Look Both Ways

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

  When she woke up, the imprint of the silver dream catcher on its chain was etched in her palm like her sister’s scar.

  INTO THE LIGHT

  On Saturday, although she still ached, Mallory felt like a smaller, paper-doll version of herself.

  She was careful, washing her face in slow, circular strokes and examining her skin texture. It was good, she decided—no visible pore structure. She patted Vaseline on her lashes. And then she didn’t know what else to do. A day in the cold had tightened her skin to the point that she felt she might split if she smiled . . . that or explode in a thousand quarter-inch squares of freeze-dried freckles. She rummaged among Meredith’s two solid-packed drawers of entirely identical jars. SPF15 sunscreen. She’d heard of its virtues. And she didn’t need a map on her face of all her sins, all her hopes, all her failures—not even of all her days spent lying on her back in an inch of water at noon up at the camp.

  Mallory pulled on leggings and, for some reason, her short black skirt and the red-and-gray sweater and shirt she’d bought with Eden. She pulled her hair back in a clip and touched her lips with gloss.

  Now she really was all dressed up with nowhere to go.

  And though it was cloudy, she even had on sunscreen.

  She fastened the dream catcher around her neck on its long braided silver chain. The garnet was as red as a drop of blood.

  When she stepped out to get the mail, Drew was shoveling the walk.

  “What’s the occasion, Brynn? You trying out to be your sister?”

  “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I think I changed overnight from a pumpkin into . . . into a gourd,” Mally said. “I’ve got a new little brother, though. Came early but he’s okay.”

  “I heard. Tim told me when you were sick.”

  “I wasn’t sick. Just beat.”

  “I heard Eden moved, out to live with some aunt someplace,” Drew said.

  “Yeah. Guess Ridgeline’s too small for almost everybody.”

  “Too small for Pam. She met a guy at Ohio State when she went for orientation.”

  “She dumped you? Drewsky! A pre-prom dump is harsh. Did you rent a tux already?”

  “In fact I did. Gray cutaway.”

  “That must have been eighty bucks. Will they give you a refund? Oh, but they altered it, right? I’m sorry.”

  “What are you gonna do, Brynn? She was going to the great wild west out there anyhow. It never would have lasted. She sure was a babe, though.”

  “And nice. She’s a nice girl,” Mally said. “I gotta go in. I’m freezing. Want to watch some soaps?”

  “I live for it,” Drew said. “I’d rather shovel every walk on the street. Want to play laser chess?”

  “I’d rather have a new nostril,” Mallory said affably.

  “What about pizza tonight? I can bring a bunch home. I’ll even buy,” Drew said. “That’s how decent a guy I am, if I do say. A truly decent guy.”

  “You get it free, so we’ll be the judge of that,” Mally said.

  Then Drew asked, “So, did you ever feel really curious about junior prom? From a sociological standpoint?”

  “Not in my wildest, well, dreams. I’m sorry, though. I did trick you, but one thing you have to know is, I didn’t. I really didn’t.”

  Drew leaned on the shovel. “After a while, I figured it was some nuts Brynn thing that had to do with saving Kim Jellico or whatever. Some evil-eye thing I didn’t want to know about.”

  “Trust me. You don’t want to know about this.” Mallory pressed the heel of her hand against one eye. “Are you asking me to go with you to the prom? Because if you are . . . love to. Thanks. I’m not allowed to date. But I’m making an exception on my own.”

  “You sure you want to get that dressed up?”

  “Hey! It will make my sister crazy. I can borrow something from Neely Chaplin. She probably has nine or twenty designer gowns. We’ll show ’em how it’s done, okay?”

  “I even took ballroom dancing lessons at the mall,” Drew said.

  “Well, my dad taught me when I was eleven. We’ll cut a rug, like my grandpa Art says when he dances with Grandma. I know my mom is going to say I have to be home by midnight, though.”

  “That’s fine.” Drew smiled. “I have dinner reservations at Appetito! Don’t borrow a white dress. I’ve seen you eat.”

  “Why, Drew, don’t you know women don’t really eat?”

  “I forgot that. I forget it every time you eat your pizza and mine too. Say, is Cooper going to mind?”

  “Actually, Cooper’s back in Boston. He’s not really in the picture.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. Sort of,” said Drew.

  “I am too. Sort of. But in another way, I’m relieved. Is that possible? Can you feel relieved at the end of something you didn’t want to end?”

  “I don’t know,” Drew said honestly. “I felt that way about Pam. Really, really lousy. But also free. Maybe it’s a thing about being young. You can still start over. Not like if you were our parents’ age. Maybe it’s like payback for zits and constant nagging and having to go to school all the best years of your life.”

  “True. If you were old, you’d probably crack up over Pam.”

  “Over a cheerleader? Not so much, Brynn.”

  “Well, her loss is my gain, or something like that. Right? I’ll be your rebound date.”

  “Well, I promise not to break your heart.”

  “Can’t. Been done,” Mallory said.

  “Cooper?” Drew set his jaw.

  “No, when my cat ran away,” Mallory said. “Seems like a long time ago.”

  “Must have been. I don’t even remember you had a cat.”

  Mallory sighed in a gust. “I’ll never forget her. But she was just passing through.”

  LITTLE SISTER OF THE DARK

  Predictably, Tim picked the day of the prom for the first formal family portrait of Owen at home.

  “Please say it’s casual,” Mallory begged. “Please say I don’t have to get formally dressed twice in one day.”

  “It’s casual,” said Uncle Kevin, whose friend, Leo, was the photographer. Everyone wore jeans and bright sweaters. Campbell asked them to group around her—on top of her if possible.

  “Only my eyes look okay,” said Campbell. “The rest of me is like Moby Pickle in this green sweater.”

  Aunt Kate styled them like a still life.

  “Four kids!” Tim kept saying.

  “Fortunately, people will always need soccer balls and sweat socks,” Campbell told him.

  “And family practice physicians,” Tim added.

  Leo took a few hundred shots and then beamed. Campbell began to feed the baby.

  “You did a great job, champ!” Tim told her.

  “I don’t recall you even witnessing the title bout this time,” Campbell reminded him.

  Mallory began pulling on her sweats for her run, but Campbell stopped her.

  “So does your going to the prom tonight with Drew mean it’s over between you and Eden’s brother?”

  Mallory said, “Yes. I guess.”

  Campbell said, “I’m sorry. But when she ran off with that older man . . . ”

  “She didn’t do that, Mom. She went to stay somewhere else. She has family everywhere, even in Canada. It’s over between Eden and James.” Mallory figured that she had said the gist and not quite told a lie.

  “Well, I’m glad. He was too old for her.”

  Mally admitted, “I’m not glad. It’s like she was punished for something she didn’t do.”

  “I know you’ll miss her terribly, Mally,” Campbell said.

  “I don’t even think I know how much yet,” Mallory said. “I’ll miss them both.” She remembered standing in the snow, her face against Cooper’s wet coat, the smell of the green-heart evergreen. She saw Eden whirling alone in her moonlit dance.

  Mallory decided that she would see Eden that way forever.

  She went upstairs to get her sneakers.


  Merry was finishing her French. She said, “Ster. That necklace. It’s beautiful.”

  Mallory held it out and admired its delicate web, the slender hatchwork within the circle, the feather intended to drive beautiful dreams to whirl above her bed. “It’s a memento. A kiss-off gift. Not that Cooper was mean about it. He wasn’t. But I guess he couldn’t really handle what happened to us.” Again, Mallory felt empty, like a skin. If someone shook her, her small, dry heart would rattle against her ribs. “He says he’ll come back maybe. But I know he won’t.”

  “Oh, Mallory. I didn’t know Cooper was . . . over.”

  “Well. Anyhow. I’m going to the prom, huh? Did you give Neely my note? Thanking her for the dress?”

  “She was glad to do it. She just wants a picture.”

  “There’ll be no pictures,” Mallory said.

  “I don’t think Drew’s mom is going to go along with that. It’s his junior prom,” Merry said.

  Mallory snorted and went for her run. Up she went into the hills, alert for a flash of white, listening for the crisp of a broken bush. But she heard nothing, even though she went to the top of the ridge and waited until the sun was too close to the horizon. She had to race for home, race through her shower, and force herself to slow down while she went through the painstaking steps of putting on her eyeliner, smudging it, smudging it too much, daubing it off with baby oil, putting the white primer goo on again.

  Merry was able to endure it for only five minutes.

  “You’re driving me crazy! Let me put that stuff on!” And so, Merry took over, the brushes magic wands in her artist’s hands. “Now your hair. A messy updo with lots of wispy stuff?”

  “Negatori,” said Mallory.

  “Okay, a French braid with a clip.” With her dark hair braided tightly against her head and a swirl of silver over it, and with Neely’s mermaid of a Vera Wang sheath dropped down over her head and both twins’ garnets in her ears, Mallory obediently let her sister soldier-walk her over to the mirror. “My creation!” Meredith said.

  And Mallory said, “Wow.”

  She looked like herself, only less and more. She looked twenty. She looked newborn. She looked white hot. “I didn’t know they made tight dresses this small,” she said to Merry.

  “It was Keira Knightley’s,” Merry said, lowering her voice. “Or some English movie star’s. They had it shortened. It cost, like, two thousand dollars in a charity auction.”

  “Oh, take it off, fast! I can’t breathe on it! I can’t breathe in it, as a matter of fact! I have bigger boobs than Keira Knightly?” Mally cried. “What if I wreck it? What if I sweat?”

  “Only you would say that,” Merry told her. “You put on deodorant twice! Plus, it’s insured. And it doesn’t even touch your pits.”

  “Well, okay. Geez, Merry. This should be you.”

  “I’m off men,” Merry said. “But yes, it should be me. Put your shoes on.”

  “I can’t bend over,” said Mallory. So Merry fastened silver sandals with minute heels on Mallory’s feet. Together, they walked downstairs. Tim mimed a heart attack. Drew, who was already there, talking to Adam, turned around. In his gray cutaway, Drew Vaughn looked like an old-time movie star. And whatever remark he had prepared wouldn’t come out of his mouth, which wouldn’t stay closed.

  “Drew, flies are going to fly into your mug,” Campbell said. “You knew she was pretty.”

  “I can hold three full-size pizzas in one hand,” Drew said.

  “I’m in awe,” Mallory told him. She smiled. “Not of you. Of the pizza skill.”

  “These days I’m always saying things I never imagined I’d say. Brynn, you’re gorgeous.”

  “Thank my sister. It’s all painted on.”

  “Some things can’t be painted on.”

  “To the Green Beast,” said Mallory.

  “My dad lent me his Lexus,” Drew said. “And my mom wants to take several hundred photos.”

  “Told you,” Merry said.

  Campbell got out her own camera. “That’s good. Then she won’t mind if I do. I might not see Mallory this clean again until her wedding day.”

  Mrs. Vaughn made them pose next to the lilac bushes, the fireplace, the waterfall in the backyard, the car, and the picket fence. Drew finally said, “Mom. Halt. You’ll have us driving out to the water tower next.”

  When they escaped, Drew said, “I’m actually looking forward to dancing after that. Ordeal by digital.”

  But they ate first, although Mallory had to confess that she couldn’t finish her cannelloni or she’d bust out of the fabled gown. Fortunately, Drew had grieved over Pam Door, so his waistband was a little loose and he was able to finish her portion. Just before they turned into the school drive, Drew pulled over to reach into the backseat and give Mally her corsage, a black orchid with a silver band.

  “It’s what your name means,” he said.

  “My name means unlucky,” Mallory said, as he slipped it over her wrist.

  “I don’t call you Mallory. Brynn means dark. But tonight, you’re anything but.”

  And Drew kissed her. It wasn’t her first kiss, but somehow, Mallory didn’t think of Cooper. She reached up—far up—since Drew was taller than her father and let her arms rest lightly around his neck. She kissed him back and something thrummed between them that was almost like a promise and almost like a memory. Carefully, Drew released her. But Mallory put her chin up and kissed him again, not just for all the times he had made her feel safe, and loved, and home, but because he was cute and funny and smart and she felt like kissing him. She could feel his body’s surprise as he pulled her closer. It was, like her mother always said—just biology—and pretty terrific. Oh, Mallory Brynn, what a girl you’ve become, she marveled!

  “Let’s go dance,” she said at last. “We’ll be the only people who know how.”

  The gym was decorated on the theme of Old Hollywood. Life-size figures of Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe lined the walls between movie posters. Couples posed for photos in someone’s 1950s Thunderbird parked under an arch of neon. Mallory and Drew made up stories about each of the couples—who was here on a pity date, who would end up getting married, who would break up by the end of the night.

  At midnight, when Drew dropped her off, kissing both her eyelids, Mallory was as tired as she’d ever been after any run. She’d had a blast and was almost regretful that she wasn’t allowed to date for another year.

  Meredith was waiting up, and, obligingly, she and Mally texted the known universe with pictures that compared how much more beautiful Mallory looked than Pam Door—although Pam had been named prom queen.

  U NO WHO REALLY WAS, Neely texted.

  UR DRESS WAS, Mally replied.

  She decided to shower again to remove the layers of makeup and hair gel, and when she reached up to unclasp her necklace, she panicked.

  Had she worn it?

  Of course not.

  It wouldn’t have gone with her dress.

  But had she removed it? Where was it on her dresser? Meredith’s dresser was a tangle of jewelry, photos, and makeup. But Mallory’s was empty.

  Where was it?

  Mallory clutched her throat. She pulled her T-shirt up off the floor and shook it. “Merry, my necklace is gone. I had it on tonight or at least when I went running, and it’s gone, Mer.”

  “Maybe it’s in the hamper with your soccer junk from last night. Don’t go psycho. I’ll vacuum in the morning. And you didn’t have it on. Just our earrings and the clip in your braid. It could be anywhere.”

  “Where it is, is somewhere on the path. I know it. Somebody already has it. I should never have been wearing it. Not to run. It was too nice a piece of jewelry for that. And it was the only thing I have left of Cooper. Maybe the only thing I’ll ever have. I’m going to bed.”

  “I’m sorry, Ster.”

  “I’m sorry too.”

  They carefully restored Neely’s dress to its garment bag, and Mallor
y again anointed her face with another kind of cream she found in Merry’s drawer. Then she fell into bed, muscles aching from the run and the dance, feet throbbing from the unaccustomed shoes, and punched her pillow to just the right softness.

  She told the visions of Cooper’s chin and Drew’s broad shoulders to get lost and prayed not to dream.

  But she did, and in the dream, she saw Eden.

  Eden was wearing her ceremonial white deerskin dress, her hair in tiny plaits that sparkled with black and silver beads. Her feet were bare, and she stood in a pool of sparkling, sunlit water. In her hand, she held Mallory’s necklace. Sadly, gently, she nodded and smiled.

  Good-bye,Mallory thought. Be safe.

  She woke up solemn. It truly was the end of something.

  Still, for weeks, Mallory searched for the dream catcher on every run she took, three times a week. But she never dreamed of Eden again or saw any sign of the necklace.

  The Saturday after school ended, Campbell, sure she’d wrench her back or break an arch, decided to take her first run since Owen’s birth.

  Jog, not run,Campbell insisted. Slow jog, like walking with a slight bounce. Like walking and swinging your arms. Slow.She insisted that Mallory come with her. Campbell had twenty-five pounds to lose and was determined to lose it by mid-July. At this point, she said, she wouldn’t wear a bathing suit in front of Adam.

  “You have to hide me,” Campbell said, when she passed the hall mirror. “People will wonder if I’m an advertisement for doughnuts. If I fall, call the hospital.”

  It was a glorious morning, the first morning with the real promise of summer held behind its back like a surprise. Although there had been a downpour just two nights before, the long, full days of sun had dried things to the texture of a freshly laundered shirt. Since early morning, trucks and minivans rumbled past the Brynns on the way to the farmers’ market at the end of the road, where flower sellers couldn’t shove flats of perennials into the hands of eager gardeners fast enough to please them.

  “Good,” said Campbell, as one of her friends trundled past with a wagon piled with rosebushes and lilies. “No one under the age of eighty will be home on a morning like this. Either they won’t recognize me or they’ll have cataracts.” Mallory and her mother stretched and set off at a sedate trot.