by Foxglove Lee
“He couldn’t,” Tiffany snapped. “He couldn’t. He was my dad’s lawyer, okay? And he was married.”
“What?” I almost laughed, except I knew Tiffany would kill me if I did. “Tiffany, how old was this guy?”
“Shut up. You sound just like my mom.” Her eyes blazed, but I couldn’t look away. I didn’t look away. And, after a tense few seconds, the veneer broke and she laughed. “Oh my God, shut up Bec!”
I smiled with relief, though I wasn’t perfectly at ease with this conversation. “Why? How old was he?”
“Like, fifty.” Tiffany laughed despite the tears rolling down her cheeks. “His daughters were older than me. Seriously! Right?”
When I pictured some wrinkled old man on top of my beautiful Tiffany, I nearly retched. “Please tell me you never… you know…”
“Are you my mom in Rebecca’s body?” Tiffany took a deep breath. She didn’t seem angry anymore. “No, we didn’t. I mean, I totally would have…”
“Because you’re insane.”
“Shut up!” She bumped my shoulder with hers. “No, he seriously wouldn’t discuss it. I’d come on to him, and he’d be all like, ‘Tiffany, behave,’ like I was a kid or something.”
“Well, how old were you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Fourteen, fifteen? Whatever.”
“Oh my God, and he was your family’s lawyer?” I suddenly connected the dots. “Is that why you kept stealing stuff? So he’d have to defend you and you’d get to see him again?”
“Now you sound like Dr. Woodman. That’s one of her theories.”
“I think she’s right.”
“No shit, Sherlock. I mean, I wasn’t thinking all that at the time. I guess it was more unconscious, right? All I was thinking when I stole that ring was that I’d wear it all the time. I’d show Mark and be like, ‘This represents my commitment to you.’ I really just wanted to show Mark I was his.”
“Even though he was married and never said he liked you?”
Tiffany took a deep breath, then said, “I was stupid, okay? Haven’t you ever done anything dumb like that? I mean, aside from falling in love with a doll.”
“I was never in love with Yvette!”
The idea made me really uncomfortable, so I pushed it aside. I told Tiffany about Chloe, about how I’d kissed her and then the whole school started calling me Martina. I thought about Mrs. Kaufman, the mom of Mikey’s friend, and how I used to pretend we were married while I helped with dinner. But I didn’t tell Tiffany about that, because it was way too embarrassing… and it sounded too much like her thing with Mark.
Stupid Mark. Stupid men. The more Tiffany talked about him, the more I hated his guts. Well, not so much the man himself because it sounded like he had no interest in Tiffany. It was her interest in him that made me so mad. Why did she have to like boys? Not even boys, but men!
“Are you in love with this guy?” I asked. My words were like shrapnel.
“I thought I was.”
“But now?”
Tiffany breathed out hard. That was enough of an answer, and it made me so angry my whole head buzzed. Not that I thought she was “in love” with me or anything. I mean, we’d only known each other a few weeks. Just because I knew from the moment I saw her that one day she’d be my girlfriend didn’t mean Tiffany would necessarily reciprocate. But she knew my secret life. Nobody else in the world knew me like she did. And all that time she’d been mooning over some old dude?
“Fine,” I said, stomping to the paddleboat. “If that’s how you feel, let’s go back.”
Tiffany dragged her feet to our stolen boat. When she got close, she tried to kiss me, but I pulled away. She didn’t ask why. She just got into the boat and steered us back to land.
“Where are you going?” she asked when I took a left instead of a right.
“To my aunt’s cottage.”
“You don’t have a bed there.”
“I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Tiffany took hold of my arm, but I pulled away. “Why are you being such a spaz? Just come back to my place, okay?”
“No.” I wasn’t going to explain why. Tiffany knew.
“Whatever.” She flicked her long hair over her shoulder. “Maybe I’ll just hang out with those cool guys at the fire pit. They don’t seem as uptight as some people I know.”
“Fine,” I said, even though that wasn’t fine at all. “Do what you want. It’s a free country.”
The sun wasn’t up yet, but the early morning sky was bright enough that I could see streaks down her cheeks, like her tears had painted her skin red. She stared me down, but I stood my ground. Even as old men began to emerge from their cottages with fishing rods in hand, nothing could distract me. I was like a cat.
Tiffany turned on a dime and strutted up the hill.
Even in flip-flops and wet jeans, she walked like a runway model. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I watched her walk away until she was just a dot on the gravel road. Then she turned beyond the treeline, and she was gone.
Chapter 21
When I woke up on the couch, I thought I was still dreaming.
My aunt and uncle prepared breakfast as usual, but Mikey sat solemnly at the table. He was dressed in knee-high striped socks, curly slippers with bells on the ends, and lederhosen like the kids in The Sound of Music. In addition to that, he had on a wig made entirely of tinsel.
“Whaaaat?” I sat up, rubbing my eyes to drive out the grogginess. I was so tired I felt like I was going to throw up. “Mikey?”
I couldn’t believe that was my brother. I’d never seen him sit still before.
“It’s Christmas in July,” Aunt Libby said, bringing me a plate of pancakes with a side of bacon. She set it on the coffee table, which was super-weird. Our family ate every meal at the kitchen table. Food wasn’t allowed on the couch, even in this crap shack cottage. “Do you like your brother’s costume? He’s an elf.”
My aunt was being nice to me? Had I woken up in a different dimension or something?
“I’m glad you decided to come home.” My aunt kissed the top of my head, and then joined my uncle at the table. “What time did you get in? I didn’t hear the door.”
“I don’t know.” I picked up my plate and went to them. “Wait, why is Mikey dressed like an elf?”
“Christmas in July,” Uncle Flip said, like that should make sense to me. “It’s the theme for the kids’ costume parade.”
Every year, to keep the kids entertained while their parents were wheeling and dealing, the cottage community held a dress-up parade for the young ones. Mikey was at the upper edge of the age limit, which is probably why he looked so grim, but there were prizes if your costume was really good.
“Did you want to dress up?” my aunt asked, like that was a serious consideration. “You could scoop up some pine boughs from out back and have the children hang ornaments on you.”
“You’d make a perfect Christmas tree,” my uncle joined in.
“But it’s for kids—I mean, the prizes and all that.”
Aunt Libby seemed more jovial than she’d been in ages. “So what? I brought up Santa hats for your uncle and me to wear. He’s being a good sport about it.”
“Your aunt brought decorations from home.”
I looked into Aunt Libby’s hopeful eyes, and felt bad for all the trouble I’d caused. How many kids break into other people’s cottages and get brought home in a police car? Aunt Libby and Uncle Flip had given up their entire summer to spend with Mikey and me. In part, they were doing it as a favour to my mother, but I could tell by the optimistic gleams in their eyes that they were also doing it because they loved my brother and they loved me.
“Okay,” I said, pasting on a smile. “Sounds like fun.”
As we ate breakfast, it occurred to me that a few days earlier I would have fought tooth and nail. I’d have been so embarrassed if Tiffany saw me dressed up like an idiot. After last night’s pissy little argument, I didn’
t care what she thought. I could dress up like a Christmas tree if I wanted to dress up like a Christmas tree. So what?
My brother and I went out to the wooded area behind the cottage, looking for pine boughs that had fallen in the spring storms. While I poked my head under one big tree, I heard the bells on my brother’s elf costume jingling wildly.
Yvette!
I turned in Mikey’s direction, but Yvette wasn’t there. Only my little brother, ripping all the soft green boughs from a baby pine.
“What are you doing?” I pushed him away from the tree. “You’re killing it, you stupid idiot. It’s only little. Now it’s going to die.”
I expected Mikey’s lip to quiver, but nope. Nothing. Just a blank stare.
One of the first tenets of wandering the woods was “take nothing, leave nothing behind.” We’d been raised not to destroy plants. He knew better.
“What’s the difference?” Mikey challenged me. “We pick ferns for the tepee. What’s the big deal?”
“Because we use the tepee,” I said, though my reasoning seemed a little weak. “You sleep there all the time. It’s shelter.”
Mikey threw the pine boughs on the ground. He just stood by the stripped-down tree, staring through me.
“Why didn’t you talk to mom on the phone?” I asked.
His eyes flickered, but his expression turned hard. “Why didn’t you?”
I shrugged. “Didn’t wanna. So what?”
“So what, poo-brain?”
“You should have talked to her.”
“You should have talked to her,” Mikey said.
I knew he was just imitating me, but I also knew he was right.
We stood in the forest, arms crossed, staring each other down. For a big sister, I wasn’t setting a very good example. But I’d been setting a good example for as long as I could remember. What was the point?
“Is Dad really gonna be in jail for fourteen years?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he’ll get parole and come home sooner.”
Mikey said, “I hope not,” and swept down to pick up the pine boughs he’d ripped from that poor little tree.
“I know,” I told him. “I hope not, too.”
If anyone had been listening to our conversation, they would have thought we were terrible kids. There was some comfort in knowing one person in the world would always understand how I felt, even if he was my bratty little brother.
Mikey watched a chipmunk scamper across the forest floor. He wasn’t looking at me when he asked, “Did you know before? Did mom tell you and you didn’t tell me?”
“As if!” I’d never wanted to hug him so much as I did in that moment, but I didn’t do it because I knew it would make me cry. “Seriously, Mikey, I never knew anything. Nobody said a word.”
He looked up at me, so confused and saddened that I almost broke. “Why didn’t they tell us?”
I could have said something angry, but that wouldn’t have been fair. “They didn’t want to hurt us, Mikey. That’s all.”
He nodded, then asked, “Can you call me Mike now?”
“Why? Everybody calls you Mikey.”
My brother shrugged. “I just wanna be Mike now, okay?”
“Okay.” I couldn’t argue with that logic.
We made our way back to the cottage so my aunt and uncle could strap the pine boughs around my waist and my arms. Aunt Libby made a necklace of them that hung around my front and my back. They pricked a little, but the fresh forest scent made me feel saner than before.
Dressed up like a tree with a silly silver bow in my hair, I finally felt like things were settling down. My aunt, my uncle, and my little brother attached the first three decorations to my boughs with little bits of wire: one wreath, one silver bell, and a little ceramic duck.
When we left the cottage and took to the gravel road, we were all talking about what kind of furniture we might get for my bedroom. I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, like the haze of a half-remembered dream, but I told myself I was just hungry or something.
No big deal.
Chapter 22
The moment we arrived at the swap meet, I realized I was looking for Tiffany. Every strand of blonde hair gleaming in the sun was her. Every white dress, too. And, considering the number of kids dressed as angels for the Christmas in July costume contest, I saw Tiffany every time I turned around.
And then I saw her for real.
“If you’re looking for a bed, I’ve got this camp cot,” Mr. Macintyre told my aunt and uncle. “It’s not big, but Rebecca’s not a big girl. She’ll fit A-OK.”
“I don’t know.” Uncle Flip’s voice was like static, background noise. “There’s an awful lot of rust along this side. Where have you been storing it?”
I’d spotted Tiffany, but she hadn’t seen me. Not yet. I wondered if she was angry. This whole situation felt like a movie: me surrounded by little kids in pageant costumes, plucking Christmas ornaments from the basket my aunt had given me and stringing them all over my boughs. It didn’t feel like real life at all.
“It’s pretty squeaky,” my aunt told Mr. Macintyre. “All she’s got to do is roll over and she’ll wake the whole family.”
The man didn’t seem put off by my aunt and uncle’s nit-picking. In fact, he offered a great suggestion. “If it’s a proper bed you’re after, you might ask the old Jones couple that runs the shop. They’ve got a spare one, I believe.”
“Yes, we know,” my aunt said. “That’s where Rebecca’s been staying since the fire.”
The adults proceeded to discuss the night my room burst into flames. To them, it was nothing more than an idle mystery. My stomach knotted. It was the same feeling I got every time I remembered that I’d forgotten something.
Tiffany’s eyes met mine across the field, which was usually nothing but wild grasses. For one day only, it transformed into a current of cottagers coursing around tables of books and used clothes, handicrafts and preserves. And furniture, of course. Everyone had come out. And “everyone” included Tiffany wearing a tight red dress and a necklace made of cotton balls, like a sexy Mrs. Claus.
“Want to try it out Rebecca? Take ‘er for a test drive?”
Mr. Macintosh was talking to me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the blonde who made my legs wobble. I knew I’d been mad at her, but I couldn’t remember why.
“Becca?” Uncle Flip asked. “Have a lie-down on this cot, eh? See how it feels.”
“No,” I said, offhandedly. Before anyone could make me lie down on that dirty old cot, I took off down the aisle, trailing clouds of angels and elves and even three wise men. I didn’t stop running until I’d nearly stepped on Tiffany’s toes.
“You’re here,” I said.
“Yeah.”
Kids buzzed around us like bees, hanging decorations on me. All at once, I realized Tiffany might have been looking for someone else. My heart plunged into my feet. But no, that was silly. She was smiling!
“My parents are moving to back to Texas,” she said.
My stomach was already in knots, but it tied into a hundred more. “And you’re happy about this?”
“Totally.” She was rubbing it in my face, wasn’t she? “The Dallas lifestyle, Bec. What’s not to like?”
“For sure.” I would have folded my arms if it hadn’t been for the pine boughs. “Rich boys and cowboys—what’s not to like?”
“What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks are you talking about?”
Last night’s rage emerged from the mist, but I didn’t want to say too much in front of all those kids. “Will your boyfriend be there?”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t even like him anymore.”
“That’s not what you said last night.”
“I didn’t say anything last night!” Tiffany growled and stomped her foot in the dead grass. “Why are you being such a pest? I’m trying to tell you good news.”
“Good news?” My arms were heavy with Christmas ornaments. “You w
ant me to be happy you’re leaving? Fine, then, I’m glad I’ll never see you again. There.”
“Shut up and listen for a sec!” Tiffany looked hurt, and I couldn’t understand why. “I’m not leaving. My parents are.”
“You’re not going to live with your parents?”
“I’m not living with them now. Hey, neither are you. You live with your aunt and uncle.”
“Just for the summer,” I said, though I guess she was kind of right. I’d never thought of it that way. “You’re not going to stay up in cottage country all through the school year, are you? Is there even a high school near here?”
Tiffany’s expression fell a little. “I don’t know. I’m sure gram and gramps will let me move to the city for school, as long as I stay with someone they know.” Her smile came back when she asked, “Where’s your house?”
“Uhh…” I didn’t want to tell her. Tiffany was used to nice things, and I did not live in a nice area.
“Oh, and you know what else? I’m sure I can talk my dad into paying rent for a room if I swear I’ll be good and not get into trouble.”
The haze of last night was starting to clear, and the more I remembered, the more my stomach tied in knots. Bad stuff had happened. Really bad stuff. How could I have forgotten so easily?
And then an old fisherman’s voice broke my concentration. “Hey Dory, take a look what I pulled out of the lake. Snagged right on my line. You want to sell it at your table?”
Tiffany and I both turned like slow motion in a movie as Dory replied, “Criminy, that doll’s all wet, and it stinks to High Heaven! Look, it’s missing a finger… and a boot… and an eye! And the face is cracked. Who the heck would want a thing like that?”
All the little angels and elves turned, too. When they set their sights on Yvette they shrieked and scattered like flies, except for two little girls in candy cane stripes. They clung to Tiffany’s skirt, burying their faces against her belly.
It took a moment to realize me and Tiffany were screaming, too.
Everything came flooding back: not just memories, but my heart-pounding, throat-drying, knee-shaking fear of that creature. I relived the night before, of waking up unable to move while Yvette tried to suffocate my best girl. In light of that living nightmare, every irritation I’d felt toward Tiffany melted away. Why did I care so much that she wasn’t exactly like me? All I should care was that she’d lived through the night.