Parallelogram Omnibus Edition

by Brande, Robin

  My mom stared at Halli in shock. “But...I don’t understand. Why would you want to leave? Did something happen?”

  “No, nothing happened,” Halli said. “I just want to move on with my life. There’s nothing for me here anymore. I want to go someplace else.”

  Halli had laid it out so calmly, so rationally, she assumed my mother would see the sense of it. But that’s because she didn’t understand the kind of relationship my mom and I have. She wasn’t counting on my mother suddenly bursting into tears.

  “Audie, what is going on with you?” My mom’s face scrunched up in that way I can’t bear to see. She doesn’t cry that often, but when she does, it’s like her whole face falls apart. Every ounce of grief is just there for you to see.

  Halli adjusted her strategy. Obviously my mom was going to need more than a simple, logical argument. Fine—she could do more.

  Halli reached out and patted my mother’s hand. But she wasn’t backing down—she was going to get that permission form signed, one way or the other.

  “You’ve changed,” my mother cried. “I feel like we barely talk anymore. There’s something wrong. What happened? Tell me, sweetie, please. Is it because of Will?”

  “Will? Of course not. Why would it be because of him?”

  Um, maybe because I’d poured my heart out to my mother not that long ago, confessing that I’d secretly been in love with Will for a long time, and that he’d broken my heart for the last time by showing me a ring he bought for Gemma. I was already trying to get over him at the time, but that did it. I knew it was hopeless—I’d never had a chance with him, and never would.

  “Something has to have happened,” my mom said. She reached for a napkin and blew her nose. It seemed like the worst of the crying was over, but her face still looked wracked with emotion. “You don’t just decide something like this out of the blue. Please, honey, tell me. Whatever it is, you know I’m on your side.”

  Halli paused. She chose her words carefully.

  “Haven’t you ever been in a situation where you woke up one day and realized the road you were walking down was the wrong one?”

  My mother sniffled. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “That’s what happened to me,” Halli said. “I’ve been working so hard, driving myself forward, and it wasn’t until last week that I stopped to ask myself whether I still wanted the things I thought I did.”

  “So...Columbia?” my mother asked.

  “I don’t want that anymore.”

  This must have been both a shock and a relief to my mother. She’d been telling me over and over not to put all my hopes on that one university—to apply other places, to even think about going to the university in our town and still live at home. But it probably never occurred to her I might give up the dream of Columbia entirely.

  “What do you want?” my mother asked.

  “I want to move to Colorado,” Halli said. “I want to go to Professor Whitfield’s college.”

  My mother’s mood instantly darkened. She wasn’t a fan of Professor Whitfield’s. In fact, she’d been suspicious of him for a while.

  “So that’s what this is about?” she said. “Did Professor Whitfield talk you into this? Leaving school, forgetting about Columbia—”

  “Not at all,” Halli said. “I’m the one who asked him.”

  “So you’ve already talked to him about this?” she asked, her voice getting wobbly again. “Before talking to me?”

  “I wanted to make sure I could go there,” Halli said. She was just making it up as she went along now, trying to say what she thought my mother wanted to hear. “He said he can get me a scholarship. It’ll pay for everything.”

  And that much was kind of true. Sort of. Professor Whitfield had said he could probably get Halli—or rather, me—a scholarship through the physics department, and it would pay for things like tuition and books. But only the bare essentials. Halli would still have to find somewhere to live, and some way to afford it, so there were still a lot of details to work out.

  But she’d finally hit on something my mother was interested in. Paying for college has always been a major issue in our house. And now as far as my mom was concerned I was telling her I’d solved that problem—not only by giving up my dream of Columbia, but also by finding a school that would pay for me to go there. Maybe going to Colorado wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  “But honey, you could stay here,” my mother tried again. “Didn’t your teacher say the University of Arizona has an excellent physics program?”

  “I want to study with Professor Whitfield,” Halli said. “As soon as I can. He said he could start the process as soon as I graduate. I don’t want to waste any more time in high school. I want to move on with my life.”

  Halli made a persuasive case. My mother probably felt that. But she wasn’t ready to give up on me yet.

  “You said you have to take some test?”

  “Algebra,” Halli said. “And then I’m done.”

  All the tension drained from my mother’s face. Her shoulders relaxed again. She didn’t exactly smile, but if it had been me instead of Halli sitting across from her, I would have seen that she wanted to.

  “You have to take an algebra test,” my mom repeated. “And then you can graduate.”

  “Yes.”

  My mother cleared her throat. She opened up the folder Halli had given her. “So the only things you need to graduate are finishing that test, and getting my permission, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” my mother said. “As soon as you pass your test, then I’ll sign these forms. Okay?”

  That seemed fair to Halli. She nodded.

  “And until then,” my mom went on, “you’ll go to school. All of your classes. So if you can’t pass this test until, let’s say, some time next year, you’ll still stay in school until you can graduate. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Halli said. She wasn’t expecting it to be so easy in the end. She, too, had to suppress a smile.

  My mother closed the file. “It’s settled then. I’m going to go change, and then I’d love to have some of that delicious dinner you made. Okay, honey?”

  She stood up, leaned over, and gave Halli a hug. Halli took it. It seemed the least she could do after a successful negotiation.

  “I’m glad we could have this talk,” my mom said. “I was wondering what was on your mind. Please don’t ever keep things from me. You know I love you, and whatever it is, we can work it out.”

  “All right,” Halli told her.

  “Oh, and if you really want to attend Professor Whitfield’s college,” my mom added, “I think you and I should visit there together. I think it’s time I met this man who seems to have so much influence over you, don’t you think?”

  Halli had zero interest in having my mother tag along whenever Halli finally made it back to Colorado. But she smiled nevertheless. “Sure.” She could figure a way out of it when the time came.

  “I love you, honey.”

  Halli smiled. “Me, too.”

  My mom headed off toward her bedroom. Free to be herself again, Halli frowned.

  Dealing with people—someone’s parent, in particular—was such a waste of time. Halli needed her freedom. As soon as possible.

  But now it was up to her.

  She took the vegetables out of the oven, then went to my room. And started looking over the first of the algebra problems Albert sent to her.

  Doing something feels better than doing nothing, Ginny liked to say. Makes you feel like you have some control. Even when you don’t.

  It was true, tackling the worksheets did make Halli feel better.

  I could have used some of that feeling myself at the moment. I wasn’t in charge of even the smallest part of my life. I couldn’t even order Halli’s eyelids to stay open. Or focus on a thought for more than a few seconds at a time. What would Ginny have said about that?

  Things happen. There’s nothing special a
bout the body. Get to it, then. This body isn’t going to row itself...

  “Halli?”

  A soft, warm hand squeezing mine. As comforting and delicate as a pillow against my palm.

  “Halli dear? Can you hear me?”

  I forced my crusty eyes open. And gazed up into the clear blue eyes of a woman I once thought I could trust.

  “Mrs...Scott?”

  The elderly woman smiled back at me. With the kind of tenderness in her expression that a grandmother might have for her grandchild. “Oh, Halli dear. How precious you are. We’re all so thankful you’re alive. But we don’t have much time, I’m afraid. So I’ll speak quickly.”

  I definitely needed to wake up for this.

  23

  I stared at Mrs. Scott in amazement.

  “What are...” But I couldn’t complete the sentence before I started coughing. My voice felt and sounded like sand being scraped over concrete. Like I hadn’t spoken in days.

  Mrs. Scott reached for the cup of water beside my bed and helped me lean forward while I took a few sips. Then she gently laid me back down again.

  I still couldn’t believe she was there.

  “You’re wondering why I disappeared,” she said.

  I nodded.

  I’d first met Mrs. Scott at that board meeting Halli’s parents arranged. At first I thought she was my ally—Halli’s ally—and that I could trust her to give me good advice. When I realized she was from London, I even asked her if I could come stay with her once I’d concocted the scheme to travel there to find Daniel.

  We’d made plans for me to leave with her the following morning. But when I arrived at dinner that night, she was already gone. Without a word, just gone.

  Which made me think Jake had been right about her: that despite what she said about admiring Ginny Markham, in fact she and Ginny had been bitter enemies. Which meant she also lied about wanting to help Halli.

  “I came to apologize,” Mrs. Scott said. “To explain, really. I couldn’t bear there being any misunderstanding.”

  “You...left...” I managed.

  “Yes. Quite against my will,” Mrs. Scott said. “One moment I was dressing for dinner, and the next I was being escorted to the dock and then promptly rushed onto a plane and flown back here in the middle of the night.”

  I’m sure I looked confused.

  “Why, you ask?” she said. I nodded. “Because your parents felt threatened, I imagine. That young man—Jake, I believe—is undoubtedly contacting them right now to report that I’m here. I’m certain they don’t want me to see you.”

  “Why?” I asked before lapsing into another coughing fit.

  “Because, my dear, they don’t want you to know anything about what they’re doing.”

  Before I could ask any more, the door to my room swung open, and one of the nurses came in. “You’re awake! I’ll tell the doctor.” She pressed a button on her collar.

  Mrs. Scott and I both stopped talking.

  The nurse fussed over me for a few minutes, freshening my water, straightening my bedding, checking the tubes connected to my arm. Mrs. Scott sat beside me the whole time, still holding my hand.

  “Poor lamb,” she said at one point. “If only you’d come home with me.”

  The prospect of that made me suddenly tear up. I didn’t want to be in that hospital. How I would have loved being in some happy, comfortable home with this homey, comfortable woman.

  Mrs. Scott patted my hand. “You’re welcome any time, Halli dear. As soon as you’re well enough to leave, please do come stay with me. I would be relieved to take care of you.”

  I nodded. And gulped back the pain in my throat. It’s a bad idea to try not to cry at the same time you have no saliva in your mouth. It creates this whole backlog of dry meeting wet, and makes you feel like you’re holding back a tidal wave with every miserable swallow.

  The door to my room opened again, and in walked Jake.

  “Mrs. Scott,” he said politely, “I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave.”

  “Why?” I croaked out. I clutched Mrs. Scott’s hand all the harder.

  “You’re too weak,” Jake told me. “You shouldn’t have any visitors at all. Your parents specifically ordered that.”

  “I don’t care what my—” but then the coughing took me over. And proving Jake’s point, I kept on coughing so hard the nurse had to shoo them both out so she could attend to me. She pressed the button on her collar again, murmured, “Urgent,” and supported my back while my whole chest rattled with the coughs. By the time the fit was over, Mrs. Scott was gone.

  And so was I. Exhausted by the effort, Halli’s body slipped back under the waves again.

  24

  “What are you doing?” Lydia asked.

  It was Tuesday back in my world, three days and several time zones behind the universe where I was currently staying, and it was Halli’s first full day of school. When the bell rang for what she knew was my lunchtime, she didn’t head for the cafeteria, the way I always did, but instead found a quiet spot on the grass to eat her peanut butter sandwich and keep going through the algebra worksheets Albert had sent her.

  Halli looked up and shielded my eyes from the sun. “Heya!” she greeted Lydia. “Have a seat.”

  Lydia looked around. This was highly irregular. We always sat at the same table inside and always ate the exact same things every day: yogurt, an apple, and a miniature candy cane for Lydia, a bag of chips or some other junk food for me.

  “It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it?” Halli said. She was wearing a pair of my shorts and a sweatshirt over the T-shirt she’d run in to school. She looked very sporty. She sat with my legs stretched out, trying to give my poor pasty limbs a chance at the sun.

  “What’s all that?” Lydia asked, pointing to the worksheets.

  “Algebra.”

  “Hm. So I heard.”

  Halli cleared them away to make room. “Sit down. Are you teaching tonight?”

  “Um, no. Not until Thursday afternoon.” Lydia still seemed skeptical, but she took one more look around, then tucked her skirt under her and sat on the grass.

  “Could I come as your guest again?” Halli asked.

  “Sure, if you want.”

  Lydia had mentioned that all the yoga teachers got free guest passes. Halli knew she had to be very cost-conscious until she had money of her own.

  “I still don’t understand what’s changed your mind,” Lydia said. “I’ve been begging you for what, two years?”

  “And you were right for two years,” Halli said. “I should have listened to you before.”

  It was such a disarming thing to say, Lydia couldn’t argue anymore. Which was exactly Halli’s strategy. She’d found from experience that if you agree with people right away, it takes all the fire out of them.

  Halli leaned back on my elbows and tipped my face to the sun. “It’s so gorgeous out today. I wish we never had to go back inside.”

  “Hm,” Lydia answered. She studied me over the top of her yogurt container and ate a few spoonfuls before she spoke.

  “Your mom called my mom last night, you know.”

  “Hm,” Halli answered back. She kept my eyes closed and soaked up the warmth.

  “She was crying.”

  Halli popped open one eye. Then she closed it again. She waited for Lydia to say more.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Lydia asked. “We spent all day together on Sunday.”

  “I know,” Halli said. “But I wasn’t sure yet. I didn’t know until yesterday.”

  “And then...what? You just decided out of the blue to ditch all your plans about Columbia and New York, and run off to Colorado instead? And not even wait until graduation? What’s going on, Audie?”

  Halli sighed. She sat up and wrapped my arms around my knees.

  “It’s just time,” she said. “I need a change. A big change.”

  “Since when?” Lydia asked. “Why?”

  Halli crafted he
r words carefully. “You know what you said to that woman in your class the other day? About how she shouldn’t get frustrated that she couldn’t do all the poses, because one day, if she kept practicing, pop—her body would change?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So that’s how it was with me. Pop. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and then suddenly yesterday I knew.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Lydia said. “You’ve been obsessed with Columbia and the Amazing Professor Hawkins since what—junior high?”

  Halli shrugged. “I don’t know what else to say.”

  Lydia ate in silence for a few moments. She unwrapped her candy cane and sucked on that. Then she pointed out the obvious.

  “I heard you have to pass an algebra test.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you can’t do algebra.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Lydia laughed. “‘We’ll see’? Audie, that’s like saying you might be able to breathe underwater.”

  “I have a plan,” Halli said.

  Lydia rolled her eyes. “Okay.”

  The bell rang. Lunch was over. Physics was next.

  She wasn’t worried about it. Not the way I would have been if I had never taken it before. Halli wasn’t worried about any of my classes. She had already spent the morning confidently telling teachers “I don’t know” whenever they bothered to call on her. She even kept a straight face in World History when Ms. Travers asked her some question about the Vietnam War—a war Halli had never heard of. There hadn’t been any wars in her world since the last one in the 1940s.

  So she’d handle Physics just the same, with as many “I don’t knows” as it took to get her through the time. She didn’t care if Mr. Dobosh looked at her funny, or if any of the students did, because none of them meant anything to her life. The only class that sounded even somewhat promising was my last one, Algebra Support, since it sounded like it could at least help her in her quest to pass the test and get out of there as soon as possible.

  “Let’s eat inside tomorrow,” Lydia said. “It’s too itchy out here.”

  “Depends on the weather,” Halli said. “If it’s like this, I have to stay outside.”