Reunited

by Hilary Weisman Graham

  No. Tiernan had betrayed her, and nothing could ever take that away. It didn’t matter if it happened four or four hundred years ago. Tiernan had taken what Summer had told her in confidence and used it against her. Even worse, she’d twisted her words. Not that Alice had been any better, embarrassing her with a huge public scene.

  Even now, thinking about that night at the Winter Wonderland Dance made the anger rush out of Summer with such force her whole body trembled. And the worst part was, Summer had just let herself fall in with them all over again, as if none of this nastiness had ever happened. Like a little giggling on some ridiculous road trip could just magically make it all go away.

  “So, what am I supposed to do, Jace? Just forgive and forget?”

  “If you want to,” Jace said softly.

  Summer was close enough to the waterfall now that she could feel its mist settling on her bare skin.

  Part of her did want to trust Jace again. Graduation day aside, he was one of the steadiest, most reliable people she knew. Even his football game was like that—solid, dependable. He didn’t have a lot of dazzling moments on the field, but you could always count on Jace to play well, to be consistent.

  Tiernan, on the other hand, was a wild card. One minute, she was a normal fourteen-year-old girl, a friend. The next, she was a Goth-punk backstabber. But unlike her dyed hair and combat boots, betrayal didn’t look good on anyone.

  “There’s a computer room here, at the hotel,” Summer said. “I’ll go look at flights.”

  “Call me when you’ve found something,” Jace said. “And Summer . . . I love you,” he added, like an afterthought.

  “Me too,” she said absently. But her mind was already someplace else. A new poem was flowing out of her so fast and loud that, for a second, she couldn’t even hear the waterfall. She pulled her journal from her purse, scrawling furiously.

  The Collage

  You can take all the snapshots you

  want,

  but you will not capture me.

  I have already been torn to pieces

  by you,

  and pasted myself together again.

  I may just be an amateur

  But I have found what it takes to

  make me whole

  And it turns out, the only things I

  need

  Are time, a little glue, and a

  design of my own.

  The Gaywether Hotel business center rented computers for fifty cents a minute, so Summer handed the man her ID and plunked herself in front of a machine in the corner. The least expensive flight was out of New Orleans at six a.m. on Friday. It would time out perfectly. Tomorrow they’d hit the road early and head down to New Orleans. All she had to do was make it through her the night on the town with Alice and Tiernan, then they could drop her off at the airport and Jace would pick her up in Boston on his way to the Cape on Friday morning.

  Summer used the credit card number Jace had given her to purchase the tickets. She could already see the tragic look on Alice’s face when she broke the news about leaving. It was hard to say if it would be more or less painful than Tiernan’s inevitable shrug of cool indifference.

  Whatever. She didn’t owe them anything, least of all loyalty. The reason they were all here had nothing to do with personal stuff anyway. They were here because they all liked Level3. That was the only real bummer—that she wouldn’t get to see the show.

  Summer ran to catch the elevator up to the third floor, but just as she got there, the brass double doors started to close and she found herself glaring at her own reflection, the seam in the doors splitting her face in two.

  Thankfully, the next elevator was empty. Summer could use a minute alone to practice how she’d deliver the news. Hey, you guys, when we get to New Orleans, I was wondering if you could . . .? Then she noticed the music in the elevator, or more precisely, Muzak. It was Level3. Not that Level3 Muzak was shocking in and of itself—sadly, they were popular enough to suffer the indignity of being turned into easy listening. The weird thing was hearing Level3 at the Gaywether Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. Down here they force-fed you country music until your ears bled. And yet, there it was—“Sad Songs,” the power ballad off of Natural Causes, being piped into the elevator for her listening pleasure.

  Summer hurried back to their room. She couldn’t wait to tell Alice and Tiernan about “Sad Songs.” But as she dug out her key card, her heart sank a little. How could she burst into the room all excited about the coincidence of some dumb elevator music when she had bigger news to deliver?

  Tiernan and Alice were both on Alice’s bed, huddled on a mountain of pillows, watching TV.

  “Oh my God, you have to see this!” Alice gushed, pointing to the TV. “It’s the Level3 True Hollywood Story!”

  Tiernan smiled, a Twizzler hanging limply from her mouth.

  Summer sat down on the edge of the bed and watched with them. She had come back just in time for the heartbreaking part.

  “. . . Then, as Level3 was preparing to go into the studio to record their second album . . . tragedy struck.” The narrator had one of those melodramatic movie trailer voices. “Travis Wyland’s twenty-four-year-old brother Dean was rushed to the hospital due to complications from Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Three days later, Dean was dead. . . .”

  “God!” Tiernan laughed. “Do they have to use those awful sound effects? Do they think we won’t get that it’s sad if they don’t put in a bump-bump-buuuuum at the end?”

  Summer got up off the bed so Alice and Tiernan wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. She’d probably feel much better once the show ended and she could just tell them she was leaving. Even if Alice got upset, chances were it would be more about someone disrupting her plans as opposed to actually caring whether Summer left or stayed.

  Tiernan offered her a Twizzler and she took it. After everything she’d eaten on this trip, a few more grams of high fructose corn syrup couldn’t hurt. She watched the rest of the E! True Hollywood Story from the corner of the desk, riveted. It was weird how she could be that into a story when she already knew the ending.

  Summer knew the ending to the three of them, too. She would leave the trip tomorrow. Back home, they’d be Facebook friends, at best. Then in the fall, they’d each head off for college. And maybe—maybe—they’d see each other again at their ten-year high school reunion.

  The show ended with “Sad Songs” over the credits. A funny fluke, to be sure, but life was full of stuff like that.

  “So, you guys . . . ,” Summer began, keeping her eyes on the TV. “About New Orleans tomorrow—”

  But a knock at the door cut her off.

  Alice shot Tiernan a look. “Tell me you didn’t order room service.”

  “Dude, I don’t have that kind of cash. But maybe it’s turndown service! Score!”

  “What’s turn-down service?” Summer asked. Her family stayed in mo tels, not hotels. That is, if they went anywhere at all.

  Tiernan leaped off the bed. “It’s when the hotel maids come in to fold down your covers and put a chocolate on your pillow!” she said, flinging open the door like she was expecting to see a truckload of M&M’s in the hallway.

  Instead, what Tiernan found waiting for her on the other side of the door lacked the ability to melt in either her mouth or her hands (and was definitely a whole lot less sweet). Her mother.

  “UNDERGROUND”

  THE EARTHWORMS

  WELL, THEY LIKE TO KEEP IT SIMPLE.

  THEY SLEEP IN DIRT

  AND THEY EAT IT, TOO.

  BUT, THERE’S SOMETHING TO BE SAID

  FOR HAVING LUNCH IN BED.

  THEY’LL NEVER GO HUNGRY

  AND THEY’RE ALWAYS RIGHT AT HOME.

  —from Level3’s third CD, Natural Causes

  Chapter Sixteen

  “TIERNAN, GIRLS. MAY I COME IN?” HER MOTHER ASKED, THOUGH it wasn’t really a question. And even if it was, Tiernan had no voice to answer it, the air had been sucked f
rom her lungs into the black hole that was Judy Horowitz.

  Judy wore a red silk blouse, black slacks, and heels—half corporate lawyer, half matador dressed for a bullfight. Her makeup was perfect.

  “You girls wouldn’t mind giving us a little privacy, would you?” she asked, smiling at Alice and Summer. Her voice had that soothing tone she used to coax their cat into its travel box for a trip to the vet. The cat always made a break for it. Tiernan fought off the urge.

  “Sure, not a problem,” Alice said, practically falling over herself to get out the door.

  Summer heaved her massive purse onto her shoulder. “We’ll be back . . . later.”

  Then the door slammed shut and it was just Tiernan and her mother, mano a mano at the Gaywether Hotel. It had all the makings of a pay-per-view special.

  With a flick of her manicured fingernail, Judy turned off the TV so that the only sound left was the hum of the white noise machine. Hotels used white noise machines to drown out sounds from adjoining rooms—voices, the television, the moans and groans of the newlyweds next door. Judy had one at her law firm to protect her clients’ privacy. Her own daughter’s privacy was clearly less of a concern.

  “How did you find me?” Tiernan asked. If her mother was a matador, Tiernan was the bull bucking in its pen before the match.

  “The Millers,” Judy said, kicking off her heels. “They called me after they spoke to Alice yesterday telling me to expect a call from you.” Her eyes bore into Tiernan. “But that call never came.”

  “Mom, I was going to call you, but I—”

  Her mother cut her off with a talk to the hand move. “Stop, Tiernan. Just stop.” Judy sat down on the corner of the bed. Now that Tiernan got a good look at her face, she seemed tired and worn, like she’d come looking for a nap rather than a fight.

  “You know, I was really, really angry when I found that note. And I was still angry when I got on the plane to come down here.” Judy took a deep breath. “But now that I’m here, I’m just . . . happy to see you’re okay.”

  Cue violins here. This little performance was about to go down in the Jewish Mother Guilt Trip Hall of Fame.

  “So, are you girls having a nice time?” her mother asked (and not in a sarcastic way). Strangely, Judy’s eyes looked wet.

  Tears weren’t part of her mother’s usual MO. Unless this wasn’t a guilt trip. But what else could it be? A head injury?

  “I don’t know.” Tiernan stopped pacing. “Kind of. I guess.”

  “Well, that’s good. I always thought Alice and Summer were a good fit for you.” Judy pulled her feet up under her. With her size-two frame, she looked small, like a little kid.

  Tiernan knew what to do with a ranting and raving Judy Horowitz—the Judy Horowitz who confiscated cell phones and bought drug-testing kits from CVS like they were Tic Tacs. But what the hell was she supposed to do with this?

  “Mom, is this some kind of reverse psychology thing?”

  Her mother smiled. “Why? Is it working?”

  Tiernan snorted disdainfully, but it didn’t quite hide her smile.

  “Come, sit next to me.” Judy patted the bed and Tiernan sat. As if there was another choice. On her mother’s right foot, her big toe poked through a hole in her stocking.

  “I was hoping we could just talk for a minute, like two adults.”

  “Well, we can give it a shot,” Tiernan said. She could still run. She was faster than Judy. She had shoes on.

  “I want you to know how scared I was, Tiernan. How hurt I felt when I found your note . . . those hours I spent not knowing where you were.”

  Tiernan’s stomach tightened. Her mother’s voice had a hollow sound to it, as it had in those weeks after Tiernan’s dad had moved out.

  “I was so frantic to find you, I even called Dustin.”

  Tiernan winced. Dustin was the boy she’d dated junior year. It hadn’t ended well.

  “He’s at his parents’ lake house in New Hampshire for the summer. He said to say hi.”

  “Hi,” said Tiernan.

  “Anyway, on my way down here, something happened.”

  You bumped your head on the airplane’s overhead compartment? You converted to Hare Krishna at the airport?

  “I realized that this right here”—she gestured to the room—“is not about your anger at me for grounding you, or for confiscating that alcohol, or for any of the squabbles we’ve had in recent times. This is old stuff between us.”

  Her mother reached out and put her hand around Tiernan’s clenched fist, gripping it so tightly, Tiernan could feel the throb of her own pulse, as if Judy were holding her actual beating heart.

  Her normal response to maternal affection was to pull away but, for some reason, she didn’t. This time, Tiernan relaxed her fist and held her mother’s hand back.

  “Tiernan, we’ve both made mistakes and done things we regret. . . .” Judy’s voice trailed off. “But if we want to try to work it out—instead of doing what we’ve been doing over and over again for the past four years—then we need to go all the way back to the start.”

  Tiernan gave her mother a wry smile as she fought back tears. “How long do you have?”

  “As long as it takes,” Judy said.

  They sat like that in silence for what seemed like ages while Tiernan’s mind reeled back through the past few years. What was there left to talk about? The divorce was old news. Her parents did the best they could to make it as painless as possible for Tiernan and her older brother, Todd—sat them down for the mandatory “it’s not your fault” lecture, as if they were a couple of kindergartners, even though Tiernan was fourteen at the time and Todd was about three weeks away from leaving for college. The lucky bastard.

  But life wasn’t fair. And marriages were no different from anything else in the world—eventually it all turned to crap. It’s not like it didn’t bother Tiernan that her father had cheated on her mom and moved to Colorado with his new girlfriend, but it wasn’t as if there was anything she could actually do about it.

  “Tiernan,” her mother began, “I’m going to tell you something I’ve been afraid to say for a really long time.”

  Tiernan’s stomach tightened as if she were readying herself for a punch in the gut.

  “I feel like—” Judy’s voice quavered. “I feel like I’ve let you down. That I haven’t been the mother I wanted to be. The mother you deserved.”

  So Judy guilt-tripped herself as much as she guilt-tripped everyone else? Interesting.

  “I was so sad when Dad left, so consumed with my own problems, that when you started acting up and getting into trouble at school, it just felt like, like too much to take. It’s no excuse. It’s a horrible excuse. And I know you were only acting out because you were upset about the divorce, about Dad leaving. But at the time, I could barely manage my marriage falling apart.” Judy paused while a single tear rolled down her cheek and plopped onto the bedspread. “And I didn’t give you the attention you needed because it was easier . . .” Judy bit her lip and shook her head.

  Tiernan wanted to tell her mom that she didn’t have to finish the sentence, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak.

  “It was easier . . .” Judy sucked in a breath as more tears came. “It was easier to let you push me away.”

  Tiernan sat perfectly still while the weight of her mother’s words settled over her. Part of her wanted to scream at her mother, to throw things against the walls and watch them smash. Her own mother, the one person in the world who had to love her and instead had abandoned her. Just like her father. Just when she’d needed her most.

  “But I’m not going to do that anymore.” Judy sniffled. “And I know in two more months you’ll be off at college . . . but I’d rather spend the rest of our lives slogging through the mud together than to just sit back and watch you drift away.”

  Tiernan hugged her knees into her chest, listening to the sound of her mother cry. She hated her father for running off to Colorado with his girlf
riend—for lying to them, for leaving. But the truth was, she hated Judy even more. Judy, who was right there with her the whole time in the same house, and until this moment had never seemed to notice Tiernan was good for anything other than yelling at or punishing.

  Judy slid her arms around Tiernan’s back and held tight. If she hadn’t felt so weak, she would have flung her mother off right then and there. Just busted out of her embrace and taken off into the night. Stop pretending we’re a normal mother and daughter! Tiernan wanted to scream. It’s too late for that. Way too late. But for some reason she couldn’t move a muscle. It took everything in Tiernan’s power to hold back her own waterworks.

  “You and I build walls to protect ourselves,” Judy whispered as she stroked Tiernan’s hair. “It’s what we do. I put on my war paint and my suit and my heels every day, and I go to court and I fight, fight, fight. And everyone always says to me, ‘Judy, you’re so strong.’” Her mother sniffled. “But you know, Tiernan, a person can’t be strong every minute of her life.”

  Suddenly all the tears Tiernan had been trying so hard to keep down rose up in her throat and she was sobbing hard, her head pressed into her mother’s chest.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d let loose and cried like this, but now that the well of pain had opened up inside her, there seemed to be no stopping it, and the more Tiernan tried fighting it off, the deeper she fell—down, down, down into the darkness. If her mother really loved her, why did she push her away? Who else did Judy think Tiernan had during the divorce? Her father was gone. Her brother was off at college. She’d already shipped her off to boarding school, tearing her away from Alice and Summer, the only people who really knew her back then, the only people who’d truly cared. They had cared, even though Tiernan’s insecurities had made her doubt it.