Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
{ The PIANO with a MISSING TOOTH }
{ A MIX TAPE for the BEARS }
{ BURNT Popcorn }
{ HOW to EAT a CHOCOLATE BOOB }
{ ONE Last TIME }
{ CHIN Deep }
{ The VIEW from the TOP}
Dutton Books
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Published by the Penguin Group
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Hillary Frank
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Frank, Hillary.
Summary: Anabelle and her fellow high school graduates navigate their way through a disastrous summer of love and friendship in the small coastal town of Normal, Maine.
eISBN : 978-1-101-43291-4
[1. Intepersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction.
3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Family life—Maine—Fiction. 5. Maine—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.F8493Vie ,<010 [Fie]—dc22 2009026143
Published in the United States by Dutton Books,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
www.penguin.com/youngreaders
http://us.penguingroup.com
For Jonathan
{ The PIANO with a MISSING TOOTH }
anabelle seullirere
Of all the weird things about the gift Matt had just given Anabelle, the part that freaked her out most was its beard.
“So I guess you’re not planning on shaving for a while?” she asked, holding up the handmade wooden jewelry box with a colorful clay replica of her boyfriend on the front.
“No, I’m keeping it.” Matt rubbed the Brillo-pad-ish dark hair on his chin. “It makes me look pensive. Sophisticated.”
And old, Anabelle thought, taking in their reflection in the mirror on the closet door. He looked like he could be her father with that beard. Which was kind of icky, considering he was snuggled up against her on his bed and twirling one of her ringlets around his finger. One of her out-of-control ringlets. Anabelle pulled a couple curls to the front, then pushed them to the side. No matter what she did, she looked like Little Orphan Annie. Only, with sawdust-colored hair. And black clothes instead of red. She still hadn’t changed out of her orchestra uniform.
Matt nuzzled his nose into Anabelle’s neck. “Well, do you like it?” he asked, popping open the top of the box. The inside was lined with mauve velvet and smelled of overripe berries.
Anabelle forced a grateful smile. “I love it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, ’ause I stayed up till four working on it. The eyes were a killer.”
The miniature version of Matt’s big brown eyes gazed up at Anabelle with a pleading puppy-dog expression that seemed to say, Please don’t leave me. Never, ever leave me. In his tiny clay hands he held a tiny bouquet of clay dandelions, just like the ones the real Matt had used to woo her—that day on his porch when he’d told Anabelle she was “friendly” and later admitted that was code for “cute.” She still had the wilted weeds pressed in a dictionary under her bed.
Anabelle’s stomach was folding in on itself, like tightly creased origami. The berry smell. It was drowning her senses. She shut the jewelry box, and as the clasp clicked into place, she imagined having this thing in her dorm room next year. She pictured people spotting it on her dresser. Any boy who walked in would get the message loud and clear: This girl is taken.
“You don’t seem too psyched,” Matt said, sitting up rigidly.
“No, I am,” Anabelle said. “I’m just trying to figure out what to put in it. I don’t really wear jewelry.” Didn’t he know that after dating her for a year?
“But I thought maybe you could start. Since you’ll be a college girl now.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Anabelle pushed aside Matt’s cigarette packs and put the jewelry box on his nightstand, out of her sight.
“Or you could use it to store the poems I’ve written you.”
“Some of them,” she said. “They won’t all fit.”
A burst of singing came from downstairs. Ugh, weren’t the Players sick of Cabaret by now? Anabelle was. And she hadn’t even been singing those songs the last few months, just accompanying them. Sure, she got that it was their cast party and all. But c’mon, she thought, get over yourselves.
Matt cracked each of his big toes. “You don’t like it.”
“No, I do. I said I did.”
“Only because I asked.”
“Matt, it’s amazing,” Anabelle assured him. “It’s just ... so much.” She leaned in and planted a kiss on his cheek, careful to avoid the side of his beard.
He jerked his face back, his eyes narrowing. “Why didn’t you kiss me on the lips?” he asked.
“It’s just, I don’t like the feeling of hair on my mouth,” Anabelle told him. “It’s scratchy.” Downstairs, one of the Players’ voices rose above the rest. It was Lexi, Matt’s sister—always the star of the show whether onstage or off.
“You’re my girlfriend. You should like kissing me no matter what.”
Anabelle sighed and clunked the back of her head against the headboard. She did it again, this time hard enough that it would leave a little bruise—a tender spot that she knew would be sore when she touched it later. Matt didn’t seem to notice; he didn’t even look at her.
Anabelle stared up at the track lighting. One of the bulbs flashed out.
“Wow,” Matt said, with that forced-air laugh he gave when he was nervous. “You actually look like you want to hit me.”
“No,” Anabelle answered. But now that he pointed it out, she realized she kind of did want to.
“Go ahead.” He rolled up his T-shirt and offered her his arm.
“I’m not going to hit you.”
“Do it.”
Reluctantly, she made a fist and punched him, her knuckles thudding against his skin.
“What was that?” he asked. “The wind blowing? I barely felt a thing.”
The Players hit the crescendo at the end of the song. Anabelle could just picture them, shooting each other satisfied smiles as if they’d invented harmony.
She geared up again, squeezing her hand into a ball of momentum, then took aim, zeroing in on a spot halfway between Matt’s shoulder and elbow. Her swing landed with a smack.
“Aw,” Matt screamed, “you didn’t have to do it that hard. Jesus!”
He had a crazy look in his eyes, as if he were going to hit her back.
Anabelle’s head fizzed like a just-opened soda can. She wasn’t sure if it was because it felt good to hurt him or because she was afraid of what he might do. Leaping off the bed, she bolted for the door. “I need to be away from you right now,” she said, hearing her voice tremble. “And don’t even think about following me.”
“Fine!” he yelled after her as she sprinted for the stairs. “If that’s how you want to be when we only have three months left in the same town!” But she kept running-past the kitchen, where the most notoriously out-of-tune Player was whining about her love life to Matt’s mom. And past the living room, where Lexi was standing on the coffee table leading the rest of the group in a rendition of Cabaret’s “Telephone Song.” Normally, this song would’ve made Anabelle laugh because down in the pit, Tobin Wood, the cellist, always lip-synched along when the Players attempted German accents. But Tobin wasn’t here now—he never came to cast parties—and the accents only grated on her.
Anabelle hoped Lexi didn’t notice her running past. Or, well, maybe part of her hoped that she did. That Lexi would ditch the party to comfort her. After all, Lexi was always telling Anabelle that she was her best friend. And isn’t that what best friends did? Put helping each other over everything else?
By the time Anabelle got to the basement, she realized her hand was still all balled up. She spread her fingers, revealing four crescent-moon indentations along the bottom of her palm where her nails had been digging in.
The little upright piano looked out of place amid the sprawling wires, amps, and electric guitars. Matt was in something like four bands, but they rarely rehearsed. That was fine with Anabelle; it meant she could practice here, too.
She settled into the cushiony bench and positioned her hands on the keys, ready to drown out the singing upstairs. She had just figured out by ear a solo version of “’Round Midnight,” and as she played it she tried to hit the notes exactly like Thelonious Monk did in the recording. She savored each chord, the strange harmonies dissolving together like ice cubes in hot coffee. This piano had the most amazing sound: it was woody and warm and reminded her of what it felt like to have all her clothes smell like camp-fire. She didn’t even mind that it was a little out of tune; the subtle warble gave it an old-timey feel. And that key with no top, the second-to-lowest C, helped her navigate the bottom register of the keyboard. The exposed rectangle of wood stood out like a missing tooth.
Playing this piece, she didn’t have to think about Matt telling her what was wrong with her, telling her that she didn’t hang out with his friends enough, or that when she did hang out with them, she was too quiet and kept him from being the outgoing guy he wanted to be. She didn’t have to think about how to convince him that if he would just chill out, things would be fine next year, that they could totally handle a long-distance relationship. Right now, all that existed were trickling whole-tone scales, rhythmic bass notes, beats of silence that made her want to hold her breath—and, of course, if her interpretation was to sound authentically Monk, dissonant intervals.
When she hammered into those just right, she swore she could feel the backs of her eyeballs vibrate.
She’d gone through the piece probably nine times—no, maybe more like eleven or twelve?—when someone slid in beside her on the bench. Her hands slammed down on the keys, making a strange chord that could’ve easily fit in in a Monk tune.
She figured it was Matt coming to make up. But when she turned she saw that the bearded guy beside her was a rusty redhead, not a brunette. Actually, he wasn’t all that bearded either. Just pleasantly scruffy.
“You bop when you play,” Jonah said, smiling the crooked half smile that always made Anabelle’s ears warm.
She shrugged and pressed her foot nervously up and down on the sustain pedal.
“Keep playing,” he said. “I liked it.”
“Well, I can’t with you sitting right here,” she told him, tapping the pedal faster.
Jonah was on the lighting crew for the show and, like Anabelle, he was decked out in all black. The fabric of his faded black jeans butted up against the baggy dress pants she’d borrowed from her mom. Anabelle knew she should probably scoot away from him. She took her foot off the pedal but for some dumb reason kept her leg where it was.
“You okay?” Jonah asked.
“Yeah, what do you mean?” You should really move, Anabelle told herself. If Matt came down here and saw them, he’d freak.
“Matt’s sulking in his room,” Jonah said. “Smoking weed by himself.”
“Aren’t there, like, a ton of girls up there for you to hit on?” she asked, pointing at the ceiling. The sing-along seemed to have stopped and was replaced by a general party din peppered with occasional shrieks of laughter.
Jonah shoved her teasingly. “You think I’m way more of a player than I actually am,” he said. “I mean, I’m definitely not a Player. But I’m also not a player.”
“Riiiight.”
“Seriously. I’d way rather be hanging out down here with a girl who’s totally taken than a bunch of semidrunk girls in fishnets and leather.”
“You like the costumes, admit it.”
“Well, yeah, they do look good on some people. But their makeup is way overdone.”
Anabelle knew exactly which girls Jonah would think looked good in those getups. They were the same ones he gave his trying-not-to-look-like-I’m-staring stare when they wore low-cut tops and tight jeans. Stuff she could never pull off.
Jonah gently hit a high B-flat with his pinkie, then started walking his fingers down the keyboard in half steps. “I can talk to him if you want,” he said.
She knew by his somber tone that he meant Matt. But she pretended she didn’t. “Talk to who?”
“Your boyfriend,” he answered in a tone that said, Don’t play dumb.
But still, she did. “About what?” she asked as innocently as possible.
His thumb hit middle C. “Tell him he’s being a dick.”
The thought of Jonah defending her was kind of exciting. But she knew it would only cause trouble. “What do you mean?”
He gave her an “Oh, please” look.
“I mean, yeah, things are a little weird,” she conceded. “But I can handle it.”
Jonah’s fingers crept into the lower register. He leaned over her lap, playing every note until he reached the missing-tooth key. When he hit that one, he looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. Did that mean something? No, she told herself. Of course it didn’t. And even if it did, it wouldn’t matter. She was with Matt. She would be with Matt forever.
Still, she couldn’t help feeling let down when Jonah took his hand off the piano and sat back up.
“I’ve gotta ask you something,” he said. “Something personal.”
“Yeah, okay.” Anabelle had this uncomfortable sense that he was about to ask her something that would throw her relationship with Matt into turmoil.
“Matt’s my best friend and all,” he said, “but I keep wondering...”
Oh God, was he hitting on her?
“... why do you stay with him? Why don’t you just dump him? I mean, you’re leaving. Going far, far away. And there’ll be plenty of cool guys at Oberlin, I’m sure.”
Not a come-on. Anabelle was surprised by how disappointed she was that the question hadn’t been something like “Why wasn’t it you and me instead?” or “Haven’t you always felt
like there was something between us?” She’d heard stories about seniors confessing their secret love for each other at the end of the year and she couldn’t help but wonder if that might happen with her and Jonah.
“Sorry,” Jonah said. “It’s none of my business.”
“No, no,” she said. “I get what you’re saying. But I don’t know. It’s like this. Matt’s the first boy who ever wanted to date me. And I can’t imagine being with anyone else. Or, at least, I can’t picture another guy falling for me like he did.”
“If you were single, the guys would flock,” Jonah said. “They’d be all over you.”
Wait, did he mean he would? Anabelle wanted to find out. She wanted to be able to get herself to return that longing—was it longing?—look he was giving her. She wanted the awkward silence to continue. But instead she started talking a mile a minute, not really sure what was going to come out. “I fell in love with Matt,” she blathered, “because he seemed like the saddest person in the world. He wrote me a poem. And he drew a face on the bottom. It was like this egg head with a frown. And somehow that piece of paper, with the drawing and the poem, it was pure sorrow. I’ve never seen anyone our age capture sadness so perfectly. For some reason, that was irresistible to me. I guess it still is.”
Jonah got an amused smile on his face that just grew and grew.
“What’s that look for?” Man, why did she just tell him all of that?
“No, it’s just, I never pegged you as a sucker for a sad sack. You seem so happy-go-lucky.”
Anabelle wasn’t sure if she should take that as a compliment or an insult. “Happy-go-lucky” made her think of a girl in pigtails licking a giant lollipop, running around with a duck-shaped floatie around her waist.
“Hey,” he said, nudging her leg with his.
The View from the Top Page 1