I led Merri over to the study corrals, then gave her the gist, reducing Saturday to an emotionless list of events: run, bakery, kissing, interruption, breakup, punishment.
“Wow.” She sat back. “And you really had no idea you had frosting on your cheek until you went to shower?”
I hadn’t known how badly I needed to laugh until that moment. “Nope. You would’ve thought the crying would’ve washed it off. Guess not.”
“How long are they staying?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t—you don’t know?” Merri had been spinning her chair in nervous arcs as she chewed on pretzel sticks, but this time it did a full rotation. “They’ve been back for two days. You haven’t asked?”
I gnawed on my lip. “I think maybe they’re staying for good? Or, at least for a while. They fired Nancy. She was apartment shopping for herself. And they were talking about how ‘sharing one car isn’t feasible long-term.’ Long-term.”
Merri hmm’d and spun her chair again. “Your family has been doing this ‘reverse boarding school’ thing for so long—where you go to school and stay home while they go away. I can’t imagine anything different. We need more evidence.”
I had it. “They brought more luggage than when they came home at Christmas. And they spent that trip meeting with colleagues. This time I heard them talking about meetings with my teachers.”
“How do you feel about all”—she waved both arms in some chaotic charade—“that?”
I shrugged, suddenly exhausted. “Dad keeps saying things like, ‘We need to recalibrate and figure out how to function as a trio.’”
“Gah, that does sound long-term.” Merri’s freckles stood out against her pale face. She lowered the banana she’d been eating. “Do they still not like me? What happens when you’re ungrounded?”
I looked for answers on the desktop. Someone had carved PH + LD into the wood. Someone had tried to scratch it out. I wondered if it was the same person, or if one half of the equation had been more reticent. But maybe the reticence was temporary—maybe they would’ve caught up. Not everyone goes full speed ahead. Some of us look before we leap—but sometimes we do leap, and run down mountains and kiss the boy standing at the bottom. I sniffed.
“Give Curtis time.” Merri checked the clock on her phone, then began to repack the uneaten food I’d pulled from my lunch bag. “And while you’re giving him time, think about what you want. You can’t go back to how things were.”
“But if my parents are home—”
“Yeah, think about what you want there too.”
I did. Constantly. But I didn’t know.
That was the why behind not asking about their plans. I couldn’t decide how I wanted them to answer—and I knew part of me would feel disappointed and guilty either way.
37
After a torturous quiz bowl practice on Tuesday, I’d come home to find my parents in their office on a conference call. The door was shut, so I waved through the glass and went into the kitchen to make a snack before I headed to the lab.
I was rinsing grapes when they emerged, smiling and bright-eyed. It was the invigorated look they wore when they began a new project, so my hackles were up as I asked, “Good day?”
“It was,” Dad said. “Very productive. Also nostalgic. While organizing things in the basement, we found a box of your baby photos.”
Mom laughed. “When you were an infant, your dad was always looking for signs of genius.”
“As were you,” he retorted.
“Yes, but I didn’t overextrapolate from every one of her accomplishments.” Mom sat at the kitchen table and Dad did too, shaking his head and saying, “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mom pressed her lips together. In their sparring, smiling was a loss. How dare they let each other know they’d been amused. My stomach twisted; I’d played that same game with Curtis.
“Hmm. Selective memory. For example, Eliza, when you were three months old your father decided that because you didn’t fuss when clothing was pulled over your head you’d already mastered the concept of object permanence.”
“And your mom was delighted the first time you pushed her away and said, ‘No. I do.’—even though it took you five minutes to put on pants. Backward, I might add.”
“It was a sign of her independence.” Their looks of nostalgia soured. “And now—well, you’re certainly independent.” Mom sighed. “We understand that’s a result of our previous arrangement, and it’s a laudable quality for a young woman to possess, but . . .”
“What your mother’s trying to say is, you need to tell us what your plans are.”
“What plans?” This felt like the lead-up to something, and because I didn’t know what, every possible answer felt hazardous. “I have no plans. I’m grounded.”
“Maybe not ‘plans’ then,” Mom mused. “But, sit. Tell us about your day.”
It was a task that shouldn’t have felt insurmountable. I sank onto the chair between them and tried to pretend their impatience wasn’t palpable. I could give them the data I would’ve put in my log, but Dad had made my breakfast and Mom had watched in concern as I’d unpacked a mostly full lunch bag yesterday, then been relieved when I scarfed my dinner. They’d been up when my alarm went off this morning and said good night to me before bed. “I’m going to run on the treadmill later?”
“Okay. But how was your day?” Dad asked.
I didn’t know how to quantify that. “Fine.”
“Let’s try something else.” Mom tapped her lip. “Oh! Why all the running?”
“I was thinking of doing a half-marathon, but . . .” It wasn’t like I needed Curtis’s permission, but the idea of training solo—of trading trails for the treadmill—made my body feel heavy. “I changed my mind.”
“That’s quite the goal.” Dad went over to the fridge and got a pitcher of water. He returned with it and three glasses. “Did I ever tell you I ran a marathon?”
“No.” I tried to picture it. “When?”
“Chicago. The year before you were born. But one of our research assistants ran the Antarctic Ice Marathon this year.”
“Ice marathon? How did she train?”
“There’s a gym,” said Mom. “But Nahlia ran outside whenever she had time. The pictures are—I bet I have some on my computer if you want to see them. You can’t even tell it’s her under the balaclava, goggles, and gloves.”
“Your mom liked to tease her that the photos were of a stunt double while Nahlia was off in the sauna.”
“You have a sauna?” I reached on the countertop behind me and grabbed the bowl of grapes. Dad had been eating fresh fruit almost nonstop. “I want to see pictures. Tell me more about life there.”
“Only if you’ll tell us more about life here.” Mom and Dad did that smug-glances thing again as he popped three grapes into his mouth. “We’re realizing now, no matter how much data we collected, we weren’t seeing the big picture of your life.”
“But we couldn’t figure out any other way to parent from a distance,” Dad added. “We needed something quantifiable—some measure of your well-being.”
“I don’t think that can be measured.” Very few of the best things in life could be—not in any objective way. This moment, for example, couldn’t be charted or captured in a diagram; but them admitting a flaw, letting me see them vulnerable—it told me more than years of logs. “But well-being can be communicated. I know anecdotes are imprecise, but they offer more insight than BMI or REM cycles.”
“We agree,” Mom said. “But that’s irrelevant now. Try again, tell us about your day.”
It was grapes and water, not Mrs. Campbell’s perfect-temperature chamomile; but the other aspects—the attention and interest, the feeling valued and feeling part of something—those were the same. This was family. Mine.
Dad plucked another grape from the bunch. “Start at the morning, I want to know how you and Tobias May got on
carpool-friendly terms—I thought you couldn’t stand him. And I asked George Campbell this back in September, but I want to hear it from you too. Is he a safe driver? Are you? I’ll have to take you out for a test later. Should I ask him to do the same?”
I grinned around my glass. Finally, answers to my questions: They were staying, and I was glad.
I forgot Thursday was Valentine’s Day until I got in Toby’s car. He and Rory were sitting starry-eyed in the front seat while Merri clutched a glittery heart-shaped gift bag in the back.
I bit my tongue and spent the drive mentally listing prime numbers. I refused to think of the response journal I’d written yesterday—about Gilbert’s pond rescue and Anne’s stubbornness. How she said the ordeal cured her “of being too romantic.” I wanted to be at that point—cured instead of still stinging.
As soon as I stepped out of the car at Hero High, I was tempted to step back in. I wondered if my parents’ tentative attempts at bonding extended to allowing me to skip school. Doubtful. But if they saw how the student body was practically frothing with hearts, they might have understood my motives. When I reached the sophomore hall, it was worse. Every locker had some combination of carnations taped to the front. Red, pink, white—I’m sure the prom committee had assigned meanings to the colors, but all I cared about was if any of the flowers taped to my locker were from the guy I hadn’t talked to since he left me crying on the sidewalk on Saturday night.
I flipped through the heart-shaped tags impatiently. Merri. Merri. Merri. Rory. Hannah. Merri. Sera. Toby. Merri. Merri. Merri & Fielding. Lance.
The last one—the only red one—was signed with a doodle: a cupcake.
I smiled as I pressed the card and carnation against my chest.
“Hey, Eliza?” Merri was chewing her bottom lip, still holding the gift bag for Fielding, so apparently she’d followed me instead of finding him. “I think I should remind you the deadline to order flowers was last week. I know if it were me, I’d want to believe it meant things were okay, and . . .”
“Right.” I let go of the flower. It fell to the floor. He’d sent it Thursday or Friday, or any of the days before Saturday. “Good point. Thanks.”
“I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. “I’m glad you said something.”
It wasn’t like Curtis had been rude; he wasn’t ignoring me—at least not blatantly. He just didn’t engage. I wasn’t a person he noticed or teased. His feet stayed on his side of the lunch table. He didn’t wink at me over quiz bowl buzzers.
Yesterday at lunch, I’d done my best to bait him with talk about the Avery. “Have you started Frankenstein yet? You know, for when I beat you?”
I’d wanted it to be playful, but it was twisted by self-doubt and hesitation, and from how the rest of the lunch table blinked, I knew it sounded harsh.
“I guess we’ll see.” His answer was paired with a shrug, like it and I were of no consequence. I used to wish Curtis would stop joking and “be serious”—but now that he was, I hated it.
After lunch Lance had pulled me aside. “You need to give Curtis some space. I’ve been there—the guy who’s pining and had enough. It’s time to leave him alone.”
My cheeks had burned. “What did he tell you?”
“Nothing. But it was clear he had a crush, and now it’s clear he’s moved on. Because he has, you’re suddenly interested? C’mon, you’re better than that.”
If it was Merri who’d been hurt and Fielding who’d done it, I wouldn’t be half as courteous as Lance. That didn’t make his words sting less. I still couldn’t decide if his perception of the situation was worse than the truth.
Lance likely also wished he could unsend his friendship carnation. I shoved it and the others onto the top shelf of my locker, then schooled my expression before facing Merri. “I’m fine. Go find Fielding. He’s probably panicking.”
“You’re right! If not panicking, at least freezing. I told him to meet me in the parking lot and not wear socks.” She shook her gift bag. “I found a few pairs he’s going to love—basset hounds and fencing dudes and Mr. Darcy.” She paused and picked up the flower from the floor. “I’ll hang on to this in case you ever want it back. See you in bio?”
I nodded. But it was English I was dreading, where we’d get those response journals back.
I got an A, but I barely cared about that. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the line Ms. Gregoire had scrawled across the bottom. It was a quote from Matthew Cuthbert: “Don’t give up all your romance, Anne . . . a little of it is a good thing.”
38
I braced myself when Ms. Gregoire stopped by my desk in English class on Friday. I’d been expecting a question about Anne or Frankenstein. Instead she asked, “Are you all ready for the Avery?”
“Yup.” I looked down at my hands. There were still traces of dirt beneath my nails, but my abstract and display board were finished. By this time tomorrow, it would almost be over. I was more excited about it being past tense than about any awards or accolades in my future.
“Great. I’ll see you there.” She smoothed down the skirt of her dress, making the cherry blossoms printed on it shimmy, then paused. “You never did tell me what your project was called. What title should I look for on a poster tomorrow?”
“Isolation and introduction of Vibrio harveyi’s bioluminescent”—Curtis’s head pivoted toward me as I said the word “bioluminescent,” and I wondered if he was thinking of what he’d told me about firebugs and magic and me—“gene into Pisum sativum via clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “I recognized maybe three of those words, but it sounds important.”
“It’s really not.” I didn’t know if Curtis was still watching me, because I was studying my desk. This project was the opposite of important. It was the epitome of jargon and showing off just to show off. It served no actual function. “I made some pea plants glow in the dark.”
Ms. Gregoire laughed. “Why?”
“To prove I could. Because it will win. Because it’s the sort of project a Gordon-Fergus should do.” I hadn’t meant to sound bitter. I’d need to practice modulating my tone before I presented to the judges.
Ms. Gregoire crouched down so her face was level with mine. “You know one of the things I love most about Anne Shirley? How she’s always true to herself. Even that time she’s forced to make that awful apology to Rachel Lynde or when she confesses to losing the brooch she really didn’t lose—she does it in the most over-the-top Anne-ish way possible.”
I gaped at her; those were the same scenes I’d thought of the night I’d decided to change my project. I hadn’t told her—hadn’t told that to anyone.
“Eliza, you’ve never seemed all that excited about the Avery—it’s just a shame you couldn’t find a way to make it your own.”
Only I’d used those same scenes to justify the opposite outcome—focusing on the has to do, not making it mine.
Ms. Gregoire gave me a sad smile before standing up. “Anyway, I’m sure your parents will be very proud of your glowing plants, and I’ll see you there tomorrow.”
“You like Hero High, right?” Dad asked me Friday night. He was chopping peppers, and I was sitting on a stool stealing carrots from his piles. This was starting to become a thing. Talking, sharing pieces of our days, and opinions on things that weren’t science. It was still weird, but getting less so.
“Yeah, I do.”
Mom was stirring rice. She glanced over her shoulder and added. “None of the social issues you were having at Woodcreek Charter have carried over?”
I almost choked on a carrot. It scraped all the way down. “You knew about that?” My face grew hot, but I couldn’t tell if it was in embarrassment or anger.
“About the bullying and the nicknames?” Dad nodded. “Your teachers emailed us weekly progress reports. Your socialization difficulties came up frequently.”
“You knew”—I tucked my shaking hands bene
ath my legs—“and you didn’t say or do anything?”
“What are you talking about?” Mom switched off the burner and turned to face me. “We had Judith give you a book.”
“No, that was during Carlotta’s stint, wasn’t it?” Dad asked. “Regardless. We had your then-guardian buy a book about social dynamics. It came highly recommended.”
“A book?” I wanted to throw Dad’s neatly diced veggies at the walls, to dump Mom’s pot down the drain. “I wanted my parents.”
They made eye contact with each other but would no longer meet mine. “You didn’t say anything. We assumed if it really bothered you—”
“You assumed. And your assumptions were based on the premise that you knew me, which you don’t. Not at all.” I slid off my stool and grabbed my coat.
“Where are you going?” Mom asked.
“To work on my science fair project,” I snapped. “Is that allowed?”
“It’s tomorrow,” said Dad. “You’re not done yet?”
“Warner,” Mom chided. “When’s the last time you finished something a full day before deadline? Also, I think she needs some space.” Mom nodded at me. “Be home by eight.”
Ms. Gregoire’s words echoed in my head: It’s just a shame you couldn’t find a way to make it your own. The CRISPR’d pea plants were a project that would win the bet. They were a project that would please my parents. But they weren’t my project. The podcast was.
And did it matter if I won or lost if the boy on the other half of the bet wasn’t talking to me? Was the subject of a book report worth more than my integrity?
My chest felt tight the whole walk to the Campbells’, until I opened their front door and Mr. Campbell greeted me with a smile. “Eliza! I’ve been missing my cohost lately.” I followed him into the kitchen, trying to invent a valid excuse for showing up, but he didn’t act like I needed one. “I’ve got a whole bunch of questions written down on the back of an old grocery list. Jennifer accidentally threw it out, and I had to rescue it from the trash, so don’t mind the stains.” He handed it to me. “Do any of these look good?”
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