“It was good.”
“How’s your stress?” she says lightly, as if that’s a question every mother asks.
“Not too bad.”
It’s not entirely a lie. I managed to keep breathing.
I return Mom’s touch by placing my hand on her sleeve. She could suddenly shift, but it’s a calculated risk. Mom would notice if I never touched her at all.
“How were the dog portraits?”
“Furry,” Mom says with a grimace.
Mom has a small business photographing weddings, senior portraits, and, yes, dogs. She used to do artistic photography, too, but it’s been ages since she did her own work.
Even though Mom shouldn’t have meddled, I say, “Thank you for getting Mandy as my Peer Pal.”
“I didn’t do that,” she says, turning onto the steeply curving road that will take us back down the hill. “I might have if I’d thought of it. That’s lucky!”
Could Mandy have requested me? The idea makes me floaty.
The heat and humidity have been working up to a fight all day, one big pressure cooker. By the time we pull into the driveway, heat lightning’s started lashing out and thunderclouds have a chokehold on the sun.
The trees whip and creak with the wind. Almost every year during hurricane season, one of the big trees surrounding our house topples over. Dad would always trim them back to protect the roof and power lines, but every once in a while, the wind helps them do damage anyway.
In the den, Jordan’s watching a wrestling match in the dark. Mom goes straight for the lamps, and Jordan cringes from the light like a vampire.
“Jordan, what have we said about food on the couch?” Mom says, and he glares at us over a bag of potato chips. It’s almost cute how his floppy hair and the bag frame his glower. Almost.
“Dad eats on the couch.” Leave it to Jordan to defend himself with one of Mom and Dad’s ongoing power struggles.
“Nice try,” says Mom. “Dad’s not here.”
She goes for the bag, but Jordan pulls back and it rips at the top. Yellow, greasy crumbs fly all over Mom’s upholstery and the Oriental rug.
For a moment, there’s a crease in Mom’s brow—maybe she’s going to let Jordan have it. Then she sighs the crease away.
“This is your mess to clean up,” Mom says, heading for the kitchen.
“I am cleaning up,” Jordan says as he picks potato chip crumbs off his shirt and eats them.
I flop down as far from Jordan as the sofa will allow, and he tucks his feet more tightly under himself. Sometimes, I think he can sense that I need extra space. More often, I think it’s his own thing, his line in the sand that no one, not even me, is allowed to cross.
Mom returns with the mini-vac like I knew she would.
“I thought you were going to spend the night over at Connor’s,” Mom says.
“I was.”
“And?”
“His brother goes back to college soon. They’re going hunting, them and their dad.” His face couldn’t be more flat, but he’s watching the wrestlers with an intensity that gives me the creeps, as if he’d like to try those moves on Connor—or maybe on us.
“You couldn’t go?” Mom says. “I would have let you go.”
“It’s a family thing,” Jordan says. He’s being manipulative, but it works. Mom doesn’t even fuss at him to take his feet off the table as she runs the vac under his legs.
“It’s probably for the best,” she says. “I wouldn’t want you tromping around under trees in a storm.”
“People hunt in rain all the time,” Jordan mutters, but Mom’s already on her way to the kitchen with the vacuum bag. Gauging by her stride, she’s on a mission.
“Mom’s in cleaning therapy mode,” I say, hoping to shift Jordan’s mood. “I bet if we ask nice, she’ll let us get pizza.”
Jordan doesn’t even look at me, but I’m the big sister. It’s my job not to let him get to me. “Mom, can we get pizza?” I call to the kitchen.
“Sure.”
Dad says ordering out is a lazy man’s waste of money. Mom says if we can afford it, why not treat ourselves once in a while? Since Dad left, we’ve been ordering out at least once a week.
“What did I tell you?” I say, but Jordan immediately ups the volume on the wrestling match. “I spoke a single sentence, and I’m trying to get you pizza.” I keep my voice light.
“I don’t care,” Jordan growls. “I can’t hear.”
“You know wrestling’s just soap operas for men.”
“I don’t care!” he says again. I’m not even sure he heard me.
I reach for the remote where it sits at Jordan’s side, but his hand clamps down on it. I almost touch him without thinking, but I catch myself in time, tuck my hands under my arms in case the impulse strikes again.
“Was it really Connor’s brother that made you not go?” I ask low so Mom can’t hear.
The thunderclouds rumble outside, but Jordan stays mum.
“It’s going to storm,” I say. “Maybe the power will go out. We could get the sleeping bags.”
Jordan always loved when the power went out. Dad used to let us set up camp around the fireplace and play board games by the kerosene lamp.
“I’m watching this,” Jordan says.
“I’ve got a bunch of school shopping to do this weekend. You want to come?”
“You’re way too excited about school shopping,” he says. “You don’t even care that he’s gone.”
“Of course I care. I can be excited and care.”
But Jordan’s hit a nerve. It feels wrong to be excited for a good thing that’s come out of something so bad. If Dad had stayed, he wouldn’t have allowed me to switch schools. If he does come home, he might even make me switch back.
The space around my fingers presses thicker than empty space should. If I reach across the sofa and squeeze Jordan’s hand, will that mean our fates are sealed? I’ll stay in school, and Dad will stay gone, and we can all stop wondering whether it’s final or not and move on?
But that feels wrong too. I don’t want to believe I have that kind of power.
I don’t want to test it and find out.
This temptation to break my own rules is a traitor’s impulse, like how drivers can get the sudden urge to speed up and fly off a bridge.
Jordan surprises me by turning the TV down. I’m afraid if I speak first, he’ll startle and run. Finally, he says, “I’m not fun anymore. That’s what Connor says. He says I’m mean.” Jordan pauses. “And his parents think we need a break.”
“Have you been mean?” I ask.
Jordan shrugs and turns the TV back up, even louder than before.
I know how he feels. When Mandy and I first drifted, it destroyed me, but I had no idea what to do about it. Everything had changed so quickly. I didn’t know how to be myself anymore, so how was I supposed to be someone’s friend?
“You know,” I say, “sometimes it makes sense to show when you’re upset, and sometimes it’s better to act like stuff doesn’t bother you. People want to have fun with their friends. They don’t want to be dealing with problems all the time.”
“Is that what you’re learning at your fancy acting school?” Jordan says. “How to act like our family doesn’t suck?”
I exhale, trying to free some of the tension that’s crept up on me during our talk. “Should I leave you to your misery?”
“Please,” he says, gruff and shrill at the same time.
I get up and head toward my room, but as soon as I enter the hallway, Jordan flies past me, his eyes red and dark. I press my back to the wall.
He doesn’t want to talk. I can’t change anything. It’s okay to let him be.
I am a terrible sister.
I lean against the door he just slammed. “Jordan, are you okay?”
If he opens the door, I’ll want to give him a hug. I’m all covered up, but our cheeks might touch, our hands brush, and that’s not allowed. I should be able to give
my crying brother a hug.
I almost hope he will fling the door open and hug me tight so I can prove to myself that I know when enough is enough. I’ll stand there and let him hug me and this stupid game will be over and done.
My breath rasps in my throat, the sound of panic.
It’s enough to make me cringe—please, please no. If Jordan opens his door, he’ll see my back disappearing down the hall.
Right after Dad left, I had my first panic attack in months, a small one but terrifying all the same. I shut myself up in my room so nobody could see, curled up in my quilt, and tried to slow down my breathing.
Now the feeling’s back, swirling around and making me dizzy—water’s rising and I won’t have time to suck down enough air. Mom used to give me a paper bag to blow into when this happened because as much as I felt like I couldn’t breathe, in truth I was breathing too hard, drowning in air.
I slide down the wall outside Jordan’s room, force myself to slow down and take smaller breaths. Freaking out now can’t help anything. Mom and Dad have their problems. Everything’s already changed. If all the bad stuff has already happened, why do I still feel so scared?
I am not going to panic. Not going to drown.
And I’m not going to ask Jordan to open his door.
I push up to my feet, steady my breathing, and head down the hall into my room, where Ophelia’s the first thing I see, the Millais painting taped to my wall.
Ophelia in the water, sinking.
My clothes pulse with stress, so I peel them off, peel off the sticker that told Peter my name. The stressy clothes go out of sight, out of mind, in the dirty clothes hamper. The nametag . . . should go in the trash, but it’s wrapped up with Peter and throwing it out doesn’t feel right. I stick it to my desk and head into the bathroom that Jordan and I share, making sure his door’s locked.
The hot water washes the tension away. I breathe in the steam, and it helps my lungs open, unclench. Jordan and Mandy and Ophelia, my parents and school all slide off, swirl around at my feet, and leave me alone—with Peter.
He made me feel . . . on edge, alert and alive. That I can’t throw away the stupid nametag is a bad sign. I’m not going to be touching him, that’s clear. But something happened when he looked at me.
When we locked eyes, the ease of his stare and the welcome of his smile made me feel like one of two fixed points in a hurricane. The building could have crashed down around us as he smiled, and I wouldn’t have noticed.
That can’t be good.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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5.
Mom said she’d take me school shopping, but by noon on Saturday, she’s still in bed with a migraine. When I crack the door to her darkened room to ask how she’s feeling, she whispers, “Why don’t you try Mandy?”
I obsess over this idea for nearly an hour. I’m way out of practice with friends. At my old school there were girls who included me in group stuff, but no one I could call on a whim. When I finally do text Mandy, my heart beats so fast, I get dizzy. But I do it.
She texts back within five minutes, saying:
PLEASE, YES. Dying to get out.
The honk brings me outside, but instead of Mandy’s “lame-ass” car, the driveway is full of a humongous, tricked-out, bright-red monster truck. Mandy leans out the passenger-side window, peering over giant sunglasses like a movie star.
“Like my ride?” she asks in a put-on Southern belle drawl.
“Ahem. My ride,” says the driver, a hulking guy.
“Darlin’, you are my ride,” Mandy teases.
“That’s enough, Scarlett,” he says. He’s handsome in a WWE kind of way—beefy muscles, square jaw, sleepy-cow eyes. He’s got Birmingham man-hair—thick, side-swept hair grown a little too long all around, like it dreams of becoming a mullet but doesn’t quite dare.
“This is Drew,” Mandy says.
Even though he’s smiling, Drew makes me nervous. His hands are as big as my face.
The truck is Frankenstein’s monster—the paint job’s meticulous, but it covers a jumble of parts that look like they’re itching to reassemble themselves into a more comfortable arrangement. There’s a huge gash in the passenger side that I pray came from a former life and not from Drew’s driving.
I climb in behind Mandy and buckle myself in.
“Will your mom care I’m not driving?” Mandy asks. “I told Drew he should park up the block, but he was being stubborn.” She squeezes Drew’s bicep and he winces.
“Ow. Hi, Caddie, nice to meet you. How are you doing? I’m fine.” He says it like an etiquette robot, programmed to give Mandy a lesson. She goes to pinch him again, but he catches her hand and presses it flat to her leg. Drew reaches his free hand back to me, and I burrow into my sleeves. I wave Muppet-like, side to side, and drop my hand back in my lap.
Drew’s sleepy eyes look right through me in a way that makes me want to pull a bag over my head. He smiles like he knows all my secrets and finds them funny.
“I don’t think Mom would care,” I say, “but she’s in bed anyway.”
Only then does Mandy flash her lightning smile. “It’s good to be hanging out with you again, Caddie. I’ve missed you,” she says, and relief washes through me.
I always felt like I needed Mandy more than she needed me. She’s good at taking care of herself, never lets a problem get too big before she solves it. Mandy says what she thinks, does what she wants, and doesn’t look back, whereas I have to check and recheck to make sure what I’m doing is safe.
It takes me a long time to say back to her, “I missed you too.”
Drew attacks the curves on Cherokee Bend as if we’re in an armored tank. Every year, at least a couple of cars fall off these winding roads. A cross will mark the broken place in the undergrowth where one crashed down toward the golf course, or a ribbon might ring an enormous tree in memory of a car that wrapped itself around its trunk.
If I hold these ugly images in my brain for too long, they might happen to us. I need to erase them, so I breathe deep and imagine the bad thoughts floating away. It’s an old game, one that comes so automatically I barely notice it anymore.
Mandy’s telling me about the different juniors in theater. There are “the musical fiends . . . Hank’s in with them, but he likes us better”; a trio of “melancholy babies” who are “all about the harshness of life. . . . It’s like they live in a vampire novel but it’s no fun because the vampires aren’t even hot”; and a group Mandy calls “the show ponies . . . You know, the kids with the crazy stage moms who do pageants and spokesmodel contests and all that?” To distinguish herself from them, Mandy says, “Except they actually like it.”
If Mandy quizzes me later, I’ll remember every word. I’m a good listener, even with the mental background noise.
Drew takes a sharp curve, and we shift as his tire skirts a broken place at the edge of the pavement. All my muscles clench. Please let us be safe.
“Could you maybe slow down, just a little?” I ask, but Drew doesn’t hear me, and I don’t have the guts to ask again. Once we’re on Highway 280, it’s better. Drew still drives too fast, but at least he’s got a straight lane to do it in.
He takes us to Little Professor in Homewood because they’ve got a good theater section. When we get there, Drew goes in search of some guitar chord book while Mandy leads me to the plays. There are eight different editions of Hamlet to choose from, but we’re supposed to get one that keeps the original punctuation.
“Which version are you getting?” I ask.
Mandy waves a CliffsNotes Hamlet in my face.
“Haven’t you read the actual play?”
She shrugs. “I get what happens. Dude wants to avenge his father’s death. Dude says, ‘To be or not to be.’ Dude fights some people. Dude dies.”
“There’s more to it than that,” I say, p
icking up a special edition that looks straight out of Elizabethan England, old spellings and all.
“I know, but I don’t care about Hamlet. I want to be Ophelia. She gets to go crazy.” My heart beats too fast, and I feel like Mandy’s dropped a boulder in my stomach, but of course she wants Ophelia.
“There are never enough parts for girls.” I flip to a speech of Ophelia’s. I’ve read it over and over, but the old-fashioned spellings give it new color.
“Nadia casts girls as guys all the time,” Mandy says. “I mean, as a new person, you’re more likely to be a page or something, but it won’t be because you’re a girl.”
This is what I’ve been listening for but not wanting to hear—that I’m too late to the party and don’t even have a chance at a good part.
“I know what I want,” I say, closing the book. “If you’re done, we can go.”
“Yeah, I’m ready,” Mandy says. She tosses the CliffsNotes, grabs a copy of the special edition, and tucks it under her arm like she planned to buy it all along.
“Sure that’s not going to hurt your brain?” Drew asks when he sees Mandy’s book, and I bristle. Mandy might not be a scholar, but that’s choice, not a lack of intelligence.
Mandy smiles at me. “Caddie thinks it’s good.”
She links her arm through mine, pulling me close. Her hand slides down close to mine, and I gasp, jerk away.
“Whoa,” says Mandy, like I’m a horse, “easy, girl.”
My heart wants a breath for every beat—so much air—but I won’t let it trick me. I make my voice gentle, no stress. “I don’t like anyone to touch me lately.” The best lies have a little truth in them. “It’s weird, but I lay out in the sun the other day . . .”
Mandy knows my pasty skin never tans.
“It was dumb, but I thought with school starting . . .” I let her see me embarrassed. Making it part of the act takes its power away. “I got sun poisoning.” Her eyes dart to my super-pale hands. “I mean, I wasn’t even out long enough to burn, but I got these red bumps. That’s why the long sleeves. So gross. And it still hurts.”
“Yowch,” Mandy says, happy to keep her distance now that we’re talking about skin bumps. “You’ve got to take care of yourself, girl.”
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