Chapter Twelve
“Get me a skinny caramel macchiato,” Yorke commands from the curvy little couch in the bridal salon as she twists her newly highlighted superblond hair up onto the top of her head. “Decaf!” she yells after my mother, who, even though Jinny the bridal shop lady offered to run out, is quickly disappearing down the flocked hall.
I am the only one who really needs this final dress fitting since I have the jugs to contend with. Freddie, of course, is a perfect size six. And Yorke made the surprising last-minute decision to wear our mother’s wedding dress. It’s a beautiful white silk gown, simple and elegant, with an empire waist and delicate beading at the hem and the neck. With just a few nips and tucks, it fit Yorke perfectly.
“A lovely tradition,” Jinny coos as she helps Yorke step into the swirl of white silk puddling around her ankles behind the saloon-style doors of the large brides only dressing room.
“A necessity,” I hear Freddie remark from behind the scrolled white door of her much tinier dressing room.
Swinging the dressing room door open with one hand, the sparkling hem of her dress trailing behind her, Yorke sweeps out into the main salon and pushes past me to step up onto the raised pedestal and stand in front of the gilded mirrors.
“Haven’t seen Shane much lately,” she says casually as she leans back so that Jinny can pin the long filmy veil into place at the crown of her head.
“Yeah,” I say sharply while Zuska, the Slavic altering lady I have gotten to know too well, digs around in my armpits yet again, strategically placing the final pins.
I feel a little stab and could swear that Yorke picked a strapless dress just to spite me.
“There’s a reason for that,” I say into my armpit, feeling for the sharp offender.
I glance up with a dot of blood on my finger and find Yorke’s expectant gaze on me in all three of the huge mirrors.
“I’m kind of over that,” I say. And I am. Mentally I have broken up with him, over and over again. It’s just that I haven’t told him yet.
“Over what?” Freddie asks as she steps in front of the mirrors, her tiny, flat chest perfectly wrapped in satin.
“Over Shane,” Yorke scoffs.
“Ri-ight.” Freddie rolls her eyes at Yorke.
Watching them snickering together, I decide that maybe my dress might have taken a lot more work and that it still may be held together with a couple of straight pins, but it looks better on me. Definitely.
“I’m serious,” I say.
“Come on . . .” Yorke chides as she turns to admire her side view, adjusting her uncooperative veil over one shoulder. “You and Shane are not breaking up.”
“Who’s breaking up?” my mother asks as she bustles in, snapping her cell phone shut and dropping it into her bag. An iced coffee and Yorke’s caramel concoction are balanced in a recycled cardboard tray in her free hand. There’s nothing for the nonbetrothed.
“Apparently Shane and Leah,” Yorke says as she turns and reaches for the tray. “Yes!” she exclaims as she grabs at the coffee greedily and my mother backs off, ice rattling loudly when the cups slosh.
“Not officially,” I say to Freddie quietly. “It’s not official yet.”
“Don’t be silly,” my mother says, swerving out of Yorke’s reach. “Leah and Shane are not breaking up.”
She sets the tray down, wedging it between the bridal magazines and the bounty of fresh flowers on the table. She straightens up to look at us. “They’re fine.” She smiles. “They’re perfect.”
My mother walks toward Yorke, head cocked to one side as she moves in. She lifts Yorke’s veil expertly and lets it fall, slowly, so that it drifts down to settle over Yorke’s shoulders. She passes behind Freddie, stops, and places one index finger on each shoulder, pulling back gently, making Freddie’s bodice so tight the satin sings.
“Perfect,” Freddie repeats to her reflection, almost silently.
My mother’s hands graze across my shoulders when she steps behind me, lightly brushing over my fading tan lines and scuffed shoulder blade. I have been working hard, with a variety of bathing suits and a lot of self-tanner, to be strap mark free.
She smooths my hair back, adjusting it to fall over one shoulder, Chanel No. 5 filling my lungs as her eyes meet mine in the mirror.
“Your sister doesn’t need any more stress right now,” she stage whispers, and I droop under the weight of my dress. How can it be that the people who are supposed to love me the most are here, so close, all lined up shiny and promising, yet I feel so alone?
“She doesn’t look stressed,” I say, watching Yorke, sliding out of her dress behind the curved sofa.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Yorke says thickly, sipping the hot coffee and curling up on the satin settee in her underwear, her wedding dress in a ball at her feet. “I am totally stressed.”
My mother lifts her brow at me before she reaches over to pick up Yorke’s dress and heads off to find Jinny and a satin-covered hanger and protective bag.
“Why would you break up with Shane a couple of days before my wedding?” Yorke asks. “Are you retarded?”
She looks at me as if I am dumb enough to dignify that with an answer.
“He has to be there, Leah. Roger asked him to be an usher, for Christ’s sake. What are you going to do about that?” She snaps a pink packet of sweetener before tearing it open. “And what about homecoming next year? And prom?” She rests the cup on her leg as she reaches for packet number two.
“What are you thinking?” she asks, shaking her head, pausing only to stir. “You’re not breaking up.” She dumps the last packet into her coffee and dismisses me, and the whole idea, with a wave of a brown stir stick and the turn of her head.
“You know what I think, though?” she says, looking over at Freddie with a dangerous grin. “You know who should be breaking up?” She rises slowly and saunters over to stand behind Freddie. We all know that according to the schedule, Evan should be gone by now. His time was up at the beginning of summer.
“Cut that boy loose already,” Yorke says to Freddie’s buttoned back. “I worry about you.”
I watch her as she swirls the coffee stirrer around playfully in her tall cup, waiting for a reaction, her reflection clear in the two mirrors not blocked by Freddie. Her stomach is tight, the skin stretched across a tiny bulge, low but in the middle. Obvious now, but well hidden by her summer dresses and newly fitted wedding gown. My eyes are glued to it, my mouth open, my brain reeling, adding up the days and the months since Roger first appeared.
I step back, feet muffled in the thick cream carpet, eyes wide. I am not entirely surprised to find Freddie watching my reaction, nodding knowingly at me, because, like always, she knew but kept her mouth shut.
When we were really, really little, before we were good girls and had learned how to behave ourselves, our mother used to bribe us through boring things, like church, with the promise of candy.
“Whoever is quiet the longest gets a piece,” she would say under her breath, holding her purse open a crack so we could peek inside and see the sweet prizes waiting for us there, knowing full well that Freddie could shut up forever if it was a competition.
Yorke would break down about halfway through the sermon and start whispering to whoever was unlucky enough to be sitting next to her, usually me, or humming to herself, sometimes even pinching Freddie in an attempt to get a rise out of her. It never worked. Freddie was so good that she even knew how to unwrap the candy that she had saved from the week before without a wrinkle of the wrapper, not so much as a rustle or a crinkle. She would sit back, feet swinging happily under the pew, a smug grin on her butterscotched lips.
“You know what I think?” Freddie says clearly, with a marked glance over her shoulder in Yorke’s direction as she walks back to her dressing room. “I think you already have enough to worry about.”
Well, I think, give that girl a sourball. Freddie wins again.
Chapter Thirteen
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br /> I don’t think I’ve ever actually felt this way before. I am boiling over and betrayed, and I think I might be bitter. About Duffy, whose mom died and he could barely even be bothered to tell me. How come he didn’t want to tell me? I guess he never did like me. He certainly never really trusted me.
And about Yorke, who managed to get pregnant and keep it a secret, a monumental feat for her, and Freddie, for faithfully, to the end, keeping her end of the bargain, even if that meant leaving me out.
Yorke and Freddie I can deal with, I have a lifetime of being last in line with them. But Duffy is fresh and new, the wound all mine, brewing and bubbling just under the surface of my skin.
“Just skim, Leah,” Troy says, walking behind me with a padlock dangling from his finger as I stretch, reaching the long pole out over the well of the pool. “Don’t stab and poke.”
After we clean the pool, it takes me two tries to swing my leg up onto the first rung of my chair for my last night swim of the season. It’s the second week of August, and the thought that this may be my last night swim ever, if my mother has her way, fills my veins with lead.
The pool has always been my place, separate from my sisters and my mother, a shimmering L-shaped space of chlorine and solitude. I hardly ever even get wet above the ankles, but at least it’s all mine. And I don’t want it to disappear, the way Duffy did.
I haven’t seen him in forever. I have been avoiding Shane this whole time, but why bother if Duffy is not even going to show up?
He said the choice was mine to make. Actually, I think his exact words were, “You need to choose, Leah,” as he rested his head so softly against mine, but how the hell can I choose when he goes ahead and does it for me? Between him and my mother, it’s as if I never even got the chance.
I hear the crack of a bat, and distant cheering fills the air. The smell of hot dogs sizzling on a grill drifts in on the breeze, then up and over the balcony of trees. A few parents float about in the sparsely populated pool, bobbing on the surface, lazy and relaxed. The little wild ones, the kids who usually fill the pool with shrieks and splashes, are across the road at the big park shelter, playing in a Little League tournament.
The sun is setting, and Troy turns on some classic rock. The first few notes, I think it’s an old Boston song, bounce across the water and melt into me, loose and comfortable. I slip down, resting my head against the back of my chair, and spy Troy in the pool office, playing air guitar like a demon.
He sees me, smiles sheepishly, and finishes up with a wild riff and the thrashing of his guitar against the cinder-block walls. I clap silently and wave an invisible cell phone over my head in tribute to our swimming pool rock god. Troy bows, walks out of the office, and climbs back up into his chair, all business again.
The familiar sound of flipping pages snaps me back to reality. I flail my legs and knock my ankle against the sharp steel of my chair. I sit up straight, fully expecting to find Valerie coming at me, a piece of great literature in her hand, saying something stupid like “It’s a great night to discuss verse,” or “I find myself lost in a midsummer night’s dream.” But it’s just a magazine that someone’s left out on the deck, flipped open and rustling in the breeze.
I scan the perimeter of the pool, looking for a vintage bathing suit and skinny legs. It appears that Valerie is not here. I do a double take, because I can’t fathom that she is not here, because this is the first time I have been at the pool, all summer, without Valerie at my side.
Nope. She is really not here. Hmm. She probably had to get those sunglasses and that halter suit back to the museum for carbon dating.
My brain lowers to a simmer. Without Valerie and her constant drone of facts and figures and historical statistics and plaguing questions, without that, for the first time in a long time, there is room in my head. I think I can actually think, but is that a good thing?
I know immediately, with a miserable slump of my entire body, that any vacancy in my brain right now is instantly going to fill with thoughts of Duffy or, more precisely, my lack of Duffy.
I flash forward to us together next year, dating, happy, and always on the move. We will be homecoming king and queen, because well, I’m me, and my mother and sisters all were homecoming queens before me. It’s tradition. And Duffy will be king. We will ride along in the parade perched up on the back of a convertible, smiling and waving at the crowds lining the streets. Except that Duffy probably won’t want to sit in the back and let somebody else drive.
And when we have our Friday night family dinners at the club, will he park our car first and then come inside to sit beside me, his hair dark and wild in a blond sea of shining glaze and spray?
I bet I can make him fit the mold, chisel him down a bit, and wear away the rough edges. The thing is, though, I like the rough edges. They make me feel raw, tingling, and alive. And I like that.
The sun dips behind the tops of the trees, the lights come up softly under the surface of the water, and the swimmers appear to glow. I can hear chatter from the ball game. “Hey, batter, batter. . . . Hey batter, batter. . . .”
Another song comes on the radio, one I remember hearing the day that Duffy and I went to the river. It’s slow at first, the guitar playing along quietly in the background, then it builds, thrumming with energy as we run toward the water, and suddenly it opens up, drums crashing, and the shock of the water hits us, cold and sharp, taking our breath away. A shiver runs down my spine when the song ends, the guitar trailing away, slipping off into the soft evening air like a metallic whisper.
I reach behind me, fumbling for the hooded sweatshirt I know is there, feeling for the softness. I pull it on, flipping my hair out over the hood and sliding the sleeves down over the tips of my fingers.
I resist the urge to pull the thick hood up over my head and think sad thoughts. What if I end up with no one? No Duffy, no Shane, and even no Valerie. At least when she’s around, I have someone to talk to at the pool.
She doesn’t bother me as much as she did in the beginning of the summer. I’ve built up my immunity. I am inoculated.
I guess there’s always Troy, but he’s never been much of a conversationalist. I watch him as the lights flicker to life around the fence line. His arms silently pound out the beat from the rock song on the radio, his knee bounces, toes working the bass drum, and I give up.
I stretch the sweatshirt out and around me, squeezing my knees into my chest, and build a tent. Arms wrapped tight, I rest my chin on my knees and gaze out over the nearly empty water.
A single swimmer glides silently by, lap after lap. A flutter of water follows him, then drifts away, absorbed by the surrounding stillness. It’s as if he had never been there, never passed by. He’s invisible, fleeting, a subtle shift, and then he’s gone.
I watch him pass by again and squeeze myself tighter into my warm fleece world, determined not to let Duffy go, willing him to kick harder. I will not let him just drift away.
Why doesn’t Duffy want to talk to me? Why did he disappear, poof, gone just as suddenly and mysteriously as he appeared? I thought he liked me, but I guess I was wrong. He never did. And I gave up everything for him—Shane, homecoming queen, guaranteed spot on the prom court, an easy senior year—all of it, gone, for nothing, and he can’t even bother to drive by and wave. Well, I would have given up everything for him anyway. It’s just that I never really got the chance to let him know.
“Last one out, pull the gate shut behind you,” Troy calls out onto the dark, shadowy pool deck from inside the office. I’m the last one.
I’m packing up my stuff, and the night settles down quiet and still all around me. The ball games have ended. The families are driving off in minivans and SUVs, their headlights disappearing up the hill as they head for the Keltie to celebrate with ice cream sundaes and triple-stack burgers.
I pull the gate shut, hearing the metal latch clank tight behind me. The office light glows warm and soft, reflecting a shimmering square on the water. I loo
k back, see Troy in his Devils swim jacket and tight red suit, the old office phone cradled to his ear, and give him a wave.
I hear the crackle of tires against gravel when I reach the end of the slope, the blacktop path cool and far less sticky at night. I clear the last of the trees at the bottom of the path, anxious to see who is picking me up. It’s like the lottery, with my mother choosing the numbers. And Duffy’s number never comes up.
I pause, momentarily caught in the headlights. Shit. She sent Shane.
My mother is the devil, and my life is like one of those kiddie rides at the amusement park. Sure, the car looks great, all shiny and bright, but you can’t actually drive it. It’s on a track. You just sit there like a dope and smile all big so your parents can wave and snap pictures. At first you might think you are going to get a chance at the wheel, but then you discover it doesn’t even turn.
When you are little, it seems like fun, and maybe the hills you roll over feel big and scary and your stomach lifts a little bit each time. But now my stomach only sinks as I climb into Shane’s idling car and his hand lands heavily on my thigh.
I press against the soft leather, and I know this car goes nowhere. No more diversions, no discoveries by dashboard light, no more dashing, from place to place, from car to car. I’m stuck.
Chapter Fourteen
“Now, you have everything?” my mother asks for the billionth time as she rifles through my bag, not trusting my packing abilities.
“Yes.”
“Your dress, your shoes, all your . . .” She pauses to smooth out the lace underwear she has just refolded into a pink square. She stashes them along the side of the bag because apparently underwear doesn’t belong where I put it, on top of everything else.
She looks up, eyes stopping for a second right on my boobs before she continues. “Underthings?”
Yorke and Frederique got the family names. I got the jugs.
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