by Amy Spalding
“Hey.” My mother walks into the room, hands on her hips. I have this sudden horrible fear she knows exactly what I’ve been doing. “Come on, Brad needs help. Can you handle chopping?”
“Sure,” I say, even though knives kind of freak me out, being so shiny and sharp and pointy and all. (Except for the times I’ve brandished them while singing selections from Sweeney Todd.) Being helpful can only ingratiate me to them, though. Right?
The kitchen is large and airy with stainless steel appliances and a nearly black wood table. How am I supposed to lead a normal life when every inch of this place is straight from a magazine? Although, to be fair, my chances of leading a normal life are already way gone.
“Devan, could you grate this for me?” Brad holds out a wedge of Parmesan and a cheese grater. I can handle that. It’s nice being in here anyway, with garlic sizzling on the stove, music playing, and Brad hustling between the counter and the table and the stove like someone on a cooking show. My mother is tossing greens in a bowl and asking Brad for clarifications every minute or so (“What now?” “How much?” “I do what with the goat cheese?”), which leads me to believe her cooking skills aren’t far ahead of mine.
We sit at the table to eat, which is something totally not normal for Dad and Tracie, and not at Justine’s house, either, thanks to her parents’ weird hours as doctors. So if this whole situation isn’t scary enough, now I have to worry about table manners and conversation and all of that.
“So, Devan, Reece tells me you’re an actor,” Brad says once he makes sure I get the first servings of the salad, pasta, and steamed green beans. I can’t believe this amazing meal is for me. “Have you been in any shows lately?”
“Last spring I was in Little Shop of Horrors,” I say. “But I couldn’t do anything over the summer because we were living in this little town without any local theatre, and no bus or anything to get into the city at all.”
“How dreadful,” he says, as my mother says, “That sounds like hell.”
“Well,” I say, “yeah. It was.”
“This will be a nice change for you, then,” Brad says, then sort of yelps as my mother very obviously kicks him under the table. “I apologize; given the circumstances of your father’s death, I can’t imagine why I’d say such a—”
“It’s okay, I say dumb things all the time. I mean—not that it was dumb, just—”
My mother laughs really hard at that, which makes me feel bad for Brad, though he laughs, too. Eventually. And I realize I’m smiling a little.
“I should tell you,” my mother says, “this whole using the kitchen table thing is entirely Brad’s idea. He feels the need to live like adults, which is something I’m only occasionally on board with. So we’ll see how long it lasts.”
I nod, using my fork to wind a wide ribbon of pasta around a perfectly crisp piece of chicken. “By the way, this is like the best thing I’ve eaten in forever.”
“Thank you,” Brad says.
“Yeah, he’s fucking amazing,” my mother says in a tone I can tell is holding back a mushy one. Despite the f-bomb just dropped. “Did you check out the website for New City, Devan?”
“Yeah, um, it looks great and all, but . . .”
She reaches across the table to pour more wine into her glass. “But?”
“Just, the tuition? It’s kind of crazy. And you totally don’t have to do that, and—”
“Don’t,” she says. “If you like it, that’s what matters.”
“No, but—”
“But what?” she asks, which is a dumb thing to interrupt with. Maybe I was just about to tell you. “This is the type of school you need to attend. Discussion closed.”
I don’t don’t don’t need to. But now I feel like maybe I’m doing something wrong, and I’ll blow it. My place here isn’t exactly safe. “Okay. Sorry, I just—”
“Oh, God,” she says. “Not the apologizing again.”
I’m pretty good at acting, which is the only reason I manage not to cry. I get through dinner and help load the dishwasher even though Reece Malcolm and Brad say I don’t have to, and then it feels like it’s hopefully late enough I can politely excuse myself upstairs. From their reactions it seems I’m right about that much.
The room’s so perfect I feel weird messing it up with my stuff. So even though I’m not really ready to accept this is where I live now, I unpack my suitcase into the closet and the chest of drawers, and then stow the suitcase under the bed.
It doesn’t take very long, unfortunately, which just gives my brain more time to think about everything going on. And that’s the last thing I want it to do, because I hate the stuff it’s dwelling on. I hate how sure I am that my mother thinks of me as an imposition, that she hasn’t been waiting for me to arrive for sixteen years, that she hasn’t said anything about that at all, and that she seemingly has no excuse for just pretending I didn’t exist this whole time.
But most of all I hate that I’ve spent my whole stupid life dreaming about this and waiting for it to happen, and here it is and it isn’t at all what I’d hoped for. It’s definitely probably stupid to still think about Dad as much as I do, considering he spent so much of my life ignoring me, but somehow it feels stupider yet to want more from someone who’s done way less for me.
All books are filled with words, obviously, but Reece Malcolm’s aren’t just there on the page. It’s as if something living is captured, and reading her novels releases it: emotions and an understanding of how life works. Or maybe it’s more like this admission that you can’t understand how life works but instead, like, a devotion to trying to figure it out.
When I read and reread Reece Malcolm’s books I imagined the person who wrote them. She wouldn’t be like Tracie, who thought anything to do with the arts was a waste of time, and she wouldn’t be like Dad, who kept the world at arm’s length so what did it matter what he thought about life and passion if he’d never tell anyone anyway? But my mother must constantly overflow with creativity and passion and art, I thought. She would understand life and its endless weirdnesses and complications.
But it turns out that isn’t Reece Malcolm at all.
“Devan?”
I jump to my feet as Brad steps into the doorway. “Sorry, I—”
“Sorry for what?” He holds out a little plate with a piece of pie on it. Some kind of custard with a crispy crust. Probably a British thing. “I wanted to bring you dessert, if you’re up for it.”
“Thanks,” I say. “You didn’t have to but—”
“It’s no problem,” he says.
It’s weird how I just automatically know he means that.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your pie. Enjoy.” He leaves the room and closes the door behind him. Maybe the dinner and the dessert and the accent just easily sway me, but I trust Brad. So I assume he’s leaving to give me privacy. Still, it feels an awful lot like being shut into a room so no one will have to deal with me.
Which feels a lot like the past three months.
But I shrug it off and curl up in bed with the pie, Justine’s iPod, and my notebook. Even just last week the thought of being in Reece Malcolm’s house would have sounded like science fiction, so it’s funny how this feels so much like falling asleep any other day.
Chapter Three
Things I know about Reece Malcolm:
10. She interrupts a lot.
11. Her boyfriend’s way nicer than she is.
I sleep okay in the big, soft bed in Reece Malcolm’s house, and end up awake early thanks to the time difference. I kill most of the morning with a long shower (the bathroom is stocked with some amazing stuff that smells citrusy and lathers up luxuriously like in a commercial) and then a handwritten letter to Justine detailing every reason L.A. is a terrible idea. I end up shredding it into pieces and tossing it, though, because it gives away way too much.
“Hey there.” My mother leans into the room, wearing a ragged tank top and plaid pajama pants. “You’re not a terrifying
morning person, are you?”
“It’s later in Missouri,” I say. “So not really.”
“Let me get showered and dressed, and we’ll run errands, all right? You should head downstairs, though; we’ve instituted Pancake Saturdays until we get sick of them.”
I decide not to ask about errands, and instead walk to the stairs, where the scent of maple syrup hits me about halfway down. Brad is at the stove, flipping pancakes in the air like a fancy chef. “Um, she said I should come down to eat, so . . .”
“Absolutely.” He flips a pancake with a spatula once more before depositing it on top of a stack and handing me the plate. “I hope you like these; I did some experimenting with leftover berries.”
“They smell amazing.” I sit down at the table and reach for the butter and syrup. “Are you like a chef or something?”
He laughs, but not in a way that makes me feel stupid. “Not at all. I just like cooking, especially in this kitchen. In my apartment, I had about this much space.” He holds his arms out at his sides and then in front and back of him to indicate a space maybe a sixth of the room. “I’m not sure why people make such a deal of it. Most cooking is rather easy.”
“Maybe just to you,” I say, which makes him laugh. I think about adding that I didn’t think British people were supposed to cook very well but it doesn’t seem polite.
“Reece says the same. Oh, and I feel the need to warn you that I’ve seen the shopping list she’s made, and it’s quite lengthy. You should load up on breakfast; you’ll need the energy.”
I have no idea what to make of that, but I would have pancake-overloaded regardless, because these are the best I’ve ever had, and I tell him so as my mother walks into the room, wearing almost exactly the same clothes as the day before: T-shirt, jeans, Chuck Taylors.
“Blackberries?” She leans over Brad’s shoulder to look at his plate. “You’re a genius. Where’s my order?”
“Coming right up,” he says, jumping to his feet. I wonder if he’s a little scared of her, too. How could he not be? “Devan, more while I’m making them?”
I’ve somehow cleaned my plate already. “Um, yeah, if you have extra.”
“Are you going to keep this up, or are you on good behavior since you just moved in?” my mother asks.
I feel like throwing up until I realize she’s referring to Brad and his chef mode and not me at all.
By now I’m pretty good at being invisible. That’s all I really was to Tracie, except for when she yelled at me. And even though I used to feel like the brightest part of Dad’s universe, everything kept shifting the older I got, like I betrayed him for not staying a little kid. And, anyway, being invisible was useful. You can’t be a weird new girl or a choir geek if you slip right under everyone’s radar. So if Reece Malcolm and Brad Harper want to speak to each other like I’m not even here, that’s just fine.
“We’ll see.” Brad sets a plate in front of my mother and kisses the top of her head before going back to the stove. Knowing they’re in, like, True Love is a weird thing to comprehend. I feel a weird surge of happiness for them, along with a lame zap of jealousy that I could have made it to sixteen without any boys even wanting to kiss me.
Also, ugh, really? Dad is dead and my long-lost mother would have totally preferred to stay long-lost, and I’m feeling sorry for myself about boys?
“What are you doing today?” my mother asks Brad. “You’ll have time to unpack those boxes in the living room, yeah? I’m sick of it looking like squatters live here.”
“I can’t unpack those until we get another shelf,” he says. “But if you’d like, I could take care of that.”
“Fan-tastic,” she says before turning to me. “We’ll get everything you need, all right? And we can grab dinner tonight so you can see more of L.A.”
“Um, sure. Seriously, though, I don’t need much.”
“You didn’t bring much,” she says very matter-of-factly, which is true, though I still feel like I messed up.
Brad sits down with his own plate of pancakes, as my mother and I are finishing. “Reece, before you leave, did you see I bought you another headset for your phone?”
“I did see, and I’ll deal with it later,” she says, jumping to her feet. “Thanks, though. I think we’ll be out all day. You can keep yourself occupied?”
“I’ll manage. Give me five minutes and I’ll fix your phone before you go.”
My mother rolls her eyes but sits back down as Brad dashes out of the room. “Have you been to L.A. before?”
I shake my head.
“So no requests on where we shop or eat?”
I shake my head again, as Brad walks back into the room with my mother’s phone and a bag from Best Buy. “I hope you don’t lose this one.”
“Well, so do I.” She gets up to pour coffee into a travel mug. “How bad will the Grove be on a Saturday?”
“Pretty bad,” Brad says, while configuring the phone with the tiny earpiece headset. “Can you wait until Monday? Considering your hatred of both shopping and other people . . . ”
“I really don’t want to wait. Devan’s audition is first thing Monday, and I’d like to have her more settled before then. My coffee will keep me sane.”
Brad laughs at that and hands her the phone. “Here you are, love. Devan, please steer her away from large crowds if you can.”
I laugh like I’m part of their inside-jokes, but I probably just look a little crazy.
My mother and I walk silently out to the garage to her car. She pulls out onto the winding road and then back to the busy street we were on yesterday.
“Coffee before we attempt this?” she asks.
“Don’t you already have coffee?”
“Oh, please.” She gestures to her travel mug. “I’ll be done with this by the time the stoplight changes to green. Some might say I have a bit of a problem.”
“Like caffeine addiction?”
“Brad says there should be a twelve-step program.” She pulls over and parks by the curb off the busy street. I can’t wrap my brain around how many shops and restaurants and cars and people there are everywhere. “He has a point.”
I walk with her down the block to a tiny, dimly lit coffee shop. Way more my mother’s style, I can tell, than some happy and bright coffee chain. And, to be fair, it smells amazing, and they make my mother’s coffee without her even having to order it (something with four shots of espresso and foam only, while I stick with something frosty and chocolaty).
“So this is my list so far.” My mother takes a folded-up piece of paper out of her purse and hands it over to me. “You’re only allowed two vetoes.”
Okay, this is the thing: I know that I don’t want my mother spending much money on me, especially after finding out about school tuition. But? I really really really like shopping. Yes, there is more to life, like love and art and creativity and passion and a lot of big things I hope I’ll eventually experience, but there’s also the promise of being a newer, better you once you discover the perfect article of clothing or random accessory that suddenly perks up the way everyone sees you. I hope that isn’t superficial because I feel it deeper than it sounds.
It’s very rock and a hard place. Guilt and a shopping spree. Fear and the new Fall lines. If I were a character in a musical, there would totally be a song devoted to my current inner conflict.
“It, um, I guess it all looks okay to me,” I say. “If that’s fine with you.”
“Well.” She holds open the coffee shop door for me so we can walk back to her car. “You need it.”
In less than twenty-four hours I’ve really begun to hate the word need.
The Grove turns out to be a mall that’s all outside in the warm sunshine. I want to hate it for being so ridiculously L.A., especially since my mother clearly does, given her cursing about the crowded parking garage and the swarms of people. It’s nice, though.
I figure my mother won’t be thrilled about shopping, but she stays with me, ca
rries all my possibilities to the dressing room, and even offers up opinions when I’m not sure (“too weird” and “a-fucking-dorable” are my favorites). She doesn’t flinch at all at prices even though I do, a lot. Obviously Reece Malcolm does okay, money-wise.
Not like that automatically makes it okay. It would be different if she wanted to instead of feeling like she has to. Yeah, I’m staring at my reflection in the fitting room mirror, looking better than usual in clothes I love that I haven’t had to seek out on the clearance rack. Yeah, my mother—of all people—is offering up opinions like we’re in on this together. But it’s like a pretend good day, since I have to block everything else out of my mind just to sort of enjoy it (okay, to totally enjoy it).
We carry the shopping bags to her car but walk back so we can eat lunch at the Farmer’s Market, which looks more like a regular food court to me, just outdoors. We both get Mexican and manage to find an open table in the crowd.
“Thank you, seriously, so much for everything,” I say, munching on some chips sans salsa. Spicy things worry me. “You totally didn’t have to do so much.”
She shrugs as she takes a huge bite of an enchilada. “You needed things.”
Of course I’m baiting her to get the response I want. I’m happy to do this for you or You deserve all of this or even I have a lot to make up for. I want to be mad at her for not saying any of that, but obviously I know she isn’t happy to be doing this and that I don’t deserve so much and maybe she has a lot to make up for but mothers who only show up when they’re legally required to won’t see it that way.
“Do you need to do anything to prepare for your audition on Monday?” she asks.