by Piper Banks
“It’s just the casting call. I haven’t been hired yet,” Hannah said. But her smile and the small wriggle gave away how excited she really was.
“What time do you have to be there?” Dad asked.
“Nine o’clock. And it’s down in West Palm, so we’ll have to leave early,” Hannah said. “Right, Mom?”
“I think we’ll be fine if we leave by eight,” Peyton said.
Dad frowned. “Don’t forget there’ll be heavy traffic. You’ll be right in the middle of the morning rush hour.”
“I know how to drive, Richard,” Peyton said, in the cold tone I was more used to hearing her speaking in.
“I know you know how to drive. But I don’t think you’ve ever had to drive south during the morning rush, have you?” Dad asked. There was a definite edge to his voice.
Peyton’s eyes flashed, and she opened her mouth, clearly getting ready to blast Dad with a stinging retort. But instead, she closed her mouth, drew in a deep breath through her flared nostrils, and said in a very calm voice, “When you say I’ve never driven in rush hour, I feel like you’re implying that I’ve never had a real job. And that makes me feel as though I’m being criticized.”
Hannah and I both stared at her. It was such an oddly un-Peyton-like thing to say.
Dad cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean to diminish what you do. I very much appreciate all of the hard work you do running our home. I’m just concerned that you won’t give yourself enough time to get there, and will end up rushing. I don’t want you getting into an accident.”
Hannah’s and my heads swiveled from my father back to Peyton, as though we were spectators at a tennis match. I wanted to ask my dad what exactly he was talking about in regard to Peyton’s hard work in running the house. She didn’t really do anything, other than writing out checks for the various housekeepers and gardeners she employed. But I figured this wasn’t the best time to bring it up.
“I appreciate your concern. Would it make you feel better if Hannah and I leave at seven thirty instead?” Peyton asked.
“Yes, it would,” Dad replied.
“All right, then, we’ll leave at seven thirty, Hannah,” Peyton said. She took a sip of water and pretended to nibble on a black bean.
“Um, okay,” Hannah said, shooting me another confused look.
“That was weird,” Hannah said, walking into my room without knocking after dinner. I was sitting on the floor, rubbing Willow’s stomach, while she lay on her back, all four legs waving in the air. Willow grunted with bliss.
“Very weird,” I agreed. “I guess they learned to talk like that in therapy.”
Hannah sat on my bed. “Do you think it’s working?”
“Probably too soon to tell,” I said. “But at least it’s better than listening to them yell at each other.”
“That’s true.” Hannah looked around my bedroom, which was very white and very modern. There was a low platform bed covered with a white duvet, a dresser, and a boxy white chair that was too uncomfortable to sit on. Before I’d moved in, it had been the guest room, and when Peyton was feeling particularly malicious, she still called it that. “Why don’t you redecorate in here? I’ll help. We could paint the walls. Blue maybe. Or do you like purple?”
I glanced around. “I don’t know. When I first moved in, I didn’t think I’d be here long enough to personalize it. And then I guess I got used to the whiteness.”
Hannah wrinkled her nose. “It’s just so cold and impersonal.”
I was about to point out that the whole beach house was cold and white and impersonal—much like Peyton’s personality—but bit back the remark. Despite a bumpy patch when I first moved in, Hannah and I had been getting along pretty well in recent months. I didn’t want to ruin our good mojo by making mean comments about her mom, no matter how truthful they were.
“And you’ll be here next year, too, right? Didn’t you say your mom was staying in London?” Hannah asked.
I hesitated—I still hadn’t told anyone but my dad about London—but I decided I could trust Hannah.
“Actually, my mom wants me to move to London to live with her,” I said.
Hannah’s mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”
I nodded. “I probably won’t go, though. I mean, I haven’t decided. But I probably won’t.”
“Are you insane?”
The force of Hannah’s words took me by surprise. She was looking at me as though I’d just announced that I’d just been asked out on a date by Robert Pattinson and had turned him down.
“You have a chance to get out of this hick town and go live in a glamorous, international city and you’re not going to take it?” Hannah continued.
“You would go if you were me?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? Of course I would!” Hannah said. “That’s, like, the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Even though it would mean leaving behind all of your friends and Emmett?” I continued.
“Well, sure, that would be hard. I mean, I do love Emmett,” Hannah said, tossing her hair back. “But he’s going away to college in a year, and let’s face it—most high school couples break up as soon as one of them leaves for college. And if by some chance we are meant to be together, well, then, we’d be together even if I moved to Paris, right?”
“Paris?” I frowned at her. “What do you mean Paris?”
Hannah flushed, a pretty pink tinge covering her cheeks and the tip of her nose. “That’s where I would move if I could live anywhere,” she said. “I’d go to Paris and be a model. It’s the fashion capital of the world.”
“Okay, well, that makes sense. You’d be moving to follow your dream, right? But that doesn’t really apply to me. I want to be a writer, and I can write here as well as in London,” I said.
“But isn’t part of being a writer having amazing life experiences, so you have something to write about?” Hannah said.
“I guess,” I said slowly. “But I’d be giving up a lot.”
I didn’t have to mention Dex by name. Hannah immediately knew what I meant.
“If Dex and you are meant to be together, you’ll be together,” Hannah said. “Trust.”
“And if we’re not?” I asked.
Hannah shrugged. “Then you’re not. And it won’t matter if you’re here or in London.”
I nodded. I still wasn’t sure what I should do, but Hannah was—shockingly enough—making a lot of sense.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” I said. “I haven’t told anyone other than my dad, and now you. I don’t want Dex or anyone else to know until I’ve made up my mind one way or the other.”
“Really? You told me, but not your friends?” Hannah asked, her eyebrows rising in two perfect blond arches.
“Yep.”
“Why me?” she asked.
“I trust you,” I said simply. And I couldn’t help but feel a glow of goodwill when I saw how pleased she was to hear me say it.
Chapter Seventeen
When I arrived at the Fishers’ house Monday morning, I could hear someone inside—I was pretty sure it was Amelia—shouting. I hesitated for a moment, not sure whether I should interrupt. Then, finally deciding I had to—it was my job to be there, after all—I pressed the doorbell. The shouting stopped. There was the sound of advancing footsteps in the hallway, and then the door swung open.
Mrs. Fisher stood there, smiling at me as usual. The smile was a bit tense, and Mrs. Fisher’s cheeks were very red, but she said, “Good morning, Miranda,” in a calm enough voice.
“Hi, Mrs. Fisher,” I said, walking inside and dropping my knapsack by the front door.
Mrs. Fisher winced as a door on the second floor of the house slammed shut.
“Amelia’s upstairs. She’s a bit upset at the moment,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“We decided to engage a new piano teacher for Amelia—someone who has more experience with advanced students. Amelia is rather attached to h
er old teacher, and so, naturally, she’s unhappy at the change.” Mrs. Fisher sighed and ran a hand through her short, wiry bob, causing the bangles on her arm to jingle together. “Maybe you could talk to her, Miranda. I know she looks up to you.”
She does? I wanted to say. Because even though Amelia had ratcheted down her hostility toward me since I started taking her to the pool, I thought we were a long way off from her looking up to me. I was pretty sure I was someone she barely tolerated.
The phone rang, and Mrs. Fisher turned toward the kitchen, tapping down the hallway in her heels, calling back over her shoulder to me, “Go ahead upstairs, Miranda. Amelia should be in her room.” A moment later, I heard her answer the phone. “Hello? Oh yes, hello, Janice. I’m glad you called. I need to talk to you about the fabric samples I got in for the window treatments for your living room. . . .”
I trudged up the stairs. I hadn’t been on the second floor of the Fishers’ house before. There was a long central hallway, carpeted in beige, with framed family photos hanging on the walls. The pictures were mostly of Amelia taken at what looked like piano recitals and concerts, with Amelia up on a stage, wearing a full-skirted dress and sitting at a large black piano. There was one shot of all three Fishers, standing on a dock with boats behind them, smiling at the camera. I hadn’t met Mr. Fisher yet, but I could see Amelia in his face—he had the same stubborn chin, the same large brown eyes. Mr. Fisher had an arm slung around Mrs. Fisher’s waist; she had her hand on Amelia’s shoulder. They looked like a happy family, I thought.
I continued down the hallway, passing the master bedroom and a bathroom, until I reached the only closed door. By process of elimination, this had to be Amelia’s room. I knocked softly.
“Go away!” Amelia called through the door. Her voice sounded ragged, as though she’d been crying.
“It’s me. Miranda,” I said.
I wasn’t surprised when she said, in an even louder, more aggressive tone, “I said, go away!”
I considered my options. I could go back downstairs, but then I might have to talk to Mrs. Fisher some more when she got off the phone. That wasn’t so bad in itself—Mrs. Fisher had always been nice to me—but she would realize that Amelia and I weren’t nearly as close as she thought we were. She might even decide that I was a terrible au pair and fire me. I didn’t know why this would bother me so much—taking care of Amelia hadn’t exactly been fun. But I didn’t want to be a failure at my first official job. So I knocked on the door again.
“Look, I’m not going away, so you might as well let me in,” I said.
I didn’t expect this to work, but after a brief pause, the door swung open. Amelia stood before me, her face pale and streaked with tears, her dark hair falling messily over her shoulders, her hands fisted at her sides. She was wearing a pink T-shirt with a glittery rainbow on it. This was unusual for her. Amelia didn’t normally wear a lot of pink, or sparkles, or anything so overtly girly.
“Hi,” I said. “Can I come in?”
Amelia shrugged, but stepped aside. I took this as an invitation and stepped into her room. Much like the pink T-shirt, Amelia’s room didn’t look like Amelia to me. The walls were pale blue, and the furniture—a bed, a dresser, a small desk—was white and edged with gold. The bedspread and curtains were both navy blue. On the wall, there was a series of framed black-and-white photographs of ballet shoes. I looked at these, surprised.
“Do you dance?” I asked.
“No,” Amelia said. “My mom picked those out.”
“Oh,” I said. “That makes sense. She’s an interior decorator, right?”
I thought it looked like the sort of bedroom you’d see in an advertisement—pretty but impersonal. I was suddenly reminded of my own room, back at the beach house. Maybe Amelia and I were more alike that I’d thought. We could both live in rooms and fail to make any impression on them.
In fact, the only bits of Amelia I saw in her room was a stack of sheet music piled up messily on the desk, a cuddly stuffed monkey propped against the pillow, and a book on the bedside table. I looked closer. It was Anne of Green Gables. I touched it, and remembered telling Amelia that the book had been one of my favorites.
“Are you enjoying the book?” I asked.
Amelia shrugged again, but then she nodded. “It’s okay, I guess.”
My spine stiffened. Who could possibly read Anne of Green Gables, and call it just okay? But then I reminded myself that Amelia was upset, and took a few deep breaths to keep my temper in check.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
Amelia looked at me strangely. “The book?”
“No, not the book. Why you’re upset.”
“Oh.” Amelia looked away and began wrapping a long tendril of hair around one finger. “My mom didn’t tell you?”
“She said you’re changing piano teachers.”
At this, Amelia looked up sharply, her eyes slanted with anger. “And I get no say in it! None at all. It doesn’t matter that I want to stay with Miss Kendall, who’s been my teacher forever. My mom just announces that I have to start taking lessons with this Ian Gregory guy, even though he lives in Miami, because he’s famous.”
“Miami?” I asked. “How often will you have to go down there?”
“Twice a week!” Amelia said. “Which means I’ll be spending hours and hours in the car, which is time I won’t have to practice.”
“Have you tried talking to your mom about how you feel?” I asked.
“Duh,” Amelia said, rolling her eyes at me. “That’s why we’re fighting. She won’t listen to me.”
“Sometimes when I get upset, it’s hard to find the right words to express what I’m feeling. When that happens, I think it helps to write it down—the reasons why I’m upset, what I think the best solution to the problem is. You could try doing that,” I suggested.
“What’s the point? My mom’s already made up her mind,” Amelia said.
“Maybe. But maybe she’s more open to hearing your side than you think. And even if she doesn’t ultimately agree with you, at least you’ll know that you made your best case,” I said.
Amelia thought about this, still curling her hair around her finger. Her hair was straight as a pin, unlike my unruly, wavy mess. In fact, she had the sort of hair I’d always coveted—glossy and thick, the kind that always looks perfect in a ponytail.
“I suppose I could,” Amelia said slowly, as though agreeing that my idea had merit was physically painful for her.
“And if you’re still worried about talking to your mom, you could always just show her what you wrote,” I suggested.
Amelia went to her desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a spiral notebook and a pen. She sat down, cross-legged in the middle of the floor, the notebook balanced on her lap. Then she looked up at me expectantly.
“What should I say?” she asked.
I sat down next to her. “Why do you want to stay with your current teacher?”
Amelia considered this, tapping the end of the pen against her knee. “She always tells me the truth about what I need to work on, but she’s never mean about it.”
“So you trust her,” I said.
“I trust her. Yeah, that’s exactly it.”
“Write it down.”
Amelia obediently scrawled the words into the notebook.
“What else?” I asked.
“She’s supportive,” Amelia said. She thought for a minute. “And when she explains something, it makes sense to me. Should I write that down, too?”
“Definitely. She’s supportive and you like her teaching style,” I said. “Those both seem like really important points. What else?”
By the time we’d finished, Amelia had a detailed list of all of the reasons why she preferred to stay with her current piano teacher. I thought she made a compelling argument. We headed downstairs, but Mrs. Fisher had already left for work, leaving a note on the counter to let us know she’d be home a bit later than usual and th
at there was sliced turkey in the cold cut drawer for lunch. Amelia’s shoulders drooped.
“I wanted to show her my list now,” Amelia said.
“Look at this way—you’ll have extra time to plan your strategy,” I said.
“What strategy?”
“Exactly,” I said.
“Huh?”
“This gives you more time to figure out how to best approach your mom,” I explained. “You were just fighting, right?”
Amelia nodded.
“Well, now you’ll both have time to cool off. If she’s anything like my mom, by the time she gets home, she’ll be feeling bad that you fought and will want to make up with you. So if you catch her in the right mood, she might be more receptive to hearing your side of things,” I said.
“Wow. You’re really good at this whole dealing with the parents thing,” Amelia said, looking impressed.
I shrugged modestly. “I’ve had a lot practice with parental conflict,” I said. “My parents are divorced and I have a stepmother.”
“Do you fight a lot with your parents?”
I considered this. “My mom and I used to argue a lot when I was younger. But I live with my dad now, and he and I have never fought as much. Then again, we’re also not as close as my mom and I are.”
“I hardly ever see my dad,” Amelia said.
“Why?” I asked.
“He travels a lot for business. And when he is home, he’s always jet-lagged and wants to be left alone so he can rest.”
“Could you talk to him about the situation with your piano teacher?” I asked.
Amelia shook her head. “There’s no point. He’ll just take my mom’s side. I’m better off trying to convince her.”
We were both quiet for a minute. “Do you want to go to the pool?” I finally asked. Then, remembering that she hadn’t practiced at all that morning, I said, “Unless you’d rather practice. It’s up to you.”
Amelia thought for a minute. “Actually, I’d sort of like to go swimming. Will Dex be there?”
“He’s off this morning. If there’s enough wind, he was planning to go parasurfing.”