Mirrored

by Alex Flinn

  I look out. It’s someone I don’t recognize, an older woman, dressed up with a hat, like a Jehovah’s Witness. But they usually come to the front door.

  She mouths Kendra so I understand.

  Goose sees too and starts toward the door. I glance at Isabella. Goose says, “Hey, isn’t your dance show on, Isabella?”

  “Mom says I have to do this, right?”

  “Nah, we got it,” he says. “Why don’t you go watch?”

  Isabella goes to the family room and, again, Goose starts for the door. But, then, Kendra is in the room.

  “Oh!” She puts her hand down onto a pile of mango peels. “What a mess.” In an instant, the mangoes are peeled and chopped, flying into the Ziploc bags we had for them, and the kitchen is cleaner than before.

  “That’s better.” She turns to face us. “I have good news. I think Violet has decided to move on.”

  “Really?” That so does not sound like her.

  Kendra nods. “She was talking about taking a job transfer to another office, another city. She says no one in this town has ever liked her, so she should go someplace new. I encouraged her. I told her she could travel, as I had. We could even travel together. She agreed that she could forget Greg better if she didn’t live in his house. Wasn’t that emotionally healthy of her?”

  “Very.” It sounds fictional. “Other than the fact that she only got there by thinking I was dead.”

  “We take what we can get,” Kendra says. “She’s applied for a job transfer. Once she leaves, I really think you can move on with your life.”

  “Move on?” Goose asks. “Like she can go back to school? And get a foster family?”

  “Well, she has to move, of course. Violet thinks she’s dead. She can’t just show back up at school. Violet would still be her guardian. She’d find out. I’ll take Celine someplace far away and exotic, like France or Italy, or maybe Ohio.” She touches my cheek. “I’ve decided it would be safer if you live with me, like my daughter.”

  “Wow. France?” Goose says.

  I look at Goose. I know he’s thinking the same thing I am: We’ll never see each another again. I’ll miss him.

  “It will probably be several weeks still,” Kendra says. “Don’t get too excited yet.”

  Goose looks down. “No, not too excited.” He turns to Kendra. “Hey, you want a smoothie? We have all these mangoes.”

  She shakes her head. “Can’t. Allergies. But thanks.”

  And, before I can say Witches have allergies? she’s gone.

  Goose looks up at me. “I guess you can go to summer school now, to catch up.”

  I nod and try to smile. “Yup. In France.”

  “Maybe you could talk her into Ohio. At least they speak English.”

  “It’s still really far from Florida.”

  He turns away and starts feeding mangoes into the blender. “Yeah. Really far.”

  We make smoothies. They don’t taste the same, though. Mangoes are usually sweet. These were so pretty, but they taste like turpentine. Then, we try to go into the family room like nothing is wrong. After all, nothing is. This is what I wanted, to be away from Violet forever, to be free. It’s not like Stacey and Jorge were planning on keeping me forever. It’s not like they need another kid to add to the five they already have. It’s not like they’ll miss me the same way I’ll miss them. They have each other. It’s not like—

  “Sit by me!” Isabella shoves her mother over to make room.

  Stacey and Isabella are watching a reality show. Jorge is on his laptop, and the boys have disappeared into their rooms. Since Isabella is taking ballet-tap, we’ve all gotten completely addicted to this show about dancers and their crazy stage moms. Now, one of the moms is threatening to quit because she doesn’t like her daughter’s costume.

  “She quits every week,” Stacey says.

  Two grown women are screaming and stomping their feet. It’s like a traffic accident. You can’t stop watching. But I say, “This is so nice.”

  “What is?” Goose says. “Dance Moms?” The dance teacher is screaming at all of them.

  “Just . . . this. Watching TV together. My family never did that. You’re so lucky.” Where will I be a year from now? With Kendra in Ohio? Or France? But I don’t want to watch Dance Moms with Kendra. I want to stay here and help Isabella do her hair every morning, help Goose with chemistry, learn to play something a little harder on the piano.

  Stacey laughs. “Well, you’ve come to the right place. That’s all we do together around here, watch TV. Can’t get anyone out for some exercise.”

  “You know, they’ve got power yoga on every day at six. I was thinking we could do it together.” Maybe if I pretend I’m not leaving, I won’t have to. Yeah, that’ll work.

  “That’d be cool,” Stacey says. “Maybe DVR it for Jeron’s naptime.”

  After Dance Moms, the rest of the family goes to bed. Goose says, “Bueller time.”

  “You should go to bed too, Goose,” Stacey says. “Don’t you have a test tomorrow in chem?”

  “Day after tomorrow,” he says.

  “Still, you need to sleep. Your grades are important to you. You want to get into a good college.”

  “We’ll just watch half,” he says. “Please. Celine’s alone here all day.”

  “Alone?” Stacey laughs.

  “You know what I mean. I just want to spend some time with my friend.”

  Stacey frowns. “Okay. But just half the movie.”

  “Absolutely.” Goose waits until she turns the corner into the hallway before he whispers, “Nah, we’re watching the whole thing.”

  “She’s right, you know. You shouldn’t ruin your GPA. Junior year is the most important for college.”

  He rolls his eyes. “What you’re not understanding is that I’m a genius. I get As without studying.”

  I remember what Willow said about him not handing stuff in. “Can you get them without sleep?”

  “Sleep’s for babies. Sit down, and stop acting like my mother.” He sits and pats the seat beside him. “You’re going to love this.”

  I do. It’s a funny movie about this cool guy, Ferris, who skips school with his girlfriend and his very reluctant best friend, Cameron. They outsmart his parents and the principal and go to a fancy restaurant, a baseball game, and an art museum.

  Goose says, “It’s true what Ferris said in the movie. Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

  I notice he’s wearing that cologne again, the lemony one. Probably, whenever I smell lemons for the rest of my life, I’ll think of him.

  I want to stay with him.

  I say, “That is true. I probably haven’t looked around much lately. Maybe once I stop hiding out in your house I could do that. Except I’ll miss you.”

  He looks sad, then suddenly smiles like he’s trying hard to. “We should run away for the summer, go backpacking or something.”

  “My stepmother . . .”

  “We’ll go someplace she’d never look, like the Grand Canyon.”

  “I’d like that. It’s supposed to be beautiful.”

  Goose glances at the TV. “Oh, wait—this is my favorite part. Ferris is in a parade.”

  And then, in a second, he jumps up on the coffee table, imitating Ferris. “‘And I’d like to dedicate it to a young man who doesn’t think he’s seen anything good today,’” he lip-synchs with Ferris. “Give me Izzy’s hairbrush.”

  I give him a look like WTF, but hand him the hairbrush. So when Ferris starts singing “Danke Schoen,” Goose does too.

  Danke schoen, darling, danke schoen.

  Thank you for all the joy and pain.

  I can see the actor, Matthew Broderick, on the television, and Goose doing a perfect imitation of his every expr
ession, every gesture.

  “You’ve obviously seen this movie a lot,” I say, laughing.

  He ignores me, still singing, “Danke schoen . . .” and dancing. Then, he holds out his hand. I take it, and I dance with him. It’s fun, and for a while, I forget that my life is a mess, that my family is gone, and I’m never going to go to school again. Goose is good at making me forget the bad stuff.

  How will I live without him?

  But that night, when I go to bed, I have another nightmare. Again, I’m picking apples with my parents. This time, when I pick the ripe, green apple, it turns black, then melts to molasses. The molasses spreads up my hand and turns my arm black. Then, my whole body. It consumes me until I am gone.

  I wake, remembering something: Violet’s maiden name. Appel.

  Violet is the apples. They destroyed my family, and they will destroy me.

  The dreams mean I will never be safe. She’ll find me sooner or later.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  20

  Even though I can sleep all day, I never get enough rest because my dreams keep me up all night, worrying, not just worrying about Violet and Kendra but worrying about the Guzmans, what they’re risking, keeping me. Despite Jorge’s assurances that they want me, I can’t help but think they’d be better off if I just disappeared.

  Of course, if what Kendra says is true, I’ll be disappearing soon anyway, and that worries me even more. Where will I go? Who will I live with? Will I ever have any friends? And what if Violet finds me anyway? I can put these questions out of my head in the day, but at night, they dance in my head like sugarplums on acid, keeping me awake for hours.

  But, the night after Ferris Bueller, I decide to turn in early, to read until my eyes shut without my help. I know Goose has that chem test the next day, and I want him to study. But when I get to our room, Isabella is still coloring.

  “You should put that away,” I say. “Your mom’s going to tell you to soon.”

  Isabella has been very cutely obedient. Doing everything I say. Goose says, jokingly, it’s because she looks up to me. I think it’s just because I’m new.

  But, apparently, the novelty has worn off because she says, “I’ll wait until Mommy tells me.”

  “And then, about ten minutes more, I bet. And then, she’ll be mad and take away TV tomorrow. Don’t you want to watch Liv and Maddie together? It’s our favorite show. Come on, I’ll help you clean up.” I start gathering her crayons. It’s a big box with a hundred twenty, and I know she likes when I put them in rainbow order, so I start with the reds. “You get the oranges.”

  She does. It takes forever because she’s just a little kid and some crayons are in the middle between red and orange, like mango tango. Finally, she hands me the ten oranges, and I fit them next to the reds. “Now, start on yellows, and I’ll do greens.”

  She picks up a lemon-yellow crayon and holds it aloft.

  “Do you love my brother?” she asks.

  The question startles me for a second, and the magic mint crayon slips from my fingers. Once I catch it, I consider her question. I know any answer I give will be trumpeted not only to her brothers but to the neighbors and everyone at her school. I also know that five-year-olds only define love one way: a boy and a girl K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Neither yes nor no will yield a good result.

  I think of Goose at the piano, playing music like falling water.

  Finally, I say, “Of course I love all your brothers. And your mommy and daddy and you too.” I pick up the screamin’ green.

  “I meant my brother, Goose. Are you his girlfriend?” she says.

  “Silly!” I laugh. “We’ve never even been on a date. We’re friends.”

  Blue violet, red violet, violet blue . . .

  Isabella rolls her eyes. “I mean—”

  “Izzy! Time for bed!” Stacey’s voice mercifully interrupts us.

  “In a minute!” Isabella says.

  “Now. Brush your teeth. I think I saw something crawling around between them earlier. I’m checking your toothbrush.”

  Isabella thrusts the various yellows into my hand and walks out, huffing.

  After she leaves, I quickly gather the blues and violets and purples, then the neutrals. I’m in bed with my eyes closed and the pillow over my face by the time she comes back, safe from questions I can’t safely answer.

  Fortunately, she doesn’t revisit the subject the next day. I feign sleep in the morning, until she’s gone. In the afternoon, I’m listening to Jonah when she gets home. She shares my Jonah obsession to a major degree now.

  “He’s soooo cute!” she says.

  I laugh. “You’re, like, five years old.”

  “Six. You know I had my birthday last week.”

  “Okay, six. Sorry. You’re not supposed to be obsessing over rock stars.”

  “Why not? You do.” She turns away, singing “Yes, Baby, Yes,” and shakes her hair to indicate she wants me to braid it again. I oblige. I saw a style with a braid across the forehead, and I’ve been wanting to try it. I get her hairbrush and start brushing out her golden waves.

  “Well, I’m older than you,” I say. “I’ve been obsessed with Jonah for, like, a year, and I’m getting less obsessed.” It’s true. Without Laurel’s influence, it’s less fun. “Do you know I was supposed to go see him in concert?”

  “You were? Like, see him in person? Wow.”

  “I know. My friend, Laurel, and I got tickets the first day they went on sale. We had floor seats right near the stage where he could see us if he looked down, and we were going to make posters so he’d notice us.”

  “What were the posters going to say?”

  I can’t tell her about Dare to eat a peach. Not only will she not get it, but it also sounds completely stupid when I say it out loud. So I say, “But now, Laurel’s going with this other girl, Britney. It makes me so mad. I really wanted to go.” I want to cry, not about Jonah. That was a complete fantasy. But about Laurel, being trapped inside, basically losing my life.

  “That’s what you’re upset about? A stupid concert?”

  It’s Goose. He was late coming home from school today, and I’ve been waiting for him. I finally mastered Für Elise, and I’ve waited to play it for him, my only audience. Now, he’s standing in the doorway, staring at me with something like disdain.

  “Jonah Prince, really?” he says. “You’re stuck here all the time. You’ve had to quit school. My parents are taking risks having you here. I never go anywhere anymore, just so I can entertain you, and you’re upset because you can’t go see Jonah Stinking Prince and his diaper pants?”

  His words are like a bee sting, or a hundred. I turn on him.

  “It’s not the only thing I’m upset about, and you know it.” Even more, I want to cry. Why is he being such a douche? Can’t he see that Jonah is a symbol of all those other things? Like having to go to Ohio or France with Kendra. Like maybe never seeing him again? “You don’t have to stay home for me. No one told you to. Go out with your other friends if they’re so great.”

  He looks at me, sucking in a breath. “Maybe I will. And maybe if you’d stop playing his insipid music night and day, I could actually think straight and study.”

  The chorus of “Yes, Baby, Yes” is playing. Those are pretty much the only lyrics. It is insipid. Still, I say, “You said you liked it. Were you just playing me?”

  “Yes. I mean, no.” He rolls his eyes. “I was being nice.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you should keep trying to be nice.”

  He stalks over and pulls the plug on the speaker. Isabella starts screaming that he’s in her room. Finally, he leaves. I scramble up the ladder to my bed to cry, but not before I rip down the photo. I don’t wa
nt to throw it out, though. It’s from the book Goose got me. Even though Goose hates me, it has meaning. Instead, I hide it under my pillow. Isabella turns the sound back up as soon as Goose leaves, louder than before, so Jonah is screaming, “Yes, baby, yes!” but when I close my eyes, I can’t picture Jonah’s face, only Goose’s face, disappointed and angry at me.

  Stacey calls us for dinner, but I say I feel sick. I’m mostly embarrassed. When Isabella comes back to the room, I pretend I’ve gone to bed early, even though it’s only seven and still light out. Eventually, she leaves.

  A little later, there’s a knock on the door. I ignore it, even when I hear Goose’s voice, saying, “Celine? Come on, Celine. I didn’t mean it. Come play the piano with me. Or just talk to me. Anything.”

  I bury my head deeper under the pillow, ignoring him, even though I know I’m being a brat.

  “Celine?”

  I don’t answer, and finally, he goes away.

  But I don’t sleep. I can’t. I stay awake, listening to the muffled noise of the television, the whirr of the blender making more smoothies, the boys fighting and flushing toilets. Goose knocks two more times, and I want to talk to him, but now, I’ve pretended so long that I can’t. Of course he was totally right. It’s dumb to fantasize about a rock star I’ll never meet. I know that. Eventually, Isabella goes to bed and all the noise gives way to the wind chimes on the patio and the stop-start of the air conditioner. I’m lying there, wide awake.

  Hours later, I hear a knock on the window.

  “Celine?” The voice seems to be coming from inside my head. Kendra.

  I slide down to the floor and pad toward the window in my bare feet. When I get there, I have to look down. She is disguised as Stacey. But her voice is still Kendra’s.

  “Celine? May I come in?”

  “Come in, then,” I whisper. And immediately, she is there beside me.

  “It’s, like, midnight. What is it?”

  She melts into her own face and grows about a foot. “I’m sorry, Celine. I think I was wrong last week. About Violet. She’s not leaving.”