Eventown

by Corey Ann Haydu

  “Maybe that’s okay,” Naomi says. “It’s like how you get angry and I get quiet. Or how you want to stand out and I want to fit in. Maybe we loved Lawrence in different ways. And knew different things about him.”

  “Remember when Lawrence said we’re only twins on the outside?” I ask. It’s the first time Naomi’s let me continue past the words remember when in so long. It feels good to get the whole sentence out. The whole sliver of a memory.

  Naomi grins. “Yep.”

  “He was right.”

  “He was right about a lot of stuff. And really wrong about other stuff.”

  It’s a true and small and achy sentence.

  “You girls need anything else?” Dad calls out to us. “Or is it time to hit the road?”

  I remember that there’s one thing inside that I want to take with me. One thing that someone brought with us, from Juniper to Eventown. And it’s only right to bring it from Eventown back to Juniper.

  “One second!” I call, and run into the house, up the stairs, to the bedroom I shared with Naomi. Somehow it doesn’t feel like ours anymore. I go to the nightstand and open the drawer. It’s there, inside, where I’ve been keeping it. The photograph I thought was a young version of Dad.

  It’s a photo of Lawrence. Of course it is—those are his red cheeks and his sneaky smile and his big hands and his light, sad, happy eyes.

  He was here with us this whole time.

  I put it in my pocket, then take it back out. I don’t have to hide it anymore. The photograph of Lawrence can be right in my hands; it can be framed and put on the mantel or glued into a scrapbook or put in a locket to wear around my neck.

  I know, now, that we can talk about him. That we will talk about him. That we won’t hide him away or let ourselves think of him only when we’re alone in our rooms.

  “What’d you get?” Naomi asks when I get back to the front lawn. I show her. Lawrence isn’t a secret to hide away. He’s our brother.

  The sun is rising. The sky is golden, and at home I’d want to soak in every second, because I’d know it will disappear soon and become just the regular daytime sky. But here I almost forget to look. I almost forget that it’s special or beautiful or worth noticing at all.

  We both look at it in silence for a few minutes. It doesn’t shift. It doesn’t start to turn into another color. The clouds don’t even move in the sky. And there’s no more hint of rain.

  Still, I bet if we described it, we’d describe it differently. Maybe even call it a different color. Maybe it’s yellow to Naomi, or dark silver, or light orange.

  But to me, right now, it’s golden. And I want to remember it. I want to remember every moment of it. Even after it’s gone.

  41

  A Very Sweet Cloud

  We drive back up and over the Eventown Hills. They look smaller, driving over them from this way. Greener, too, from all the rain. The smell of roses is just as strong. It follows us as we move out of town. Veena and her parents have a car behind us, and every so often Naomi and I turn around to wave at Veena. She looks scared. She doesn’t know what life is like over these hills.

  We’ll help her. But we won’t tell her not to be scared.

  Soon, Veena will have answers to all six of the Welcoming Center questions. She’ll have a most embarrassed moment and a most heartbreaking one.

  But Veena’s going to have a most joyful moment too. And if I know Veena, it will be huge and vibrant and fun and filled with her special brand of bravery.

  I hope I get to be there with her. I hope I get to be there for all of it.

  When we’re all the way over the hills, we wave at them. Veena does, too, from her car. We wave at the pine trees, at the blueberry bushes, and the roses, at the still golden sky.

  Our old Juniper house has new owners, so we stay in a rental on the edge of town near Veena and her parents. It’s far away from the things we knew best—the mall and Bess’s house and the familiar path to school. It’s a small house, and messy too. We won’t be here forever.

  But for now, it’s sort of nice to be on an adventure. An adventure that doesn’t take us somewhere perfect. An adventure that brings us somewhere where lots of things can go wrong.

  The lawn isn’t covered in rosebushes, but there are dandelions growing here and there, and we can make wishes on the wispy bulbs. Veena and I sit down right away and blow the delicate weeds into the wind.

  Veena’s never done it before. There’s so much she hasn’t done before, and I’m excited to show her the world outside of Eventown.

  Naomi doesn’t sit with us. She can’t resist the long, flat expanse of yard. It’s the perfect place to do gymnastics. She starts with a cartwheel, then a walkover, then a round-off back handspring. She trips coming out of it and falls backward with a little yelp.

  Veena gasps. But Naomi only laughs.

  “Guess I better get back to practice soon,” she says. She tries again and again, the old joy coming back. Sometimes the back handsprings are pretty good and sometimes they’re sloppy, but they’re somehow better than they’ve ever been. She makes up a routine on the spot.

  “For Lawrence,” she says, and it’s goofier than anything she’s done before. Sillier and dancier and messier. She’s a different kind of gymnast than she was in Eventown, of course, but she’s a different kind of gymnast than she was before Eventown too.

  We could watch her for hours.

  But I have some baking to do.

  The kitchen is nothing like the Eventown kitchen. The stove is old, but not the good kind of old. The counters are narrow. The light above the counter is too dim and there aren’t pretty copper canisters of flour and sugar. There’s a tiny window, but it looks out at the street, not at a rosy backyard.

  Still, I know for a fact that it is good enough for a cake.

  Veena and Naomi walk to the store to buy my ingredients for me. Naomi wants to sign up for gymnastics and Veena wants to see roads with potholes in them and trees without leaves and whining dogs and cars honking at each other at busy intersections.

  All I want is to remember.

  I prepare the kitchen for the cake. I butter and flour pans. I cut parchment paper. I take out measuring cups and wash the grime off the old metal teaspoons I find in a drawer. I put butter on the counter to soften, and I smile when Mom turns on some music.

  The Beatles are playing our favorite song.

  I close my eyes to the tune and remember everything I can. I let it all come to me—the happy things and sad things. And by the time Veena and Naomi return with grocery bags of white chocolate chips and fresh pears and jasmine tea, I’m ready.

  “You need help?” Veena asks. “We can do it together.”

  But Naomi and I exchange a smile. For once, we’re thinking the same thing.

  “No,” I say. “I’m okay doing it on my own.”

  I grab a bottle of olive oil. A sprinkle of jasmine. A crooked pear. An overflowing cup of white chocolate chips, stealing a single one to taste.

  It tastes like a very sweet cloud.

  It tastes like magic.

  This time, I can feel Lawrence next to me, baking with me, reminding me when to add salt, how to whisk sugar into frosting, how long to let the cake do its magical growing in the oven.

  He reminds me to trust it, not to check on it. Opening the oven door too early could ruin everything.

  I wait.

  And when the cake’s out of the oven, it’s golden brown and smells a little like a garden.

  I have to wait, again, before putting the frosting on. The waiting is hard. I want everything to be delicious all at once. I want to skip over the hard parts, the boring parts, the lonely and sad and angry parts.

  But if I do that, the cake won’t be good. It won’t be right.

  So I wait. Even though it’s uncomfortable and too hot in the kitchen. Even though I don’t feel like waiting for the good part.

  While I wait, I think about the summer coming up and what it will be like.
I think maybe I’ll learn how to garden, like Lawrence. But I think I’ll do other things, too, things that Lawrence never did and Naomi’s never done. Maybe I’ll take piano now that I’m not afraid of music class. Maybe I’ll learn all the songs we weren’t allowed to play.

  Maybe I’ll make up some of my own.

  The possibilities are endless. It’s going to be a good summer. I can already feel the hum in the air, even though it’s only the beginning of May. Last summer, we didn’t do much of anything. The memory makes me sad. It hurts all over again.

  This time, though, I know it’s supposed to.

  Finally, the cake has cooled and it’s ready for its finishing touches. I start frosting it. It’s fluffy and sweet but not too sweet. It tastes a little like white chocolate and a little like pears and a little like something else—the magical space between the two.

  I spread it all over the cake in twirls and swirls that are off center and messy and sometimes all over the counter, my face, the floor.

  When it’s done, I call everyone to the kitchen. I take out plates from the cabinet. They are regular plates. White and boring and chipped in spots. I cut slices for Ms. Butra and Mr. Butra and Veena. For Mom and Dad. For Naomi. For me. The slices are all different sizes and some of them fall over. There are crumbs absolutely everywhere. Globs of frosting too.

  But when we each take a bite, it’s a strange taste, a sad, sugary, complicated, lovely taste.

  It’s Lawrence’s cake. But mine too.

  “Lawrence would have loved this,” Naomi says.

  It’s a sad sentence; a sentence that makes us miss him a little bit more.

  But like the cake, the missing is a little sweet, too, a little wonderful, a little sad, a little messy and crooked and delicate and strange.

  A little like Lawrence himself.

  We eat the whole delicious thing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and always, thank you to my agent, Victoria Marini, for seven wonderful years of working together and finding new ways to tell the stories I want to tell. You are my rock in this industry.

  Thank you to my editor, Alex Arnold, for pushing me and inspiring me and never letting me off the hook. Thank you for everything we share and for getting me and my brain sometimes better than I get myself. Thank you for a lovely and incredibly special collaboration that makes my books and my life better.

  Thank you to Katherine Tegen for continuing to support honest stories and for helping my books find the readers who need them. I’m so grateful to be part of the Katherine Tegen Books family.

  Thank you, Rebecca Aronson, for your thoughtful feedback on drafts of this book, and for all the ways big and small you contribute to bookmaking magic.

  Thank you, Alana Whitman, for being a lovely light in this publishing journey, and Rosanne Romanello for all your support. A special thank-you to Robert Imfeld and Gina Rizzo for helping this book find its space in the world.

  So many incredible people put amazing work into my books, and I want to especially thank those who make the messy beautiful and the written word visual: designer Aurora Parlagreco, production editor Bethany Reis, copyeditor Maya Myers, and illustrator Jane Newland.

  Lots of thanks to my family and friends who make the challenging parts easier and listen when there’s nothing else that can be done.

  Thank you always to my husband, Frank, who lets index cards and Post-it notes and piles of paper take over the kitchen table for months at a time. Especially with this one. I love you.

  And thank you to my daughter, Fia Frances, for being one more extra-special reason to tell stories.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo credit Jessie Weinberg

  COREY ANN HAYDU is the author of Rules for Stealing Stars, The Someday Suitcase, and four acclaimed books for teens. She grew up in the Boston area, earned her MFA at the New School, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, daughter, and very fluffy dog. Find out more at www.coreyannhaydu.com.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  PRAISE FOR COREY ANN HAYDU

  EVENTOWN:

  “A wonderful and inventive story about being a kid in an imperfect world—beautiful, mysterious, and deeply satisfying.”

  —REBECCA STEAD, NEWBERY MEDAL–WINNING AUTHOR OF WHEN YOU REACH ME AND GOODBYE STRANGER

  ★ “This story is as layered and delicious as one of Elodee’s concoctions. . . . At once enchanting, heart-rending, and bittersweet.”

  —KIRKUS REVIEWS (STARRED REVIEW)

  THE SOMEDAY SUITCASE:

  ★ “Quietly superb prose . . . A sharp, clear-cut piece that knows life is beautiful and sickness isn’t.”

  —KIRKUS REVIEWS (STARRED REVIEW)

  ★ “Haydu’s second middle grade novel is poignant and powerful. A heartbreaking story about the healing power of friendship amid human fragility.”

  —BOOKLIST (STARRED REVIEW)

  ★ “[A] moving, exquisitely written story.”

  —SHELF AWARENESS (STARRED REVIEW)

  RULES FOR STEALING STARS:

  ★ “A well-crafted blend of realism and fantasy.”

  —SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL (STARRED REVIEW)

  ★ “[A] lyrical story of love and loss. . . . This touching and heartwarming story contains a ‘tiny bit of magic, right here in the real world.’”

  —BOOKLIST (STARRED REVIEW)

  “Tender, wise, and heartbreakingly lovely, this story is as brilliant as a stolen star, and every bit as magical. Prepare to be enchanted.”

  —KATHERINE APPLEGATE, NEWBERY MEDAL–WINNING AUTHOR OF THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN

  BOOKS BY COREY ANN HAYDU

  Rules for Stealing Stars

  The Someday Suitcase

  BACK AD

  COPYRIGHT

  Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  EVENTOWN. Copyright © 2019 by Corey Ann Haydu. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  Cover art © 2019 by Jane Newland

  Cover design by Aurora Parlagreco

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Haydu, Corey Ann, author.

  Title: Eventown / Corey Ann Haydu.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2019] | Summary: To Elodee, eleven, things seem a little too perfect in Eventown when she moves there with her parents and identical twin, Naomi, especially since forgetting the past is so highly valued.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018013964 | ISBN 9780062689801 (hardback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Memory—Fiction. | Conformity—Fiction. | City and town life—Fiction. | Sisters—Fiction. | Twins—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. | Moving, Household—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.H31389 Eve 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018013964

  * * *

  Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-268984-9

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-268980-1

  1819202122CG/LSCH10987654321

  FIRST EDITION

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