Snap

by Carol Snow

  "No, I mean your real phone--your home phone. I called it

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  and got this recording. 'The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected.' And I got a couple of e-mails from you and then--nothing." Why did she have that tone in her voice? It sounded like she was accusing me of something.

  "You make it sound like I died," I said.

  "You should have told me you were moving," she said.

  "I didn't know!" I stopped in front of a pretty blue house with a flowering tree out front. There was a gardener truck parked by the curb, a quiet man in a straw hat snipping at the hedges. A few years earlier my father had built an addition on the back of this house, enlarging the kitchen and creating a big family room with skylights. The kitchen had a brick pizza oven and a special freezer just for ice cream. My father talked about that freezer for months.

  Lexie faced me. She looked sad or--something. I couldn't quite figure it out.

  "My dad got some work at the beach," I explained. "And they made it seem like it was just a vacation for my mom and me to come with--you know, to make up for the cruise. But then we got there and they started acting all weird, and they finally admitted that they'd lost the house, and--" My voice cracked. I swallowed hard to keep from crying.

  "I know," Lexie said. "My mom told me about your dad's business."

  "Your mom knows?"

  "Everyone does."

  "Great." I shut my eyes for a minute. When I opened them, I was still standing in front of a house I'd passed a hundred times, looking at the friend who'd seen me through a million problems.

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  But it was like I'd been dropped into an alternate universe. Neither the house nor Lexie seemed entirely real.

  "We're poor," I said. "My dad's digging holes for a living. My mom got a job at a grocery store. It's like a bad dream." I regretted the words the instant I spoke them: saying them out loud made the whole thing real.

  We were quiet for the rest of the walk. By the time we got to Lexie's, sweat was slithering down my neck and back. The air-conditioning in her house gave me the shakes. Her mother made a brief appearance--just long enough to tap my arm and squeeze my hand--and then we went up to Lexie's room. The upstairs hallway was quiet; the housekeeper was off today, and Brooke and Kenzie were at gymnastics camp.

  I sprawled out on Lexie's fluffy bed, but she perched far away from me, on the swivel chair by her computer. "Is it nice there?" she asked. "At the beach?"

  "It sucks," I said to her ceiling.

  "I'm sorry."

  "It's okay," I said. "I'm not staying."

  "Where are you going?"

  I sat up on the bed and looked around. Lexie's room was almost as big as the suite in Sandyland: plenty of room for two people. Of course, Lexie had never had to share a room; maybe she wouldn't like it. There was a tiny guest room down the hall. I didn't need a lot of space.

  "I was thinking," I began. "Your mom said..." My voice trailed off. Lexie stayed frozen in her chair. This visit wasn't going quite the way I'd expected it to. That whole stop at Melissa's had really thrown things off.

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  I grabbed a throw pillow and flopped back down on the bed. "I hate Celia," I blurted, back in familiar territory. "What? Oh, yeah. She's such a bitch."

  "Did you see the way she was looking at me? And how she came running out of the hot tub?"

  Lexie's face relaxed. "She's like a vulture. Seriously. I can't believe she'd just call Melissa up like that...."

  I rolled over onto one side and propped my head on an elbow. "She won't let me have anything to myself. Photography. Rolf. I don't even think she liked Rolf until I went out with him."

  "You never really went out with him," Lexie said, turning to the computer and poking a couple of keys.

  I sat up. "Well, I sort of did. You know what I mean."

  "Celia's a bitch," she said, turning back to me, holding fast to the chair. "And I don't even think she's that good a photographer."

  "So what did Rolf say about me?" I asked. "Weren't you going to talk to him?"

  She popped up from her chair and headed for her bathroom. "I gotta get out of this suit. It's totally clammy."

  While she showered and changed, I sat on her bed, hugging my knees to my chest, trying to find the right words. When the bathroom door finally opened, I just blurted it out.

  "I was thinking I could come live with you."

  She didn't say anything for the longest time, just stared at me with those blue Larstrom eyes. "I don't think your parents would let you," she said finally.

  "I think they would." I spoke fast. "I've been thinking about it a lot, and I know they feel really bad about moving me like

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  this, right in the middle of high school. Besides, I don't think Sandyland's got a very good school system. My parents are always saying they want me to go to a good college, and now I'll need a scholarship, which means my record matters even more. It's not like I wouldn't see them. They're only a couple of hours away, and there's a train."

  "Maddy, you're my best friend, and I love you," Lexie said, her voice cracking.

  "I love you, too, Lex!" Relief surged through my chest. Everything was going to be okay. So why did she look so miserable?

  "But there's no way," she began. "I mean, my parents can't just take in another kid--"

  "But your mom said it was okay!" I said. "Not to live here, exactly, but she said I could stay as long as I wanted. And I can help out--you know, do chores and stuff. And I could babysit Brooke and Kenzie. And maybe my parents could pay some kind of rent."

  There was a knock on the door, and Mrs. Larstrom stuck her head in. "There's a visitor downstairs," she told us.

  The visitor was Rolf. I saw the top of his head as soon as I reached the staircase. As I headed downstairs, my brain was a jumble: Rolf likes me. But Lexie doesn't want me living here. So it doesn't matter if Rolf wants to get back together. Nothing matters if I'm stuck in Sandyland. Life here will go on without me.

  Mrs. Larstrom was standing at the bottom of the enormous winding stairway, a strained smile on her face. Mrs. Larstrom would let me live here. She'd said I could stay as long as I wanted. Brooke and Kenzie would love to have me around; I was always a lot nicer to them than Lexie was. And as for Lexie: I shouldn't

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  have sprung it on her like that. She'd come around once she got used to the idea.

  For the moment, I would concentrate on Rolf. He was right there, standing just inside the towering front doorway, looking cute and smart and, well, normal in a white surf T-shirt and board shorts, a JanSport backpack slung over one shoulder.

  My hand firmly on the staircase's polished rail, I smiled at him--or I tried to, at any rate. He scrunched up his baby face with an emotion that looked something like anticipation but more like--what? Confusion? Fear? Embarrassment?

  And then his eyes flicked beyond me, above me, and his face softened. You might even say he began to glow, if that's not too girly a word. No, it wasn't too girly at all; it was perfectly girly. He glowed, the soft little pansy. Totally glowed--but not for me.

  I halted and spun around. Lexie stood a few steps above me, her head hanging low. And that's when I got it.

  No wonder Lexie didn't want me living here. She was much too busy with Rolf.

  "I didn't think I'd see you for a while," my dad said when I walked in the back door of our house (Lexie's mom drove me). He was in the kitchen wrapping things in newspaper and putting them into cardboard boxes. His movements were stiff, slow, his heavy body defeated by a day of ditchdigging followed by an afternoon of packing. "I figured you'd spend the night at Lexie's."

  I shook my head. He didn't ask me to explain, which I appreciated.

  There was more to pack than I'd have expected, when you considered that most of our furniture had been repossessed. I put

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  my clothes in a suitcase, my yearbooks and photo albums into cardboard boxes. My Mac had
to be returned, but I backed up my files onto a zip drive before my dad put the computer into its original packaging (my mom was a big box saver) and drove it back to the store with a few words of wisdom: "Don't ever buy something on credit."

  "Thanks, Dad. I'll try to remember that."

  I didn't dare complain. While I'd been having my heart stomped on at Lexie's house, my dad had been trading in his beloved Escalade for a faded tan minivan of uncertain vintage. My mom's BMW was absent from its spot in the garage. I didn't ask any questions.

  By ten thirty at night, it was done: every detail of our entire lives had been packed away or tossed. There had been papers signed, phone calls made. There was nothing left to do, nothing left to hope for.

  "I saved out some blankets and pillows," my dad said, crumpling a sauce-stained Taco Bell wrapper from dinner. "We can sleep on the library floor--that carpet's pretty padded. I've got nothing left to do here, so we can leave first thing in the morning. Unless you want to spend a little more time with your friends, say your good-byes..."

  I gazed at the empty room, the sad picture hooks on the butter-colored walls. "Let's get out of here."

  "Now?"

  "Now."

  We shoved four suitcases, two laundry baskets, a cardboard box, and a whole bunch of overflowing shopping bags into the beige van. The rest of our stuff, safely stored in a cinder-block

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  storage unit, could wait. We probably didn't even need all of these clothes and papers and books, which would just make the suite seem smaller.

  Once the house was empty, I thought about going from room to room and taking photographs. But I didn't. It wasn't just because the day was so sad, the house no longer ours. It's because sometimes things are best remembered in your heart.

  "Did you have a nice time with your friends?" my dad asked as we pulled out of the driveway for the final time, the For Sale: Bank-Owned Property sign illuminated by the landscape lighting, the raggedy yard looking better in the semidarkness.

  "Sure," I said. "A great time."

  On the way out of our development, we passed two other Tuscany models, plus three Santa Fes and one English Cottage. I said good-bye to Jennifer Road and my favorite street in the development, Noah Way, which sounds just like "no way" if you say it fast enough. On Amerige Road we passed my favorite Starbucks, my elementary school, the movie theater. We zipped right by the turnoff to our first house, the little house, the one that wasn't good enough.

  Finally we got on the highway, and the van picked up speed. "Well, that's done," my dad said. "Yes," I agreed. "It is."

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  19.

  It was almost one o'clock in the afternoon by the time I woke up on my scratchy couch at Home Suite Home. I'd finally mastered the art of sleeping through the cacophony of gurgling pipes, barking dogs, and sleeping children. I was alone in the room; my parents were both at work.

  It was a beautiful day: blue sky, light breeze, low humidity. I kept the curtains shut, preferring to bask in darkness and depression. Now that the shock of Lexie's betrayal had sunk in ("We didn't mean for it to happen," she'd said. And--make me spew-- "It's like we're two halves of a whole." Come! On! Who says crap like that?) I realized how much I'd been counting on her to save me. I'd built up this whole fantasy of "Life with the Larstroms." In that world, nothing much would change. I'd have the same school and the same friends. Lexie would take me shopping and put everything on her credit card; her mother would never notice. I'd miss my parents--I mean, sort of--but it's not like I'd never see them again.

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  But like I said, that had been a fantasy. My old life was over. This was the reality: instead of being a princess in the Larstroms' palace, I was a prisoner in a cut-rate motel. In place of Lexie and her funny e-mails, I had Delilah and her garbage collection. Instead of Rolf and his fizzy juices, I had Duncan and his beat-up skateboard.

  At the thought of Duncan, my eyes filled with tears. Why was he laughing all the time? Didn't he know that his life sucked?

  In the dingy room, I sorted through my clothes from home, most of which were even more worn-out than I'd remembered. My purple thrift-shop shirt looked new in comparison. At least my Seven jeans still looked good. I pulled them on, thinking they'd make me feel like myself again. They didn't, but I kept them on anyway. I went outside to the little patio, sat on a dirty plastic chair, and listened to the passing cars.

  Hours later, my mother, getting ready for bed, said, "Someone stopped by to see you yesterday."

  Duncan. Had he remembered to take out his earrings? Had he left me another embarrassing note?

  "It was a girl," my mother said. "With sort of...strange hair. And clothes."

  I felt relieved and disappointed all at once. "That's Delilah. She's an artist."

  "Apparently." My mother squirted some white lotion onto her hands. "She wanted you to stop by."

  I shrugged. "I'll go tomorrow." (Maybe.)

  "She said something about...a man in a window?" She rubbed the lotion into her hands. "She said you'd know what she meant."

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  I stared at my mother. "What about him?" My mother snapped the top on her bottle. "She said she knows who he is."

  I heard the music long before I reached Psychic Photo--or, rather, I felt the beats pounding the night air. It wasn't until I was right outside the building that I managed to decipher the lyrics: something about a love roller coaster. Tell me about it.

  The back door was unlocked, the door at the bottom of the stairs propped open. I thought of the strange man sneaking around. They should really be more careful.

  Music wasn't the only thing coming out of the apartment. People stood jammed along the stairs and in the doorway: major fire hazard. I pushed my way past the warm, sticky bodies. Someone spilled a plastic cup of soda on me. It skimmed my tank top and soaked into my expensive jeans.

  I fought my way into the crammed apartment, my senses instantly overloaded by throbbing disco music, laughter, dancing bodies, and diamonds of light from the mirrored ball. The room smelled of sweat and scented shampoo, cookies and chips and salsa.

  Where was Delilah? Or Duncan? Was there anyone here I knew? Finally, I spotted Leo. I don't know how I missed him jumping around in the middle of the dance floor (otherwise known as a small patch of rug where the couch once sat), posing every now and then with one hand in the air. He wore a white suit, too loose and too short, and a dark shirt: deep purple or maybe navy.

  Dancing with him was a heavy girl dressed in a low-cut red tank top, a tight black miniskirt, and ripped fishnet stockings.

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  Her black hair was cut in a severe bob, the bangs ending in a straight line a good inch above her penciled-in eyebrows. Her eyeliner and lipstick were black. Her ears, nose, and lip were all pierced. Other parts of her were probably pierced as well, but I didn't want to think about it.

  Most of the kids in the room looked more average--jeans, shorts, T-shirts--but they all seemed a little, I don't know, shabby. Their clothes were worn, their haircuts ratty. And I lit right in.

  I pushed closer to the dance floor, checking faces. Duncan would be out here. He was the kind of person who liked to be in the middle of things, to laugh and dance and live in the moment. And why not? In his world, odds were good that tomorrow would be worse than today.

  But he wasn't there. Leo caught my eye and waved. I waved back before turning around to search for Delilah.

  That's when I saw Duncan. He was all alone, slumped on the couch, which had been pushed against the wall in front of the window. The window was wide open--no wonder you could hear the music from the street--but there was no one lurking on the other side, at least that I could see. Duncan was not laughing, dancing, or seizing the moment. In fact, he looked completely miserable, just staring into space, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

  So he was not all sunshine and light, after all. Duncan had a crappy life, and he knew it. We were more alike than I had realized.

>   I worked my way toward him, suddenly desperate to make him smile. When I reached the side of the couch, I bent down and whispered in his ear, "Arnold? Egbert? Burl?"

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  He looked up and his mouth dropped open. "You."

  "Francis?" I said. "Horace?" When he didn't say anything, just continued to stare, I said, "Your real name must be totally dweeby. Otherwise, you'd just tell me what it is."

  A smile spread across his face. But it wasn't his usual life's-a-party grin; it was more like...wonder. And joy. Like: tonight was a birthday party and Christmas morning and a trip to Disney World all in one.

  I settled on the arm of the couch. "Unless you have a girl's name," I continued. "I've heard of guys named, like, Carroll. And Marion. And this guy I knew in junior high? He was named Ash' ley. I'm serious. Total psycho--he beat the crap out of anyone who even looked at him funny."

  Duncan began to laugh: that crazy, infectious sound. I thought, Dang, I'm funny, and prepared to launch into another monologue. But he stopped me.

  "I thought you'd gone." He took my hand. I never knew that someone's hand could feel so good.

  I looked at my feet. "I'm sorry I didn't show up the other night. Something came up, and I didn't have your phone number, and then I had to go out of town...."

  "So you're staying?"

  "It looks that way." What was that stupid thing people said? This is the first day of the rest of your life. "Yeah, I'm staying."

  For now, that was all I wanted to say on the subject. "My mom said Delilah stopped by, that she knew who the guy in the photo was." Behind us, a cool breeze slipped through the window.

  "Oh, yeah. I'll let her tell you about it. She's probably hiding in her room. She hates Leo's parties." We got off the couch and

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  he guided me through the crowd by my hand.

  When we got to the bedroom doorway, he turned around and gazed into my eyes, his expression so intense, so adoring, that I had to look away. "I missed you," he said. "I was just totally--I just totally missed you."

  The bottom of my stomach fell to the floor. Duncan hadn't been upset because his life was so crappy. It was all about me. Wow. Go figure.