by Nicole Maggi
“What would?” Mom asked.
I tucked my feet up underneath me and arranged my face into a beatific expression. “Sydney asked me to write an article for the paper. About human trafficking,” I added, widening my eyes. Sydney was another close friend of mine. She edited the Hillcoate Banner.
“What? Why?”
I didn’t know who to look at since they’d all said it at once. “I think she felt bad,” I said, looking at Mom first. “That I can’t go back to school with everyone else. So she asked me to write the article as a way of, you know, including me.”
Mom sank down next to me on the couch. “Honey, we’re not keeping you out of school to punish you. It’s for your own good.”
“I know that,” I said in my best I-trust-you-because-you’re-the-parent tone. “But I really want to do this article. If it’s good enough, she’s going to submit it for the National Student Journalist Award.”
That got them. Dad perched on the edge of the coffee table across from me. “Honey, if it’s for school, of course we support that. But you could’ve told us where you were going tonight.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, furrowing my brow as I looked back and forth between him and Mom. “I just didn’t think you’d let me go on my own, so soon after my surgery.”
“Where did you go?” Grandma interjected.
“There’s this organization called FAIR Girls,” I said. “They have a chapter at a church in Jamaica Plain.” There was no way I was telling them I’d been in Mattapan. I’d be grounded until my sixty-fifth birthday. “I went to meet one of the volunteers there. And I didn’t think they’d talk as openly with an adult there.”
Mom put her hand on my knee. “Honey, just tell us from now on. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “I, uh, may have to go back. To do more research.”
“Just try to go during the day,” Dad said. “Deal?”
“Deal.” I slid away from Mom and stood up. “Um, I’m really tired. Do you mind if I—”
“Yes, yes. Good night,” Dad said.
I leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. But my face pinched together as I climbed the stairs. I loved my parents. I really did. I wasn’t one of those ungrateful teenagers who was embarrassed to be seen with my mom. I’d been known to stay home on a Saturday night for family movie night—and I’d enjoyed it. It felt inherently wrong to lie to them—and yet, I’d just done it as effortlessly as, well…as effortlessly as Annabel must have done it to sell herself on the street.
I tottered over to my bed and collapsed onto it. The ceiling seemed to swirl as I stared up at it. What had driven Annabel to the streets? And Nate…involuntarily, I pressed my hand to my chest. She had loved him. That I knew for sure. I could feel it inside me. It was the one thing that was quiet and still.
Well, I could see why, with his angled cheekbones and deep ocean-blue eyes. And the way he had looked at me, like he could see all the way into my mind. And the passion in his voice when he told me I should write a story about trafficking. I replayed that bit of the scene over and over in my mind. He cared. Not like most of the boys I went to school with, who didn’t give a crap about anything other than which frat they were going to pledge when they got to their Ivy League college.
I sat up. Was that why Annabel had loved him? Because he was the only one to care about her? I wove my fingers into my hair and pulled my topknot down. My excursion to Mattapan had given me a few answers, but it had brought on even more questions.
And most terrifying among them was which memories I would lose for the ones I’d gained tonight.
• • •
I jerked awake the next morning, out of dreams full of windowless bedrooms and dark street corners, gated cemeteries and silver sports cars, church basements and bottomless blue eyes. Every single one of those things belonged to Annabel, not me. I looked around my pink bedroom, naming each thing in it that was mine and mine alone.
When I got to the stack of music in the corner, I slid out of bed and crossed to it. The taste of the wooden reed between my lips was delicious. Annabel had never held an oboe in her life—that I knew for sure. This was mine alone, and it was a place where Annabel couldn’t come.
I started with scales and moved on to passages I knew from memory—Saint-Saën’s Samson and Delilah, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, Dvorak’s New World. Pieces of music I was sure Annabel had never heard. I slid into the Mozart Concerto in C, a piece I’d mastered as a freshman. Then Benjamin Britten’s Six Metamorphoses, which I’d played at my last recital, and finally on to the Poulenc. Every note, every passage and phrase grounded me to who I was. She could take allergies and dream catchers away from me, but she couldn’t have this. The oboe tied me to myself, and I would not let her undo that knot.
“You sounded good,” Mom said when I came downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast. She sat at the table reading the paper, a half-drunk cup of coffee within reach.
“Thanks,” I said. I poured myself a bowl of (heart-healthy!) cereal and added some blueberries from the fridge. “Sorry again about last night.”
Mom waved her hand. “It’s forgiven. Do you want me to call Joel to set up a lesson?”
“Absolutely. The sooner, the better.” Joel was my private oboe teacher. I’d been studying with him for five years. I smiled as I spooned cereal into my mouth. Lessons with Joel always seemed to be outside of time and space. Surely they would push Annabel further out.
“You’re still on track to audition next month, yes?”
“I think so.” I frowned. “They won’t let me postpone, will they?”
Mom looked over the top of her paper. “Do you want me to call and find out? I’m sure once they understand the circumstances—”
“No. I want to do the audition in March. I don’t want them to think I’m making excuses.”
“Good girl.” Mom smiled. “You’ve been working for this for so long. I’m proud of you for not letting anything get in your way.” She folded her paper down. “And I think we’ll have Mr. Blount start on Monday. Sound good?”
“Mr. Blount?”
“The tutor your father hired,” she said. “We’re very lucky he could fit you in. He’ll come for three hours a day. Mostly in the mornings so you can have the afternoons to practice and study. And rest,” she added.
“Perfect,” I said. And it was. Nate had told me he was usually at All Saints every day after three. My hand tightened on my spoon. Except…I really would need the afternoons to practice. But what was more important—that or keeping my memories intact? I set my spoon down and pushed away my half-eaten cereal. These were the choices I had to make now. A month ago, the biggest decision I’d faced was what to wear to the winter formal. I plucked a dried flower from the vase in the center of the table and toyed with it.
“Hey, do you think it would be okay if Ella and Toni came over tonight? They said they’d bring over notes from school.” I needed to surround myself with as much of my old life as possible.
“That’s nice of them.” Mom glanced up and smiled at me. “It’s good to see you getting back to normal.”
I slumped low in my chair. Normal. If she could see into my heart, she would know that I was anything but. As good as playing my oboe felt, as much as I looked forward to seeing my friends, something inside me still pulled me back to Annabel. To retrace her footsteps and learn what she had to tell me. To see Nate again. I balled my hands into fists and dug my nails into my palms. Nate…I couldn’t get him out of my head, couldn’t get him out of my heart. Those were her feelings, not mine…but the lines were blurred now. I didn’t know where Annabel ended and I began.
And that scared the hell out of me.
Chapter Eight
Ella came to the front door bearing cupcakes. “I know you’re not supposed to have chocolate,” she said as she squeezed past me, the bright pink box balanced on her
palm, “but I couldn’t resist.”
I kissed her cheek. “You’re a goddess. My parents have interpreted ‘heart-healthy’ to mean ‘totally bland and completely disgusting.’” We’d just finished a dinner of brown rice pasta with sauce devoid of flavor. I needed to have a conversation with Dr. Harrison the next time I saw her.
Toni followed Ella inside the house and closed the door behind her. “Hey, I paid for half,” she said, tapping her finger on her cheek. I laughed and gave her a kiss too.
We smuggled the cupcakes up to my room and sat on the floor to eat them. Toni and Ella spread their notes out. I held a red velvet cupcake in one hand and flipped through the notes with the other. “You guys finished Crime and Punishment? I’m only halfway through,” I muttered, glancing at my nightstand where the book lay. I hadn’t opened it since I got back from the hospital.
“I don’t know why you’re stressing,” Toni said. “Only a heartless monster would fail you.”
“Ha-ha.”
Ella licked frosting off her fingers and tapped my knee. “So, I have a surprise for you.”
“Are you sure my heart can take it?”
She smirked. “The first oboist with the Roslindale group flaked. I told the conductor about you, and he wants you to come in next rehearsal.” She clapped her hands together. “Isn’t that awesome?”
“It is.” I bit my lip and looked at Toni’s calculus notes in my lap. “But I don’t think I can do it.”
“What? Why?”
I glanced up. Ella’s eyes were narrowed at me, her face filled with questions I couldn’t answer. My insides squirmed. “I’m just—so behind with everything. And I need to prep for Juilliard. That has to be my main focus. I don’t think I’ll have time.”
Ella sighed, long and dramatic. “Crap. I went on and on about how amazing you are.”
“I’m sorry, Ella!” I reached out and flipped her long hair behind her shoulder. “I’ll talk to the conductor so you don’t have to. I would love to do it, but I can’t.” I looked at the window and the reflection of my room on the glass. A month ago, I would’ve loved to do it. I would’ve pushed myself to do it. But now…I knew I should want to, but I didn’t. I was torn in so many different directions that I’d lost my way. “I mean,” I said, turning back to Ella, “I’m sure he’ll understand once I explain the situation.”
“What situation?”
I let the notes in my hand flutter to the ground. “Uh, just the fact that I had major heart surgery a couple of weeks ago?”
“Oh.” Ella waved her hand. “Whatever. It’s not like playing the oboe is stressful or anything.”
“Ella, I get winded walking to the bathroom. It’s hard for me to be out and about.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Then why were you gallivanting all over Jamaica Plain?”
Toni shifted, her eyes fixed on the floor. I swallowed hard. “How did you—know about that?”
“Well, your mom called my house looking for you.” Ella cocked her head. “Next time you use me as your alibi, let me in on the secret.”
“I’m sorry.” I nudged her with my toe but she didn’t soften. “Look, I was working on something. An article that I’m writing for the Banner.” The lie had become so comfortable that it was almost truth now. “I went there to do some research. I just knew that my parents would never let me go, so I told them I was hanging out with you.”
“I don’t mind covering for you,” Ella said, “but you gotta tell me first. Deal?”
“Deal.” I picked up the notes I’d dropped. “So what’s after Crime and Punishment on the syllabus?”
“What’s the article about?” Toni asked. I looked at her. Ella and I didn’t fight often, but when we did, Toni usually disappeared. She stretched her legs out in front of her and flexed her feet.
“Oh, um…” The images of that lonely street corner, the silver sports car, Char…Nate…streamed across my mind. “I decided to do a report on human trafficking. There’s an organization at a church in J.P. that helps trafficked girls. That’s where I went.”
Ella shuddered. “Ugh. That’s so depressing.”
I shoved the notes at her. “Just because it’s depressing doesn’t mean you should ignore it. And it’s a real problem. Even right here in Boston.”
“Look at you, all humanitarian.” Ella shimmied her shoulders. “How’s the air up on that high horse?”
“Did you find out anything useful?” Toni cut in before I could say anything. “At the church, I mean?”
“Oh.” I drew in a long breath and decided to let Ella have that one. “Um, no. I’m gonna have to go back.”
There was a knock on my bedroom door. Ella shoved the cupcake box behind her in the second before Mom peeked her head in. “You girls need anything?”
“No, we’re good,” I told her.
She opened the door wider. “Well, I have a surprise for you.” We all looked up at her expectantly. She leaned on the door frame. “Your dad and I just booked the same house we stayed at last year on Nantucket. Not just a month this time, the whole summer. Won’t that be wonderful right before you head off to Juilliard?” Her eyes danced as she smiled at me.
“I haven’t even auditioned yet—”
“Oh, you’ll get in. We’re counting on it.” She looked past me to Toni and Ella. “And you girls are welcome to come up for a few weeks again, like you did last year.”
They both squealed and pounced on me. “Thank you, Mrs. Kendrick!” Ella yelled as she hugged me around the neck.
“This year will be even more epic than last year,” Toni said in a rush.
Beneath their shrieks, I heard the Catch. The room was shrinking, the walls closing in. “Air, air,” I mumbled, shoving them off me.
“Oooh, sorry,” Ella said. She peered into my face. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just heart surgery, remember?”
“Well, I figured you girls would be excited about it,” Mom said. “Georgie talks all the time about how it was the best summer of her life. She deserves an even better one, after what she’s been through.”
“Definitely,” Toni said.
Mom shot us one last smile and slipped out into the hall. Ella and Toni leaned in, their heads almost touching mine. “We’ll all be eighteen by this summer,” Ella said, “so we’ll be able to get away with a lot more.”
“I bet some of the bars might even serve us,” Toni said.
Ella rolled her eyes. “Good luck with that.”
“What? I—”
“I just hope that ice cream stand is still around,” Ella said. “I’ve been craving their cookie dough all winter.”
“I think I gained ten pounds from that place,” Toni said. “We went there, like, three times a day.”
“I wonder if your next-door neighbor will be back,” Ella said, elbowing me hard.
“Ow! What next-door neighbor?” I asked without thinking as I rubbed my side.
Ella rolled her eyes. “‘What next-door neighbor?’ she asks.” She tickled the spot she’d just elbowed. “Um, only the guy you were making out with all summer.”
“Oh, yeah. Him,” I said.
“Him,” Toni laughed. “She doesn’t even remember his name!”
“Sure I do—”
“Evan!” They both gave a loud sigh and mock-swooned into each other’s arms.
I forced a laugh. “Evan. Yeah…he was…hot.” I dropped my eyes from their shiny faces and pushed myself up to standing. “I gotta pee. Be right back.”
“Georgie!”
I looked back at Ella from the door, my hand resting on the frame that my mom had just vacated. “Yeah?”
“You okay?” Her eyes searched my face, like she could see beneath its lie.
“Sure. I’m psyched. Last summer was epic, right?” I ducked
out into the hall and hurried to the bathroom. I shut the door behind me and leaned over the sink, pressing my forehead against the cool tile.
Last summer had been the best summer of my life.
But I remembered none of it.
Chapter Nine
All Saints looked completely different in the light. At night, it had looked formidable and imposing. During the day, it looked sad and dingy. There were cracks in the stone steps and faded graffiti on the gray walls. I followed the little path around the side until I found the door that led to the basement.
Inside, I found a loud room full of life, totally different from the darkened, empty place I’d come to with Nate. Kids lounged on the couches, stretched out on the floor rugs, sat in chairs turned backward. There was a handful of adults too, but from the loud music that blared from an iPod docked on the long table near the kitchen, this was the kids’ territory.
I stood in the doorway, scanning faces for the one I would recognize. I finally spotted him at the far end of the room. He was leaning over a chair in which a pretty black-haired girl sat. Her face was turned up to his and she was smiling. She tipped the chair backward, and he put his foot up on the edge of it to keep her falling over. She laughed.
Angry heat shot through me. I squared my shoulders and marched halfway across the room before I realized I had absolutely no reason to be jealous. Gritting my teeth, I turned away. That jealousy was hers. Just like my memory of last summer. It belonged to her now. Everything belonged to her.
“Georgie?”
I whirled around. Nate had left the girl in the chair and stood a few feet from me. A ghost of a smile shadowed his face. “You came back.”
I hunched my shoulders a little. “You didn’t think I would?”
“Honestly? I wasn’t sure.” He stepped closer to me. “I figured you were probably pretty freaked out by what happened the other night.”
“I was,” I admitted. I started to unbutton my coat. “But that wasn’t going to prevent me from coming back.”