Lemon Lavender Is Not Fine

by Elle Pallmore

  I stall by clearing the fogged window with my jacket sleeve. The rain picks up, battering the car roof, and between the damp cold and my slushee, my teeth are beginning to chatter. Graham reaches into the backseat and unearths a hooded sweatshirt. He wordlessly drapes it over my body, tucking the arms around my hips while my insides pool into my feet. The cold suddenly isn’t an issue.

  “Thanks,” I manage.

  “Tell me about your name,” he says.

  It’s a story my mother has recalled so many times that I leave the room now whenever I hear the familiar opening. With Meg, Mom usually ticked off all her accomplishments, how she was the editor of the school newspaper, volunteered at the local food bank, got perfect grades. The only time she ever mentioned me was when people wanted to know how I became Lemon.

  “It’s pretty boring,” I reply. “Lemon was my Grandma Ada’s nickname. It was something my grandfather called her when they first started dating. You know, Lemon-Ada? The name stuck, and that’s what she was known as.” I breathe in his sweatshirt for a moment, then continue. “She died not too long before I was born, and since it was my mom’s mother, she decided to give me the nickname as a tribute, and Ada as a middle name. I mean, it’s nice in some ways to be named after her, but still. Later, my mom said she was hormonal and my father should’ve talked her out of it, but it was too late.”

  Graham twists in his seat, facing me. “You’re right, that’s a terrible story.”

  “I told you,” I say, but when he smirks, I realize he’s joking. “Oh, right. Sarcasm.”

  His features arrange into a genuine smile, easing my nerves. “Thanks for telling me, even though you don’t seem to like talking about it.”

  “Not really. You’re very persuasive, though.”

  He mimics an evil laugh. “Soon you’ll be powerless to resist me.”

  We both go quiet as the words and their unintentional meaning settle over us. He coughs, breaking the awkwardness.

  “I didn’t mean, you know, that I was . . . or you were . . . I’m not trying to . . . ”

  “It was a joke,” I say, cutting him off. “Although I think your evil-genius impersonation needs serious work.”

  He blushes, and when he looks at me all shy, my insides nearly turn to lava.

  “That’s one of the reasons I like you, Lemon. You know how to save a guy when he’s drowning.”

  eight

  DESPITE THE DEPRESSING weather and two messages from Dad, I’m still in a Graham-induced haze when I get home a half hour later. I trudge through the rain with a sloppy grin on my face, and for the first time since Meg left, I don’t get that slip-slidey feeling in my gut when I unlock the front door.

  But as soon as I step in the foyer, I know something is off. Instead of silence and murk, I smell coffee. Freshly brewed and not the stink of the empty pot burning on the hot plate. And there are lights on—another good sign. I follow a trail of voices to the kitchen, where my mother is dressed, her hair is passable, and she actually has an empty dish in front of her. My aunt Vee sits opposite of Mom at the kitchen table. I process the scene with disbelief.

  “There’s my Lemon Drop!” Aunt Vee launches herself at me, swallowing my body in a huge hug. “I missed you so much! It feels like it’s been forever.”

  When she lets go, her sleek auburn bob settles perfectly into place—probably because it cost a fortune. She gestures for me to sit down.

  “Here, have some cake. It’s from my favorite patisserie in Paris.” She cuts me a wedge and scoots it onto a plate before picking up her chirping iPhone, which is usually attached to her hand.

  While Aunt Vee taps at the screen, I risk a glance at my mother, who smashes leftover crumbs with the tines of her fork. Right away, I can tell she hasn’t said anything about Meg, because if she had, I’d have walked into a totally different situation. Aunt Vee would’ve gone into complete fix-it mode, with a strategy spreadsheet and everything. A big part of me wants to tell her the truth, and I’ve thought about calling, but I always stopped myself because I knew Dad wouldn’t want her meddling with our lives. Mostly, I think he doesn’t want her judging him.

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” I say.

  “I didn’t either,” she replies, typing away. “My meeting in Hong Kong was canceled, and it was either layover here or somewhere else, so I changed my ticket and showed up at your door. Surprise!” She puts her phone down and smooths the skirt of her tailored black suit. “I haven’t seen you since summer. Tell me about boys and parties and school. Tell me everything.”

  I immediately think back to Graham’s car, his sweatshirt, how he didn’t seem like he wanted me to go. The casual way he leaned into his seat, one knee propped against the door. That’s why I like you, Lemon. I work to hide my smile by biting the inside of my mouth. I won’t be revealing any of that.

  “There isn’t much on the boy or party front. We’re reading The Great Gatsby in English, and my other classes are okay too. Grades are decent.”

  “Fabulous,” she says. Everything is fabulous. It’s Aunt Vee’s catchphrase. “Anyone you have a crush on?”

  Vee always had a boyfriend while I was growing up. The problem was that she never saw them, since she was flying to places like Madrid and Switzerland, so nothing ever lasted. Being single hasn’t dulled her enthusiasm for my non-existent love life, though.

  “No, not really,” I say. “But Isabel might have a date to the Halloween dance.”

  “Oh, Isabel! How fabulous for her. What’s he like?”

  Sometimes, especially when I was younger, I wanted Aunt Vee to be my mom instead. Whenever I saw her, she lavished me with attention and took me out, just the two of us. She asked me questions about my life, even though I didn’t have much of one, and treated me like I was so interesting. She always made me feel I could be someone beyond a stupid name—someone she really wanted to know.

  I asked her once, when I was too naive to realize what a loaded question it was, why Mom didn’t like me as much as she liked Meg. I guess it was obvious, even to her, because she had an answer, as if she’d already given it a lot of thought. She told me that Meg and my mother were very similar, that they both cared about the same things, like clothes and makeup and decorating. I must’ve wrinkled my nose, because she laughed and said, “Just because they like those things doesn't mean you have to.”

  “What do I like?” I asked her. “If I’m not like Meg or Mom?”

  She said, “I don’t know yet, Lemon Drop. You’re a mystery waiting to unfold.” She said it like this was a great thing. The problem is, I still feel like that. There isn’t anything I really care that much about, not a particular class or subject. I don’t even have a sport or hobby I’m good at, like Meg did with swimming and track. All I have is a name, and that’s not something I even want.

  After I finish telling Aunt Vee about Mike and Isabel, she and Mom talk for a while longer about the seasons changing and the upcoming holidays. It’s so impersonal, like small talk between strangers at the grocery store. Even so, it’s a huge leap for Mom to be out of bed, actually carrying a conversation, even if she doesn’t care what she’s saying. It’s progress, and I can’t wait for my father to get home to see it.

  At half past five, Aunt Vee pulls open the drawer where we keep the takeout menus. “My stomach is growling. It’s been way too long since I’ve had a greasy slice of pizza.”

  “You eat out all the time,” I remind her.

  “Yeah, sure, for work,” she replies, “but it’s itty-bitty portion sizes that won’t leave food in my teeth. Most of the time, I’d kill for a bacon burger.”

  I study my mother, expecting her to be horrified at the idea of eating takeout when her sister is here, but she remains stoic, unsmiling. My attention drifts back to Aunt Vee, who is frowning, because she’s noticed it too. Normally, Mom would never allow her to rifle through our drawers, and she certainly wouldn’t let her order anything that arrived in a cardboard box. She would’ve set
out a full tea service to start, complete with porcelain cups and saucers, milk in the creamer, and a little pot full of sugar. She’d also have linen napkins and honey to go along with the silver spoons engraved with her initials.

  Dinner would be just as elaborate. Mom didn’t just love to cook; she loved to present tiered platters and big roasts on silver trays. At least, she used to. It’s as if the magic sparkly dust that fueled her life wore off when Meg left, the spell broken. It makes me wonder if this is truly my mother. Maybe she never liked to cook at all. Maybe she did it all for Meg. The thought worms its way deep into my mind. Now that she’s left with only me, the light has gone out of her.

  “Sarah, are you feeling okay?” Aunt Vee runs her fingers over the curl of Mom’s frizzed ponytail.

  “I’m just a little tired,” she says, cracking out of her trance. “I think I’m coming down with something.” She leans her head into the palm of her hand. The gray hair sprinkled through her hairline is showing, a clear sign that she isn’t keeping up with her normal routine. I didn’t even know she had gray hair—she usually visits the salon every four weeks.

  Aunt Vee frowns as she forgets the menu in her hands. She stares at Mom but talks to me. “Lem, you probably have homework, and I’ve been talking your ear off. I’ll order a pizza and call you when it comes, okay?”

  And there it is—my dismissal. She knows something is up, and all I can hope is that she’ll nudge the dirty truth out of my mother. Yes, perfect and pleasant Meg has become a wild child. Yes, my mother is in a walking coma. Yes, my father is freaking out over both of these things.

  I look at Mom, who suddenly seems to notice me. “You like pizza?”

  The question knocks me in the head. Surely she knows this simple thing about me.

  “For dinner, she means. You like pizza for dinner tonight, right, Lemon?”

  Vee should have a superhero cape attached to her suit.

  “Yeah, sure,” I agree. “Pizza is great.”

  IT’S ALMOST SIX WHEN my father’s headlights pan across my bedroom window. I know he won’t be happy to see Aunt Vee, and I didn’t give him a warning, since he’d likely kill the messenger. I open my door and listen when his key clatters in the lock.

  “Vee!” he exclaims in his phony voice—Dad is never this excited to see anyone. “I didn’t know you were in town.”

  “You know me, unpredictable as ever. I thought it was time to check in with my favorite Lavender family.”

  I can practically hear him gritting his teeth while trying to gauge what she knows. Part of me feels bad for the guy—almost. My empathy stops when he asks, “Is Lemon upstairs?”

  I hustle away from my door, dive into my desk chair, and rip open a textbook. I tap my pen in time with his rapid footfall on the stairs. Partly, I’m interested to learn how Aunt Vee showing up is my fault, since I’m sure he’s found a reason during his twenty-second sprint to my room.

  When he appears in the doorframe, he’s visibly withered around the edges and damp from the rain. His shirt collar is turned up, and his face is blotchy red under a day’s growth of beard, making him look almost swarthy. When I was little, I’d call him a pirate and tie my baby blanket around his head like a bandanna. He’d pick me up and carry me sideways, saying he’d captured the pirate’s booty. That was a long time ago.

  Dad assaults my doorknob and scowls. “What is she doing here?”

  In contrast to his spitting whisper, I half-heartedly shrug one shoulder. “She was here when I got home.” He shoots me a warning look. “I didn’t call her, okay?”

  “Did you say anything?”

  “No.” His question irritates me, so I add, “But maybe we should. Wouldn’t that be a good thing? If anyone can find Meg, it’s Aunt Vee.”

  He slides his hand over his forehead and shuts his eyes for a few seconds. “You don’t know that. Don’t you think I’d go get her if she were so easy to find?”

  I realize too late that I’ve insulted him. He doesn’t want anyone to think he isn’t doing enough to find Meg, or worse, he isn’t capable of finding her. I know enough about the workings of his brain—it’s the same ruminations he muttered when Meg first took off. If he cancels her credit card, he’ll have no way to track her. If he flies to the last place she’s been, she probably won’t still be there. There are too many methods of transportation to get her from country to country. Instead, he dutifully pays the card each month, grinding his jaw as he does it. She isn’t a minor, so as long as she’s moving around, she’s mostly okay. I think he hopes her anger will wear off and she’ll come home, but this version of Meg is someone neither of us knows anything about. She’s unpredictable.

  “I will sort this out my way,” he continues. “Not your way or your aunt’s way.”

  “I didn’t mean . . .” Backpedal, backpedal. “I just think she could help. She’d want to know.”

  He yanks at the top button of his shirt. “There are two types of people, Lemon. The type that talk behind your back and the type that talk to your face. Either way, they all talk.”

  “She won’t talk about us,” I whisper. “She’ll help.”

  Well, sort of. To be more accurate, she’ll take over everything. Calling her friends in Europe, putting up a map with pushpins tracking where we know Meg has been, just like in the movies. She’ll fly overseas and drag Meg home by her hair if she has to.

  Dad isn’t buying it, though.

  “If she starts digging around, she’ll blow the lid off this whole thing. Do you really want other people to know? Do you want your teachers singling you out, asking you if we found her, giving you pitying looks? And what if the local reporters find out, the same ones who wrote about her swimming and track awards, the scholarship she got? They’ll have a field day telling the story of a fallen athlete and academic star. And after the whole town knows, they’ll say all sorts of things about her, about us, and before you know it, ten thousand versions of the truth are out there for the vultures to pick apart.”

  I sit like a stone, studying his stark face and my reflection in his glasses. For the first time, I understand the force of his worry—not just about Meg, but how we’ll appear to everyone else. It didn’t even occur to me. Since it happened, I’ve been able to push the situation aside, to make it separate from myself, because it was an effect from a cause I couldn’t control. But now I see how that’s impossible. If anyone at school finds out about Meg, the spotlight will land directly on me. And once Madeline hears about it . . . I imagine a video on Lady Westmoore and physically shudder. Thankfully, Dad has no idea Lady W. exists.

  Dad leans on my desk, pressing closer. “You will not say anything to your aunt.”

  I nod, acutely aware for the first time how much I don’t want anyone else to know, especially Vee. Subtlety isn’t in her nature. Relentless is. “I won’t. I promise.”

  Our conversation is cut off when the doorbell rings. Aunt Vee calls out, “Ray! Lemon! Pizza’s here.”

  We stare at each other for another beat, but he leaves without another word.

  Downstairs, Dad pulls four glasses from the cupboard. I distribute the plates while we all sit down. Mom is the only one who doesn’t grab a slice.

  “Not hungry?” Aunt Vee asks.

  Mom shakes her head. “The cake we had earlier really filled me up.”

  “You and Meg. Appetites like birds.”

  At Meg’s name, my father flinches.

  “When is she coming home for Thanksgiving? The day before?”

  Dad chews slowly, extending the blank space following Aunt Vee’s question. My mother leaves the table and starts wiping the clean counter. I watch her swipe one way, then the other, going over the same spot again and again.

  “We’re waiting to see,” Dad finally replies. “It depends on the amount of homework she has.”

  It’s a bald-faced lie, but we sit there, pretending everything is just fine.

  “You must miss her,” Aunt Vee says, her mouth full of pizza.r />
  Neither Mom or Dad speaks, and the moment is charged with silence.

  “We do,” I say, looking at them. “We miss her a lot.”

  nine

  ON MONDAY, THE HALLOWEEN dance is the only thing anyone can talk about, and it’s still days away.

  The rumor about Mike Dettmer asking Isabel was true, so I can’t even complain to her about the annoying excess of excitement. During gym, she details Mike’s costume, and at lunch, she goes on about her costume in relation to Mike’s costume. I’m happy for her, but the subject slowly grates my nerves. I’m itchy with envy, which makes me feel even worse, because if the situation were reversed, Isabel would let me talk for hours about myself. Not only am I jealous, but I’m also being a bad friend, so I stuff my misery down until it doesn't show.

  I don’t tell her how much I wanted Graham to ask me to the dance, or that I’ve been torturing myself by obsessing about it. I wouldn’t have been able to accept even if he did offer, but in my glittery, fantasy-fueled imagination world, I designed the moment with intricate detail. When he doesn’t approach me after English Lit or at my locker between classes, my slim hope bursts into flames. Knowing I’ll be at home for another dance is confirmation that I’m destined to die a virgin with forty cats, probably still making my dad’s dinner.

  At the end of the day, people are blurs as I sprint out of school. I settle into my car and revel in the silence and semi-privacy. I’ll go home, clean up the house, and distract myself with cooking. It isn’t the most exciting plan, but at least it’ll keep my brain busy.

  Resigned to my fate, I turn the car ignition, but nothing happens. I try again, wrenching the key as far as it will go, but the engine only ticks.

  “No, no, no,” I plead while studying the dashboard icons that are supposed light up when something is wrong. That’s when I notice my headlights are still on from this morning’s foggy drive. I never turned them off, which drained the battery to nothing.