinning with anticipation.
“This is so cool,” Marie mused. “We’re going on a cruise. Is it, like a Disney ship?”
“No,” Their mother shook her head slowly. “Just your father and I are going. We wanted some alone time this year, and the plans have already been made for just the two of us. Your grandmother has agreed to let you stay with her for the three weeks, and we thought you two might like that.”
“You can’t be serious!” Paige demanded. “Why would we want to spend three weeks of with Grandma, all alone, in that creepy house, all the way over in England?! You thought we’d like to? Ha-ha. Very funny, Ma.” She stomped her foot to make the temper tantrum complete. Marie couldn’t say anything. She was in shock. She looked at her father questioningly, and then quickly looked away again when she saw no support for her or Paige in his eyes. That house was really creepy. And now she could kiss finally being Tommy’s girlfriend goodbye. She just wanted to go and throw up.
“I knew this was going to happen,” Mel murmured, looking to her husband for help and support. She pleaded with him with her eyes to help her get Paige settled down and she could see from Marie’s face that her little heart was broken. Mel’s broke with it.
“Oh really? I thought you were sure we’d like it, Ma,” Paige’s voice was laced with sarcasm.
“Alright,” Nick held his hands up for silence. “You two get upstairs. Me and your mom will figure out how to make this a good thing across the board and we’ll be up to talk to you in a minute.”
The girls flew upstairs without a word, fairly shaking with outrage, and disappointed beyond words. By mutual unspoken agreement, they went to Marie’s room, mostly because it was almost always much cleaner than Paige’s room. Marie was neat as a pin, with all of her schoolwork in tidy little piles on her desk, and her bed always made, and her clothes put away at all times. Paige’s room, on the other hand, was in constant turmoil. Clothes on the bed, schoolwork all over the floor, posters all over the walls, trophies from swimming, and softball, and cheerleading were scattered all over her dressers and desk, leaving no room for anything else.
Marie plopped over onto her four-posted canopy bed, near tears, while Paige slammed the bedroom door with a fury that startled her sister.
“What the heck are they thinking?!” Paige asked no one in particular.
Marie shrugged even though she knew that the question was rhetorical. She looked around her room as though she were seeing it for the first time. She had to try and take her mind off of the situation. She knew that her parents couldn’t change their plans, and wouldn’t change their minds, but she would certainly hope. And, in the meantime, listen to Paige wail about their predicament. She sat up as Paige paced back and forth in front of the door. She noticed, not for the first time, that she and Paige were quite different for twins. They weren’t identical, to start off with. But their personalities were so opposite sometimes. For example, they had each been put in charge of decorating their own room.
Where Paige’s room had posters of boys and bands, Marie’s had pictures of her family. Paige’s walls were pale yellow; Marie’s were baby blue. They both had the same furniture, and that was where the similarities ended. Marie’s bed was always neatly made, military style, with the corners pulled back. Paige probably had things living in her bed. You couldn’t even see what color her bedspread was, and Marie had forgotten a long time ago whether Paige even had carpet on her floor. Marie had chosen a nice beige carpet that had earned her bedroom the nickname ‘Surf and Turf’, because the walls looked like the ocean and the carpet like fine sand. They each had a desk and chair, as a private homework (or, in Paige’s case; note-writing) area. They each had a dresser; but Paige probably didn’t have any clothes in hers, although she did have a lot of outfits, and Marie kept her clothes inside neatly folded, color coordinated, and sorted by season.
They each had two bookshelves; Marie’s crammed with books in every genre, which she had begun to accumulate when she was seven or eight, and Paige’s full of trophies and CD’s. Paige probably had one or two books somewhere in her room; no doubt required summer reading taken from library after school, but books, nonetheless.
Whenever the twins money; birthdays, allowance, holidays, whatever; Paige always spent what didn’t go straight to her college fund on clothes or CD’s, whereas Marie spent her extra money on books an shoes. Paige’s closet, as a result, was filled to the brim with the cutest new outfits, while Marie wore hand-me-downs and still had only the bare essentials. If she ever needed to borrow anything to wear, Paige could always be counted on to produce for her sister the cutest possible outfit. She’d take the clothes off of her back if she thought they’d look better on her twin; Marie had seen her do it. By the same token, Marie always had the latest and greatest styles in shoe wear, happy to share with her twin in the same giving way. Marie always wore a watch; Paige never even knew what time it was, and, for the most part, never wanted to. Paige was best at any sport she tried, whereas Marie never even went out for any of them. Marie was one of the most prodigious and promising students at their school, and Paige hardly did her homework. They were both sweet, and pretty, but they were very different in some ways, although very alike in others, which worked out so that they complemented each other perfectly. Marie laughed aloud at the irony of twins being so different, inducing a sharp look from Paige.
“This isn’t funny,” Paige insisted. “This is a crisis!”
“I’m sorry,” Marie nervously ran her hand through her strawberry blond hair as she was forced to focus on the problem at hand, “You’re right This really stinks.”
“We’ve only been up there-what? Twice?” Paige asked Marie.
Marie nodded vaguely. “Something like that. Yeah.”
“Have you ever seen any other kids up there?”
“No,” Marie admitted sadly, shaking her head.
“What are we going to do up there?’ Paige fretted.
Again, all poor Marie could do was shrug her shoulders. “Don’t forget about Tommy,” she reminded Paige, “who finally decided that he liked me. News I’ve waited for practically my whole life. And now we have to go away.”
“Oh my word,” Paige threw her arms up in disgust “that’s right. I forgot all about that. This is the worst.”
Marie nodded in agreement. It certainly was the worst news she had gotten in her entire life, and it had come on the same day as the best news she’d gotten in her entire life. It always seemed to happen that way, and it gave Marie a sudden epiphany. It hit her as hard as a wave on her favorite beach on a cloudlessly immaculate summer day. Good news and bad news would almost always come this way; together. It seemed to be the universe’s way of ensuring that you could take the bad, sending it to you at the same time like that. It also kept you balanced, so that you didn’t get too cocky or self-assured with the good news that came your way if that wave came and knocked you on your butt right afterward. It wasn’t necessarily fair, but that was life, she realized.
“At least you’ve talked to Grandma a couple of times,” Marie told Paige mournfully, sorry for herself, and for her sister. “I can’t even say that much for myself. What will we do?”
“I can’t talk to her without Mom and Dad there to back me up,” Paige protested, sounding even more pitiful than Marie had. After a moment of silence, she realized something. “Hey,” she said to Marie, “You’re talking much better, at least.”
“I had to take the cotton balls out to eat, and the Novocain must’ve worn off,” Marie said, matter-of-factly.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. A soft, tentative knock that they wouldn’t have even heard had there not been a pause in their conversation. Marie rose and walked slowly to the door to open it. Her father stood in front of the door, looking down at his shoes like a small child being chastised. Marie had to give her parents some credit. They clearly felt awful about leaving the girls alone, and they really shouldn’t have. The Tucker family was closer than any other family Marie knew of. They weren’t the Cleavers, or anything, but they weren’t the Bundys either. And part of the reason they were so close to begin with was the fact that they all had a strong, close bond that came from doing almost everything together as a family, with few exceptions. Marie knew that her parents needed their alone time, and she knew that it was unfair of the girls to demand so much of their parents’ time when the elder Tuckers so rarely spent time away from their daughters as it was.
“Can I come in?” Their father asked hesitantly when Marie made no move to welcome him. She couldn’t help it. She was perceptive enough to understand that her parents needed some time alone every once in awhile, but she was still only mature enough to bend just so far. She stepped back at his prompting, and let him in without a word. As far as the girls were concerned, the ball was in their parents’ court. What they were willing to do to make the girls forgive them was apt to be inadequate, as most parents’ gestures often seemed to be. Sometimes Marie thought that true compromise was impossible. She let him in, anyway.
“Okay,” he muttered, sitting down slowly on Marie’s vanity chair. His voice was low and gruff; well, lower and gruffer than usual, at any rate, which meant that he was not at all happy about what he was about to say.
Well, Marie thought, serves him right. We’re not happy about this situation either, and now he knows how we feel.
“We came to what we feel is an accurate compromise,” he paused to look at Marie, who was still standing. “You want to sit down, kiddo? This is hard enough for me as it is.”
Reluctantly, Marie sat down on the bed next to Paige.
He cleared his throat and began again, slightly louder this time, but still not thrilled.
“Me and your Mom talked, and we decided that, if you girls can take this like the troopers we know you can be, you can start dating this year, when you turn thirteen, instead of when you are freshmen in high school.” The girls jumped up in excitement. True compromise did exist!
“This birthday?!” Paige almost yelled.
Their father nodded reluctantly.
“So, in, like fifteen days?’ Made asked. She knew when their birthday was; she just wanted to make sure that her parents remembered that the girls’ thirteenth birthday was so close.
This was the biggest ongoing fight that the girls had with their parents, well, to be fair, more with their father than with their Mom. Nick Tucker wanted to have nothing to do with his little girls growing up, and even less to do with their desire to impress boys. He had been very firm in stating that his daughters would not go anywhere with boys until their freshman year in high school.
“Goodness, you two are growing up so fast,” he observed with a tear in his eyes. “I just wish I could build a wall on top of each of your heads to keep you from growing any more.” He sniffled as he got up and quickly left the room, crying openly now.
The girls stared after him, puzzled, as Marie got up and closed the door behind him. They had never seen their father break down and cry before, and it was difficult to imagine, even now that they had seen it. He was a giant grizzly bear of a man, with strawberry blond hair and blue eyes that could be warm and beautiful, or cold, hard chips of ice, more intimidating than any grizzly bear could ever aspire to be. Usually, their Mom was the one to get all emotional and dissolve into helpless tears, but Marie figured that this would be the exception to the norm. That their father, for the first time ever, would be the one to become emotional, while their Mom would be his rock and strength and comfort, for once.





The girls, who couldn’t see things from their parents’ point of view, were nothing less than shocked. They couldn’t understand what the big deal had been in the first place; they just wanted to hang out and have fun. To Paige and Marie, dating held as much significance as any passing fashion statement. They didn’t want to be the last ones in their class to be allowed to go out with a boy. It was mortifying. For their father, however, it meant so much more than that. Boys were predators, and he didn’t want his little girls to get hurt, or pregnant, or hooked on drugs; all of the awful things that raced through a father’s mind when he started setting curfews for his daughters. In short, it meant that his little girls were growing up. They were crossing a line into adulthood every bit as significant as a girl’s first period, or her first kiss; times no parent was ever excited to stumble across. Unfortunately, it isn’t anything a teenage girl or boy can fathom until she or he becomes a parent, and therein lies the vast gulf between puberty and adulthood. Too many adults forget what it was like to be there, and too many teens forget that their parents have already experienced that turbulent period of their lives.
Marie was slow in getting back to her bed, nearly stumbling over her lower lip, she was so astounded, and there was another knock on the door before she was even halfway across the floor. She turned back around, praying to whomever was listening that her father was not standing outside of her door, sobbing like a baby who’s just realized that he lost his mother in a crowd at the supermarket, and supposes that he will never see her kind face or quick smile again.
Luckily, when she opened the door, it was only her dry-eyed mother.
“Did your father tell you?” She asked without coming in.
The twins nodded as one.
“I’m glad,” Their mother replied. A very fake and transparent smile forced its way onto her lips. “That was one battle where I was actually on your side. I remember fighting with my father about being allowed to date. I guess it’s just something men have a real problem with; their little girls being old enough to go out with boys. Next thing your father knows, you’ll be bringing boyfriends home to meet us, and going to proms, and then off to college,” her voice cracked as she, too, started to crying, “getting married, and having kids of your own...” she trailed off, sniffling as she walked away from Marie’s room, as overcome with emotion as their dad had been before her.
“Parents are weird,” Marie said, closing the door again.
“Tell me about it,” Paige nodded. “If I ever have a daughter, I am definitely going to let her start dating whenever she wants without crying about it.”
Yeah...that’s what we all thought.