•••
I CHECKED MY PHONE BEFORE getting into the shower in the morning.
I wrote back, Yes. I am a big girl.
Right away I regretted the smiley face, but it was too late.
She sent the address.
•••
My parents were both still home—Dad had taken the morning off—and drinking coffee when I went downstairs after showering and getting dressed. I thought about telling them about my decision to do the interview and how they couldn’t stop me, but I didn’t feel like ruining a morning of domestic peace and my own good mood.
My phone dinged with an e-mail from Liana.
•••
Subject: Waiver
Kaylee,
Can you sign and print and bring tomorrow? Excited!!!! Thanks, L
•••
I clicked the attachment.
•••
I, Kaylee Novell (formerly Bryar), give permission to Liana Fatone and FPR affiliates to use the content of our interview (dated Saturday, May 27) and any subsequent interviews in the podcast The Possible.
I hereby surrender any rights to legal action against, for any reason, Liana Fatone, the show The Possible, any FPR station, and any advertisers or sponsors.
Signed,
Kaylee Novell
•••
So it was official. I was going to do this without my parents’ permission. It meant lying to them about my whereabouts in the morning—most likely just letting them think I was at softball practice—and lying to Coach Stacey and my teammates—but it would be worth it.
•••
I had chem lab next to where Bennett had Spanish, and it was always an easy way to bump into him, or at least to have a sighting. Today, planets aligned and he came out of Spanish exactly as I was walking past.
“Hola!” I said, startling him.
“Oh, hey.” He stopped in front of me.
“I heard a clip from the podcast last night,” I said. “The producer sent it to me.”
“That’s awesome,” he said. “I Googled your mother.”
“Really?” I should have worn something cuter, lower cut.
“Yeah. I had no idea.” He shook his head. “You seem so . . . normal. Everyone here is so unbelievably normal.”
I bristled, not sure whether or not I’d been insulted. On the one hand, I wanted to be normal—in the right way. On the other, I wanted to be anything but normal if normal meant boring.
“Hey.” Princess Bubblegum was upon us. “Where’d you put the tickets?”
“My locker,” Bennett said.
“You’re going to lose them.” She only seemed to notice me now. “I’m sorry, can I help you?”
“No,” I said. “I’m good.”
She looked like she was waiting for me to leave but I didn’t budge. I said, “We were in the middle of a conversation is all.”
“Do you two even know each other?”
“We do now,” I said.
“What do you want, Aubrey?” Bennett pleaded.
“Just give me the tickets.”
“They’re in my locker,” he repeated.
“Then let’s go,” she said, and she linked arms with him.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” Bennett said.
Princess Bubblegum turned and gave me the stink eye.
Whatever.
I studied her shoes and thought about broken wedges and slippery floors and cracked heels, then watched them disappear down the stairs together, listening for screaming echoes.
•••
What if, one time, when you were visiting your grandmother, who gave you a long leash on which to play in her garden, you were building a campsite? Sticks in a pile, some dried leaves for a pillow on which to rest your head? A white ribbon you’d brought with you from Grandma’s basement, a whole universe of junk and fun—paintings of girls with big eyes, bottles of colored glass, dolls dressed in costumes from around the world.
What if a bird came over and snatched that white ribbon while you were off gathering more twigs for your campfire? What if it flew up into the largest tree in the yard and you could see its nest and very much wanted that ribbon back? What if it was essential to your game? Because it was the ribbon that made the fire magic?
What if you thought you’d just scare the bird? It would just drop the ribbon?
So you picked up a stone and threw it in the bird’s general direction?
What if it hit the bird hard? What if it fell to the ground with the ribbon still in its brown beak?
What if you ran screaming for Grandma and told her you’d found a dead bird?
•••
Chiara was late for English that afternoon. I raised my eyebrows at her as she slid into her seat. She looked like she’d sprinted there—red-faced, flushed—but she didn’t seem out of breath.
She turned to the back of her notebook and wrote something, then held it up. “HE ASKED ME!!!”
I gave her a wide-eyed happy look and a thumbs-up. On my own page, I drew a smiley face with hearts for eyes, then held it up to show her.
Then class kicked in along with a blur of emotions. What if Bennett Laurie didn’t ask me? What if no one did? What if I ended up sitting at home in the granny pod watching Golden Girls reruns while everyone else was out living life and being crazy in love?
Mr. Ballard was giving us a new assignment, handing out a list of books. We were supposed to pick one to read and then write a New York Times Book Review –style review of it. Chiara studied the list eagerly, then raised her hand.
“Yes, Ms. Lemmy,” Mr. Ballard said.
“All these books are by men,” she said, still looking at the list. Then she looked up: “White men, to be more specific.”
“Pick a book, Chiara,” Mr. Ballard said, and the bell rang.
We all herded out like cattle into the hall—I liked to moo—and Chiara muttered, “I am so sick of his sexist BS.”
“Me, too,” I said, but I don’t think I felt it the way Chiara did.
“Anyway, I really want you to go to prom,” she said. “Maybe consider other options?”
“I’m telling you,” I said. “I’ve got a plan. I’m on it.”
“Ticktock,” she said.
“I know, I know,” I said. “I talked to him again today. He’s totally interested in Crystal and the podcast and . . . It’s going to work out. I can feel it.”
“Tick,” she said one more time. “Tock.”
•••
What if believing was enough? What if believing was everything?
•••
The granny pod always felt too small when I had company. Today, especially, it felt like Aiden and I could barely be in there together without touching. He was sitting across from me at the kitchen table and we kept bumping knees. His shirt said NOBODY REALLY CARES IF YOU DON’T GO TO THE PARTY.
He looked up from his textbook; we studied together like this maybe twice a week—even, sometimes, on Fridays. Even, in this case, on the Friday of a holiday weekend because our idiot chemistry teacher had scheduled a test for Tuesday. “How come you never told me?”
It took me a second to figure out what he meant. “I never told anyone.” I shrugged.
“But you didn’t even tell me when we were watching Carrie. I mean, if you were looking for a way to bring it up.”
“I guess I wasn’t,” I said. “I mean, it’s not exactly the kind of thing one brags about, having a mother in prison.”
Then I gave myself a pep talk as I watched some bees bobbing by the back window, feasting on hydrangeas.
I had to start being honest with myself if I was going to be honest with Liana tomorrow, and this was Aiden, whom I trusted more than maybe anyone in the world.
“Do you ever have weird things happen?” I said, and already, I felt myself backpedaling, regretting going there.
“Like what?” He closed his laptop.
I went and sat at the table across fr
om him. “Do you remember when I made fun of Princess Bubblegum’s shoes? And then she fell like two seconds later?”
Aiden shook his head. “Stuff like that happens all the time.”
“Like when?” I said. “Give me an example?”
“I don’t know. It’s happened to me. Like I think about someone for the first time in forever and then I bump into them. That kind of thing.”
“That’s different,” I said. “That’s not your thoughts influencing the physical.”
He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You think you have some kind of special powers. That’s what you’re saying.”
I told him about the water aerobics, the Frisbee.
He shook his head. “Life is full of all sorts of weird coincidences.”
“I’ve always wondered is all.”
“Well, you can stop wondering.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“No one’s ever proved telekinesis to be a real thing.”
“But don’t you think sometimes, like if you’re throwing a dart or hitting a golf ball, and you get a bull’s-eye or a hole in one, don’t you ever have a moment where you think your brain had something to do with it?”
“Of course. But it has to do with my senses and lining up a shot and concentrating. Not my brain directly controlling the dart or the ball.”
“Forget I said anything.” I closed my book.
“Don’t be like that,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Like how you’re being right now.”
“How am I being right now?”
“Well, right now, you’re being annoying.”
I thought about telling him about my magic ribbon fire and the bird and the stone. But it was no use.
•••
What if, when I was little, my parents renovated the whole house? What if there was a lot of fighting? Like every night. What if nothing was where it was supposed to be? What if there were weeks of takeout and eating out?
What if my dad was working a ton and leaving a lot of decisions to my mom and she hated that, especially if he dared to criticize her choices after the fact?
What if one night, when it was all over and done with—all the dust and tarps and tools and men with toolbelts gone—we were sitting down to have dinner? What if my mom smiled and said something about how lovely the kitchen turned out and my dad sort of casually said, “I’m still not loving that light over the sink”? What if I saw my mother’s hands clamp around her knife and fork and I thought she might throw them or maybe stab the table?
What if I closed my eyes so very tight and just like that, the glass of the lamp shattered?
•••
“What I said the other day. About how you can do better than Bennett.” We were done studying and Aiden was leaving the granny pod.
“Yeah. That,” I said.
“I meant it,” he said.
“You don’t even know him,” I said. “Why don’t you like him?”
“You don’t even know him,” he countered. “Why do you like him?”
“Because I do,” I said. “I mean, why does anybody like anybody?”
He rolled his eyes at me.
•••
My parents were both sitting at the kitchen table when I came in.
“Have a seat, Kaylee,” my father said.
“Oookaaay,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“I actually don’t know either,” my father said. “Chris, you going to enlighten us?”
“Liana Fatone left a voice mail on the home phone. I guess she thought she was calling Kaylee’s cell. She was confirming the interview for tomorrow.”
Freaking Liana!
“Kaylee.” My father moaned and rubbed his eyes.
“It’s my decision,” I said. “I’m allowed to have a conversation about it all.”
My mother stood, too agitated to sit. “I can’t believe that you would go behind—”
“Chris,” my father said. “Calm down for a second, okay? Let’s talk this through.”
“Are you serious?” She put a mug down with a bang. “You’re going to take her side now?”
“There are no sides,” he said. “But. Well, this is part of Kaylee’s history. I don’t know. Maybe it’ll be a good thing. Maybe this is the right opportunity for her to work through some of this.”
“What is she even going to say?” my mother nearly screamed.
“I’m sitting right here.”
“She’ll say whatever she wants to say,” my father said. “She’s not a child anymore. And this is a real thing that’s happening.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said.
My mother walked out of the room; my father gave my hand a squeeze and said, “I’ll talk to her. But you do owe us an apology, Kaylee. This isn’t to be taken lightly, this whole podcast situation.”
“I’m not taking it lightly!” I said.
He stood, walked out.
I texted Liana.
•••
•••
I texted Coach Stacey next.
•••
•••
And, finally, Aiden.
•••
•••
•••
•••
•••
He was possibly the world’s most annoying texter. And there were plenty of reasons I liked Bennett. I made a list:
Hot.
Cool clothes.
Beautiful eyelashes.
Mysterious vibe.
Interested in TK.
•••
•••
“Listen,” my father said to my mother late that night, when they were in the kitchen and probably thought I was asleep. “You’ve always wondered. Now maybe we’ll know for sure.”
•••
Wondered what?
I PRINTED AND SIGNED THE waiver and slipped it into my bag. My parents were both sleeping in, like they did on Saturdays, and I was impressed they didn’t try to stop me from going. I walked the mile to the train station—past the elementary school I’d gone to—and for a second I wanted to check the door to see if it was unlocked so I could go in and have a look around and see if it had changed a lot or if it was like some time capsule I could visit whenever I wanted. With everything starting to feel so out of control with senior year coming up so fast, I thought maybe it would be nice to go slip into a small chair and remember what it had been like to be little and have no expectation of control—not even over what was in your lunch box each day.
At the station, I bought a ticket from a machine and waited on the platform.
Once the train came, I settled in and watched the scenery go by. I hadn’t read The Girl on the Train but Chiara had, so I knew it was about a woman on a train who sees something bad, or thinks she does? So I didn’t look too closely at the houses we passed; I intentionally sort of blurred my eyes. Though it seemed unlikely anything I might see would draw me into some drama bigger than the drama that was already my life.
I hadn’t slept well—at all. I’d had dreams about Jack and about losing my wallet in a subway station and about hair, like a horse’s mane, growing on my back. I nodded off for maybe twenty minutes and I woke up as the train screeched into the station where I had to transfer.
On the next train, shaking off sleep, I listened to Liana’s podcast intro again, to get myself in the mood. I practiced saying things aloud, whispering to my window.
Well, I testified against her.
No, I haven’t seen her in years.
I don’t think I have telekinetic powers, no . . . but there have been some strange things over the years that I haven’t exactly been able to explain . . .
No, not that. I shouldn’t say that.
Should I?
•••
The studio was walking distance from Penn Station. I stopped into a deli to buy a Luna bar because I was starving to the point of feeling ill, then walked a half an ave
nue in the wrong direction before correcting and doubling back. Liana was smoking outside the building.
“You ready?” She dropped her cigarette literally two inches from an ashtray contraption and stomped on it.
“Ready,” I said.
She opened a large glass door and we caught an elevator. On the ninth floor, we went down a long hallway and through a door with a small window and into a dimly lit studio.
She showed me where to sit, handed me headphones, and pointed at the control room. “That’s Lou. Lou, this is Kaylee.”
The guy at the soundboards waved, so I waved back.
“Okay,” Liana said, and she indicated my headset and microphone. “I’ve only got the studio for an hour, so let’s do this.” She put her own headset on and said, “Just be yourself,” like that was supposed to be meaningful advice.
Because, who was I, really?
Who else could I be?
•••
Liana gave the tech a nod and a bulb on a wall by the booth lit red. Then she said, “I’m here in the studio today with Kaylee Novell, who, by all appearances, is a completely normal teenager from Rockland County, New York. Hi, Kaylee.”
I said, “Hi.”
“Tell my listeners why you’re here on the podcast.”
“Um,” I said. “Because I’m Crystal’s daughter.”
She nodded curt approval at me. “Kaylee was four years old when her brother died and her mother went to prison, but she had the good fortune of being adopted into a nice life. When’s the last time you saw your mother—well, birth mother?”
“Probably the day I was adopted. I think she had to sign something.”
“So growing up, you knew who she was, that your mother was in prison for killing your brother?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“What was that like?” She tilted her head at me in the darkened studio.
“I don’t know. I mean, after a while it’s not something you think about every day, or even every week? I was a kid, growing up, I had friends and school and parents and grandparents. I certainly didn’t sit around thinking about her all this time.”
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