by Eden Beck
“What is it?” Wills asks, trying to lean over my shoulder to read what it says. I hand them the paper to read themselves.
I did promise them that I would come and visit. I know I should. I just feel a little strange doing it, especially since I pretended to be their dead daughter not too long ago. How was I supposed to know that I was impersonating my cousin?
All the same, weirdness aside, I did promise them, and they’re reaching out to me. I’m going to have to let go of being nervous and go spend some time with my family. It feels so strange and a little nice to think of having family to go to in the first place.
“It’s just so weird,” I say, taking the letter back. I glance down at it, and can’t help feeling a little guilty for not being more grateful for the invitation.
My guilt is quashed by the swirl of emotions at the memorial. I’ve never been to a candlelight vigil before, and it’s heartbreaking in a different way than the funeral. We’re not seated neatly in plastic chairs, but rather, all standing together, shoulders touching, as we grieve for those we lost.
There’s a community in it. We’re all on the same side, for just a moment.
But it doesn’t last.
The school seems determined to pick sides, and tonight is no different.
After the vigil, many of the students gather in the dining hall. They’ve put out some food just in case, but no one’s really touching it.
The boys and I, along with a few more new friends who have chosen to hang out with us instead of the Victoria and Astor crowd, are sitting at a few round tables pushed together, talking around midnight when Laura comes into the hall.
Blair nudges me, and I look up and catch Laura’s eye. I told my boys all about our conversation, and both Blair and Wills are hoping that she will join us. They feel terrible about what’s happened to Alisha, and like me, they don’t want Victoria hurting Laura further.
Laura turns her gaze to Victoria, and Victoria points at an empty chair not far from her. I watch as Laura shakes her head at Victoria and then comes toward us. Wills slides over to give her space next to me, and I wait until I see my nemesis look our way before I grin at him and kiss his cheek quickly in thanks.
I smile up at Laura and she settles in nervously at my side. I can’t help but shoot a look of contempt over to Victoria, who is shocked and seething.
I know that it’s a small victory, but it’s one that I will savor.
Score one for me. I shoot Victoria a wink and a cold smirk. She scowls bitterly and turns away. Astor is staring at me, as usual, and I meet his eyes for a moment before turning my attention to Laura. There is nothing in Astor’s gaze to imply what his feelings might be, but I really don’t care either way. He made his choice too and now he can sit and suffer with her.
Laura is just the beginning, and we all know it.
A new day is coming to Hawthorne Academy, and it’s my day.
Chapter 6
Blair and Wills stay the night with me. It takes them all of fifteen seconds to move the furniture around the room so the two twin beds can be pushed up against each other. Even if anyone had been paying attention, there wouldn’t have been anything to worry about tonight. It’s hardly a steamy scene they’d walk in on. I just want to be held, and that’s what they do. In the dark and the silence, we mourn together for the last time.
Afterwards, we have little time alone.
The Whites send a car for me the next morning. Blair and Wills help me pack my few belongings and watch as the car pulls away from the school. I shouldn’t be nervous, but I am.
From the way my stomach keeps churning over with endless butterflies, you’d think I’m on my way back to the old foster house, not the mansion I’m set to inherit one day.
When I get back to their home, it looks just as unreal to me as it did the last time I saw it for my father’s funeral. It’s so massive, pristine, and other-worldly to me. I can’t begin to fathom how anyone could live like that and have a normal life.
I guess you just have to redefine normal.
There’s a butler at the door who takes me to the drawing room where my aunt and uncle are waiting for me. Ellen comes to me and I reach my hand out to shake her hand. At the same time she reaches for my shoulders to embrace me in a half-hug.
It’s more than awkward, but I let her give me the kind-of hug, and then step back from her and look at my uncle, who is standing in front of his desk with his hands in his pockets. No hug or handshake from him, and honestly I’m relieved.
“Hi,” I say with an anxious smile. I hoped that I’d feel more comfortable, but I guess we’re all still getting used to the ‘being a family’ thing.
“Hello, Teddy. Thank you so much for coming,” he tells me, and I think he means it. Ellen walks over to him and stands at his side, and I can see that they expect me to come to them where they stand, so I do.
When I’m standing before them, they share a strange sort of smile and then Dane reaches behind him to his desk.
“We know it will take some time for things to be finalized, but in the mean time we’ve talked it over, and we’ve decided to give you this,” he announces evenly, and then he hands me a manila envelope.
“We’d bought a car for Sadie, but then …” He shoots a dark look at his wife, and Ellen looks at the ground.
I saw a glimpse of this before, last year, when I came head to head with the Whites over my stolen high school tuition. He must be blaming her for Sadie’s death, and to be honest, it kind of makes sense.
It’s because Sadie overdosed on my aunt Ellen’s pills that she died.
Ellen crosses her arms over her chest in a protective manner, and presses her mouth into a thin line, looking away from him in silence. He turns his eyes to me, and the coldness is gone from them. The chill I still feel, however, remains.
“It’s paid for, but it’s just sitting there, so I thought that …” He stops mid-sentence as Ellen shoots a look back at him. I can read their whole silent conversation just by watching them interact with one another. “… uh, we thought that you might use it. Someone should use it. It’s never been driven. We had it delivered here to the house and it arrived the day after Sadie …” He pauses and exhales slowly.
“This is the title, registration, and insurance information, as well as the keys. It’s waiting out in front for you when you leave. I’ve put you on our insurance, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
I blink at them in amazement. Good thing he did, because I wouldn’t just driven off without it. And I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m guessing if they got it for Sadie … one scratch would cost the same as a small mortgage to fix.
“I’m … I’m not sure what to say,” I begin, stammering a little as I take the envelope from him.
“Well, we’re just glad to have someone to give it to,” Ellen says, painting a smile on her face where there wasn’t one just a moment before. She stares at me, and I know that she’s seeing her daughter in me, and that it must be difficult.
There are photographs of Sadie all over the house. In this room alone, there’s a huge painting of Sadie with her mom and dad hanging over the massive fireplace. It’s kind creepy to me; like I’m looking at a painting of an alternate version of myself.
It’s so bizarre, and I don’t like it. The ghost of her is everywhere, and I feel like I’m still sort of standing in her shoes, even though I gave that lie up ages ago.
Ellen steps up and presses one hand to my shoulder, turning me towards the door a bit. She’s looking at me in that glassy-eyed way of hers that makes me squirm, almost as if she’s forgotten, for a moment, that I’m not actually Sadie.
“Now that that’s done, I thought that it would be fun for us to go out and have a little one-on-one time, you know … a girl’s day out. What do you think? Would you like to come along?” Ellen asks me, wide-eyed and hopeful.
I know that I can’t turn her down for so many reasons; she’s my family now, they’ve taken me in as their niece,
and they just gave me a car that was supposed to belong to their dead daughter. All very good reasons to say yes, even though I really want to say no.
That chill still hangs in the air between them, and I get the feeling this is some sort of game.
Why is it that everything with these people is never what it seems?
“Sure, why not?” I say. “After all, how long can it take?”
From the sound of Ellen’s laugh and the way she throws back her head like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard, I have a feeling this is gonna be a long one. I take a deep breath and force a smile on my own face. It’s going to be weird for a while no matter what. Might as well embrace it.
“Good. Your uncle has business things to take care of today, so we can spend all the time and money that we want to.” She shoots him a cool look, and then walks past me and sails toward the door. Now that’s something I never thought I’d hear.
And, admittedly, I do start to feel a little excited.
“Well come on then,” Dane says, “I’ll show you the car.”
Ellen stop him with a look and starts steering me towards the door. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”
I give Dane a little wave as I’m dragged out behind her.
“Of course.” He says quietly, only half-looking at me as he eyes his departing wife with a judgmental look. Dane turns and walks behind his desk then, and I know that the conversation is done.
Shame. I would have really liked to see the car.
I know that Ellen’s serious about this girl’s day when we pass the local mall and onto the interstate—headed straight for Manhattan. I went there once last year, with Blair, but I never really got to see the city. The city I see today is not the one I imagined either.
Rather than exploring the gritty underbelly like I always imagined, my new aunt shows me the shop-lined avenues of the Upper West Side.
She chats to me the whole ride over, but very little is actually said. It’s like she’s afraid of silence. It wouldn’t be so bad if the drive didn’t take nearly three hours to begin with.
My ears are ringing by the time we finally pull up to a glittering salon.
I bribe the stylist into silence and emerge with a semblance of sanity returned—and a blowout that would make Victoria green with envy.
Ellen forgets I’m not used to this world, and she dives in with a passion and a black card that makes my head spin. I’m accustomed to shopping for things like groceries on a super-tight budget, but I’m not sure budget is even a word she’s familiar with.
The first indication that I’m totally out of my element is that the manager of the first store we go to pops open a bottle of champagne and makes mimosas for us, and he doesn’t bother to ask for my ID to make sure I’m old enough. He doesn’t care how old I am. He cares about entertaining and spoiling my aunt so that she will spend insane amounts of money in his store.
Not that she needs the encouragement.
With every store we go to, it’s the same thing. Wash, rinse, repeat. Champagne, specialty coffees, chocolates, neck massages, little jewelry pieces and trinkets. The works.
My aunt seems to be on a mission. By the time she’s hauling me off to some completely exclusive restaurant for lunch, she’s bought me an entirely new wardrobe. I’ve told her several times that I don’t need one because I wear a uniform at school, but she’s deaf when it comes to my protests.
Finally, in the brief silence before the waiter returns with another set of alcoholic beverages meant to keep me compliant, she tugs off her designer sunglasses and peers at me across the table. For one, fleeting second, she sees me. Me. Teddy.
“I wish you wouldn’t fight it so hard, Teddy,” she says, reaching up to pinch her nose between two fingers. She squeezes her eyes shut for a second, as if she’s staving off a headache. If I wasn’t sure that the champagne we were drinking all morning was top-shelf, I’d think it was the alcohol. Instead, I think, it’s me.
“Sorry,” I say, glancing down at my awkwardly folded hands in my lap. “I don’t know what to do.”
The waiter returns with our drinks, and Ellen is all smiles again.
“Now that’s the easy part,” she says, as soon as he’s left. “Just stop apologizing and follow my lead. And you can start by finishing that martini before the waiter comes back with the veal.”
For one second, I thought she was going to get honest with me; share that part of her that isn’t hidden behind the nails and hair and the jewels glistening in her ears.
She goes straight back into her idle chatter, no hint at the moment that nearly passed between us. I sip on the martini and she flirts harmlessly with the waiter for more olives. Not that she’d have to. They’d have delivered them out on a solid-gold platter if she asked.
I realize that she’s doing with me what she used to do with Sadie, and I can’t stop her. She’s replaced her absent daughter with me, which is quite ironic considering how I pretended to be that same daughter for a while there before I got caught.
We are in the middle of lunch and I’m staring at some dish of unidentifiable food that I couldn’t pronounce even with a language tutor, when that facade crumbles. She’s reaching for her wallet, halfway through telling the waiter about our plans for the rest of the day when he makes the age-old joke about how he thought we were sisters.
She giggles and lays a hand on my forearm. “Oh no,” she says, waving him away. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but I’m her mother.”
Her hand immediately stiffens on my arm, and then shoots back to rest awkwardly in her lap. She avoids looking at me, instead getting deeply involved in hunting for something in her bag until she pulls out a little orange bottle of pills.
I wonder if she’s sick or if she’s still taking the drug that killed her daughter.
Just thinking it makes me feel selfish. Sure, she might confuse me with her daughter now and again, but she’s still been kind. She’s more than kind, she’s family now.
She practically shoots up from her seat as soon as the waiter returns with the receipt. Her unfocused eyes dance with an empty-looking happiness that doesn’t hide the fact she’s embarrassed by her little Freudian slip.
It doesn’t feel as warm and deep as I had always dreamed that a bond with family would be, but I remind myself that we’re newly acquainted family, and that it’s probably going to take some time for us to build a bond.
We finish up our unbelievably decadent day in Manhattan, and are driven back to the house. Ellen disappears upstairs with another headache as soon as we get back, and I’m left alone with the butler and more boxes than should have humanly been able to fit in the car drive back.
I should feel excited, exhausted even, but I just feel sort of … sad.
Ellen said this trip was to get to know each other better, but all I learned was how deeply broken she still is. I’m not sure how long I can stand being treated as a surrogate daughter. I’m still trying to find my place in this world without someone trying to turn me into someone else.
Their butler leaves me alone as he brings my new things up to the guest room. In that brief moment alone in the dark front hall, I hear someone clearing their throat and spot Dane standing in the door downstairs.
“You look tired,” he says, and after everything today, I appreciate the honesty.
“You have no idea,” I say, sighing. I glance up the stairs and move to rest against the banister beside him. “Is she always so …”
“Yes,” he says, shaking his head. “Especially since … you know.”
I nod.
We sit in silence for a moment while the butler returns for a second load. I keep wanting to offer to help, but my instincts are telling me that’d be somehow insulting.
As soon as he leaves, Dane gestures to a side door. “You want to see the car?”
“Yes. Please.”
His own drink, dark bourbon from the looks of it, clinks in his glass as he leads me out onto the ground
s and over to a huge detached garage. He’s pulled one car out front, and I know right away it’s mine.
Because it’s exactly what Sadie would have wanted.
The tiny cherry-red sports car gleams under the moonlight. I shiver under my borrowed faux mink coat. Or, at least, what I hope is a faux mink coat.
“It’s beautiful,” I say so quietly, it comes out like a sigh.
Dane stares at the car and nods. There’s a sad smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He reaches out one hand to adjust one of the mirrors, and then turns back to me.
“You sober enough to drive?”
I think for a second, and then nod. It’s been at least six hours since I switched out my mimosas for orange juice when Ellen wasn’t looking. He opens the door and looks at me expectantly.
“Come on now, I think we both know what it’s like to be cooped up here.” He glances back at the house. “For such a big place, it can get surprisingly stuffy.”
He looks back at me. “You got the keys?”
“Of course.” I tug them out of my pants pocket and grin. I kept them close to me all day, just to serve as a reminder that it’s actually true.
“Then get out of here,” he says, not unkindly. “I would, if I were you.”
All the exhaustion of the day melts away, and I waste no time climbing inside. It may be late, and I haven’t driven since Driver’s ED, but I’m ready to feel the open road beneath me.
Dane watches as I back out of the drive. I take it easy at first, but soon, I’m flying. It’s different from Blair’s motorcycle, but in a way it’s also better.
Because it’s mine.
It’s freedom, and it’s all mine.
I feel like this kind of a lifestyle should feel like a dream to me, but it’s too weird to even feel like a dream. A desperate need for normalcy takes me over, and I know exactly where that’s going to take me.
Dana is sitting up in bed when I come in with a massive bouquet of colorful flowers in my hand. She brightens right away, and I love seeing the huge smile that spreads over her face. She’s still bandaged and wrapped up, but I can see that she’s making some improvements.