by Sarah Dessen
The last box was so light that when I first yanked it out, I thought it must be empty. Inside, however, I found a quilt, recognizing it after a moment as the one my mom had given me the day my dad and I had left for Montford Falls. I knew I’d taken it then, and so must have dumped it off with the clothes and books at some other point and not realized it. Unlike the one on our couch, it still felt new, stiff, unused, the squares neatly stitched, not missing any threads. I put it back, pushing the box in with the others.
It was so weird to find a part of my past here, in this place that was no part of me at all. Tucked away in a bottom floor, underground, like Dave’s storm cellar. I got to my feet, sliding the Gert into my pocket, and covered Super Shitty again before picking up my bag and heading back upstairs.
My mom was still busy with the twins as I sat down at the massive kitchen island on one of about ten matching leather bar stools and booted up my computer. As it whirred through its familiar setup, I let myself, for the first time in hours, think about Dave. It had just been too hard, too entirely shameful, to think of his expression—a mix of surprise, studiousness, and disappointment—as he’d looked at that list of profiles with everyone else. A clean slate, he’d said about that moment when I knocked him down. Real. He knew better now.
I opened my browser, clicking over to Ume.com and typing my e-mail into the search box. Within ten seconds, the same list they’d seen was in front of me: Liz Sweet, the newest and most sparse, on top, all the way down to Mclean, the one I’d had back home in Tyler all those years ago. I was just clicking on it when I heard the chime of a doorbell from behind me.
I got up, walking over to the stairs. “Mom?” I called, but there was no answer, which, in a house this big, was not exactly surprising.
The doorbell sounded again, so I went down and peered out the window to see a tall, pretty, blonde woman in jeans and a cable-knit sweater standing on the welcome mat, carrying a shopping bag. A toddler around Maddie and Connor’s age, with brown curly hair, was on her hip. When I opened the door, she smiled.
“You must be Mclean. I’m Heidi,” she said, sticking out her free hand. Once we shook, she handed me the bag. “This is for you.”
I raised my eyebrows, opening it. “Bathing suits,” she explained. Sure enough, I saw a swatch of black, and another of pink. “I wasn’t sure what you wold like, so I just pulled a couple. If you hate them all, we have tons more at the store.”
“Store? ”
“Clementine’s?” she said as the little girl leaned her head on her shoulder, looking at me. “It’s my boutique, on the boardwalk.”
“Oh,” I said, “right. We were there earlier.”
“So I heard.” She smiled, looking down at the baby. “Thisbe here and I can’t stand the idea of anyone being in the vicinity of a heated pool and hot tub with no bathing suit. It just goes against everything we believe in.”
“Right,” I said. “Well . . . thanks.”
“Sure.” She leaned a bit to the right, looking past me. “Plus . . . it was an excuse to get over here and see Katherine, and not have to wait until the party tomorrow. I mean, it’s been ages! Is she around?”
Party? I thought. Out loud I said, “She’s upstairs. Giving the twins a bath.”
“Great. I’ll just run up super-quick and say hello, okay?” I stepped back as she came in, bouncing the baby and making her laugh as she ran up the stairs. I heard her take the next flight, followed by a burst of shrieking and laughing as she and my mom were reunited.
I went back over to the computer, sliding into my seat again. Above me, I could hear my mom and Heidi chattering, their voices quick and light, and as I scanned all my alter egos I realized that my mom had one now, too. Katie Sweet was gone, but Katherine Hamilton was a queen in a palace by the sea, with new friends and new paint on the walls, a new life. The only things out of place were that car, covered up and buried deep, and me.
My phone rang, and I glanced down, seeing my dad’s number. As soon as I picked up, he started talking.
“You don’t walk away from me like that,” he began. No hello, no niceties. “And you answer when I call you. Do you know how worried I’ve been?”
“I’m fine,” I said, surprised at the little flame of irritation, so new, I felt hearing his voice. “You know I’m with Mom.”
“I know that you and I have things to discuss, and that I wanted them discussed before you left,” he said.
“What’s to discuss? ” I asked him. “We’re moving to Hawaii, apparently.”
“I may have a job opportunity in Hawaii,” he corrected me. “No one is talking about you having to come as well.”
“What’s the alternative? Moving back to Tyler? You know I can’t do that.”
He was quiet for a moment. In the background, I could hear voices, Leo and Jason most likely, shouting orders to each other. “I just want us to talk about this. Without arguing. When I’m not up to my ears in the dinner rush.”
“You called me,” I pointed out.
“Watch it,” he said, his voice a warning.
I got quiet fast.
“I’m going to call you first thing tomorrow, when we’ve both had a night to clear our heads. No decisions until then. Okay? ”
“Okay.” I looked out at the ocean. “No decisions.”We hung up, and I closed my browser, folding all those Sweet girls back away. Then I walked up the stairs, following the sound of my mom’s and Heidi’s voices. I passed one bedroom after another, it seemed, the new-smelling carpet plush beneath my feet, before finally coming up on them, behind a half-closed door.
“. . . to be honest, I really didn’t think it through,” my mom was saying. “And with Peter not here, it’s that much more complicated. I think it was too much to take on, even though I thought it was what I really wanted to do.”
“You’ll be fine,” Heidi told my mom. “The house is finished, you survived the trip. Now all you have to do is just sit back and try to relax.”
“Easier said than done,” my mom said. Then she was quiet for a moment. All I could hear was splashing, the kids babbling. Then she said, “It was always a lot of fun in the past. But we’ve only been here a couple of hours and I’m already . . . I don’t know. Not feeling good about the whole thing.”
“Things will look better tomorrow, after you get some sleep,” Heidi said.
“Probably,” my mom agreed, although she hardly sounded convinced. “I just hope it wasn’t a mistake.”
“Why would it be a mistake?”
“Just because I didn’t realize . . .” she trailed off again. “Everything’s different now. I didn’t think it would be. But it is.”
I stepped back from the door, surprised at the sudden, stabbing hurt that rose up in my chest, flushing my face. Oh my God, I thought. Through all the moves, and all the distance, there had been one constant: my mom wanted me with her. For better or worse—and mostly worse—I never doubted that for a second. But what if I’d been wrong? What if this new life was just that, brand-new, like this gorgeous house, and she wanted to keep it fresh, no baggage? Katie Sweet had to deal with a moody, distant firstborn child. But Katherine Hamilton didn’t.
I turned, walking down that wide hallway, toward a foreign staircase in a house I didn’t know. I felt scared suddenly, like nothing was familiar, not even me. I grabbed my computer, stuffing it in my bag and taking the steps two at a time to the garage. I had a lump in my throat as I pushed open the garage door, cutting behind Peter’s massive SUV, over to Super Shitty. I pulled the cover off and threw my bag in the passenger seat, then realized I no longer had a key. I sat there a second, then, on a hunch, reached down beneath the floor mat, rooting around. A moment later, I felt the ridges on my finger, and pulled out my spare. Waiting for me, all this time.
The engine cranked, amazingly, and as it warmed up, I popped the trunk and got out. It wasn’t easy fitting all three bins in the small cargo space, but I managed. Then I found the garage door button, hit it, and climbed back in.
The street was dark, no cars in sight as I pulled out into the road. I had no idea where I was, but I knew how to get where I was going. I put on my blinker and turned right, toward North Reddemane.
Fifteen
Twenty-five minutes later, I was unlocking the door of room 811 of the Poseidon, feeling around for a light switch. When I found it, the décor, achingly familiar, jumped into place. Faded bedspread, shell painting over the headboard, slight tinge of mildew in the air.
The entire drive, I’d been leaning forward over the wheel, peering at the road, worrying that somehow everything I remembered would just be gone, wiped clean. I had a scare when I saw that Shrimpboats restaurant was boarded up, but then, over the next slight hill, I saw Gert’s, their OPEN 24 HRS sign visible. The Poseidon, same as I remembered it, was just beyond.
I thought the manager might ask questions, considering my age and the time of night, but she barely looked at me as she took my cash, sliding the room key across to me in return. “Ice machine’s at the end of the building,” she informed me, before turning back to her book of crossword puzzles. “Drink machine only takes bills, no change.”
I thanked her, then drove down, parking in front of my room. It took only a few minutes to pull the boxes to the door, another to get inside. Now, here I was. I sat down on the bed for a few minutes, looking around me, the surf pounding loudly just outside. Then I started to cry.
It was all just such a mess. Moving, running, changing: I couldn’t keep it all straight anymore, and didn’t want to. I felt so, so tired, tired enough to crawl under that old bedspread and sleep for days. No one knew where I was, not a soul, and while I thought this was what I wanted, I realized, in the quiet of that room, that it was the scariest thing of all.
I reached up, wiping my eyes and taking a shuddering breath. I knew I should go back to my mom’s, that she would be worried, that this would all look better tomorrow. But th at wasn’t home, and neither was Tyler, or Petree, or Westcott, or Montford Falls, or even Lakeview. I had no place, no one.
I picked up my phone, shoulders shaking, and looked at the keypad, glowing beneath my fingers. A blur of faces passed across my mind: my friends in Tyler, the girls from my cheer team in Montford Falls, the tech guys I’d hung with backstage in Petree. Then Michael, my surfer, all the way up to Riley and Deb. I’d known enough people for every minute of the day, and yet still didn’t have anyone as my two a.m. The one person I would have considered I wasn’t even sure wanted to talk to me anymore.
But what about warts and all? I thought, thinking of that black ring on Dave’s wrist. I looked down at my own wrist, the old Gert I’d tied there as I drove away from my mom’s. We each had circles now on our wrists, totally different and yet equally important. I knew my faults were many, my secrets even more. But I didn’t want to be alone. Not at 2:00 a.m., and not now.
I dialed the number slowly, wanting to get it right. Two rings, and he picked up.
“Yes,” I said after his hello.
“Mclean?” he asked. “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing and looking out my open door, at the ocean. “The answer’s yes.”
“The answer ...” he said slowly.
“You asked me to go out with you. I know you probably changed your mind. But you should know, the answer was yes. It’s always been yes when it comes to you.59
He was very quiet for a moment. “Where are you?”
I started crying again, my voice ragged. He told me to calm down. He told me it was going to be all right. And then, he told me he’d be there soon.
After we hung up, I went into the bathroom and washed my face, then used a nubby hand towel to dry off. I was so tired, and yet I knew I needed to stay awake, so I could be ready to explain when he showed up, whenever that might be. I sat down on the bed, kicking off my shoes, and reached for the remote. But then I looked at my boxes instead, and left it where it was.
I dragged the heavy box over, taking off the lid, and started stacking things around me on the bed. The books, the photos both framed and in albums, the yearbooks, all my notebooks and old journals, all in a circle, like numbers on a clock, with me in the middle.
I picked up a loose picture of me and my mom when I was in grade school, posing at a holiday parade. Beside it was a framed one from her and Peter’s wedding, she in white and him in a dark tux, me standing in front of them, the maid of honor. A third: the twins as infants, sleeping through a professional photo shoot, their tiny fingers entwined. Pictures in brass frames and wooden ones, frames backed with magnets and decorated with seashells. I’d had no idea how many I’d once had until now, and as I laid them out on my bed, beside the quilt, I searched for my own face in each one, recognizing my different incarnations.
At the parade, it was me when things were okay: parents still together, life intact. At the wedding, I was sleepwalking, with a fake smile and tired eyes. In the early ones with the twins, taken on holidays after the move, it was hair color and makeup, the clothes I was wearing that let me know who I was as the shutter clicked. I recognized Eliza’s ponytail and T-shirt with the school mascot, Lizbet’s thick dark eyeliner and black turtleneck, Beth’s crisp button-down shirt and plaid skirt. I looked at myself in the mirror across the room, all those things surrounding me. My hair was longer than it had been in a while, falling over my shoulders, and I had on jeans and a white T-shirt, a black sweater pulled over it. Tiny gold hoops in my ears, that single Gert on my wrist. No makeup, no persona, no costume. Just me, at least for now.
I looked over at the stack of notebooks, their covers decorated with my loopy handwriting, silly signatures, pictures I’d scribbled during boring classes. I took one out, opening it to a fresh page, taking in again the circle of pictures and history around me. Then I reached over to the bedside table, picking up the complimentary hotel pen, and started to write.
In Montford Falls, the first place I moved when I left, I called myself Eliza. The neighborhood we lived in was all these happy families, like something from an old TV show.
I stopped, read back over what I’d written, then looked outside. A single car passed by slowly, its lights brightening the empty street ahead. I turned another page.
In the next place, Petree, everyone was rich. I was Lizbet, and we lived in this high-rise apartment complex, all dark wood and metal appliances. It was like something out of a magazine: even the elevator was silent.
I yawned, then stretched my fingers. It was now 1:30.
When we moved to Westcott, we had a house right on the beach, so sunny and warm, and I could wear flip-flops all year-round. The first day, I introduced myself as Beth.
I could feel the tiredness, the heaviness of this long, long day bearing down on me. Stay awake, I thought. Stay here.
In Lakeview, the house had a basketball goal. I was going to be Liz Sweet.
The last time I remembered looking at the clock, it was 2:15. The next thing I knew, I was waking up, the room was barely light, and someone was knocking at my door.
I sat up, startled, and waited that moment until I remembered where I was. Then I pushed some pictures aside, sliding off the bed, and walked over to the door, pulling it open, so ready to see Dave’s face.
But it wasn’t him. It was my mom, and my dad was right beside her. They looked at me, then at the room behind me, their faces as tired as my own. “Oh, Mclean,” my mom said, putting a hand to her mouth. “Thank God. There you are.”
There you are. Like I’d been lost and now found. She opened her mouth to say something else, and my dad was suddenly talking, too, but for me it was just too much, in that moment, to even hear what came next. I just stepped forward, and then their arms were around me.
I was crying as my mom held me and my dad led us into the room and to the bed, easing the door shut behind us. My mom pushed aside those pictures, my dad the notebooks, as I lay down, curling myself into her lap and closing my eyes. I was so, so tired, and as she stroked my hair, I could he
ar them still talking, voices low. A moment later, there was another sound, too, distant but as recognizable as the waves outside. That of pages turning, one after another, a story finally being told.
Sixteen
“Wow,” I said. “You weren’t kidding. You didn’t need me.”
Deb turned around. When she saw me, her face broke into a wide smile. “Mclean! Hi! You’re back!”
I nodded, biting back a laugh as she ran toward me, her sock-feet padding across the floor. Partially, this was for her exuberant reaction, but also for the words, newly posted in my absence, on a poster on the wall behind her. NO SHOES! it read. NO SWEARING! NO, REALLY.
“I like your sign,” I told her as she gave me a hug.
“Honestly, I tried to do without the visual,” she said, glancing at it. “But there were scuff marks all over the streets! And the closer we get to the deadline, the more tempers are flaring. I mean, this is a civic activity. We need to keep it clean, both literally and figuratively.”
“It looks great.” It was true. There were still a few blank spots along the edge of the model, and I could tell the landscaping and smaller details hadn’t been put on yet, but for the first time, it looked complete, with buildings spread across the entire surface and no huge gaps left unfilled. “You guys must have been here every day, all day.”
“Pretty much.” She put her hands on her hips, surveying it along with me. “We kind of had to be, sinces, surveyideadline changed and everything.”
“Changed?” I said.
“Well, because of the restaurant closing,” she replied, bending down to flick a piece of dust off a rooftop. A second later, she glanced up at me. “Oh, God, you did know, right? About the restaurant? Because I totally thought, because of your dad—”
“I knew,” I told her. “It’s okay.”
She exhaled, clearly relieved, and bent back down, adjusting a building a bit. “I mean, May first was always ambitious, if I’m to be totally honest. I tried to act all positive, but secretly, I had my doubts. And then Opal comes up here last weekend and says we have to be all done and out, somehow, by the second week of April, because the building’s being sold. I about passed out I was so unnerved. I had to go count.”