by Anne Dayton
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I don’t even have to look at it before I hit the button to send it straight to voice mail. When Dreamy gave me my phone back, I had five messages from Dean and about fifty text messages.
“I wouldn’t mind so much if it had worked.” Ana shakes her head.
“At least it got our cause out there.” I’m trying to stay positive about all this. It ain’t over till the tofu crumbles, or something. “There were those articles in the paper.” There have been several editorials this week, including one written by Christine’s father, pressuring the school district to fight for such a valued teacher.
“Yeah, but is it going to be enough?” Riley squints into the sun to look at me. “I just wish there was something more we could do.”
“I’d get in trouble all over again if it would help.” Ana swipes the back of her wrist across her face. “But we got the case the attention it needed. At this point, there’s really not much we could do. Besides, you know that school in Boston is going to fall all over themselves to hire Ms. Moore.”
“You don’t know that.” I reach for a bottle cap, glinting in the spring sunshine. I dig it out of the dry, dusty grass. “After all this publicity, the school would probably welcome her back like a hero if they could. She might come back and teach at Marina Vista if they drop the case.” I shake my head. We all know who “they” is.
“Yeah,” Ashley says quietly. She bends over to pick up a plastic grocery bag, and when she stands up again, I could swear there are tears in her eyes.
***
The dopes from the correctional office dropped us back at the headquarters downtown about an hour ago, but none of us is in a hurry to get home. Ashley took off in her tank of a car, but the rest of us are sprawled out on metal chairs outside Half Moon Bay Coffee Company, trying to enjoy the warm spring air and a small moment of freedom before it’s back to our jail cells, I mean, houses. Besides, I’ve got to report to El Bueno Burrito soon.
Christine’s phone buzzes, and she picks it up and starts texting without a word.
“What’s going on, freak?” Ana asks, shading her eyes with her arm.
“It’s nothing.” She shakes her head as her fingers fly over the screen.
“You’re typing pretty fast for it to be nothing.”
“Tyler’s trying to get me to go to prom with him.” She rolls her eyes and puts her phone back in her pocket.
“Ooh. So you’re going, right?” Riley plays with the empty paper cup in front of her. She glares at Christine, but Christine shrugs.
“Probably not.”
“What do you mean probably not?” Ana sits up straight. “You have to go. Tyler’s a senior. This is his last chance to take cheesy prom pictures.”
“Not my style.” Christine tilts her cup up, trying to drain every last ounce of her mocha.
“Christine.” Ana reaches over and lifts Christine’s sunglasses off her face.
“Hey!” Christine reaches for the glasses, but Ana holds them out of her reach.
“You have to go.”
“No I don’t.” Christine tries to grab the glasses again, but Ana folds them and puts them neatly into her bag. “Are you going?” Christine asks.
Ana points at her. “The difference is that you have a date.”
“You can go with Tyler instead.”
“And you’re going with the Rebel without a Cause, right?” Ana jabs her thumb at me.
I shake my head. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“I’m going.” We all turn toward Riley.
“With who?” Ana’s eyes are wide. Riley made the split with Tom official two nights ago, and she seems to be holding up well. But she might have found a new date in that short period of time. She could point at a guy in the hall and inform him of her decision, and he would count it as the luckiest day of his life.
“With you guys.” Riley smiles. “It would be perfect. This way we don’t have to worry about all that date stuff. We can get dressed up and have a good time, just the four of us.” She shoots a sly smile at Christine. “And Tyler. Just the five of us.”
“I’m telling you, one of you guys should take Tyler. I don’t even want to go.”
Ana seems to consider the idea for a moment and then shakes her head.
“Come on. How fun would that be? We can go to a fancy dinner and dance the night away.” Riley cranes her neck to look at each of us. “It’s the first year we can all go to prom. We can’t miss it. It’s a high school milestone or whatever.”
The way she’s talking it up, it does sound like it could be fun. The truth is, I hadn’t really given much thought to prom. Both juniors and seniors go at Marina Vista, but I had assumed Marcus would be my guest. And if Dean—my heartbeat speeds up—but then, he’s made it pretty clear that it’s not his scene, and I don’t want to go with him now anyway.
“You don’t want to go with one of the football players or something?” Christine eyes Riley.
“Yeah right.” Riley snorts. Even though she was always rumored to be with different football players freshman year, I don’t think she ever really was. Now that I really know her, now that I stop and think about it, there’s only ever been Tom.
I study her face, and she’s biting her lip. I wonder how much goes on in her head that we never see. What are the thoughts and fears and dreams of America’s Most Beautiful Teenager? Suddenly I feel certain that the breakup with Tom is affecting her more than she’s letting on. Maybe this is her way of dealing with it.
“Ana?” I watch her. She hardly ever mentions Dave anymore, but I know she still thinks about him.
“I’m in.” She shrugs.
“What about you?” Riley nudges me with her elbow. “You’re really not going with Mr. New York?”
I shake my head. “Dean is history.”
“Which, incidentally, has a way of repeating itself,” Christine says. I lunge at her, but she’s too fast for me to catch her.
43
“Okay, there’s Harvard and MIT, but what else? I might not get into those.” Riley keeps her eyes trained on the road as she drives us to San Francisco International Airport on Sunday afternoon.
No one is in a big hurry to see Ms. Moore off, and we’ve been silent for most of the ride. I tried to ask about her interview in Boston, but she was kind of evasive and she laughed when Ana asked if she was going to call her ex-fiancé. Christine simply stares out the side window, pretending she can’t hear anything.
“If I can get into school up there, we can hang out.” Riley is doing her best to keep things in the van chipper, proving that she is her mother’s daughter after all.
“There’s also Emerson, Boston College, and Boston University.” Ms. Moore ticks them off on her fingers in the front seat of the RealMobile. “Tufts. Some art schools.”
I have to fight the urge to ask them to shut up. The whole idea makes me depressed. I can’t lose Riley too, but I remind myself that this is merely one of those things people say when someone is leaving, like when my best friend from middle school moved away. We said we’d keep in touch, but we never did.
I’m not so sure seeing her off was a good idea. The car goes silent as we approach the parking garage, and Riley winds her way up the circular ramp to the top level. She picks a spot a few rows over from the doorway to the terminal, and we all climb out of the van in slow motion.
It’s another clear, cloudless day. Normally the golden hills of South San Francisco would be turning a bright emerald green from spring rain, but not this year.
“I am going to miss this.” Ms. Moore looks out across the surrounding hillsides toward downtown. “There’s no city with views like this.”
San Francisco is pretty, but the area around the airport is mostly lined with freeways and choked by ugly buildings. I guess she’s feeling sentimental. Riley sticks her key in the back door, opens the hatch, and unloads Ms. Moore’s suitcase. Riley, Ana, and Christine all make their way toward the stairs to the air
port, but I stay back with Ms. Moore.
“Try not to wow them too much,” I say, biting my lip. “Things are going to clear up here, and you’re going to have a teaching job waiting for you this fall.”
“I hope you’re right, Zoe,” Ms. Moore says, but I don’t know whether she means it. She takes a deep breath. “The air smells different there. That’s what always strikes me when I get off the plane, how different the air smells at home.”
Ms. Moore always has this weird way of going off on tangents, but I’ve learned that she usually brings them back around to something important, so I let her talk.
“It’s funny how much it affects you, isn’t it? Where you came from, I mean. There are all kinds of little things—like the way the air smells—that you don’t really notice until you go away.” She inhales another long, deep breath. “The place you grew up is such a huge part of your history, and the people . . .” She lets her voice trail off. “Your family is so much a part of who you end up being.”
I’m not sure I’m following, but I nod as if I understand.
“You’re going to be fine.” Ms. Moore slides her arm around my shoulder and pulls me in for a second. “I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. Even though things are rough right now, your family is strong enough to make it. And,” she gestures to the girls gathered around the door waiting for us, “you have your other family. What you girls have is special. Never forget that.” I nod, and she lets out a long breath. “It’s time for me to go back to my home and see my family. It’s been too long.”
Ms. Moore smiles at me, then drops her arm and starts to walk toward the door. A minute later we’re inside the cool, dark airport. Ms. Moore puts her arm over Christine’s shoulder as we ride in the dank elevator, and the two of them hang back as we make our way down the long tunnel to the terminal.
Ana stands with Ms. Moore in the check-in line while the rest of us lean on a low bench by the glass wall across from the counter. And then, as we walk her to the security line, Ms. Moore pulls Riley aside. The rest of us pretend not to notice.
I keep waiting for something to happen. If this were a movie, there would be a dramatic phone call right now with news that Dr. Anderson dropped the charges. Or some dashing young man would arrive with a dozen roses and beg Ms. Moore not to leave. Something, anything, to prevent her from actually getting on that plane. But instead, we just walk in an awkward clump through the crowded terminal.
Everything about this feels wrong. The middle of an airport is no place to say good-bye to someone. It feels so public, so anticlimactic.
“It’s only an interview,” Ms. Moore says too loudly. She leans in and gives us each a hug. I can’t help but feel like there must be something more we’re supposed to say, but none of us does anything. Ms. Moore turns, gives us a smile, hikes her bag up over her shoulder, and gets in line.
We stand there, watching her, until she makes it through security. She turns and waves, then keeps walking and disappears into the terminal.
I don’t know what the others are thinking, but I suspect I have a pretty good idea. She says she’s just going for an interview, but they’ll offer her the job. Who wouldn’t hire Ms. Moore? And once she’s there, she won’t want to leave her family again to come back. But there’s also something else, something that none of us wants to say out loud: we failed.
The Miracle Girls could not save Ms. Moore.
44
“Oh no. No, no, no.”
There are boxes littering the living room, stacked at odd angles.
“Nick?” I drop my bag at the bottom of the stairs and run to his room. His radio is blasting some alternative country music, and his stuff is in piles all over the floor. “What do you think you’re doing?”
I don’t mean for it to sound accusatory, but . . . well, okay, maybe I do. He can’t leave. He just got here. I’m finally getting used to having my brother around, and now he’s . . .
“Packing.” He shrugs and lifts a stack of books off his bookshelf and settles them into the cardboard box.
I stare at him, my mouth hanging open. I never asked Nick to waltz back into my life. Hey, I had been perfectly happy seeing him at holidays, going to visit him occasionally on the ranch. But he did come back, and in the past seven months, I’ve finally gotten to know my brother, know his hurts and his dreams and his secrets. He’s been a part of my life, a part of this family, and now he’s . . . now everything is falling apart.
“You want to hand me that?” He points to the black hoodie on the dresser behind me.
And suddenly, I’m angry. Before I can even process what I’m doing, I grab the hoodie off his dresser and launch it at him. It smacks him in the face, and he looks up, bewildered, but I’m only getting started. I storm into his room and reach behind his stereo and pull the power cord, then I kick at the box he’s packing for good measure.
“Zoe?” He stares at me, shrinking back. To be honest, I’m almost as surprised as he is by my reaction.
“Fine.” I flop down on the edge of his bed. “Move back to Colorado. And take all your junk with you.” I yank the pillow off his bed and toss it into the box too. “I don’t even care.”
“Zoe, I’m not—”
“This family is falling apart, and if you leave, there’s going to be no one left.” He starts to speak again, but I don’t even give him the chance. “But, hey, that’s okay. Maybe I can be raised by wolves or something.”
Nick waits, watching me, until he’s sure I’m done. “Zoe?” He says my name tentatively. When I don’t cut him off, he pushes himself up and sits down on the bed next to me. “What’s going on?” He drapes his arm over my shoulder awkwardly, and I feel the anger begin to drain away.
The tears spring to my eyes before I can stop them. He pulls me closer, and I almost feel like a little girl again, safe with my big brother. I used to think he could do anything. It’s been hard to learn that he’s not perfect after all, but somehow during the past few months I’ve learned to love him, flaws and all. Maybe I’m crying because he represents the last semblance of structure left in this broken-down family. Maybe I’m just at the breaking point.
“Why does everybody have to leave?” I whisper.
He rubs my shoulder.
“First Ed, then Ms. Moore.” I sniff and wipe away a tear with the back of my hand. Another person comes to my mind, but I don’t dare say his name. “And now you.”
He lets me cry for a minute without saying anything.
“Zoe,” he finally says, so quietly I almost don’t hear him.
I nod.
“I’m only moving across town.”
I sniff, trying to process what he’s saying.
“What?”
He nods. “I got a job in Mountain View, so I’m going to stick around Half Moon Bay.” I pull away and narrow my eyes at him. “I left the ranch . . . very suddenly, overnight, and I didn’t know where to go or what to do so I came here.” He looks around and sighs deeply. “Then I got here, and everything was a mess. I thought maybe I could help, so I decided to do an extended vacation kind of thing.” He glances out the window at our quiet, go-nowhere town, and I think about his life at the ranch, with all the workers buzzing around. What a change all of this must be for him.
“I started picking up freelance work, building Web pages.”
I glance at his silver MacBook Pro, shining from across the room. Though he never told me that’s what he’s been doing, I think I figured it out somewhere along the way. Not even Nick could play that many video games, and somebody had to be keeping this family afloat.
“And then something weird happened. I realized I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time, and after a lot of searching Half Moon Bay feels like home again.” He scratches his stubble. “I’m having them ship all my stuff out from the ranch, and I’m moving into my own place. But I’ll be over here to feed the horses all the time.”
“Really?” I feel dense, but I can’t quite bring myself to believe
what he’s saying.
“You know, a bachelor pad. To give you all some space. Let you enjoy high school without your dorky older brother hanging around all the time.” He chuckles. “Plus, no one wants to date a guy who lives with his parents.”
I snort.
“What?” Nick asks, pulling me into a side hug. “What’s so funny?”
“The idea that some woman would want to go out with you, no matter where you live.” I wipe my nose on the edge of my sleeve.
“Hey!” He pretends he’s going to punch me, but I get out of the way.
We laugh for a moment, then fall quiet again. The relief that he’s not moving finally sweeps over me.
“So you’re okay?”
Nick studies me, his face serious again. I nod sheepishly. Did I really kick his box? No wonder Nick still thinks of me as his bratty baby sister. Maybe I’ve still got some growing up to do.
“As long as you don’t try to leave us again, we’ll be okay.”
45
Ed’s asleep on the couch when I come down the stairs Saturday morning. He and Dreamy were up late talking last night, but he’s never stayed over before, not since he moved out, and it’s strange to see him there. I watch his chest rise and fall under the crocheted blanket, and for a minute I feel like the parent studying a newborn baby sleep as if it’s the most amazing wonder in the world. He rolls over, letting out a sigh. The old couch sags under him. I tiptoe toward the door and step out into the cool, dry morning.
The lights are on at Marcus’s house. I say a quick prayer that he and his family will be well. I take my bike from the open garage, sling my leg over the seat, and give my head a shake. Before my community service, I’m going to try to run a very important errand.
***
I make it to the bank just as the manager unlocks the door. I chain my bike to the bench out front and dash inside. Dreamy and Ed have had their accounts here for years, and though I’ve always had a small savings account with their names on it, it’s time to open up my own bank account.