Treasure Island!!!

slapped on a few more pickles. “I don’t care how many pickles you have. They’re not
my
pickles,” she said and suddenly I sang:
     
    My mother and your mother live across the way.
    Every night they have a fight and this is what they say:
    Icky bicky pickle pie,
    Icky bicky boo.
    Icky bicky pickle pie,
    Out goes you!
     
    “The jump rope rhyme, remember?” I said. “Enid Crawley and I used to do it all the time.”
    “Enid Crawley got pregnant in eleventh grade.”
    “No kidding! And she was the best at Double Dutch. I
did
run into her at the mall last year, and she looked about a hundred years old. I’m glad
we
didn’t get knocked up. I mean, I assume you didn’t get knocked up.”
    “No,” she said, rubbing a non-existent stain on the counter. “But I did have an abortion our senior year.”
    “No kidding! Patty, I didn’t even know you’d been sexually active. Excuse me for being forward, but since I rediscovered this book, my whole life has been about being forward.” Knowing what my mouth was about to say, my left leg began to spasm. I leaned more heavily onto the counter. “I’ve told you about the Core Values, right?”
    “Yeah, you wrote them on one of our comment cards last week.”
    “So do you know what I mean when I say I can’t blow my own horn right now? This winter has felt like a huge setback. I’m BOLD , as you know, I’m RESOLUTE , but I’m definitely falling short in the INDEPENDENCE arena. I mean, I can’t live at my parents’ house another moment if I’m going to keep evolving. My sister lives at home too, but—did I tell you this already?—she’s having a creepy affair with a much older man.”
    “I was only seventeen. It was horrible.”
    “What? Patty, have you heard a word I’m saying?”
    She stared right at me: “You need a place to crash.”
    “Yes, exactly! Do you live alone?”
    “No, I live with my girlfriend.”
    I didn’t know what she meant by that. “You have TWO bedrooms?”
    “Three, actually.”
    “Then you have extra space!”
    “Not exactly.” Attempting an emphatic gesture, she knocked over a stack of Styrofoam cups, which rolled across the counter.
    “I don’t put much faith in your math skills,” I said as she pursued a cup approaching the edge. “You live with ONE girlfriend, but your apartment has THREE bedrooms.”
    “Yeah, but one of them is sort of our media room . . . ”
    “Less TV, more reading. I recommend it. And I’d even sleep in the living room, or a sun porch, if you have that. Jim Hawkins sleeps in an apple barrel. Anyway, this is excellent! Roommates with Patty Pacholewski! In fifth grade, I never would have thought it.” (Seventh grade, I wouldn’t have wanted to think it, but didn’t say.) “Tell me the truth, Patty: would you have asked me, if I hadn’t asked you first?”
    “Did you ask me?” All the color had gone out of her face. Her day job sucked the life out of her. “You don’t even know my girlfriend, Sabrina.”
    “But I’d love to know her.”
    “Listen, I really have to go fill the napkin dispensers now—no offense.”
    “None taken, mate! You, me and Sabrina—let’s find a time!”
    Thank god for Patty Pacholewski, I thought as I walked home, kicking at snow boulders, many of which shattered violently at the first touch of my boot. When, I wondered idly, had
she
become a lesbian?

    Back at the ranch, I discovered that someone had placed a letter into Chapter 1: The Old Sea Dog at the ‘Admiral Benbow.’
    “What’s this?” I said.
    “That came for you yesterday,” my mother said. “I wanted to make sure you’d see it.”
    The note was from Rena on a fine hand-made rice paper embedded with marigold petals. I read it rapidly; it was plain she was worked up.
     
    . . . I miss the Gratuitous Pancakes. Why do all my calls go straight to voicemail? Are you mad that I took your shift at The Pet Library? Please write back. XOXO, Big Love, Rena
     
    I ignored the letter. I had Patty now.
    “Rena called,” my mother said.
    “Rena called,” Adrianna said.
    “Somebody’s on the phone for you,” my father said. “Her name’s Rowena.”
    Eventually Adrianna chased me down, phone in hand. “She’s right here,” she told the receiver in a loud, aggrieved voice.
    “Yes?” I said (politely, almost secretarial).
    “What’s happening? Do you want to get a cup of coffee? How’s Richard, how’s living at home?”
    “A hundred questions at once!” But I regretted my