by Amy McNamara
IT’S SAFE TO SAY THE LAST THING I expected to see after I dropped off Dominic and let myself back into the apartment was this trail of clothes.
I stand there blinking a second, key in hand, wondering what kind of break-in looks like this. But it’s not a break-in. It’s clothes. At one p.m. on a Sunday. Mom’s and someone else’s, strewn as if from an explosion that started near the front door, with a contrail leading through the dining room, down the hall, and into the open door of her bedroom.
I freeze, confused. Marcel starts sniffing the Levi’s. This is such an unexpected household equation. Apartment early afternoon is supposed to equal empty. Not big shoes and navy boxers.
I walk toward the hall.
“Um, hello?”
The minute my eyes spot some skin, I start taking fast steps backward. I’m pretty sure all I saw were the bottoms of a pair of bare feet, but those large soles were more than enough.
A bra, which cannot be my mother’s because it is made of a lace that has more in common with air than clothing, is caught on one of her fern’s leggy fronds.
“Evie!?” My mom sounds frantic. “Is that you? Honey? What are you doing home? Don’t come in here!” The last part sounds a little bit like a scream.
Like I’m an intruder, storming the place.
I drop Marcel’s leash on the floor and turn to leave. This is one thing too many. Gotta get out of this place.
I look around the apartment, at all the work I did to clean it and how it still looks dark and shabby. I hate it. It’s stuck in the past. And my map on the table. It’s a mess. Nothing here to show me what I do with this, where I’m supposed to go next.
I tug open the heavy linen drawer in the sideboard and pull out the envelope of cash my mom keeps for household emergencies. This is definitely an emergency. I’m just not sure what kind.
I walk out the door.
Small Falling Parts
I SPEND A FEW PANICKED MINUTES looking up trains out of New York before I realize running away from your life only makes sense if you have somewhere to go. I sit on a curb a second, crushed. Then I text Jack.
Are you home? Can I come over?
His reply is immediate.
Door’s open.
I turn off my phone. I don’t want to be tracked.
When I get there, Jack looks so glad to see me that he opens his mouth and no sound comes out. But then I start to cry, and he comes back into himself, taking me by the hand, pulling me gently into their penthouse.
By the time I manage to choke out why I came, and why I’m holding a random wad of cash, he’s pulled it together, and for a minute at least we pretend nothing’s weird between us.
“Evie,” he says, when I’ve finished talking. “You have to go back there.”
I stare at him, but he’s serious.
“Did you not hear what I said? I just walked in on my mom having sex with some guy, like she’s the teenager and I’m the parent!”
Jack blinks at me a minute before hugging me, tight. Then he pushes me back, his hands on my shoulders so I have to look him in the face.
“I’m totally hoping you coming here means we’re still friends, and we need to talk, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you, but you have to go home. Face your mom. You’re not mad about this. It just scared you because it was unexpected, but lots of things are unexpected, and some of them are good.”
We’re standing in almost exactly the same spots we were in when he tried to kiss me. He waits for me to say something, and when I don’t he goes on. “Do you know how long you’ve been telling me you wished your mom had a boyfriend? Forever. You’ve been saying that forever. And if you left the way you said, you know she’s freaking out.”
Jack has a soft spot for my mom, but he’s right. I’m full of a thousand emotions, disoriented, spinning wildly on my axis.
“There’s nothing wrong with what she’s doing, it just caught you by surprise.”
“I’m a snow globe,” I say.
Jack doesn’t even blink. He’s used to this kind of statement from me. He knows I mean I’m shaken up, transparent, and full of small falling parts.
“We’ll always be friends,” I add, because I need him to know that, and it’s the truest thing I can think of right now.
Jack throws his arms around me again and hugs me so close for a second I can’t breathe.
“Oh, snow globe, I’ve missed you so much.”
I hug him back. Things are messed up between us, but I’ve missed him too.
He lets me go, steps back with a sigh, then puts his two warm hands on my shoulders.
“Don’t run away,” he says. “Face this.”
I hug him one more time, then turn to go, so I can.
No Rule Book
MY MOM PRACTICALLY RUNS to the door when she hears my key in the lock.
“Evie! Thank heavens!”
I step into the apartment and glance around really fast in case there’s still some guy in here. There isn’t.
I’m stiff when she hugs me. Then I drop my defenses and hug her back. Tight.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I say, my mouth in her hair.
“No, honey, I’m so, so sorry! I don’t know what we were thinking, honestly!” I can feel the heat of embarrassment rising off her. “I feel terrible! David and I saw your note—we thought we had—but you don’t want to hear that.”
She takes me by the hand and leads me to the couch.
“David? Did you meet on your retreat?”
Her face falls. “Oh, honey, no. I’m so sorry. I did this all wrong. I wasn’t at a retreat this weekend, I was with . . . we . . .”
“You lied?” I stiffen, move away from her a bit.
She’s quiet a second, then nods. “We wanted to protect you. In retrospect, it wasn’t the best decision.”
I turn my head away.
“I don’t understand. What’s going on? I’m so confused.”
She sighs. “You know, I dated someone after your dad died.”
“You did?” I swivel to stare at her.
She smiles, but her mouth goes down at the corners.
“You were so young—he made your loft for you.”
“What? Why do I have no memory of this?”
She looks really sad for me and pushes a strand of hair from my eyes. “It was a terrible time. We’d just lost the condo.”
But we’d lost so much more, and that’s the part I push away all the time. I’ve tried so hard not to be like her, but I’m exactly like my mom. I refuse to face the hard things. I don’t make a sound, but tears come, run down the sides of my face and pool in my ears. I’m not sure why I’m crying, if it’s because we lost my dad, or because she has this life I didn’t know about, or if it’s maybe from relief. I keep my lips pressed tight.
My mom pulls me back into the cushions. I let myself relax against her.
“He was a kind man,” she says after a while, wiping tears from my cheeks. “Paul Opie. Mrs. Cohen used to come and sit with you when he and I went out.”
This fragment of my childhood rushes forward from wherever it’s been hiding. Mrs. Cohen in our kitchen making beet soup. We used to stain our lips with the cut beets.
“Opie?” I wipe my face on my sleeve. “God, what if you’d married him? I’d be Evie Opie.”
She smiles. “I know. Funny name. Funny man. He was so kind—I was completely lost without your dad.” She sighs. “You know, your dad’s cancer—” She stops a second, swallows. “It was so fast. He was gone before we knew what was happening. It took me a long time to feel anything beyond clamoring panic every time I opened my eyes.”
She’s quiet a minute. Kisses the top of my head.
“Paul built your loft for you. I felt so lucky! You were thrilled, so happy to scramble up there, so high, every night.” She laughs, but it doesn’t sound happy. Exhales. “I was terrified you’d somehow fall out the window in your sleep. Evie, for the longest time it felt like anything could be taken from me,
at any time.”
I know the feeling.
“But you didn’t stay with him.”
“I didn’t.” She touches her necklace. I look closely at it. It’s new. A small round diamond set in gold. It’s delicate. Beautiful.
“I couldn’t imagine opening my heart up again, not really, not the way I did with your dad. It was all so much, raising you alone, looking for work. I needed him more than I felt for him. It didn’t seem fair to Paul.”
She eyes me closely. “There’s no rule book for any of this,” she says, wistful. “I decided if I was going to see anyone else, I’d do it in private. I’d shelter you from the whims of my heart until I met someone worth bringing into your life too. You’d had enough loss. But today—”
Color climbs her cheeks.
I look at my hands.
“I’m so sorry we surprised you, honey, I really am. We were getting ready to tell you—”
“Tell me what?”
She twists the necklace again.
“David and I are planning to move in together.”
My mouth falls open.
“Are we losing our apartment? Those envelopes—”
She shakes her head. “No, honey. I mean, you know how things are here, they’d love us to go, but that has nothing to do with it.” She turns my chin so our eyes meet. “He’s a good man, Evie. I love him.”
“Love?” The word hangs there a second. My mom’s in love. It’s a shock.
“We’ve been seeing each other for almost a year, spending time together when we’re not with our kids. We’re not in a rush, but we want our families to meet.”
“Families?” It’s a lot to take in.
She smiles at me, huge, and I swallow past the ache in my throat.
“David’s divorced. His kids were at Bly when you were little. Ezra’s your age. Do you remember him?”
Small kid. Nervous-looking. A shock of white-blond hair.
“Oh my God. Ezra Maddox was a crayon-breaking, play-dough-eating devil.”
“From what David says, he’s come a long way,” she laughs. “He and his sister are at Auden.”
I snort. Auden. Boarding school kids. I fiddle with the string on my hoodie while I process everything. Suddenly her late days at work and weekend inventories make more sense. “Oh my God, that day I was here with Em and you were home . . . ?”
She nods. “We almost told you then, but Emma was here. He and I took a day off to talk about things, our future.”
“Your future.”
Her eyes are on me. I close mine. This is moving fast. Jack’s right, I wished for this, but now that it’s here I can’t really make sense of it.
“There’s no rush,” she says softly. “We can wait until you’re all off to college. Ingrid’s only in tenth, and she may want us to wait. It might be a while.”
Her news goes off in me like one last bomb. The weird buzzing emanating from my mother when college comes up is about her, not me. She’s electric with love and I’m holding her back. I draw my knees in tight to my chest, drop my head, and sob.
“Oh honey,” my mom sighs, wrapping around me again and rocking me a little. She lets me cry a minute.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I want you to be happy. . . .”
She shushes me, but I need to say what I feel. Keeping it in hasn’t been getting me anywhere.
“Everything’s changing. Em and I . . .” I stop. Start again. “I can’t picture the future. I don’t know what to do about college and I’m scared I’ll disappoint you.”
“Honey.” Mom strokes my forehead, her hand cool. “You never disappoint me.”
“I’m a screw-up, Mom,” I say, pulling my hood around to wipe my face. “I’m not gonna get in anywhere. I mean, what school’s going to take me, much less give me money?”
She lets me cry another minute before she clears her throat and starts again.
“Evie. Your grades are not that bad.” Her voice is low and calm, the way it was when I broke my wrist. She strokes my hair. “I didn’t realize you were so worried about this. Bly’s competitive, I know. Has the pressure been terrible?”
I shrug.
She sighs. “We’re good at not talking about the big things, aren’t we? We’ll have to work on that.” She leans back and points toward the dining room table. “I was looking at your project over there, and it seems pretty clear that art school is the first place you should look. Evie, you’re so talented.”
I start to object, talk about money, but she shushes me.
“We’ll figure it out. You can do work-study, we’ll take loans.”
She’s quiet a minute. I look up.
“I’ve been depressed and leaning on you.” She whisks away a tear with her fingertip. “And I’m endlessly sorry for that. But I’m trying. I’m getting help . . . and if you’d like, you could see a counselor too? Maybe we could work on talking about some of the more difficult things?”
“Like you meeting guys,” I tease, feeling guilty for making her cry.
She tilts my chin up and looks at me with a rueful expression. “Like how you always try to spare my feelings, try to make me smile. But yes, we can also talk about David. I wish your dad were here to see you. You’re so much like him. Practical, capable. I’m sorry I’ve been so bad at all this.”
I cover my face with my hands.
We sit there like that, me wrapped in her arms, our hearts beating together. Marcel lumbers over and lies on the floor by our feet. He settles in with a sigh.
“Em’s been leaning on you too.”
My eyes are a river. “I thought she’d be okay if I were a better friend,” I say, ashamed by how naive it sounds.
She wipes my tears with her palms and kisses me on the head again, like she can kiss away every hopeless thought I’ll ever have.
“Oh honey, I’m sorry. Em’s problems aren’t yours to fix. I’ve shown David a few of your maps, Evie, and he says—”
I move my head away from hers.
“What? Mom!” I squeeze my eyes shut tight. Tighter.
“He’s a graphic designer. He says you have a great eye.”
I moan.
“He suggested that next year you could do an internship at his firm? For your Senior Endeavor? You’re talented, so visual, he thinks you might—”
“Slow down!” I put my hands up.
“Yes, okay.” She nods. “Of course.”
My stomach growls, loud and long.
“Hungry?” She stands and pulls me up by the hand.
“Starving.” I let her tug me to the kitchen. I don’t remember when I last ate.
“Let’s see what we’ve got. How about cake toast?”
Cake toast. One of the few memories I have of my dad, his treatment for middle-of-the-night growing pains. It involves canned frosting and lots of rainbow sprinkles.
“Oh my God, cake toast sounds perfect.”
My mom opens the corner cupboard, then crouches on the countertop, twisting sideways to reach into the very back of the pantry.
“Hang on . . . ,” she says. “Aha! Take this.” She hands out a dusty jar of martini onions. “I can feel it!”
In her soft rose-colored T-shirt, and with her hair gathered in a loose ponytail, my mom looks so pretty reflected in the window over the sink. Happy. She should be in love. Why did I think she was done with that, somehow? That love was something a person could be done with, do without? Suddenly I want more than anything for it all to work out, for David to be decent, to make her happy.
“Ta-da!” Mom turns, victorious. She holds a red-lidded tub of vanilla cream-cheese frosting high, seal intact. “See? A more organized mother could not offer you this.”
I grab a jar of sprinkles from behind the rest of the spices and we clink them together like champagne.
“Never let it be said I didn’t cook for you.” My mom laughs.
“I never will.”
“To Daddy,” she says, popping the top and lifting a frosting-covere
d finger.
“To Daddy,” I echo, dipping my own finger. “And to us.”
We’ll move forward. Be done with the ways we’ve held ourselves back.
Rebecca & Enid
MY MOM AND I WERE UP late last night, practicing what I’ll say to the TeenART people about my maps. And, after a last-minute freak-out session slash pep talk by the bathrooms with Jack, I’m finally ready to hike up to Ms. Vax’s room for my interview. When I showed him my Starbridge/Constellation and ran through what I planned to say, Jack leaned back and looked at me with total admiration. He let out a low whistle and said, Wow, Eves, that’s one cool celestial event.
Then he left so I could nervous-pee one more time, check and double-check the bobby pins holding my hair twist, and put on some lipstick for luck. I’m as prepared as I can be.
It’s not until I’m rounding the landing to the fourth floor studios that my phone buzzes in my bag.
I pull it out.
Where are you?
It’s Em.
I stop and blink at the screen. Her timing’s surreal. Then I drop it back in my bag. Before I can get my bag back up on my shoulder, though, it buzzes again.
Stop avoiding me. I need you.
I can’t breathe a minute. Stand frozen in the stairwell light.
You’re back? I text, my thumb hesitating a few seconds before I hit Send.
I’m here, at school. Mandi said she just saw you and
Jack on 3rd by the bathrooms but that’s where I am
and it’s empty.
I lean against the wall in the stairwell and chew a hangnail from my thumb. What am I supposed to do?
???
I can’t talk to her now, not yet, not until my interview’s over. This is too important to mess up, and thinking about what I need to say to her makes my stomach hot. I can’t do both. We never even talked about TeenART.
???
I take a huge breath. Let it out slowly. What am I doing? This is insane. I have to get up to the studio.
Sorry! I’m busy! I write. Call you later.
Then, after a sec, I add XO.
No!
Eves!
Please!
I have to talk to you now. It’s important. Can’t wait.