“But haven’t you ever wondered why Sadie wants to hang out with you in the first place? Why…” She sees me grimacing, and her voice comes down an inch. “Why your mom doesn’t like her?”
The challenge bursts out of me before I can stop it. “Do you like her? The girl Peter cheated on you with?”
Lindsay flinches. Pop music starts pulsing somewhere down the corridor.
“That’s what I thought,” I mumble, turning away. Not realizing we’re still holding hands until I tug mine free, and knock on the door.
* * *
Sadie’s seated at the piano with her back to us, a pencil shoved behind her ear. Wearing the same lacy T-shirt, same ripped jeans, from yesterday. “Listen, Em.” Her fingers wander the keys, this tiptoe of a sound. “We’ll do a bump, all right? One little bump, for old times’ sake? That’s all I’m asking.”
“Um.” I hesitate. “Sadie?”
The piano bleats. She twists around.
“Sorry,” I stammer, momentarily ashamed not to be the person she was expecting, fully, one hundred percent not Em, but Sadie’s already scrambling off the bench, wrapping me in a giant hug. God she smells good. I bury my nose in her bandanna, just breathing, until I remember… “Oh.” Her arms slide from my neck. “This is the friend I was telling you about…” It’s exactly the reception I’ve been craving, Sadie so frenzied and flushed to see me that introducing Lindsay feels awkward by comparison, like delivering a book report without notes. What can I tell Sadie about her that I haven’t already said? That’s actually coherent? Sadie gnaws the zipper on her jacket, radiating that gloriously twitchy energy that reminds me of when we first met. Lindsay, still twisting that loose thread, edges in from the hall.
Sadie offers her little hand. “Thought you’d be blond. Like in the picture Koda showed me?”
A rush of embarrassment. Lindsay blinks at Sadie’s outstretched hand. “I was blond for a while,” she says, “but I got sick of it.” As they shake, I watch Lindsay’s face carefully for a reaction—some sign that she’s decided Sadie’s not so bad. Her glare blasts me over Sadie’s head. “It wasn’t the real me.”
I glare back. Sadie slips between us and shuts the door. “Your timing’s impeccable, kiddo. You seen Em?”
“No.”
Lindsay hangs back, the thread wound around her thumb. I’d invite her to sit down, show her the guitar—where is the guitar?—but Sadie’s piano-bound, dragging me by my coat sleeve.
“Well, let me show you the hot bullshit we’ve been working on all morning.” We perch together on the narrow bench, and Sadie dumps her notebook into my lap. I laugh, struggling to prop it open as she bangs keys, which makes me laugh harder. Sadie creates music even when she’s trying not to.
“Hold on.” I flip through her pages. “Which ones are we—”
“Pick! They’re all trash. Wait.” She snatches the notebook back, then churns through more pages, landing on a spill of wriggly blue ballpoint. “This one I’m not that ashamed of. All right.” She cracks her knuckles. “Ready?”
I nod eagerly.
“You’ve got to be honest.”
My heart dips. From the corner of my eye, I see Lindsay has made her way to the leather sofa without me, and that she’s sitting silently, coat folded across her lap. The exact way I used to sit at the parties she dragged me to, after she’d disappeared with Peter. Miss me? she’d joke when she came back. I’d look away. So terrified of telling her the truth that fear locked me shut. Honesty has never been my best quality.
But it wasn’t my father’s, either, apparently.
“Okay.” My knuckles don’t crack like Sadie’s, but I give them a good flex anyway. “I’ll try.”
She runs a finger over the keys, making no sound at all this time, and I shiver remembering that day at her apartment. Fear’s always there. Slow, delicate trace of my jawline. Good shivers. I lean closer. Her lips part.
Sadie’s voice is smoke wisping from a blown-out candle, the song unlike any of hers I’ve heard. A story about going for a drive one upstate winter, to a place called Grafton Lake. The boy is nervous about traveling so far just to skip stones, but the girl says no problem, she says—Sadie nudges me to reach the far keys—“I’ll watch for ice”—and then the chorus comes in—“Oh, oh”—I think it’s the chorus—“I watched for ice while you drove, oh, oh, but it wasn’t that cold…” Sadie teases the keys, her head tipped back, and even though we’re stuck in this crappy studio and the song’s not done, I can already feel the snow in my eyelashes, wet wool fuzzing up my tongue. It makes me want to cry a little. It makes me want to run.
With her. To a town so distant and cold our breath freezes around us in scarves, the whole world iced over, glinting like the edge of a blade. Up there, I wouldn’t have to tell Lindsay anything. Up there, it’d just be Sadie and me, her memories of my father keeping us both warm. I shut my eyes. Piano notes wink out one by one.
Sadie scoots back, mumbling how this shit will never make it on the radio.
I giggle. “Definitely not.”
She pinches me. Like this is not the best, most honest compliment I could give her. And Sadie is smiling, gazing at me with those bottomless eyes. On impulse, I rest my cheek on top of her head. Heat from her skull leaps against me.
“I’d do anything to see that lake with you,” I whisper. Get my license. Snowshoe. Anything.
Chuckling, Sadie pokes her fingers through my braid.
I lift my head to find Lindsay still moping on the sofa. I want to jump on it with her. I want to grab her shoulders and yell, Sadie wrote this song for me!
“What’d you think?” I ask hoarsely.
“We should go,” she answers without looking up.
CHAPTER 21
NEITHER OF US SPEAKS ON the train ride uptown. Hands buried in our pockets, sitting piano-formal on the plastic seats. More than once I try to catch Lindsay’s eye, but she’s avoiding me again for whatever reason, obsessed with the electronic board that lists stops overhead. Astor Place, Twenty-Third, Twenty-Eighth… I stare out the windows across the car, my reflection pasted against the dark tunnel. For the first time, I look how I feel. Dizzy and flushed from the current zinging between Sadie and me. Not talking about her is unbearable. When we stop at Union Square, passengers file off until the car’s as good as empty. I touch Lindsay’s shoulder. “So?”
“So, what?” she snarls.
My hand snaps back. “What do you mean, what? Are we just not going to talk? Tell me what you thought about Sadie.” Like, She’s incredible, Koda! We could throw a two-girl party, howl and dance like we did the day Peter asked her out. She could at least pretend to be happy for me, too.
Lindsay’s quiet a moment, chewing the gloss off her lips. “I think we should tell your mom.”
The train hits a bump, tossing us forward. I grab onto a pole. “I told you—”
“But she’s a freak, Koda, can’t you see? Too skinny. Those big eyes, her scuzzy hair… You didn’t introduce me by name, which would’ve been awkward enough, but she didn’t even care! She didn’t ask a single question about me, or who I am, what I like—nothing. I mean,” she relents, “her songs are… she’s really good, but she doesn’t sound like she used to, on all those old recordings and stuff. Her voice sounds… it’s all used up. And…” She pulls away, and I can’t tell where she’s looking anymore, just that it’s anywhere but me. The pole I’m still clutching. A set of anatomically unlikely boobs scratched into the seat between us. “The way you and Sadie cling to each other is…” She doesn’t bother to finish.
“You’re just jealous.” I flop back against the seat, only to realize how bad my stomach’s cramping. “Sadie and I don’t ‘cling’ to each other.”
Lindsay shakes her head, and a sprig of dark hair falls from her bun, brushes her lips. She thumbs it back. “Well, what was she talking about when we first got there anyway? A bump? What does that even mean? It sounds like, I don’t know, code, for drugs—”
“Sorry, but I used to hang out with Peter’s band all the time, so I think maybe I’m the more trusted authority on what musicians do? I’m not naive about that stuff. Not like you.” She burrows into her scarf, muttering, “Ironically.”
I look roughly away. Farther down the car, a woman cradles a shivery dog, and I stare at his vibrating ears, the tangles of brown fur that made me mistake him for an old slipper at first. Tears sear my throat.
She’s not wrong. For all the time I’ve spent with Sadie—two months now—the facts I’ve learned about my father amount to practically nothing. Scraps. I’ve never really thought about this before now. Never truly cataloged the bits of him that Sadie’s shown me, taken an inventory. Why would I? It’d be excruciating. But I don’t know how to explain this to Lindsay without breaking down. I don’t know how to admit, maybe I am naive. Maybe my hunger for Sadie is a little off. But if both Lindsay’s dads were dead and gone, she’d cling to nothing too.
“Wow,” I say instead, cheeks boiling. “I guess I really am naive to think we could go one weekend without bringing up your ex.”
Lindsay sucks her cheeks but doesn’t point out the obvious: At least I’ve got one.
The train clanks on, both of us steaming, until gradually Lindsay starts toying with the phone in her lap.
“I keep your secrets,” I say desperately.
Indecision wells in her eyes.
“I didn’t tell your dads how you kept sneaking out even after you got caught and grounded for a month. I didn’t tell them you smoke pot in your room. That’s a drug too.”
The strand slides from behind her ear as she looks at me, but I will not let her ruin this. I refuse to let Lindsay ruin the one person I do have, if I’ll never get her.
“You could’ve,” she says.
“But I didn’t. That’s the point—”
“The point, Koda, is that parents find out everything in the end anyway. That’s what I’d be terrified of, if I were you. Maybe you don’t get it because your family’s white—”
“You say that about everything.”
“Because it’s true! Look. My dad—Papá, Saulo, you know who I mean—isn’t as strict as my grandparents, not by a long shot, but he always finds out about whatever shit I’m doing behind his back regardless. Always. So by not telling, you’re just helping me delay the inevitable. You’re just helping me bide time until he gets wind of it and comes storming into my room all, ‘I told you not to…’ and the shame eats me alive because I knew he was right all along. So, is it annoying that he snoops around and gets into all my shit? Yeah, Koda, it is extremely fucking annoying. But at the end of the day, maybe I shouldn’t have done all that stupid shit behind his back. I shouldn’t smoke in my room. It stinks.”
“My mom would never snoop.”
“Well,” she says through her teeth, “then I feel sorry for you.”
I wrap my arms around myself, and she presses her eyes shut, both of us swaying with the train.
A snag in her voice as she adds, “Don’t listen to me if you don’t want to. Keep worshipping Sadie, but I’m going to tell you what Papá told me about Peter. I think she’s bad news.”
Stops roll by. Thirty-Third Street, Grand Central, Fifty-First, and Lindsay might be crying, but maybe I don’t care. If we weren’t already late for dinner, I’d abandon her down here, push her away like my pillow in ninth grade, after I practiced kissing her. Tears rush up all over again at the thought, scalding me. Peter.
Screw that asshole.
* * *
The restaurant is aggressively Mediterranean. Homemade yogurt, chickpeas and potatoes, bulgur tossed with figs and honey. Lindsay picks diligently through the appetizers, paying strained attention to Mom while also miraculously managing to angle her entire body away from me. That feels worse than shouting at each other. Worse than eating alone at school.
Mom, unable to determine what exactly has gone awry, asks nervous questions while we wait for salads. How was the aquarium? Were too many exhibits closed? If we’re looking for something to do tomorrow, what about swimming? She swipes some email alerts away to show us pictures of a health club she joined when we moved here but hasn’t had time to visit. Not just yet. I nod without input from Lindsay. “Sure, Mom, sounds great.” The lap pool stretches from one corner of her phone to the other. Empty as it is blue.
We ride home in brittle silence. Naturally, Mom’s working through the weekend, so she says her farewells as we’re stepping off the elevator, kissing my forehead, hugging Lindsay, warning us not to stay up too late.
“We definitely won’t,” Lindsay says flatly. “Thanks, Mariah.” The lights are off, Lindsay hidden in shadows even though she’s five feet away from me. If our day had gone better, I’d offer her a tour. Show her the windows I stare out, and the breakfast bar where I grind through homework, the exact stool I was sitting on when news broke about me dishonoring my father’s legacy. There’s still time to point that out as I turn and lead her wordlessly to my room. Time to put my hand on her arm in the darkened hall and make her stand with me, our eyes shut until she admits, oh yeah. The building’s totally swaying.
In my room, Lindsay yanks her sweater over her head.
“Oh.” I flinch. “Sorry, I can leave if you want to change…” She ignores me. We’ve seen each other naked—as good as naked—millions of times. But I find somewhere else to put my eyes, pretending to admire this new, benign oatmeal color that’s been slapped onto my walls. The paint smell hasn’t quite subsided. “Do you… we could watch a movie or something.”
Lindsay’s bra is dusty blue, the kind that crisscrosses over your back. She bends to peel off her socks.
“Or we could—”
She strips her jeans off like they’re nothing. This is nothing. “No, Koda, I don’t want to watch a movie. I don’t want to do anything. I couldn’t sleep all last night because I was so worried about dying a fiery death on a plane. I’m exhausted. Good night.” She curls up on top of my bed with her back to me. No blankets, nothing. Just last year’s swim team T-shirt tented over her bent knees. I give her a minute, waiting for her to close her eyes, steady her breathing—whatever it’ll take to convince me she’s asleep. In the window, her reflection’s eyes stay open, staring out at the city. Does she not realize I can see?
I inch closer, wincing in the glare of the track lighting. “You don’t have to stay here with me if you don’t want to. There’s a guest room.”
She doesn’t move. The glare intensifies.
“Linds? Do you want the lights off?”
A tired voice answers, “Just go away, Koda.”
I turn the lights off anyway and go into my en suite. Everything I’m wearing gets chucked into the hamper. T-shirt, jeans, damp underwear. The water drumming into the Jacuzzi is the perfect temperature. Not-quite-heartburn-hot. I sink in up to my chin, and my throat pinches, but I’ve been holding tears back all afternoon. I refuse to lose it now. I dry off and put a robe on, approach the en suite mirror. My face is puffy. Goose bumps stud my bare knees.
Maybe I shouldn’t bother. I have already fucked up so badly. But the other part, the bolder one, whispers that this is not unsalvageable. Do it afraid.
I dig the black lipstick out from where I hid it, a drawer stuffed with loose hair bands and overnight pads and Q-tips. Apply carefully. Painstakingly. So when the lights come on, there will be no mistakes.
Tiptoeing to my closet, I use my flashlight app to find the shredded black jeans and sheer top I bought with Sadie. Originally I’d planned to wear a tank underneath, but I forget, and when the mesh scrapes my nipples, there’s no going back. I’m already overheating. Practically panting from nerves and a too-hot bath, but that’s okay. I cancel the flashlight app, then stealthily reenter my room. Panic burps bubble.
I hold them down.
A dark shape huddles under the covers. Other than that, Lindsay doesn’t seem to have moved since I left her.
“Hey.”
No answer. I can just make out her back to me, the gentle rise of her shoulders. “Lindsay…?” When I climb in next to her, she doesn’t stop me.
Asleep. I can tell the moment I curl up on my side, conscious of maintaining the tiny seam of space that I have always maintained between us during sleepovers. She’s even snoring a little, once the blood stops banging in my ears enough to listen. Slowly, careful not to smear my lipstick, I lower my face onto her pillow. Her hair is still in a bun, the little wisps that fell loose during the day still tickling me. My mouth opens. Legs too. So desperate to make amends that every inch of me is yielding, parting to her. “Linds,” I whisper. “Lindsay, can you please wake up?” I could give her the bracelet now. I almost forgot about it, tucked in my nightstand drawer. I could tell her I’ve finally picked a side, and I’m going to be honest, blazingly honest, from now until we’re dead. The ache’s not worth it. I get that, after today. “Lindsay?”
Still nothing.
My lips feel chalky. The lipstick drying like the entire night has dried around me.
My hand creeps for hers the same way it crept toward Sadie’s on the train, except unlike that night there is nothing to hold on to, even though Lindsay feels so solid and warm. Like we haven’t cuddled before. At sleepovers, sharing a bed, we always end up tangling. When morning comes, that’s all she’ll think this is, and it’s that more than anything else that makes the tears I’ve been fighting since we left the studio finally seep out of me.
She smells like chlorine.
CHAPTER 22
I WAKE UP TO FIND Lindsay crouched in front of her suitcase. “Morning, Koda.” Painfully casual, like she’s doing her best to act normal, hit reset on yesterday. A lump rises in my throat, I’m so grateful. “I was just wondering about this interesting pajama choice.” She lifts my sheer top off the carpet with one finger, where it dangles like a battered wing. “Where’d this come from?”
The Mythic Koda Rose Page 17