Stop being so dramatic, Livvy. I took a large gulp and burned the roof of my mouth. I spit the drink back into the cup, which was so gross that I had to trash it.
I hoped Mom had enough sense to make her lemon éclairs for the interviewer.
The last class of the day was International Debate. I’d already taken it freshman year, but there wasn’t much in the way of electives for last-minute transfers. I’d done okay in the class, mostly because of my research skills. Performance wasn’t my thing. The secret to a decent grade was an extroverted partner.
I finally found the portable classroom, stationed across the parking lot, next to the dumpsters. No surprise, my new school had capacity issues. As I walked through the door, Franklin D.’s head whipped around. “Livvy No-Middle-Initial Newman! The most beautiful transfer student in the world.” He patted the seat beside him. I plunked down and pulled out my phone to do some research. Who knew that there were more than three hundred thousand portables in the United States, with a useful life of only ten years?
Franklin D. planted his elbows on my desk. “Tell me, perchance, where you hail from?”
Perchance? Okaaay. “Vermont.”
“Aha! The only state with a capital that doesn’t have a McDonald’s.”
“Really?” I asked, drawn in by the unexpected fact.
“I detest all things McDonald’s,” he went on, “from Happy Meal Beanie Babies to the Big Mac. Personally, I think the gluttonous chunk of heart-clogging meat should be called the Gain-Some-Pounders so consumers are fully informed.”
“‘Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun’?” I rattled off, then quickly added, “Um, that’s a jingle from the seventies. Anyway, I think there’s twenty-eight grams of fat in one of those things.”
Wait, what was I doing? I didn’t want to encourage the notion that I was friend material. My social life was 3,017 miles away.
Franklin D. nodded, clearly impressed. “You’re absolutely right. That’s more than half the recommended daily fat intake in an incredibly unfulfilling sandwich.”
I snuck a sideways glance at his barrel chest and beefy arms. If he lifted weights, he’d have some impressive arm muscles. This made me think of Sean, who practically rented a room at the gym.
At my sigh, Franklin D. flicked a finger in the air. “I know what you’re thinking, but don’t judge this book by its cover. My father’s side comes from Viking stock. My body fat’s an acceptable twenty percent, midrange for males aged thirteen to seventeen.”
“I wasn’t thinking that,” I lied.
The teacher had scrawled “Ms. Leslie Thurmond” across the board in hot pink chalk, underlining the “Ms.” part twice.
“You will all be responsible for two debates this semester,” she began. “I thought we’d start by looking at some possible subjects for the first one. I put a list on your desk to jump-start the process, but I really want to hear your ideas.”
The class seemed more interested in working on their ability to sleep with their eyes open. They looked like they suffered from PLOD—Post-Lunch Operational Disorder. Ms. Thurmond waited, but no one said anything. She had freshly credentialed written all over her. As much as I longed to blend in with plastic walls, I couldn’t watch a newbie crash and burn on her first day. My hand crept up to my chin.
“Yes, you in the black sweater,” she called out.
“Um, whether schools should have an open or closed campus during lunch?” This reminded me of the sweet potato fries at Joe’s Diner. My stomach rumbled, the walnuts not cutting it.
“That’s a hot topic,” Thurmond agreed. “What do you know about it?”
I could pull up three relevant facts right there, but I shrugged.
“That’s why research is an important part of the debate process,” she told the class. “Facts are the best way to prove a point. Anyone else have thoughts on the subject?”
An emo girl with tar-black hair said, “Some kids at Jackson High smoked pot at lunch and smashed their car into the side of a bank. If the school had a closed policy, it would have extended their moronic lives three whole hours.” She swiped her chin-length bangs out of her eyes, revealing Sharpie tattoos up her arms. Skeletons, maybe. No, clowns. Zombie clowns, it looked like.
“They killed a cat!” a girl with a braid down her back cried. “A harmless animal. Someone’s pet.”
“Um, they killed themselves, too,” Franklin D. pointed out.
“They were a bunch of rich kids who bought overpriced drugs from a disreputable dealer,” said Emo Girl. “They get the Darwin Award.”
“This subject seems to inspire passionate opinions,” Thurmond said. “Anyone else have a potential debate topic they want to share?”
Franklin D. tapped the list on his desk, then spoke up. Loudly. “Number four here says, ‘Does history repeat itself?’ I was reading an article in the Sunday paper about all the revisionist pages popping up on the Internet.”
“Revisionist?” Thurmond asked.
“Those morons who try to convince everyone that the Holocaust never happened,” Franklin D. clarified.
Ms. Thurmond crossed her arms under her sizable chest. A guy behind me grunted in appreciation. “I’m not sure that a minimally held position that fails to honor the slaughter of six million Jews is a strong debate topic,” she said.
“That’s like neo-Nazi shit, right?” Emo Girl asked.
My eyes skipped to the teacher. She didn’t wince at the French. Oh, right, urban school.
Franklin D. raised his hand. He didn’t wait to be called on. “With all due respect, Ms. Thurmond, debating is a way of deconstructing the validity of their beliefs. Ignoring them is the worst thing we can do. With witnesses getting older and dying, white supremacists will continue to spread their lies to a new generation. It’s up to each and every one of us to challenge their assertions.”
Thurmond stared at him like she’d discovered that one of her students had two heads. She glanced down at the class list on her desk.
“Schiller,” he offered. “Franklin D. Schiller.”
“As I was saying, Frank, some topics are—”
“Franklin D.” He folded his hands in front of him. “Please.”
“Heil Schiller!” someone called out, followed by a chorus of “heils” from the back row.
A fact danced on my tongue, begging to be let loose. I bet none of them knew that Hitler’s own father was believed to be the illegitimate child of a Jewish man named Frankenberger and how DNA findings suggested that the Nazi leader had a chromosome linked to the Ashkenazi population. Of course, I didn’t say all that. Franklin D. had to fight his own battles.
Thurmond’s face turned the shade of a ripe eggplant. “Who said that? I won’t have that kind of talk in my classroom.”
“Schiller is a Jewish name,” Franklin D. said, unruffled. “It’s not our original surname, though. My great-grandfather, Hymie Lipschitz, changed it when he arrived at Ellis Island from Czechoslovakia. Can you blame him?”
More scoffing from the back. I twisted around in my seat, but the kids were smiling. And not in a mean way. Huh.
“Where’s Czechoslovakia?” the girl with the braid asked me.
I almost pointed out that it had been called the Czech Republic since 1993. “Next to Austria,” I said.
She nodded, thinking. Then, “Where’s Austria?”
This school, and its culture of nonconformity, sent my head spinning. I turned around again, but this time, to take a closer look at my classmates. In the row in front of me, there were two Hispanic kids, a white boy whose makeup skills rivaled my own, and a Chinese girl who sat on hip-length, rainbow-dyed hair. The boy on my right—Ashaz, according to the name on the notebook in front of him—had a “Mom” tattoo on his forearm, underlined with birth and death dates. My old school had been as diverse as vanilla ice cream.
I cleared my throat. “I think Franklin D. has a point about the revisionists.
If these …” I tried to come up with a word other than the indecent one in my head, “… people go unchecked, they’ll only grow stronger.”
Franklin D. slammed his palm on the desk. “I knew there was a reason I liked that girl!”
“Because she’s hot,” said a boy two rows over. I looked down at my lap, letting my hair hide my smile.
“Quiet down now. Let’s stay focused.” Thurmond’s eyes skipped to the clock over the door. “Your homework for tomorrow is to choose three subjects from the paper on your desk and tell me why you believe they’d make an interesting debate.”
“So much for listening to our brilliant ideas,” Franklin D. mumbled under his breath.
“I want depth, people. Less than one paragraph and you fail the assignment,” she added.
“How many paragraphs to get an A?” asked Braid Girl.
The bell rang. Kids jumped from their seats, ready to flee.
Franklin D. waited for me at the end of the row. “Think I made an awesome first impression, don’t you?”
I did a double take, relieved to see that he was kidding. “Yes, definitely. The A’s in the bag.”
I edged past him, picking up speed toward the door.
Ms. Thurmond was making tight circles with the eraser, slowly eating away at her hot-pink name.
MAY 1945
When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was a male nurse, erasing a name off the portable blackboard. Her eyes wandered to the rows of cots lined up like matches in a box. Oh goodness, a cloth diaper between her legs? How utterly mortifying that someone, perhaps that male nurse himself, had changed her and might do so again. She tugged the blue paper gown as far down as it would go.
Another nurse ran to her side with a cup of ice chips and an assortment of pills displayed on a pink palm. “The war is over, dear,” were the first words she heard. Words with a British accent. “You’re at the Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons Camp until you get your strength back.”
She squinted at the calendar taped to the window. The words and dates danced across the page. “Who won the war?”
The nurse—she couldn’t read the spinning name tag—laughed brightly. “Why the Allies, of course!” Her expression shifted, strained with sympathy. “You have a bad case of typhus. We had to shave your head, but those locks of yours will grow back more beautiful than ever. You’ll see!”
She raised her hand to her bristly head and fainted.
When she woke next, that same nurse—Matilda, her name was—struggled to open the swollen window beside the cot.
“How long have I been sleeping?” she asked.
“Two weeks, more or less. You’ve been in and out.” With a stage whisper, the nurse added, “The doctors weren’t sure you’d make it, but you’ve proven to be a strong young woman indeed.”
Two weeks!
“Do you have any family left?” Matilda pressed gently.
She thought of her parents, her sibling, her home. She couldn’t go back now, not ever. She wasn’t even safe here, in this refuge for the ill. “No,” she answered. “They’re dead.”
There was something else, but she couldn’t remember. A person? No, an object. She ran her fingers over the scratchy sheet, searching for it.
“Are you looking for that letter? It must have been important to you, the way you clung to it. I’m sure it’s here somewhere …” The nurse found it beneath a glass of water on the side table.
She wanted to say thank you, but the words lay swollen in her mouth. When she woke again hours later, the envelope was beside her pillow.
Matilda was back. “Where is home for you, dear?”
Home? There was no home anymore. She needed somewhere new, far away.
The nurse glanced down at the clipboard in her hand. “Someone might be looking for you. What’s your name?”
She shook her head as if the answer eluded her. The nurse gave a sad smile and crossed the narrow aisle to the cots on the opposite side.
Three days later, she told them. And though Adelle—the name of a classmate from primary school—rolled heavily off her tongue, it was something she could live with. Like the name of a newborn, it allowed her a fresh start.
CHAPTER
FIVE
A FEW BLOCKS PAST MY USUAL STOP, THE BUS TOOK a nose dive. The decline was so steep that there were steps instead of sidewalks. Fillmore Street stretched out like an oil painting of jewel-colored homes, ending at the water. Sailboats flecked the bay. In the distance were more hills, studded with homes.
Like a fact, the address on the Post-it had engraved itself into my memory. Google Maps showed that Mom’s interview was somewhere near here, but I didn’t see any businesses. Only homes. Still, I tugged the cord and got off at the next stop.
I checked the text she’d sent an hour ago: Be back soon. Final interview at four with higher-ups. Good sign!
“Excuse me,” a buff guy grunted, jogging around me.
I stepped to the side. “Sorry.”
A girl and her black poodle danced up the incline. Farther down, a man in a wheelchair muscled his way up the hill. I headed down the steps, pressed to the side to avoid the fitness fanatics.
2846 Fillmore was on the opposite side of the street. It was a yellow Victorian duplex—a residence, like all the others. Where was the restaurant? I’d planned on asking Mom about the resumes, but now there were more questions. I looked at the drawn lace curtains as if they might offer a clue.
As a garbage truck rumbled past, the right side door of the duplex swung open. I ducked behind a tree and peered through its branches. My mother, in her gray sweats and the You Are Here T-shirt she’d had since the ’80s, tromped down the steps of the Victorian. She stopped halfway, then returned to the house. Thirty seconds later, she came out with her briefcase.
Where was the interview outfit I’d picked out for her? I pictured my blouse crumpled up in the briefcase. Was her portfolio of photographed desserts even in there? Maybe she’d already scored the job, but these clothes were unprofessional for a first day.
I was about to cross the street to intercept her when Mom put her phone to her ear. “You have no idea, Tom,” I heard her say. Relief rolled through me. At least she was talking to the one person who could help her with her problems, whatever they were. My eyes skipped back to the house. 2846 Fillmore. A home, not a restaurant. But whose home? And why was my mother wiping tears from her eyes?
I waited until she was a block away before darting across the street and up the steps to the alcove porch. Twin mailboxes hung on the stucco wall. One was slightly open. I slid my hand inside and found an ad for a credit card, addressed to Resident. Not helpful.
“Mailboxes are federal property. You will be punished for stealing mail!”
The letter slipped through my fingers and dropped on the doormat. An old woman, peering through a half-opened door, glared at me. She wore a calf-length corduroy skirt and a cream-colored blouse with lacy frills that curled up the front. Her eyes were like a Siamese cat’s, almond-shaped and watery brown. Black eyeliner jagged around her lids.
“I wasn’t trying to steal anything,” I stammered. “I was just …” Just what? “Leaving. I was just leaving.”
“Don’t you dare go anywhere!”
I thought about running, but the authority in her voice stopped me.
“Why were you snooping?” she demanded.
I scrambled for an excuse.
I thought this was where a friend lived.
I was bringing her mail in.
I found this ad on the sidewalk and was going to put it back in the mailbox.
It dawned on me that if this was Mom’s new boss, the three of us might meet again one day. I didn’t want to make up a lie that I’d have to take back later.
My arms dropped to my sides under the lady’s withering stare. “I … I saw my mom leave your house, and …” What could I say that wouldn’t send the message that I didn’t trust my own mother?
“And?�
�� the lady echoed.
“My mom said she had an interview here this morning. I was supposed to meet her when she was done. I thought I had the address wrong, so I checked the mailbox to—”
Her lips puckered. “I suppose you look like Lee Newman.”
My dad? How did she know him?
“Gretchen was the one who left, you know,” she added.
I stared at her, bewildered. If anyone had run away, it was my father. He’d gone to Australia, leaving me with a mom fresh out of rehab. The words tripped out of my mouth. “Did she tell you about him?”
“She shouldn’t have married that man. Now she’s all alone with a child to raise.”
When I was twelve, Mom had dragged me to an AA meeting, where she spilled her entire life story in fifteen minutes to a room full of strangers. She wasn’t stupid enough to do the same thing with a new boss, was she?
The old woman shuffled closer. Her hand trembled near my face, finger crooked as if beckoning me closer. I stepped back. No way was she touching me.
“You look nothing like Gretchen,” she said.
Well that part was true. My eyes were blue, and my hair, almost as white as marshmallows, was a nod to Dad’s Swedish side. I didn’t escape Mom’s curls, but it was nothing that my flat iron couldn’t handle.
“I am Adelle Pfeiffer,” she said, pausing between words as if announcing the Queen of England.
I smiled politely. “Nice to meet you. I’m Olivia Newman.” Her nod seemed to say, I know. Oh, God, what had Mom said about me?
“You look cold, dear,” she said. “I remember how to make tea.” I watched her limp down a dark hallway that sliced the house into narrow halves. One of her heels clicked against the parquet floor, the other dragged behind it.
I hesitated, glancing over my shoulder at the street. I could leave. Nothing was stopping me. I could use the perennial homework excuse, which never failed with adults. But the thing was, she’d met with my mother. If I could deal with the woman’s dizzying tangents, maybe I could get some answers.
“I want to talk about Gretchen,” the woman called out, her back to me.
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