Darcy clutched the strap of her backpack and angled a foot into the aisle. She zoned out the office announcements squeezing through the tinny intercom and stared up at the clock’s fat black numbers until the trill of the bell put her out of her Vanessa misery. Darcy jumped from her seat and flew past the desks, then race-walked through the traffic-clogged hallway and burst out of the front of the school doors. She leaned against a concrete pillar, gazing up into the cloudless sky until the familiar scent of tropical fruit came up behind her.
“What’s with you? I called your name, and you kept going.” Heather unfastened a crooked purple hair clip, pulling her perfectly straight blond hair into the kind of smooth curve Darcy could never manage with her wild hair. Welcome to the land of excess. Boobs too big, hips too wide, legs too long for pants that otherwise fit her just right. Darcy and her best friend stood at the exact same height, but Heather was the only one who looked like a Barbie doll.
“So when are you off grounding?” Heather clicked her barrette into place, and a second wave of tropical conditioner scent rolled over Darcy. Mangos, pineapples, and an endnote of coconut.
“Sunday night.”
Heather groaned. “But that’s, like, after the weekend. I really, really need to talk to you now.” Heather’s eyes darted to the side.
“Uh, what are we doing now, if not talking?”
Heather sighed. “You sit with Nick at lunch. Whenever we meet at your locker, he pops up, like he’s a stalker or something.” She peered over her shoulder. “Okay, I wasn’t going to say anything, but I get a really bad feeling from him. He’s kind of scary.”
“Uh-huh.” Darcy thought Nick was kind of sweet, and Heather was totally jealous.
A hand from nowhere tickled Darcy’s waist. She squealed, and Nick jumped out from behind the pillar.
“See what I mean?” Heather said.
Nick ignored Heather’s glare. He hugged Darcy as if he hadn’t seen her in weeks, even nibbled at her neck. “Ready to roll?”
“I gotta go. I’m in serious trouble if I don’t get back on time.” Darcy mouthed, Sorry. Heather didn’t know Nick the way she did. She hadn’t seen his sensitive side.
“I’m parked down the road.” Nick wrapped his arm around her shoulder and turned her away from Heather.
Mom never allowed phone privileges during grounding, but Darcy usually managed to sneak in a call or two when her mother went to bed, her after-hours calling plan.
Darcy leaned around Nick and yelled to Heather. “I’ll call you after hours! Okay, LU?” LU, their secret code for Love you.
Heather instantly brightened. “Right back at you, sister!”
“Could you call me after hours, too?” Nick asked.
He was so clever, picking up on her little get-around-grounding trick. “Sure thing,” she said.
Nick snatched up her hand and swung it between them as they squeezed down the narrow sidewalk lining the busy road. “She’s got it in for me, you know.”
“Heather? I don’t think so.” Heather was feeling left out, but what could Darcy do? Heather knew the drill. Whenever one of them was seeing a boy, their friendship took a backseat. They’d agreed on it years ago.
Next week, she’d figure out a girls-only day, plan on some shopping therapy—try on spring clothes they couldn’t afford, test body butters, and gobble up ice-cream sundaes. Oh, and she couldn’t forget looking for the right prom dress. A color and cut that would show off her body, but keep within the school dress code would definitely prove a challenge. Maybe she could even convince Heather to go to the prom, too. Note to self: find out if Stevie was still looking for a prom date. Getting ready for a big dance with her best friend, helping each other with hair and makeup, was almost as much fun as the event. Almost as much fun as going with her best friend to the ladies’ room and talking about their dates.
The middle school track team ran down the street, Troy waving at her in his usual village idiot way. He looked normal on the outside, but next week Daddy’s shrink would look inside of him to decide whether last Friday night’s fit meant Troy was more like Daddy than she was. According to Mom, getting Troy an appointment with Super Shrink within ten days of her phone call evidenced a major miracle. Darcy waved like a fool, right back at her lucky little brother.
Nick opened his car’s passenger door. Two spaces down the row a metallic orange Element backed out, jam-packed with boys Darcy recognized but didn’t really know. In sync, windows rolled down and masculine voices called out, as if rehearsed. “Darcy!”
She giggled and held her hand up to wave.
Nick stepped in front of her and waved using only one finger.
The Element stopped right next to them, and the driver, Jared, a boy she’d talked to a few times at parties, hung his head out the window, dark blond hair covering his eyes. “Hey, chill out, dude!”
Nick marched to the driver’s window. “You talking to me?”
“Yeah, I’m talking to you! I said chill—”
Nick whacked the windshield with both hands. “Get out of the car!”
Darcy froze, and her stomach plunged into her socks. She thought of Daddy eating lasagna once. Three uneventful bites, and he’d Frisbee-tossed his plate across the room, beheading a bouquet of pink peonies before gouging the wall.
She thought of Troy’s out of nowhere dinner fit.
This was not happening.
Jared’s car edged backward. “What’s your problem?”
“Get out of the fucking car!”
“Nick, stop,” Darcy said, but her high-pitched voice barely rose above a whisper.
Nick grabbed the top of the driver’s window, and it started rolling up. He jogged backward alongside the car, jerked his fingers out of the way at the last possible moment. Wheels squealed, and the Element hightailed it down the road, deep voices yelling at Nick.
Darcy ducked into the Monte Carlo, trying to catch her breath, as though she’d run alongside Jared’s car, dangling from the window, too. Her T-shirt stuck under her arms, and she pulled at the fabric. She was shell-shocked and paranoid. Everyone wasn’t bipolar, like her father. Everyone got angry, right? Anger was normal.
Nick went around to his side and slipped behind the wheel. He slammed his door. He kneaded the leather steering wheel cover. Glared through the windshield. A faint mist of sweat beaded on his upper lip.
“What was that about?” she asked, and her lips tingled.
“I don’t like them looking at you.” Nick turned his glare on Darcy, and her chest flushed. “And I don’t like you flirting with them.”
“I wasn’t.” She couldn’t think of what she’d done, other than wave. Nick had once said he wasn’t good at sharing, but this seemed over the top jealous. Still, she couldn’t help feeling a thrill at his possessiveness, as if she were a girl worth fighting for.
“Damn!” Nick whacked the steering wheel, and she startled. “You don’t get it,” he said. “Do you think they’re your friends?”
Darcy stared at Nick, his wide-eyed intensity, and her hand edged toward the door handle. Sure, anger was normal, but was Nick?
Nick’s mouth edged into a sneer, and he shook his head. “Do you think they just wanna hang out with you? You think they just wanna talk?”
A few months ago, she’d heard rumors Jared had said she had a good personality. He thought she was pretty, too. But he’d never asked her out, never—
“They want to do you, Darcy. You know what I’m saying?” Nick clenched his jaw. His gaze slid away from her, and that scared her more than his outburst.
If she’d heard the nice rumors about Jared, then he must’ve heard the not-nice rumors about her. That explained why he’d never asked her out and why a whole carload of boys she barely knew had called her name.
Nick, on the other hand, knew for sure the rumors about her weren’t true, and he still wanted to go out with her.
Darcy touched his cheek, then turned his face so she could see his eyes, and his
expression softened. That’s right, her sweet Nick.
“That stuff, that stuff I told you about my folks, about my dad. That’s just between us, okay? I don’t go around telling people my life story.” Nick’s pupils reflected two identical Darcy pictures, like black-and-white arcade photos.
Darcy knew about keeping secrets. Secrets meant love. She nodded and swallowed twice. “Your secret’s safe with me.” She found his lips, that familiar hard bite of cinnamon sweetness, and sighed into his mouth, but Nick wouldn’t smile.
Darcy remembered something Nick had tried to give her months ago. She remembered the look on his face when she’d turned him down. He was wearing that look right now.
Darcy took off one of the diamond earrings that never left her ears and pushed it to the bottom of her pocket. She unhooked Nick’s gold hoop and snapped it onto her naked earlobe. Nick nodded, and a smile flooded his face, the look that meant he thought she was special.
Slowly, he backed the car from the spot. Darcy fastened her seat belt across her chest. Her hand wandered to her earlobe, and she traced the hoop’s curve, the not-Daddy shape. Back in third grade, another girl’s dad had died in a head-on collision with an elderly driver going the wrong way on 101. Darcy had barely known the classmate, but she’d cried for a week, along with the rest of the town.
Darcy stared straight ahead, slid her sunglasses from her backpack and onto her face. She couldn’t let Nick see tears stinging the corners of her eyes. She couldn’t explain what she didn’t understand. She could understand missing someone who’d died by accident.
But how could you miss someone who’d left you on purpose?
Chapter 16
In the early days of A.S.—after suicide—Daddy’s natural citrus-musk scent had hung heavy in his writing studio and clung to all the surfaces. Back then, Darcy couldn’t tolerate hanging out there for more than a few minutes at a time. Entering with a full stomach pretty much ensured serious muscles cramps, not to mention nausea extending to her fingernails.
Months ago, Darcy had searched Daddy’s desk for his smell and came up with nothing but a nose full of lemon polish.
Today, she knew what she wanted. But first, she needed a snack.
Darcy let the screen door slam, announcing her return. Mom must be losing it. She didn’t pounce on her, asking about her day. Didn’t happen upon her, checking out whether the outfit she was wearing this morning had miraculously transformed into scandalously revealing non school-approved clothing. Okay, so where was she? She’d better be home.
Darcy kicked off her sneakers. Her mother’s giggle reached around the corner. Then another laugh, deep and throaty, a full manly guffaw. Mom’s buddy Aidan was having trouble keeping to his part of the house again. For once, Darcy would take this as a good sign.
Might as well go for it, after that snack.
Darcy peered into the kitchen. Mom was sitting sideways, her legs crossed in faded jeans, her pink-painted toenails shimmering. Darcy squinted. Her mother rarely painted anything except walls.
Aidan was staring at Mom as if she were the most fascinating woman on earth. He was grinning like that goofy kid who’d followed Darcy around freshman year, drooling on his shoes. Hands resting on his thighs, Aidan leaned back in his seat, legs falling apart at the knees in the way only a guy could sit, the designated Y-chromosome position. Give those manly ’nads breathing space.
He couldn’t have seen her, but he stopped laughing and sat straight up as soon as she came around the corner. “Hey!”
Mom uncrossed her legs and offered Darcy an explanation she hadn’t asked for. “Aidan has today off and, lucky me, he happened to pull into the driveway right when I needed help with the groceries.”
Darcy glanced around the kitchen. Mom’s usual Friday lineup of grocery-filled blue canvas bags blocked the cabinets. Okay, and who cared?
Darcy’s stomach churned so loudly that Aidan narrowed his eyes.
“You need a snack, honey?” Domestic goddess Mom flew in to save the day. “I bought a ton of strawberries. I could whip some cream, too, if you like.”
Mom turned to Aidan, and Darcy could’ve sworn she brushed her hair out of her eyes in a soap opera–type gesture. “Low blood sugar.”
Okay, now she felt not only like a gross noisemaker, but a sickly wimp loser. Not that she cared what Aidan thought. She was only putting up with him for Troy’s sake. The guy had totally calmed Troy down when he’d gone off on his Daddy rant during dinner, something her mother hadn’t even been able to do. That had scared the wits out of Darcy.
But she didn’t have to like him.
She’d eat something, and then ask Aidan for what she wanted. Nothing yummy sat out, but Aidan and Mom both had a kind of full look about them—leaning back in their seats, eyes slightly glazed, movements slow. And Aidan kept touching his mouth, as if checking for cookie crumbs.
“Where are the cookies?” Her fingers twitched from more than low blood sugar.
Her mother laughed, then shook her head. “I didn’t bake today, but last I looked, there were still a few chocolate chip cookies in the freezer. Do me a favor and finish them. I can’t trust myself around desserts,” Mom said as much to Aidan as to Darcy. Actually, more to Aidan than to her. He needed to know her mother’s weakness for sweets because why?
Darcy grabbed the freezer container and tossed four cookies onto the bare microwave carousel, glanced over her shoulder to see whether her mother would notice and insist on a paper towel. She pressed the keypad, then whacked the on button with the heel of her hand.
“Take some milk with that,” Mom said without turning around to witness the cookies on a potentially germ-infested surface.
Well, she had been going to take milk, but she hated following her mother’s dumb instructions. The woman acted as though she’d invented cookies and milk.
Darcy leaned against the sink, shoved a cookie into her mouth, and bit down hard. Ah, she felt better already. She got to the third freezer-burned cookie before she gave in to the crumbs clogging her throat and poured a glass of milk. The third gulp dislodged the scratchy lump down her throat and into her stomach. Okay, now she was way too full, but at least her fingers had stopped twitching.
Might as well go for it. “I want to see the apartment,” Darcy blurted out, and then stifled a burp.
Mom blinked at her and pressed a hand to her heart. “Are you sure?” she said, even though she’d been asking Darcy for weeks.
When Mom met her gaze, she felt like crying, and her stupid chin quivered.
Mom got up and hurried across the kitchen, coming to her rescue when she didn’t want rescuing. “Sometimes, seeing what you’re worried about diffuses the worry,” Mom said. “Most times, nothing’s half as bad as what you’re imagining.”
What did her mother know about what she was imagining? Sure, Mom would often ask her about her concerns, hopes, and dreams. But then, right when Darcy was considering a truthful response, her mother would grow restless with the silence between them, and insert her concerns, hopes, and dreams. What was the point of getting real with her mother when she was so good at one-sided conversations?
Darcy made certain she caught Mom’s eye, even threw in a smile for good measure. “It might be weird, but I want to.”
“Cool,” Aidan said, and led the way. He opened his apartment’s unlocked door and stood back to let them enter. “Ladies first,” Aidan said, and Darcy forced herself not to roll her eyes.
She stepped inside, took an exaggerated inhalation, and tried extracting a hit of Daddy’s citrus-musk scent. Walking over to the spot where his desk had sat didn’t help. A leather recliner fit into the corner, cradling Aidan’s guitar. She’d heard Aidan playing at night, even fell asleep to the rock riffs. The guy was seriously good. Not that she’d tell him.
Her mother held a tentative smile. “So what do you think?”
She shrugged. So far, no muscle cramps and no nausea.
Aidan nudged the recliner with his toe
. “My living room furniture. Couldn’t wait to spring it from storage.”
Couldn’t wait to get a babe in here. Miraculous, really. Aidan had transformed her father’s writing studio into a bachelor pad. The nearly empty apartment screamed “low maintenance, travels light.” The guitar left accidentally out in the open provided just the right touch. Shag me, baby.
Wait a second. She would’ve thought the front room would work as a bedroom and the back room adjacent to the kitchen galley would work as the living room. She looked around and couldn’t locate anything resembling a daybed or sleep sofa. Maybe Aidan had fashioned a retractable bed, the kind that exploded out of the wall at just the right moment when he plucked the appropriate note on his guitar.
She left Aidan’s living room and checked out the kitchen. A chunky coffee table, a pile of cushions, and Aidan’s muddy bike took up the entire back room. Maybe the guy slept standing up. It could happen.
“Looking for something?” Mom asked.
Well, all right. She turned to Aidan. “I thought you’d make the front room into a bedroom.”
“I did.” Aidan’s smug smile made him even more irritating. “Look again.”
She pushed past the joker and scanned the front room—floorboards, recliner with babe-magnet guitar. She scanned the walls, then looked up. The loft.
Darcy burst out laughing and scrambled up the ladder. Peeking over the gate revealed not a cliché water bed, but a mattress on the floor and a puffy chocolate-brown comforter.
Daddy had only used the loft for storage. When they were little, she and Troy would sneak up, hide between the cardboard boxes and accordion files, and watch their father gaze into middle space. Daddy would pound his keyboard in a writing frenzy, all the while pretending he didn’t know they were watching.
She and Troy would hide their toys beneath the floorboards as a time capsule treasure chest—origami paper fortune-tellers, handmade spool dolls, painted-bead jewelry. She pressed through the garden fence–style gate beyond the ladder. “I left something up here.”
Mom craned her neck from the base of the ladder. “Darcy, no. I moved all the boxes to the attic. There’s nothing.”
Equilibrium Page 15