“You’re good, you know,” she said. “I’d love to hear more.”
I stopped and looked up at her. We used to tease her for the crazy flowered dresses she wore when we were friends in ninth grade, but there wasn’t a flower to be seen on her anymore. She was still quirky, though. Beat-up army boots with tight, faded jeans and a cable sweater so big and baggy it nearly swallowed her knees. She looked like she might have escaped the 1980s.
“No, you wouldn’t,” I said. “I’m a sheep, remember?”
She smirked. “I said ‘Don’t be a sheep.’ That’s what happens if you stay friends with Willow Goodwin too long.”
“I’m not really her friend. I just play one on TV.”
She laughed, a bit too loud. “Well, you don’t sound like a sheep. You have a beautiful voice. And whatever you were doing on the piano before? That was crazy good, too.”
I shook my head. “Not really.”
“Uh, yeah,” she said. “Really. What was that?”
I laughed, a sudden gush of nerves. “I just made that up. It was nothing.”
“That was not nothing. Seriously. It gave me the chills. I felt like I was somewhere else there for a minute. Or someone else.”
As a musician, I could never hope to receive a more meaningful compliment. To create music that was transformative, that changed how people felt about themselves?
“Thanks.” I took a step toward her. “Nobody ever said that about my music.”
“I’ve never heard anything like it. And I listen to a lot of live music.”
“Where?” I asked.
“The King Theatre in Belleview. They do an open mic night once a month. I always go.”
“To perform?” I was impressed.
“No,” she said quickly. “Nobody wants to listen to a lone clarinet squawking away. But if I had a pianist to accompany me . . .” She left the suggestion hanging there.
My throat started to get tight just thinking about it. “I, uh . . . usually only play for myself. By myself, I mean. At home.”
“Oh. Sure. I understand.” She rolled her eyes and started pulling her clarinet apart to put it back in its case.
“No, really. I get stage fright,” I explained. “Really bad. Like completely paralyzed bad.”
“Have you tried therapy?”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
I thought of Brady, the therapy he needed just to deal with normal, everyday stuff like talking and using a pencil. Paying for it had cost us our home. Getting therapy for something as lame as stage fright felt a little self-indulgent.
“The piano is my therapy,” I said. “You know when you feel like screaming or crying or laughing really hard? I just do that on the piano.” I’d never really explained this to anybody before, and here I was telling Molly Palmer.
“That is awesomely weird,” she said. “And I mean that in the best possible way.”
I smiled as the bell rang. “Maybe I’ll see you next time. We can practice together.” The words came out before my brain had a chance to realize what I was saying. Practice together? I never did that.
“Sure,” she said. “Just don’t tell Willow. You’ll be banished from the herd.”
I nodded and left, feeling more like myself than I had in a while—though I wasn’t exactly sure who “myself” was anymore. The thing was, I hadn’t told a single lie to Molly. I hadn’t worried what she would think or who she would tell. And there was nobody else I could do that with. Not even Reesa.
I started to fantasize about that secret room in the supply closet, about hiding in there all day with James’s books. I could read all the notes in the margins of his Shakespeare and nobody would bother me. Maybe James would find me there and we’d sit and talk and ignore the rest of the world. I was thinking about that when Reesa caught me trying to disappear upstairs after last period, and my face went red. I could feel the heat shoot up my neck into my cheeks.
“You’re mad at me,” she said.
“No.” I only wanted to get to my secret room to find out if James had answered my question, and the guilt of lying to Reesa about James was eating at me. “Why would I be mad at you?”
“Because I invited James to New York since you can’t go and that is a totally sucky thing for a best friend to do and then I freaked out when you smiled at him or whatever because I’m paranoid and crazy?”
It took a minute to process. “Right. I’m totally mad at you,” I said.
“You are?”
“Um . . . no.”
Reesa slumped against my arm. “You are the best friend on the planet. Gotta go. I’ll call you later.”
She ran for the bus. I realized I hadn’t asked her how it was without me. We used to sit together, put our backpacks on the seat over the wheel hump, and slouch down in the one behind it. We had an ongoing game of “Guess What’s Happening to the People in that House.” All it took was a single sighting of a human entering or leaving a house to get us started. The scenarios we imagined usually involved wild affairs with gardeners or mysterious packages being delivered to spies. A woman with luggage? She’s leaving him, Reesa would say. She’s fed up with his affairs. Then she’d get quiet and I would know she was thinking about her parents, who were always on the verge of divorce.
I reached the supply room and slipped inside, locking the door. It was easy now to find the switch and the little room. I noticed some paper towels missing, and the mop bucket was in a slightly different place. The secret room, however, was untouched—except for the addition of a book on the shelf.
It rested on top of the Shakespeare. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
I picked it up and smiled. How could you not love a book whose characters had names like Zaphod Beeblebrox and Gag Halfrunt? I flipped open the first page and read the brief note penciled there, presumably for me:
Your turn.
I assumed he was lobbing the question of what he read for fun back to me. But I hadn’t brought a book. I’d have to leave something in the morning, though my collection at home was a little sparse at the moment. Most of my books were back at our old house, waiting to be sold off along with everything else.
I flipped through Hitchhiker’s for a while, then closed up the little room and checked to see if the hall was clear. There was one place I could grab a book. I took the back hallway to avoid Lennie’s stairwell. All the English classes were taught there, and Miss Poppy’s free book bin sat outside her door. I stopped to peruse. There were eight copies of Homer’s Odyssey, five of Dante’s Inferno, one Wuthering Heights, and a single cover-missing copy of Jane Eyre. Maybe nobody else would classify Jane Eyre as “fun,” but I’d read it three times, and not for any class.
I pulled the book from the bin and hugged it to my chest. There was something about Jane. She was refreshingly uncomplicated amid a complicated life. If only I could be that way.
I rushed back to the secret room with Jane and slipped her onto the shelf, wishing I could take up residence there, too. Jane was in good company. It was more than I could say for myself.
TWELVE
On Thursday morning, I met Reesa by our lockers. Our conversation was a game of dodgeball. It was “James this” and “James that” and all I could think about was whether or not he appreciated Jane Eyre and would he leave me another book today.
I managed to avoid smiling at him in AP English, but I worried he’d think I didn’t like him as much as I worried that Reesa would think I did. He played along, or maybe he didn’t care for my smiles after all.
Molly caught my eye in the cafeteria as I sat down at my usual table with Willow. She gave a quick and sympathetic grin but didn’t say hi or wave or give any indication that we might be the slightest bit friendly. Her discretion only made me feel like a bigger fraud.
Reesa never mentioned James in front of Willow or Wynn, so I wasn’t the only one telling lies of omission. She probably worried they’d swoop in and nab him for t
hemselves. He was a senior, and even though he was taking my junior AP English class to make up some credits, he didn’t eat lunch our period. Willow wouldn’t have allowed him at our table, anyway. She had a “no boys” policy, claiming that lunch was reserved for girl talk. I suspected it had more to do with her tendency to grow tired of boyfriends after about five weeks. She didn’t want to have to give up her table to some guy.
“Mark your calendars, ladies,” Willow announced. “Halloween is on a Friday this year, so we’re having our party the Saturday before.” The Goodwins threw a huge bash every year, and it was a terrible faux pas, her mother believed, to host a Halloween party in November.
“Theme?” Wynn asked.
“Mom’s still deciding,” said Wynn. “It’s either the Roaring Twenties or Broadway.”
“Flappers or Cats.” Reesa held her hands up like claws.
“Ooh,” said Wynn. “I want to be a flapper.” She mimed holding a long cigarette.
The previous year, we’d all rented elaborate—and expensive—dresses for a medieval theme, with laced-up bodices and flowing sleeves. “I vote Broadway,” I said, thinking I could dress as an orphan from Annie.
“Your preferences will be taken under advisement,” said Willow with exaggerated snootiness. It wasn’t that different from her regular voice. “But Mom has her heart set on this jazz band she saw at the Lincoln Center. Her assistant is finding out if they’re available.”
The party always featured a live band. The Goodwins put up a circus-sized tent and erected a wood dance floor on their lawn. It was crazy. I couldn’t help thinking what our family could do with that party budget. Probably pay our mortgage and Brady’s therapy for a year.
“So, ladies,” said Willow, “if there’s anyone special you want on the guest list, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Wynn started rattling off the cutest members of the basketball team, lacrosse team, and soccer team. “Jeremy Dillon, Evan Stans, Andrew Hudson . . .”
Willow held up a hand to interrupt. “Suffice it to say that every cute guy in this school will be invited,” she said.
“Even . . .” Reesa started, then snapped her lips shut.
“Even who?” said Willow.
Reesa darted a warning glance my way. She’d almost said James’s name but must’ve remembered she was keeping him a secret from Willow. “Nobody . . . never mind.”
“How about Molly Palmer?” I suggested. “We all used to be such good friends. She’s—”
Willow nearly choked on her portobello sandwich. “Why the hell would I invite her? I heard she lives in Lakeside now. Some trailer park or something. I would die.”
I glanced at Reesa, our eyes holding the growing number of secrets we kept between us. As for the ones I kept from her, I swallowed them with a gulp of my chocolate milk.
Following my new routine, I made my way to the tiny room in the supply closet at the end of the day. Jane Eyre sat untouched where I had left her on the shelf. I flipped through her pages, front and back. Nothing. Maybe he’d gotten bored of the little game we were playing. I left, disappointed, after my required twenty minutes of waiting.
When I pedaled into our neighborhood, Lennie was leaving in his red Jeep. I steeled myself for some kind of harassment, but he just drove by. Didn’t even glance my way.
I tucked my bike under the back stairs and trudged up to our apartment, muscles still complaining from my accident the day before. I let myself into our miniature kitchen, rounded the half island with its three stools, and went for the fridge to get a drink. Mom had stuck a note there with a magnet advertising a local pizza joint. In our old house, she never let us stick papers on the Sub-Zero.
Ivy—Walk over to the store and get potatoes. See coupon on counter. Six bags, if you can manage it.—Thx, Mom
I picked up the six dollars she’d left on the counter, and a two-for-one coupon on five-pound bags of Yukon Gold potatoes. How exactly did she think I was going to carry thirty pounds of potatoes? And what was she going to do with that many potatoes, anyway? The store she referred to was not Bensen’s, the gourmet market we used to frequent, but the Save-a-Cent on the corner. I could walk it, lug four bags in my backpack and one in each hand, or I could take my bike with its trusty basket.
I left my backpack on the kitchen floor and headed back down the stairs. The Save-a-Cent had a bike rack out front, next to some metal boxes that dispensed newspapers. I rode right past them and parked behind some Dumpsters, then cut through the parking lot before heading to the main entrance.
Yanking a cart free, I spun it around and rolled into the store, ignoring the stacks of ginger snaps and clementines near the entrance. Not in the budget today. My mouth started to water thinking about them, though. They weren’t even my favorites, but suddenly they were an extravagance. I headed for the produce department, where I spotted the BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE sign above the potatoes. I dug into the giant mound, counting out six bags. Someone stepped up to pick through the loose baking potatoes beside me. He chose one and dropped it into his handbasket alongside a T-bone steak and a small bunch of fresh green beans. I had this silly urge to start a conversation with “Hello, single-steak guy. I’m crazy potato girl.” Then I glanced up and realized, with a gurgly choking sound, that it was him.
James.
He turned, no doubt alerted by the embarrassing noise I’d just made, and spied me standing there with a bag of potatoes clutched in each hand. One of his eyebrows cocked upward.
“Hello,” he said.
“Um, hello.”
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
“Right. Yeah.” A nervous laugh erupted from my throat. I snapped my mouth shut and plopped the potatoes into my cart. “You, uh . . . shop here?”
He lifted his basket to indicate that yes, he did, indeed, shop here.
“Stupid question.” I grimaced.
“The prices are good,” he said. “I’ve been comparing.”
A bargain shopper? Reesa would be devastated. “Research for a home ec project?” I said, “Or, uh . . . just a hobby?”
The corners of his lips tweaked up a tiny bit. “Trying to save money. That’s all.”
I glanced toward my haul. “My mother sent me. She’s preparing for Armageddon, apparently.”
“That’s a lot of potatoes.” He peered from my cart into his own basket. “My groceries are feeling a little intimidated.”
My laugh came out normal this time, and I felt like an almost-regular person for a second. Until a tall, tattooed figure approached. I tried to blink him away but he kept coming.
“Are you following me?” said Lennie. He was wearing a green apron with the Save-a-Cent logo across his broad chest.
“No, I . . . uh, you work here?” Again, my grasp of the obvious was stunning.
“Nah, I just like wearing the uniform.” Lennie hitched his thumbs under the straps of his apron, like a farmer tugging on his overalls. “Fetching, isn’t it?”
He looked around me and spotted James, wiped his hand on his apron, and reached his tattooed arm out to shake.
“Hi. I’m Lennie.”
“James,” said James. He took Lennie’s hand and pumped it twice.
My heart was thumping double time but my brain seemed to be working in slow motion. I should’ve noticed the evil grin that came across Lennie’s face and hurried out of there. But I wasn’t fast enough.
“You want some bananas?” Lennie leaned over my cart and spoke in one of those conspiratorial whispers loud enough to wake the dead. “I got some in the back I’m supposed to trash. They’ve only got a few brown spots, though.”
I shook my head. “No. No thank you.”
“You sure?” He was trying to embarrass me in front of James and doing a fine job. “I could set some aside for you. That was your bike I saw parked out behind the Dumpster, wasn’t it?”
“I . . . I don’t need bananas.” I pleaded with my eyes. Please don’t do this to me.
He glanced at James. “How ’bout you, Jimbo? Bananas?”
I bowed my head in a silent prayer that a trapdoor would appear in the dingy linoleum and swallow me whole. But James responded as if free, overripe produce was offered to him every day. He didn’t even flinch at the nickname Lennie had given him.
“Thanks, man,” he said. “Another time?”
“You bet,” said Lennie. He made a clicking sound and pointed his finger at James like it was a gun, then holstered it in his apron pocket. He sauntered to the double doors at the back of the produce area and pushed them open saloon style.
I exhaled.
“Your friend is . . .” James paused.
“He’s not my friend,” I blurted. “I hardly know the guy. He’s . . . I think he’s a drug dealer.”
“Oh. Well . . . he seemed cool.”
Way to go, Ivy. He probably thought Lennie was a great guy now, and I was a total bitch. I maneuvered my cart to face the exit. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Oh.” His voice was soft, almost sad. “Good-bye, then, Ivy Emerson.”
My eyes widened at his use of my full name, and the way he said it in that soft, low voice, at the realization that he knew my last name at all. “Bye!” I chirped.
I hurried to the checkout and loaded my potatoes on the conveyor belt. My fingers were shaking when I handed the coupon and six dollars to the cashier. She noticed and looked at me funny. I quickly grabbed my bags and ran out. Lennie was standing by my bike. He started wheeling it toward me.
I stormed over to him, piled the potatoes into the front basket, and snatched the handlebars away from him. All the maybe-he’s-not-so-bad feelings I’d been having since he rescued me by the side of the road had completely evaporated. “Are you trying to ruin my life?”
“No, I . . .”
“Can you just leave me alone, please?”
I pedaled off and got about ten feet from where he was standing when one of the bags fell and broke open. Potatoes rolled across the asphalt. I jumped off to pick them up, but my bike didn’t have a kickstand and I couldn’t lay it down or the rest of the potatoes would spill.
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