Page 93 of Atmosphere

Frances smiled sweetly. “Oh, yeah, nice to see you again.”

“Hop in the back,” Joan said.

Frances stepped into the back and shoved her books over. Joan got in, and Vanessa pulled away from the curb as Joan directed her where to go.

“Did you have a good day?” Joan asked.

“Kinda. But we played kickball in gym class, and I tried to get Nicky out and missed. It didn’t even get halfway to the plate. It was so embarrassing. After, Phil Magnusson said I throw like a girl. And when I told him that was unkind, he called me a ‘pansy.’ ”

They came to a red light and Vanessa turned her entire body around. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Pansies are very hardy flowers.”

“What does that mean?” Frances asked.

“It means only an idiot would try to use that as an insult. Pansies can literally survive a frost.”

“What’s a frost?”

Vanessa hit the gas when the light changed. She raised her voice to speak over the wind. “It’s when the ground freezes. The point is that when many other flowers would die from being too cold, pansies can survive. Pansies can handle it. Pansies are tough. They are beautiful and tough as nails.”

“Really?” Frances said.

Joan turned to see that Frances had lit up, entirely focused on Vanessa’s next word.

“Yeah, so youarea pansy, I bet,” Vanessa said. “And he’s an idiot.”

“Well,” Joan said, “we try not to call people ‘idiots.’ ”

Vanessa wasn’t listening. “Next time he says something like that, you know what you say? You tell him that you can learn how to throw a ball farther if you want to, but he’ll always be stupid.”

“Frances, do not ever say that!” Joan corrected.

Frances was already laughing. “Hewillalways be stupid,” she said to herself, nearly wheezing. “It’s true.”

Joan looked at Vanessa like a teacher scolding the class clown. Vanessa bit her lip, then mouthed, “Too much?”

Joan nodded.

“Hey, I have an idea,” Vanessa said. “Does anyone want to go out for milkshakes?”

Joan turned to the backseat to see Frances’s reaction.

“YES!” Frances yelled. “OF COURSE!”

—

At the diner, Vanessa ordereda strawberry milkshake and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which she cut into four pieces.

“When I was really little, even younger than you,” Vanessa said, across the table from Frances, “my dad would take me to this diner, and do you know what he and I always got?”

“Milkshakes?”

Vanessa acted as if Frances were a mind reader.

“How did you know that?”

“It’s what I would do.”

“Well, yeah. That’s what we did. A strawberry milkshake,” Vanessa said. She handed Frances a piece of the sandwich. “And we also always got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to dip in it.”

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