April
Willa bounded down the steps of her school, the bell ringing as she and the other students poured out. She looked worried at first, searching out over the crowd of those waiting. Then she locked eyes on me, and she gave me a big, happy smile as she wove in and out of the tight knots of kids.
“April!” She cut the distance between the two of us and, before I had a chance to react, threw her arms around me and hugged tight.
“Uh, hey, Will!”
Her arms still around me, she looked up. Her blue eyes were even more striking in the afternoon sun.
“Did you just call me ‘Will’?”
I smiled. “Thought it sounded cute. You don’t like it?”
She let go of me and slipped her hand into mine as we began to walk side by side.
“No, it’s fine. It means we’re friends now, right? People give each other nicknames when they’re friends.”
“That’s exactly right,” I said. “And the cool part is you don’t even really think about it. You’re friends with someone, and then one day you call them something, and it just sounds right.”
Willa nodded. “Dad calls me that sometimes, but his favorite nickname for me is Sprout.”
“I like that. But it doesn’t sound like your name. How’d he come up with it?”
The noises of the school faded as we turned the corner, the streets of the Upper West Side their usual midafternoon bustle. I looked over the people around me, noting how nearly all of them seemed wealthy and well-dressed—it was a major contrast to my thrift-store style, which was more at home in Brooklyn.
It felt like I was in a whole new world. But I put all of that out of my mind as we continued along.
“Sprout,” said Willa. “He said it’s because that’s how I grew when was little—like a sprouting plant. He said one day I was a tiny little thing, and then bam, I was a big kid.”
I laughed. The idea of Jason coming up with such a silly nickname…it was nice. He was all business, and I knew the true nature of his work. But the way he was with Willa was something else, a softer side of him reserved for her and her alone.
“That’s what happens,” I said. “And soon you’re going to be a really big kid. And after that you’ll be a grown-up, like me. You excited?”
She scrunched up her face, the idea of being an adult appearing not to strike her fancy.
“I don’t know. I mean, being a grown-up sounds cool, because you get to do whatever you want all the time.”
“Hmm, I don’t know about that.”
“Don’t you, though? If you want to stay up late, or eat pizza for breakfast, or whatever, you can do it, right?”
She had me there. I thought back to the many times I’d had a breakfast of nothing more than a leftover slice of New York-style pizza. Though it was more out of laziness than anything else.
“Something like that. But being a kid is cool, too. You can do whatever you want…for the most part.”
“Mainly what Dad says I can. But he’s always like ‘get to bed,’ ‘do your homework.’ You know?”
“That’s because he loves you and wants to make sure you do the stuff you need to, even if that’s not what you want right then.”
Another moment of consideration. “Maybe. But if he does stuff because he loves me, then why is he at work all the time?”
“Because that’s how moms and dads pay for things. If parents could spend all their time with their kids, I bet they would.”
“I wonder if Dad could work less, like half as much, and spend more time with me. That’d be better—I don’t even really care about stuff.” A look of curiosity formed on her face. “What about your parents? Do you get to see them more now that you’re a grown-up?”
It was a tough subject. I thought carefully about how to answer it. “My parents…they died when I was little.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s what happened to me. My mom died before I had a chance to know her.”