Birthday Blues by Karen English Read Free Book Online Page A

daddy will show up for my birthday, since he didn't make it last year? Or the year before that?"
    Auntie doesn't answer right away. She stops eating and sighs. "Deja, I sent your daddy an invitation, but I haven't heard anything. I'm sorry, baby. Maybe he didn't get it. Perhaps where I sent it isn't his current address."

    Auntie Dee looks down, and Deja knows that Auntie doesn't believe that. What she believes is that her daddy
isn't
coming. "I'm thinking we won't see him," Auntie Dee says finally. "I'm sorry."
    She looks at Deja closely, but Deja looks away. She doesn't know what Auntie Dee wants her to say. So he's not coming
this
year. Then he'll probably come next year. Yes. That will be better, actually. She doesn't want her daddy to see that she had a party and nobody came. "That's okay, Auntie Dee. He'll probably come for my ninth birthday. I can wait."
    In the moment of quiet that follows, Deja thinks about how far into the future next year seems. It's going to take so long to get to be nine.
    Later, after they've eaten the pizza and Deja has helped Auntie Dee unpack, Auntie Dee makes a few telephone calls to the mothers she knows from PTA. As she sits at the kitchen table talking, Deja sits on the couch combing her Barbie's hair and listening. It's so hard when things don't go the way you've been imagining them. So far, nothing is the way she thought it would be just five days ago.

    Now she hears: "Oh, yes. I see. No, no, I understand. Okay, maybe next time." It doesn't sound very good, not very promising. After she hangs up, she dials another number. Deja hears a better conversation from Auntie Dee's end. "Oh, great. Good. I'll see you tomorrow. Yes, at two."

    Auntie Dee hangs up and calls out, "Well, Sheila Sharpe is coming, after all."
    Sheila Sharpe!
Deja thinks.
Sheila Sharpe, who breathes through her mouth? That's who's coming to my party?
Now she pictures herself and Nikki ... and Sheila Sharpe ... sitting at the dining room table in party hats. Not good.
    "Well," Auntie Dee says from the doorway. She claps her hands once. "It seems no one got your invitations, and they've already committed to going to the other party."
    "Nikki and me put the invitations in everyone's cubbies."
    "Could they have fallen out?"
    "No. Someone must have taken them out!"
    "Now, don't go accusing someone if you don't know for sure."
    "I bet you Antonia saw us."
    Auntie smiled cheerfully. "I'm going to make a couple more phone calls tonight, and the rest in the morning. We'll have some kind of party yet."

    Deja doesn't want "some kind" of party. She wants the party she's been imagining for the last three weeks.

    Deja doesn't like the look on Auntie Dee's face when Deja pads into the kitchen the next morning, still in her nightgown. Auntie Dee breaks into a big smile as soon as she sees her, but Deja knows it is a forced smile. "There's the birthday girl," Auntie Dee says cheerfully over her newspaper. She gets up and gives Deja a big birthday hug. "Happy birthday, big girl. I got something for you."
    Deja sits down and puts her chin in her hand. Auntie pushes a small box toward her.
A small box means jewelry,
Deja thinks. Deja stares, making no move to open it. She just wants to look at the box wrapped in lavender tissue paper for a while first. Finally, she removes the paper, lifts the top off, and peers inside. It's a citrine pendant on a gold chain.
    "It matches my ring," she says softly.
    "Do you want to put it on?" Auntie asks.
    "Okay."
    Auntie Dee slips the necklace around Deja's neck and then fastens the clasp. "Beautiful," Auntie says.

    Deja rubs the citrine, liking the feeling under her fingertips. Then she goes to the mirror over the buffet in the dining room. She has to jump up to get a really good look at it in the mirror. She likes what she sees. "Thank you, Auntie Dee," she says, coming back into the kitchen.
    "Look what else I have for you," Auntie Dee says. On the table is Deja's favorite breakfast, the one she