Things change. Even when you think they couldn’t possibly. It was an amazing thing to know.
“Why is it so hard to believe I’d come over?”
“It’s not you. It’s this house. I never let anyone come over. Not even Lennox. It was such a mess.”
“I don’t think your friends would care if your house was messy,” Charlie said. “At least, I wouldn’t.”
“Mess isn’t the right word for what it was,” I said. “It was a disaster area, a health hazard. Have you ever seen the homes they have on those hoarder shows?” Charlie nodded. “It was like that, but on steroids.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
“It was,” I said. “But I don’t care anymore. As a matter of fact, I feel like I deserve some kind of badge of honor for making it through twelve years.”
“If I’d known that’s what you wanted, I would’ve brought you one,” Charlie said.
“I was so ashamed,” I said. “I wasted a lot of time worrying that people would find out and think terrible things about me. You know, judge me because I lived here.”
“When I think about what my dad did to your mom, and how he kept it a secret . . . I just . . .” Charlie shook his head.
“He was trying to control what people thought of him.” It was strange to realize I had something in common with Franklin Copeland, but there it was. “There’s a part of me that gets that,” I said. “I mean, I wanted to control the story people had about me.”
“But you didn’t hurt anyone in the process,” Charlie said. “I’m so sorry, Lorrie. I think I’ll be sorry about it for the rest of my life.”
I didn’t know what to say back to him. I couldn’t just say, That’s okay. Because it wasn’t, and it never would be. But it wasn’t Charlie’s fault. Just like Edgewater wasn’t mine.
“People thought he was so good,” Charlie said. “And now they think everything about him was a lie and that he was all bad. I guess it’s easier to categorize things like that: white versus black, good versus bad.” Charlie paused and shook his head. His hair stayed stiff and still, like it wasn’t his own. “Sometimes . . .” he said. “Sometimes even I think of him as all bad. There’s less to figure out that way.”
I nodded. It was easier for me to think that way about the senator, too; the same way it had been easier for me to think that way about Mom. For years I thought the fact that she’d left was the only thing about her that mattered. It was the story I told myself, and my sister, and my friends. It was the story I put out into the world.
But it was my story, and it turned out it had very little to do with my mother. There are the stories people tell about your life, and then there’s the truth about it, which is completely your own.
“I know what you mean,” I told Charlie. “I know exactly what you mean.”
James Taylor’s voice wafted down from above. “My dad loved James Taylor,” he said.
“My mom, too.”
“I wonder if they listened to him together.”
“I guess we’ll never know,” I said.
It was a long list of things I’d never know about my mother. I looked at Charlie’s face, the lean nose and the square jaw and his eyes squinting in discomfort. Not for the first time, I wished my mom were around to talk to her about what I felt for him.
“You must be so angry,” he said.
“Sometimes.”
“Me, too. And it feels so weird, because I also miss the hell out of him. I dream about him. And during the day, basically anything and everything reminds me of him—the view of the Point, obviously, and also the sound of the waves, and the way the light hits a certain painting on the wall, and the stupid prize at the bottom of the box of cereal.” He smiled sadly. “I just have so much to ask him. I found out so much I didn’t know about him, and now I only have more questions. Isn’t that crazy?”
I shook my head. People were like icebergs. There was so much more than you could see. Everyone had secrets below the surface. “You once told me that people are complicated,” I said.
“I’m pretty wise.” He paused. “When did I say that?”
“In the tree house, on the Fourth of July,” I said. “You said it about Lennox and Nathan, and I think it’s the truest thing you could say about anyone. Like, even my dad. I know where he is now, and clearly he knows where I am, but he hasn’t reached out. I wonder if he’s too mad to come back, or if he’s too embarrassed. Or maybe he’s still drinking. I don’t know. But I think I’ll send him a letter or something. Not today, but soon. I’m sure there’s more to his story than I’ve been told, and I’d like to find out. I haven’t told anyone else that. What do you think?”
“I think you should,” Charlie said. “Maybe you’ll be disappointed, but at least you would’ve tried. I wish I’d tried harder with my dad. When I was a kid, he wasn’t around that much, but when he was home, he’d always grill me about what was going on in the news, and he’d get annoyed because I couldn’t have cared less about any of it. I just wanted a dad who, I don’t know, coached Little League or something. And then he started to change. It happened so slowly at first. You could barely tell anything was wrong, up until these last few weeks. My mom just wanted to wait until after her election to go public. And my dad, well, he’d stare out at the Point. For hours, he’d stare. This was a man who never used to stand still for anything. Once, he grabbed my hand and told me I had to go down there and bring flowers. He had a bouquet of flowers. I had no idea where he got them or why he wanted me to bring them, but there was something in his voice . . .” Charlie’s own voice trailed off. “Anyway, I didn’t question it. I just went.”
So it was Charlie that Lennox and I had seen that day at the Point, my first day back in Idlewild. And it was Charlie who’d left the flowers. Of course it was. I wasn’t even surprised.
“But even at the end he remembered your mom,” Charlie said. “Writing you and Susannah into his will was probably the last sane thing he did before he got too sick.” He shook his head. “I’m having the hardest time believing he’s gone.”
“Susannah used to have such a hard time saying good-bye to her pets,” I told him. “Even saying good-bye to animals that weren’t her pets. I didn’t get it. I told her that once something was dead, it was dead. But now I understand her wanting to hold on a bit longer. It’s funny, because she seems to be adjusting pretty well to everything now. She’s going to school upstate. She made all the arrangements herself.”
“And you,” Charlie said. “You going back to school?”
“Not to Hillyer. It’s a long story, but the bottom line is, I’m gonna do senior year here in Idlewild. Naomi has a spare room at Oceanfront. That way I can visit my aunt and be around Orion and the horses. What about you?”
“Correspondence school,” he said. “I just have a few credits left. This way I can do them online from wherever I am.”
“That’s good,” I said. I toed the floor. “And are you back with Shelby?” Charlie looked at me funny. “I mean, you said you guys were taking a break for the summer, and then she texted . . . that day.”
“We’re friends,” he said. “But we’re not right for each other. Not that way. Mostly I went out with her because it drove my mother crazy. But I was hoping . . .”
“What?” I asked. “What were you hoping?”
“I’ve wanted to tell you this for a while, but it’s been so hard. There’s only one person I’ve wanted to be with since the day I met you.” He stuck out a finger and pressed it lightly into my breastbone. “You, Lorrie.”
“Really?”
“Really. There was something about you at the gas station that day—not just that you were beautiful.” I felt my cheeks warm. “But you were so . . . so self-possessed, and so unimpressed with me.”
“That’s not how I really was,” I said. “Not on the inside.”
“That’s all right,” he said. “I still want to be with you.”
“Won’t being with me drive y
our mother crazy, too?”
“Maybe,” he said. He smiled again. “But that’s not why I want to. Which may be a first for me, as relationships go.” He paused and took a breath. “I think about you all the time. I think about you when I’m sad about everything that’s happened, which is almost always. And I think about you in between the sad times, when I have these bursts of feeling okay again.”
“That’s when I think about you, too,” I said. “All those times.”
“So, what do you say, Lorrie? Do we get a fresh start?”
I glanced around at the front hall of my house—at the fountain, still dried up but now clean of dirt and grime, at the wood-paneled floors that had been stripped bare of their moldy rugs, and at the winding staircase that stretched up three stories—and I realized something: I didn’t need a fresh start. It was all a part of me. It all mattered. And whatever else Senator Copeland had done wrong, he was right about one thing: You can’t ignore the past if you want to step boldly, confidently into the future.
I shook my head. “No,” I said.
Charlie’s face fell.
“Let’s just pick up where we left off.”
Charlie pulled me toward him, wrapping himself around me. I buried my head in his neck and kissed him, tasting him. My lips found his mouth. He was slow and gentle, and I wasn’t scared of losing him. Of all the movies I’d played out in my head, the way it really happened was something I never could have imagined. But you can never know how the movie of your life will go. You just have to live it.
It was a long time before Charlie and I broke away from each other. “Come on, let’s go,” I said.
“Where are we going?”
“You owe me a pizza date,” I told him. “And we’re going to have to go out in public at some point.”
“All right,” he said. “You lead the way.”
I took his hand and led him out the door of Edgewater, and we walked into the future, together.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU:
To Laura Schechter, for her generosity, her unwavering support, and most especially for the “spark” of this book—“Hey, you should write a Grey Gardens YA, with sisters!” Laura, I hope I produced something that makes you proud.
To the YA writing community, for inviting me into the fold long before I had my own official YA book on the shelf. And to one YA writer in particular, my dear, sweet friend Sarah Mlynowski, who opened up the “writers’ lounge” to me in the spring of 2011 and who has welcomed me nearly every day since: Thank you for everything. Thanks also go to my fellow lounge regulars: Elizabeth Eulberg, Jennifer E. Smith, and Robin Wasserman; to the Type A Retreaters: Emily Heddleson, Lexa Hillyer, Jess Rothenberg, Leila Sales, Rebecca Serle, and of course Laura Schechter (look, Laura—you’re in here twice!); to Adele Griffin and Erich Mauff, for the thousand ways they helped me get started; and to my Tuesday afternoon Writopia workshop students: You know who you are, and you are exceptional—infinite points to all.
To Altana Elings-Haynie, who introduced me to the real Orion; to her friends Rita and Chloe Callahan, who were the kindest hosts and the most patient teachers; and to the inimitable Regan Hofmann, who answered every last question I asked about horses.
To Isabella Carpi, Stephen Melzer and his son Jackson, Jennifer Michael, and Alyssa Siegel-Miles, whose anecdotes and expertise further informed the story.
To my friends who read the messy early chapters and helped me push through to the end of the book: Gracie Aaronson, Lindsay Aaronson, Samantha Aaronson, Fátima Ptacek, and Kai Williams. And to Meg Wolitzer, one of my all-time favorite writers: Thank you for reading every single version, for critiquing, for cheerleading, and mostly for being my friend.
To Arielle Warshall Katz, who is the model of the best friend in everything I write. To a few more essentials who put up with endless Edgewater-related discussions and who sometimes sent food: the Bressler/Shuffler family, Jen Calonita, Maria Crocitto, Erin Cummings, Jennifer Daly, Gitty Daneshvari, Julia DeVillers, Melissa Brown Eisenberg, Rachel Feld, the Fleischman/Tofsky family, Gayle Forman, Mary Gordon, Logan Levkoff, Melissa Losquadro, the Lucas family, Linda Mainquist, Wendy Mass, Lauren Myracle, Nina Nelson, Stacia Robitaille, Jennie Rosenberg, Kieran Scott, Katie Stein, Bianca Turetsky, and Rebecca and Jeremy Wallace-Segall. And extra special thanks to Geralyn Lucas, whose generosity knows no bounds.
To Sam Droke-Dickinson, Liane Freed, Angela Mann, and Cristin Stickles, for their willingness to read and their extremely kind words.
To my family: my father, Joel Sheinmel (first-reader extraordinaire); my mother, Elaine Sheinmel, and my stepdad, Phil Getter; my sister, Alyssa Sheinmel, and my brother-in-law, JP Gravitt; and my stepsiblings, their spouses, and the littles who aren’t so little anymore: Nicki, Andrew, Zach, Sara, and Tesa. If I had all the families in the world to choose from, I’d still pick you to be mine.
To Tamar Rydzinski at the Laura Dail Literary Agency, Inc., for her enthusiasm and her invaluable notes. And to the amazing Laura Dail herself, who knew instinctively the story I wanted to tell, who got behind the book in a major way, and who wouldn’t rest until it was in the right hands.
Speaking of those right hands, to the brilliant, indefatigable Tamar Brazis, the editor of my dreams. And to everyone at Abrams/Amulet books, especially Orlando Dos Reis, Emily Dowdell, Jen Graham, Maria T. Middleton, and Nicole Russo. Thanks also to Kristen Barrett, Leslie Kazanjian, and Lauryn McSpadden for their careful reads of the manuscript.
To two women I never met, Edith Bouvier Beale and her mother, Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale, for being so staunchly themselves, and so inspiring.
Finally, enduring thanks to my grandmother, Doris V. Sheinmel, who was the most hardworking, uncomplaining, and extraordinary person I’ve ever known. Grammy, I miss you every day, and every day I try to live up to you. This book is for you. (I’m sorry about all the curses.)
With love,
Courtney
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COURTNEY SHEINMEL is the author of My So-Called Family, Positively, All the Things You Are, Sincerely, and the Stella Batts series for young readers. She lives in New York City.
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