Frankie took one more sniff. “Me too.” She waved the folded paper through the cold formaldehyde-laced air and got up to light her vanilla-scented candles. The vinegary chemical odor of the solution was seeping into her hair and dominating the floral notes in her Pantene conditioner.
“Do I smell vanilla?” her dad asked as he rapped on the closed door.
Frankie shut off her music. “Yesssss!” she trilled, ignoring his pretending-to-be-annoyed tone—a tone he’d been using since Frankie transformed his lab into a “Fab.” She heard it when she glammed up the laboratory rats, began storing lip gloss and hair accessories in his beakers, and glued Justin Bieber’s face to the skeleton (because, how voltage is that poster where he’s sitting on the skateboard?). But she knows her dad didn’t really mind. It was her bedroom now too. And besides, if he really cared, he wouldn’t refer to her as—
“How is Daddy’s perfect little girl?” Viktor Stein knocked again and then opened the door. Frankie’s mother followed Viktor into the room.
Viktor was swinging a leather duffel and wearing a black Adidas tracksuit and his favorite brown UGG slippers with a hole in one toe.
“Worn and old, just like Viv,” he’d say when Frankie made fun of them, and then his wife would swat him on the arm. But Frankie knew he was just joking, because Viveka was the type of woman you wished was in a magazine just so you could stare at her violet-colored eyes and shiny black hair without being called a stalker or a freak.
Her father, however, had more of an Arnold Schwarzenegger thing going on, as if his chiseled features had been stretched to cover his square head. People probably wanted to stare at him too but were afraid of his six-foot-four frame and super-squinty expression. But his squints didn’t mean he was angry. They meant he was thinking. And being a mad scientist, he was always thinking.… At least that’s how Viveka explained it.
“Can we talk to you for a minute, sweetie?” Viveka asked in a singsong way that mimicked the swooshing hem of her black crepe sundress. Her voice was so delicate that people were shocked when they heard it coming from a six-foot-tall woman.
Viv and Vik walked across the polished concrete floor holding hands, a united front, as always. But this time, traces of concern lay beneath their proud grins.
“Have a seat, dear.” Viveka gestured to the pillow-covered ruby-red Moroccan chaise Frankie had ordered online from Ikea. In the far corner of the Fab, along with her sticker-covered desk, her flat-screen Sony, and a rainbow of colorful wardrobes stuffed with Internet buys, the lounge faced the only window in the room. Even though that window had been frosted for privacy, it gave Frankie a glimpse into the real world—or at least the promise of one.
Frankie padded across the fluffy pink sheepskin path from her bed to the lounge, silently fearing that her parents had seen her latest charges from iTunes. Nervous, she pulled on the track of fine black stitches that held her head in place.
“Don’t pull,” Viktor insisted, lowering himself onto the chaise. The birch frame creaked in protest. “There’s nothing to be nervous about. We just want to talk to you.” He placed the leather duffel by his feet.
Viveka tapped the empty cushion beside her, then fussed with her signature black muslin scarf. But Frankie, fearing a lecture on the value of a dollar, tightened her silky black Harajuku Lovers robe and chose to sit on the pink rug instead.
“What’s up?” she asked, smiling and trying to sound as if she hadn’t just spent $59.99 for a season pass of Gossip Girl.
“Change is in the air.” Viktor rubbed his hands together and inhaled deeply, as if gearing up to tackle a hike up Mount Hood.
No more credit cards? Frankie speculated with dread.
Viveka nodded and forced another smile, her dark purple painted lips holding tight to each other. She looked at her husband, urging him to continue, but he widened his dark eyes to communicate that he didn’t know what to say
Frankie shifted uncomfortably on the rug. She had never seen her parents at such a loss for words. She fast-forwarded through her recent purchases, hoping to figure out which item had tipped them over the edge. Season pass of Gossip Girl—orange blossom room spray—striped Hot Sox with the cute toe holes—magazine subscriptions for Us Weekly, Seventeen, Teen Vogue, CosmoGirl—horoscope app—numerology app—dream interpreter app—Morrocanoil hair de-frizzer—Current/Elliott boyfriend jeans…
Nothing too major. Still, the anticipation was making her neck bolts spark.
“Relax, dear.” Viveka leaned forward and smoothed her hand over Frankie’s long black hair. The soothing gesture stopped the energy leak but did nothing for her insides. They were still popping and hissing like the Fourth of July. Her parents were the only people Frankie knew. They were her best friends and mentors. Disappointing them meant disappointing the entire world.
Viktor took another deep breath, then exhaled as he made his announcement. “The summer is over. Your mother and I have to go back to teaching science and anatomy at the university. We can’t home school you anymore.” He jiggled his ankle restlessly.
“Huh?” Frankie knit her perfectly sculpted eyebrows. What can this possibly have to do with shopping?
Viveka placed an I’ll-take-it-from-here hand on Viktor’s knee, then cleared her throat. “What your father is trying to say is that you are fifteen days old. On each of those days, he implanted a year’s worth of knowledge into your brain: math, science, history, geography, languages, technology, art, music, movies, songs, trends, expressions, social conventions, manners, emotional depth, maturity, discipline, free will, muscle coordination, speech coordination, sense recognition, depth perception, ambition, and even a small appetite. You have it all!”
Frankie nodded her head, wondering when the shopping part was coming.
“So, now that you’re a beautiful, smart teenage girl, you’re ready for…” Viveka sniffed back a tear. She looked over at Viktor, who nodded, urging her to continue. Licking her lips and exhaling, she managed to work up one last smile, then—
Frankie sparked. This was taking longer than ground shipping.
Finally Viveka blurted, “Normie school.” She said it like nor-mee.
“What’s ‘normie’?” Frankie asked, fearing the answer. Is that some kind of rehab program for shopoholics?
“A normie is someone with common physical traits,” Viktor explained.
“Like…” Viveka picked up an issue of Teen Vogue from the orange-lacquered side table and opened it to a random page. “Like them.”
She tapped an H&M ad featuring three girls in bras and hot pants—a blond, a brunette, and a redhead. They all had curly hair.
“Am I a normie?” Frankie asked, feeling just as proud as the beaming models.
Viveka shook her head from side to side.
“Why? Because my hair is straight?” Frankie asked. This was the most confusing lesson of all.
“No, not because your hair is straight,” Viktor said through a frustrated smirk. “Because I built you.”
“Didn’t everyone’s parents ‘build’ them?” Frankie made air quotes. “You know, technically speaking.”
Viveka raised a dark eyebrow. Her daughter had a point.
“Yes, but I built you in the literal way,” Viktor explained. “In this lab. From perfect body parts that I made with my hands. I programmed your brain full of information, stitched you together, and put bolts on the sides of your neck so you could get charged. You have no real need for food, other than enjoyment. And, Frankie, because you have no blood, well, your skin, it’s… it’s green.”
Frankie looked at her hands as if for the first time. They were the color of mint chocolate chip ice cream, just like the rest of her.
“I know,” she giggled. “Isn’t it voltage?”
“It is.” Viktor chuckled. “That’s why you’re so special. No other student at your new school was made like that. Just you.”
“You mean the school will have other people in it?” Frankie looked around the Fab
, the only room she’d ever truly known.
Viktor and Viveka nodded, guilt and trepidation wrinkling their foreheads.
Frankie searched their moist eyes, wondering if this was really happening. Were they really going to just cut her loose? Drop her in a school full of curly-haired normies and expect her to fend for herself? Did they really have the heart to walk away from her education so they could teach lecture halls full of perfect strangers instead?
Despite their quivering lips and salt-stained cheeks, it seemed that they actually were. Suddenly, a feeling that could only be measured on the Richter scale rumbled through Frankie’s belly. It climbed up her chest, shot through her throat, and exploded right out of her mouth:
“VOLTAGE!”
CHAPTER THREE
YOU’VE GOT MALE
“We’re here!” Beau announced, beeping his horn repeatedly. “Wakey, wakey!”
Melody peeled her ear off the cool window and opened her eyes. At first glance, the neighborhood seemed to be covered in cotton. But her vision sharpened like a developing Polaroid as her eyes adjusted to the hazy morning light.
The two moving trucks blocked access to their circular driveway and obstructed the view of the house. All Melody could make out was half of a wraparound porch and its requisite swing, both of which appeared to be made of life-size Lincoln Logs. It was an image Melody would never forget. Or was it the emotions the image conjured—hope, excitement, and fear of the unknown, all three tightly braided together, creating a fourth emotion that was impossible to define. She was getting a second chance at happiness, and it tickled like swallowing fifty fuzzy caterpillars.
Beepbeepbeepbeep!
A husky mountain man wearing baggy jeans and a brown puffy Carhartt vest nodded hello as he pulled the Carvers’ eggplant-colored Calvin Klein sectional from the truck.
“That’s enough honking, dear. It’s early!” Glory swatted her husband playfully. “The neighbors are going to think we’re lunatics.”
The smell of coffee breath and cardboard to-go cups made Melody’s empty stomach lurch.
“Yeah, Dad, stawp,” Candace moaned, her head still resting on her metallic Tory Burch bag. “You’re wakey-waking the only cool person in Salem.”
Beau unclipped his seat belt and turned to face his daughter. “And who might that be?”
“Meeee.” Candace stretched, her chest rising and then sinking inside her light blue tank like a buoy on a choppy sea. She must have fallen asleep on her angry, balled-up fist, because her cheek was imprinted with the heart from her new ring—the one her teary best friends gave her as a going-away present.
Melody, desperate to dodge the I-miss-my-friends bullet Candace would undoubtedly fire when she noticed her cheek, was the first to open the door and step onto the winding street.
The rain had stopped and the sun was rising. A purplish red layer of mist cloaked the neighborhood like a thin fuchsia scarf over a lampshade. It cast a magical glow over Radcliffe Way. Damp and glistening, the neighborhood smelled like earthworms and wet grass.
“Get a whiff of that air, Melly.” Beau smacked his flannel-covered lungs and lifted his head in reverence to the tie-dyed sky.
“I know.” Melody hugged his corrugated abs. “I can breathe better already,” she assured him, partly because she wanted him to know she appreciated his sacrifice but mostly because she truly could breathe more easily. It felt as if a sandbag had been lifted from her chest.
“You gotta get out and smell this,” Beau insisted, tapping his wife’s window with his gold initial ring.
Glory lifted her finger impatiently and then cocked her head toward Candace, in the backseat, to show she was dealing with another meltdown.
“Sorry.” Melody hugged her father again, this time with a softer grip, a grip that begged forgive me.
“For what? This is great!” He took a long, deep breath. “The Carvers needed a change. We had LA dialed. It’s time for a new challenge. Living is all about—”
“I wish I was dead!” Candace screamed from inside the SUV.
“There goes the only cool person in Salem,” Beau mumbled under his breath.
Melody looked up at her father. The instant their eyes met, they burst out laughing.
“All right, who’s ready for a tour?” Glory opened the door. The tip of her fur-lined hiking bootie lowered tentatively toward the pavement as if testing the temperature of a bath.
Candace jumped out from the backseat. “First one upstairs gets the big room!” she shouted, and then charged toward the house. Her toothpick legs moved at an impressive clip, unencumbered by the Speedo tightness of her fashionably torn skinny jeans.
Melody shot her mother a quick how’d-you-do-that? look.
“I told her she could have my vintage Missoni jumpsuit if she stopped complaining for the rest of the day,” Glory confessed, gathering her auburn hair into an elegant ponytail and securing it with a quick twist.
“With promises like that, you’ll be down to one sock by the end of the week,” Beau teased.
“It’ll be worth it.” Glory smiled.
Melody giggled and then took off toward the house. She knew Candace would beat her to the big room. But that’s not why she was running. She was running because after so many years of labored breathing, she finally could.
Bounding past the trucks, she nodded at the men struggling with the couch. Then she leaped up the three wood steps to the front door.
“No way!” Melody gasped, stopping at the foot of the spacious cabin. The walls had the same orange-hued Lincoln Logs as the outside. So did the steps, the banister, the ceiling, and the railings. The only deviations were the stone fireplace and the walnut floors. It was hardly what she was used to, considering they came from a multitiered glass-and-concrete homage to ultramodern design. But Melody had to admire her parents. They were certainly committed to this new outdoor-lifestyle thing.
“Behind you,” grunted a sweat-soaked mover trying to negotiate the plump couch through the narrow doorway.
“Oops, sorry.” Melody giggled nervously, stepping aside.
To her right, a long bedroom spanned the entire length of the house. Beau and Glory’s California king was already inside holding court, and the master bath was in the middle of a major facelift. A tinted sliding glass door opened onto a narrow lap pool that was enclosed by an eight-foot-high Lincoln Log wall. The indoor pool must have sealed the deal for Beau, who swam every morning to burn off the calories his nightly swim might have missed.
Overhead, in one of the remaining two bedrooms, Candace was pacing and mumbling into her phone.
Across from her parents’ room was a cozy kitchen and dining area. The Carvers’ sleek appliances, glass table, and eight black-lacquered chairs looked futuristic compared to the rustic wood. But Melody was sure the situation would be remedied as soon as her mom and dad located the nearest design center.
“Help!” Candace called from upstairs.
“Huh?” Melody called back, peeking at the sunken living room and its view of the wooded ravine out back.
“I’m dying!”
“Really?” Melody bounded up the wooden staircase in the middle of the cabin. She loved the way the uneven wood slabs felt beneath her black Converse high-tops. Each one had its own unique personality. It wasn’t a celebration of symmetry, cohesion, and perfection, like Beverly Hills. It was the exact opposite. Every log in the house had its own patterns and nicks. Each was unique. None was perfect. Yet they all fit together and supported a single vision. Maybe it was a regional thing. Maybe all Salemites (Salemonians? Salemers?) celebrated unique patterns and nicks. And if they did, that meant the students at Merston High did too. The possibility filled her with a burst of asthma-free hope that propelled her up the steps, two at a time.
At the top, Melody unzipped her black hoodie and threw it over the railing. The pits of her gray Hanes tee were soaked with sweat, and her forehead was beading up.
“I’m dying. It’s so serious
ly fuego.” Candace appeared from the bedroom on the left wearing nothing but a black bra and jeans. “Is it two hundred degrees in here, or am I going through the change?”
“Candi.” Melody tossed her the hoodie. “Put this on!”
“Why?” she asked, casually inspecting her belly button. “Our windows are limo-tinted. It’s not like anyone can see inside.”
“Um, how ’bout the movers?” Melody snapped.
Candace pressed the hoodie against her chest and then peered over the railing. “This place is kinda weird, don’tcha think?” The flush in her cheeks burned straight up to her aqua blue eyes, giving them an iridescent glow.
“This whole house is weird,” Melody whispered. “I kinda love it.”
“That’s because you’re weird.” Candace whipped the hoodie over the railing and sauntered into what must have been the bigger bedroom. A sassy mass of blond hair swung across her back as if waving good-bye.
“Someone lose a top?” called one of the movers from down below. The black garment was slumped over his shoulder like a dead ferret.
“Um, yeah, sorry,” Melody answered. “You can just throw it on the steps.” She hurried to the only remaining bedroom so he wouldn’t think she was hitting on him.
She looked around the small rectangular space: log walls, low ceiling with deep scratches that looked like claw marks, a tinted mini window that revealed a view of the next-door neighbor’s stone fence. The closet smelled like cedar when its sliding door was opened. The temperature in the room must have been close to five hundred degrees. A real-estate listing would call it “cozy” if the agent wasn’t afraid to lie.
“Nice coffin,” Candace, still dressed in her bra, teased from the doorway.
“Nice try,” Melody countered. “I still don’t want to move back.”
“Fine.” Candace rolled her eyes. “Then at least let me make you jealous. Check out my boudoir.”
Melody followed her sister past the cramped bathroom and into a spacious, light-filled square. It had an alcove for a desk, three deep closets, and an expansive tinted window overlooking Radcliffe Way. They could have shared it and still had room for Candace’s ego.
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