You Don't Live Here

by Robyn Schneider

  But it was just a list of clubs my school offered, printed out from the internet. Someone had highlighted Mock Trial and put three yellow stars next to it.

  I stared down at the paper, confused. First of all, I hadn’t realized we had a home printer, and second of all—what?

  “Oh, good,” Eleanor said, padding into the kitchen. “You found it. I thought you might want to familiarize yourself with Baycrest’s extracurriculars.”

  “Um, thanks,” I said. “But why is Mock Trial highlighted?”

  “Because the first meeting’s after school today. I wrote the classroom down on the back.”

  I flipped the list over, and sure enough. I’d noticed tons of club flyers papering the hallways, but I hadn’t stopped to investigate. It wasn’t like yearbook was an after-school activity.

  “It’s so helpful that your school has a Facebook page,” my grandmother went on. “You can find out everything. Have you been on there?”

  “Grandma, no one uses Facebook,” I said, opening my yogurt. “Besides, I’m not sure Mock Trial’s really my style.”

  The moment I said it, I knew it was a mistake. Pearl, who’d been dancing around my ankles, begging for, of all things, lemon yogurt, went silent.

  My grandmother sighed.

  “Sasha,” she said, as though she hated having to spell it out. “This isn’t about you. It’s about college.” Of course it was. “You don’t have any extracurriculars.”

  “I have yearbook, and my job at the museum.”

  “Those are from last year,” she reminded me. “Joining Mock Trial will really demonstrate an interest in pre-law. It’s a smart choice.”

  I didn’t know why she thought I was interested in pre-law. And then, suddenly, I did. I half-remembered a conversation over the summer, in those grief-fogged days, when my grandparents had asked me what I planned to study in college.

  I’d said art history, and when I saw the horrified look on my grandmother’s face, I’d backpedaled that I was also thinking of English. And she’d said law schools loved English majors, and I’d said, “Oh, really? That’s great,” and now we were here.

  To my grandparents, a career in the arts wasn’t an option. A career in the arts was my dad, working as a home inspector and monopolizing our only car on the weekends to drive to LA and play open mics while my mom and I walked to the laundromat.

  According to my grandparents, there were pretty much three choices: doctor, lawyer, or business executive. Professor was okay. So was dentist or engineer or clinical psychologist. But anything that wasn’t a guarantee was a gamble.

  My mom had been pre-law, even though she’d taken more literature and art classes than anything else. I wondered what she would have been if she’d finished.

  Alive, whispered a small voice in the back of my head, which I tried to push away.

  “So it’s decided,” my grandmother said. “You’ll stay for the Mock Trial meeting today.”

  “Um, actually—” I said.

  I had to tell her that I didn’t want to. That I wasn’t interested in Mock Trial, or being a lawyer, at all. But then I thought about my grandmother printing out the list of extracurriculars and leaving it there for me, like a present. Which made me think of the new clothes she’d bought me, and how she was driving me to school in the mornings, and how much of an interruption my presence was in their lives.

  And when I opened my mouth to say I wasn’t doing it, what came out instead was, “I’m not sure what time Mock Trial ends, so maybe I should just walk home?”

  That afternoon in Studio Art, Mr. Saldana made us stop sketching a couple of minutes early. Which was fine by me, since we were copying postcards, and my landscape was lopsided.

  “We still have ten minutes until the bell,” he said mildly, raising an eyebrow at this girl Justine, who had started to pack up. “And I wanted to take that time to talk about Art Club. The first meeting of the year is today after school. Actually—Lily? Would you mind coming up here?”

  Lily shrugged and said it was fine.

  “Great,” Mr. Saldana continued. “I’ll let our club president tell you about it.”

  Lily moved to the front of the room. She was wearing tight black overalls today, with a striped shirt underneath, and these tough, pointed-toe boots with metal heels. Her lipstick was bright red, and her hair was in two little teddy-bear buns. I loved it so, so much. It was quirky and bold, the kind of look it took confidence to pull off.

  And Lily had confidence in spades. The way she gazed at us, calmly, not at all perturbed to be singled out.

  “Okay, hi,” she said. “You probably already know about Art Club. We’re the ones who put on the student art auction at the end of every semester, and we did the beards on the trees last year, and we were also responsible for the buckets of sidewalk chalk at Spring Fling. So basically, if you’re into urban exploration, art installations, or just really idolize the Algonquin Round Table for some reason, check us out. We could use some new blood. Which we use to paint with. Kidding. Sorry. Zero blood sacrifices are necessary.”

  This was the kind of club I wanted to join. As Lily talked, I imagined it for a moment. The two of us becoming friends. Going to art galleries together. Flipping through fancy magazines in the café of some bookstore, sipping cappuccinos and poring over the fashion and the photography.

  “When are the meetings again?” Justine called without raising her hand.

  “Mondays and Wednesdays,” Lily said. “After school.”

  The same time as Mock Trial.

  Friya had warned me at lunch that Mock Trial was a bad idea. That it was a smug boys’ club full of khaki-wearing douchebags. I’d thought she was exaggerating, but it turned out she was underselling its awfulness.

  Todd, the club president, had the kind of snide demeanor that make you fantasize about punching him in the face. It was easy to come up with his yearbook superlative: Most Likely to Be Your Boss.

  I sat there amid a group of eager freshmen boys while, at the front of the room, the team sat facing us with matching pins in their lapels.

  “As newbies,” Todd said, smirking at the four of us, “you’ll be timekeepers. And if you impress us, then next year you might get promoted up. This is serious business, freshpeople. Last year, our team placed in the top three in the county and went on to compete at state.” He paused, letting that part sink in.

  “Being part of a winning team,” Michelle from my English class piped up, “is being a winner, no matter your role.”

  Next to me, a boy with braces rubber-banded together so tightly it made my mouth hurt just looking at him nodded seriously, taking notes.

  I hated it so much. I mean, sure, I could see how it looked good on a résumé. But not coming in as a junior. My presence disrupted the flow of the entire system.

  Sure enough, Todd pulled me aside after.

  “So I understand you’re a junior,” he said. “Were you in Mock Trial at your old school?”

  “Um, no,” I told him.

  Todd nodded, as though he’d been expecting my answer.

  “Well, you’re going to have to start at the bottom,” he let me know in his pompous way. “So I really hope you weren’t thinking that just because you’re a junior you could skip the grunt work.”

  I stared at him, confused. I hadn’t been trying to angle my way into some fancy role. I didn’t even know anything about Mock Trial except that my grandmother had told me to join.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Don’t play dumb,” Todd said. “You’re obviously here to pad your résumé for college. Junior year. Not enough extracurriculars. But you know what? You should have started thinking about that earlier. We’re all fighting for the same few spots at Stanford, and since neither of us are minorities, well.” He let out a short bark of a laugh. “It’s every man for himself. Or woman—sorry—didn’t mean to offend.”

  My jaw almost hit the floor, and I tried to disguise it as a cough.
<
br />   “Um, I’m not trying to get into Stanford,” I mumbled. “I just thought—new school. I should join an activity we didn’t have at my old one.”

  “And how many AP classes are you in?” Todd asked.

  “Um, four,” I admitted.

  He raised an eyebrow, as though saying “yeah, right.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you right now,” he said, “even though we’re not posting the list until tomorrow: You’re a timekeeper. Your job is to stare at the clock while the rest of us run the show. If you’re lucky, you might get to make photocopies. But that’s it.”

  “Great,” I said. “That’s fine.”

  “So we’ll see you Wednesday, Stanford?” he said, with just a hint of malice.

  No, I wanted to say. This was a huge mistake, and now it’s turned into an even bigger misunderstanding, and I never, ever want to come back. I want to run screaming from your horrible racist, sexist face and pretend none of this ever happened.

  But I couldn’t. I had to do this. I’d promised my grandparents.

  So I took a deep breath and pasted on a fake smile and promised, “Yep, see you Wednesday.”

  On my way to my locker, I paused outside Mr. Saldana’s classroom, catching a glimpse through the thin rectangle of glass at what was going on in there. Music was playing, some kind of bossa nova, and tubes of frosting were strewn everywhere, and a Van Gogh was on the projector. The Art Club was decorating cakes to look like Starry Night.

  Mabel, from my PE class, was holding up her hideous rendition, her fingers coated in frosting, and everyone was laughing uproariously.

  “It’s SO bad,” she gasped.

  “Shitty Night!” Ryland dubbed it.

  “Starry Blight?” someone else called.

  I realized I’d been standing in the hallway watching for too long, so I forced myself to keep walking. To unload the heavy textbooks from my locker, and then to walk all the way home, up the hill that looked innocent enough in the mornings, but turned out to be a hell of a hike in the afternoon.

  “I heard someone joined Mock Trial,” my grandfather said at dinner.

  We were eating bœuf bourguignon—the Julia Child recipe, my grandmother was quick to point out, as though there was some other less appetizing recipe for the exact same thing that I was worried she’d used instead.

  “Yep,” I said, my mouth full.

  All afternoon, I’d had this awful pit in my stomach at the thought of going back to Mock Trial. I honestly wasn’t sure I could bear it. But if I was going to bail, I had to tell them.

  I was pretty sure they wouldn’t make me keep going back if they knew how awful it had been. I didn’t know what I was supposed to get out of it other than a line on a résumé.

  “Actually,” I said, but before I could say anything else, my grandfather was already off, telling me how great it was that I was showing an early interest in the law, talking about how all these millennials expected to go into the arts and be their own bosses, and then wound up moving back home and never getting anywhere.

  It sounded very Fox News. I heard him watching it almost every night, after dinner. The light from the television flickered across the stairs the few times I’d come down for a glass of water. But the thought of walking past the den, of having to see my grandfather glued to the screen, soaking all of that in, made me decide it was better to just drink from the bathroom tap.

  “I’m not a millennial, Grandpa,” I reminded him.

  “Well, whatever you are,” my grandfather said, “I’m glad you’re keeping a good head on your shoulders. Studying hard and dating that Edwards boy—”

  “She already said they’re not dating,” my grandmother cut in, glaring at my grandfather. “You never pay attention.”

  “I pay attention just fine,” he said, his tone a warning.

  I slid down in my seat, fiddling with my napkin. It was so uncomfortable, watching them fight. Hated that I was stuck here to witness it. Hated that by going to that terrible Mock Trial club, I still wasn’t doing enough to make them happy with me.

  Think about college, I told myself as my grandparents continued to bicker. Think about how you’ve already been here four months. Think about something besides how much you wish you could go to Art Club. And become friends with Lily.

  Getting that out of my head was harder than it should have been.

  No, I told myself. That’s not the plan. Stick to the plan.

  Chapter 12

  “SAW YOU WALKING TO SCHOOL THIS morning,” Adam said, pulling open his locker on Tuesday. He had on his Academic Decathlon jacket again. Oh god, I hoped I wasn’t going to get one that said Mock Trial. Whitney would never let me live it down.

  “Yep,” I said. I’d finally convinced my grandmother she didn’t have to drive me. A small but amazing victory.

  I’d spotted Lily’s sleek Mercedes while I was walking down the hill. They’d sped past, windows down, music blasting, missing me entirely, or so I’d thought.

  “The uphill sucks, just so you know,” he said, as if I wasn’t painfully aware. I’d stubbornly worn my ankle boots yesterday, and I had the blisters to prove it.

  “I’m planning on levitating,” I said.

  Adam snorted.

  “We can give you a lift home if you’d like,” he said. “I’m sure Lil won’t mind.”

  The offer was tempting. But it felt weird that Adam was offering, especially since Lily didn’t seem to like me. If Ethan did that, inviting some random girl to ride with him and Whitney, I was pretty sure she’d pitch a fit.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t want to impose on your girlfriend.”

  At this, Adam burst out laughing. He laughed so hard that he had to lean back against his locker, and so long that more than a few heads turned curiously in our direction.

  “Lily isn’t my girlfriend,” he finally got out. “She’s my sister.”

  “Your sister?” I spluttered, because I was not expecting that at all.

  “Her mom married my dad like eight years ago,” Adam explained. “So we’re stepsiblings, technically. Except Gracie, our half-sister, is six, and you try explaining fractional genetics to a little kid.”

  Stepsiblings. Wow. I’d gotten it all so wrong.

  “Hold on,” I said, my brain racing to process this unexpected development. Because if they were siblings, that meant— “Lily lives two houses down?”

  “Yeah. Try to keep up,” Adam joked. “So you want a ride or not?”

  “No thanks,” I said, because Adam’s offer and this new information still didn’t change the fact that Lily disliked me, and that I couldn’t quite figure out why.

  Over the next few weeks, life fell into a routine. On Mondays and Wednesdays I had Mock Trial, and on Thursdays, at Cole’s urging, I stuck around after school, hanging with the girls on the bleachers while the boys had soccer practice. Whitney came to cheer for Ethan, and Friya gleefully posted stories because she knew it would irritate her ex.

  “He doesn’t ‘do’ school-sponsored activities,” she told me one afternoon, rolling her eyes.

  “Neither do I,” Whitney said. “That shit is lame. No offense, Sasha.”

  “None taken,” I said. “Mock Trial is lame.”

  It was worse than lame. Still, I didn’t know how to tell my grandparents that I hated it.

  Every night at dinner, I’d try and fail to work up the courage. Either they were in a good mood, which I didn’t want to ruin, or else they were bickering, which I didn’t want to interrupt. I’d experienced enough of my own parents’ fights as a kid to know the best action was to just stay out of it. So I let my grandparents do their thing, and I answered their questions about my day, and I watched them exchange little glances showing how pleased they were that I was everything they’d hoped for. That I was exactly the girl they’d wanted.

  I could be that girl, I told myself, as I went dutifully to my horrible Mock Trial meetings and sat with Cole’s crowd at lunch. I just had to keep doin
g the things I was already doing. It was that simple and that hard.

  Part of me had expected it to get easier being around Friya and Whitney. That underneath their intimidating exteriors, I’d find some interest we had in common, or at least something interesting to talk about. Except they remained at a distance. They’d invited me in, and that was precisely the problem: I’d needed the invitation, when no one else at the table did.

  But then there was Cole. Whenever I caught myself editing some joke or some reference, or sitting silently for too long, wishing Friya would just shut up about her ex, he’d look over at me and say something charming. Or else he’d roll his eyes and nudge my leg under the table, letting me know that he was annoyed, too.

  He was smart in school—taking all honors, even though he downplayed it. He ran late to lunch sometimes, staying behind to help the students in Computer Programming. I saw him in the classroom on the way to my locker, watching as he joked around with the younger students. He even made a point to say hey to them around campus. It was sweet, the way he was concerned about everyone else.

  The way he was concerned about me. Whenever he turned his attention toward me at lunch, I’d flutter inside just a little bit, because his eyes were bright as sea glass, and his hair defied gravity, and he always had some excuse to touch my arm, or my back.

  And I’d think, See? You do like it here. You’re just miserable because your mom is dead. Because you miss pancakes and Thai food and walking around the house with no pants on. The only reason your life doesn’t feel right is because nothing in this town feels right, because it was never supposed to be yours in the first place.

  Still, I’d pause outside Mr. Saldana’s classroom after Mock Trial, catching a glimpse of the Art Club and wishing I could try it on and see if it fit. There were maybe seven or eight of them, and they always seemed to be having the best time.

  Once, they were watching a slam poetry competition. I watched through the doorway, entranced by the rhythmic beat of someone’s voice, by the pulsing, pounding way they were using their words. By how everyone was eating pizza and sitting on their desks, staring at the video on the projector, totally into it, and not at all embarrassed to admit that.