Better Than the Best Plan

by Lauren Morrill

  “I don’t even know where to begin,” I reply.

  She gestures to the porch, the yard, the blue of the ocean glittering in the sun, just visible in the backyard. Then she throws an arm around my shoulder and pulls me in again. “Maybe start with all this?”

  As I lead Lainey into the house, I try to see it again for the first time, this time without the terror and confusion of my initial arrival. Lainey keeps her cool, but I see her eyebrows rise as we walk into the kitchen, where Kris is tapping away on her laptop at the island. I can already hear her mind churning about tile and flooring and cabinetry. She watches entirely too much HGTV.

  “You must be Lainey,” Kris says, looking up over the top of her laptop. She’s smiling, but not nearly as effusive as she was when I arrived. She seems distracted, her eyes going from us to her computer, even as she greets Lainey. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

  “Nice to meet you,” Lainey replies. She’s even better with grown-ups than I am. I’ve seen her charm even our sternest of assistant principals.

  “Welcome to Helena, Lainey. Beach chairs and towels are in the garden shed, and help yourself to any snacks you want. Let me know if you need anything.” She’s rattling it off like a cruise director.

  “Thanks,” we reply in unison, and I grab Lainey by the hand and drag her out the back door before she can start in on a conversation on the perks of gas versus electric stoves.

  The garden shed turns out to be more like how I’d envision a pool house. The walls are painted a light aqua, with gleaming white molding around the room. A workbench takes up one entire wall, as organized as the kitchen and the office (at least, Kris’s side), not a color-coordinated tool out of place.

  In the corner, a shelving unit contains a stack of fluffy yellow beach towels. We each grab one along with a white folding lounge chair from the rack next to it.

  “I’ve never actually been to a country club, but I feel like these amenities are nicer,” Lainey says. “Which means you basically live at a fancier country club.”

  “Okay, well, I have now been to a country club, though I can’t speak for the amenities. But remind me to tell you about it when we get down to the water.”

  “Fancy indeed,” Lainey singsongs in an exaggerated British accent.

  We set up on a patch of white sand, the waves lapping lazily at the shore. I pull off my T-shirt and cutoffs, dropping them in a pile next to my chair, then slip off my flip-flops and turn them sole side up to keep them from heating up like a skillet in the afternoon sun (a trick every Floridian learns after the first time they cook their feet as a kid).

  We settle into our chairs, and the silence settles right around us, thick like the humidity. I can tell Lainey is waiting for an explanation, but I wasn’t kidding when I said I didn’t know where to start. Because the real beginning is the note in the kitchen and my mom disappearing. Only I missed the window to tell that part of the story. I didn’t mean to lie to my best friend. It just sort of happened, and now I have to undo it.

  Lainey huffs out a sigh. “Ritzy, just talk, okay?”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “So, a couple weeks ago my mom went to Mexico to study, like, transcendental mind reading or something, and I have no idea when she’s coming back. Which is apparently a big deal since I’m not eighteen yet, so technically I’m in foster care. This is foster care.”

  Lainey’s eyes grow wide. “First of all, this is not foster care. This is damn lucky,” Lainey says, her eyes taking in the blue horizon. “Second, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. “It’s just, it just happened, okay? I mean, I wasn’t sure if she really left. And then I felt sort of crazy, and the longer it went, the harder it was to say, Hey, my mom abandoned me.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense, Ritzy.”

  “I know. I feel like nothing has for a while. I’m sorry.”

  The silence settles back between us, and I rack my brain for something to say to make things okay. I just need to know that we’re still friends, that she’s not going to leave me, too.

  “Young Ryan Gosling on your right,” Lainey says, her voice low.

  Oh, thank god.

  Lainey and I are pros at spotting celebrities. It’s our favorite game. No, not actual celebrities. They never show up at Covina Beach. They’re probably all at places like this, come to think of it. Private beaches and strips of sand, away from prying eyes.

  No, Lainey and I are champions at spotting celebrity doppelgängers, from the A-list Oscar winners all the way down to the Z-list reality TV competitors and stars of regional commercials. On any given day, we can find Beyoncé in the parking lot, wrangling two tote bags and a rolling cooler; Ben Affleck in the lifeguard chair; and the weatherman from the community access channel sunning himself in a neon-green Speedo (although that may have actually been him).

  And now this moment of normalcy, of familiarity, feels like a warm blanket. I lower my sunglasses on my nose and follow Lainey’s gaze down the beach. A tanned, shirtless guy in a pair of black running shorts is jogging toward us, his stride labored as he charges through the sand. His blond hair, drenched with sweat, flops over his left eye, bouncing with each heavy step.

  Spencer.

  As he gets closer, I wonder if he’ll stop and talk. I hope he does, because that’ll definitely get Lainey talking. I’d love to hear her trademark cutting response to Spencer’s showy personality. But he’s nearly upon our chairs, and his stride doesn’t slow. Instead, he raises his hand to his forehead and gives us a little two-fingered salute, accompanied by a huffed-out “Hey.” And then we’re watching his glistening, muscled back as he jogs away.

  Damn.

  Lainey turns and lowers her sunglasses dramatically down her nose. “Hold up, do you know young Gosling?”

  I hope the heat of the afternoon masks the blush I can feel creeping into my cheeks. “Yeah, I mean, I met him yesterday. He’s really … friendly?”

  “You mean flirty,” she says, reading between the lines.

  “It doesn’t seem flirty. It’s more … asshole-ish?”

  “That’s not a word.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Lainey’s gaze is fixed on the last dot of Spencer as he disappears down the beach. “Yeah, I think I do.”

  The silence descends again. It feels awful. I miss my friend more than ever now that she’s finally sitting right next to me.

  “Ali says to tell you hi.”

  I suck in a salty breath. “You talked to him?”

  “Yeah, a bunch of us crammed into Francie’s mom’s minivan and hit the drive-in last night.”

  I’m jealous. While I was feeling out of place at a country club, all my friends were hanging out with my number one crush.

  Lainey looks at me sideways. “Have you heard from him?”

  “No,” I reply. “But that might be because I haven’t texted him?”

  “Ritzy!”

  “What? I don’t know what to say! The last time I talked to him, I was canceling our date to pack up and get in the car with a social worker. I mean, he got all the way to my house before I even remembered. He’s got to think I blew him off. How do you come back from that?”

  “Um, by telling him the truth?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She gives me a look. “C’mon, Ritzy. Tell him what happened. Tell him about your mom, and that you’re staying here. He’ll understand why your head wasn’t on the date, so he won’t think you blew him off.”

  My heart practically stops.

  “Does he think that?”

  “He didn’t say that, but he definitely seemed bummed that you guys didn’t get to go out.”

  “Okay, but what did he say exactly?”

  Lainey sighs. “Just that you said there was a family emergency. And he made air quotes when he said that, which leads me to believe maybe he thinks it’s a line? I don’t know, I told him you really did have something going on.”


  “Did you tell him where I am? Or why I’m here?”

  “No. Because if you recall, I didn’t know.” She gives me a look, and I know I’m not totally forgiven. “Seriously, just tell Ali the truth. The whole truth. He’ll totally get it.”

  I shake my head. “His parents are, like, storybook married, running the restaurant together. They’ll probably die in each other’s arms when they’re ninety-five. I don’t want him to see me as, I don’t know, troubled.”

  “He’s not going to think that, but if that’s your decision, then I’ll say whatever you want me to say,” she says, her voice heavy with the advice she wishes I’d take. “But still, text him anyway. Just to say hi, you know? I mean, I’ll totally come pick you up and bring you into Jax if you want to try to set up another date with him.”

  “Ugh, I have to be the one to set up the date?”

  “That’s what happens when you cancel. Time to be a modern woman and ask the dude out,” Lainey explains. “Come on, it’s Ali. He’s, like, the nicest guy in the world, and he already asked you out once. You know he’s interested. This will be the easiest ask-out in the history of ask-outs.”

  I shrug, and she lets me leave it at that.

  We stare out at the ocean for a few minutes, silently watching the waves roll in.

  “Seriously, though. Why didn’t you tell me?” Lainey finally says.

  “About Ali?”

  “No, about your mom,” Lainey says. “She’s been gone a while, but you didn’t say anything. I don’t want to make this about me, but what the hell, Ritzy? I could have helped or something. You could have come to stay with me.”

  I sigh. It’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times, one I hoped Lainey herself would never ask. “I wish I had a good answer. I don’t know. Maybe I figured she’d be back? It was just so embarrassing. Like, whose mom just disappears?”

  “Yours, apparently,” she replies. “I know what you mean, I guess. Your mom’s always been sort of weird, but I never figured she’d do something like this.”

  “Yep. Psychics and yogis and gurus, sure. But walk out on her kid? I never saw that one coming.”

  “Still, you shouldn’t have lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  She arches an eyebrow at me, a lethal look that I wish I could replicate. “You didn’t tell me the truth.”

  I’m quiet, because I don’t have anything else to say. She’s right. I might as well have lied. To my best friend, who definitely would have helped. But I kept my mouth shut like an idiot.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, tears welling up in my eyes.

  She stands up out of her chair and comes to lean on mine, throwing her arm around me. “I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, Ritz. I promise. Just … no more secrets, okay? Especially with you living all the way out here. We’ve gotta be honest with each other.”

  I nod, returning her hug with a squeeze of my own.

  We spend the few hours in the sun composing the perfect text to Ali that I promise I’ll send to him later when I’ve worked up my nerve, then coming up with plans for what Ali and I could do on the date. Lainey fills me in on the stories from her usual library patrons, including her impression of the eighty-year-old woman who comes in to browse Christian singles sites, but always needs assistance with “the interwebs.” It has me laughing until tears are practically squirting out of my eyes. We speculate on what level of famous people might spend their summer on Helena (we land on maybe some of the second stringers from the Jaguars. It seems more like a standard rich-people haunt as opposed to a celebrity getaway). By the time we’re done, we’ve both got questionable tan lines and sore abs from laughter.

  “Hey, so I should probably get back soon. My mom has the night off, so we’re going to go to the Chinese buffet for dinner. The one with those amazing garlic string beans.”

  When we get back to Barney, Lainey tosses her bag on the front seat and turns to give me a hug.

  “Let me know if you need a ride anywhere, okay? Anytime, no questions asked.”

  “Thanks,” I say, pulling away before I start to cry. “And you can come out here whenever. I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but we can totally hang on the beach. Anytime, no questions asked.”

  “Oh, I will. As long as the sun’s shining, at least,” she says with a wink.

  “You are literally a fair-weather friend.”

  “Keep me posted on what’s going on with”—she pauses, then sweeps her arm around the expanse of the property—“all of this. And no more secrets, okay?”

  I nod. “Okay.”

  “Seriously. I’m just a text away. You can even call, like the olden days.”

  She pulls me into another hug. I get another whiff of her peachy lotion and feel tears prick my eyes. I’m glad she came. But I wish she didn’t have to leave.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A week. I’ve been here a week, and after the awkward charity event, I’d decided it was probably safer to stay close to home. Which meant a week of sitting by the beach making my way first through the books in my suitcase, and then into the stash of romance novels Kris keeps in the corner of her office. It was a week of polite, surface-level chitchat with Kris, who was always trying to cook me something or plan an outing, and Pete, who talked to me like I was a running buddy. A week of trying unsuccessfully to work up the courage to ask Kris about our shared history or ask Pete about any of his. A week of chickening out.

  I’m exhausted from trying so hard to be relaxed.

  On Friday afternoon, I come trudging up to find Kris in the kitchen, just like every other day, paging through cookbooks or prepping ingredients for the evening’s meal. Pete was right, Kris is definitely the chef of the family, and in the week that I’ve been here, we haven’t eaten a single meal she hasn’t made from scratch. No boxes, no jars, no powdered flavor packets. Today she’s attaching a metal monstrosity to her pristine countertop that looks like an instrument of torture meant to extract information from a murder suspect.

  “I’m making pasta,” she says, as easily as if she’d said she was making a peanut butter sandwich. To me, “making pasta” means opening the box of spaghetti or penne if you’re feeling fancy. Until this very moment, it hadn’t even occurred to me that pasta was made anywhere but the factories of Barilla, Mueller, or Kraft.

  Kris has her hands deep in some dough when the phone rings. “Can you grab that?”

  “Hi, Maritza,” comes the voice from the other end, perky and professional with a hint of southern twang.

  “Hi, Tess.” My heartbeat starts to accelerate, slowly at first, then all at once into a great pounding rhythm. Because this could be it, the answer to my uncertain future. Have they found my mother? Is she coming back? “How’s it going?”

  “Oh, busy, busy, as usual,” she says, and in the background, I hear what sounds like a crying baby and some clattering around. “Listen, I’m calling to fill you in on a few things. Do you have a minute?”

  I nod, then remember that it’s a phone call and she can’t see me. “Yeah,” I say. I pull out a chair at the kitchen table and plop down, turning my back to Kris, who I can tell is listening but trying not to.

  “Okay, so we’ve got a hearing scheduled for Monday. You’ll go before a judge, mostly just to update everyone on where we are in this process. It won’t take a long time.”

  “Have you heard from my mom?”

  “We reached out to the, uh—” I hear some rustling of papers in the background. “The Bodhi Foundation? Yes, that’s it. We called, but they refused to give out any information about their guests. We also sent a letter, so maybe that will wind up in her hands, if she’s still there.”

  “Do I need to wear anything? Like, is this a dress-up thing?”

  “You can wear whatever you want, but I think it’s always a good idea to present yourself how you wish people to see you.”

  I can tell that’s social-worker talk for Wear nice clothes so people think you’re nice
, but I don’t want you to feel bad if you don’t have nice clothes.

  “Is Kris there? I’ve got a few things to discuss with her.”

  “Yeah, she’s right here.”

  I turn and see that Kris still has her hands buried in pasta dough, which she must have been kneading this whole time.

  “Tess wants to talk to you,” I say, and hold the phone out to her. She practically leaps toward the sink, where she rinses the flour and goo off her hands, then takes the phone.

  * * *

  The hearing takes place at the county courthouse in Jacksonville. I figure I need to look presentable, so I’m wearing my only pair of khaki pants, along with a tank top and a cardigan, the borrowed black flats from Kris back on my feet. I keep running my hands over my hair, trying to smooth the curls and tame the frizz, but it’s becoming a nervous habit and I’m worried it’s just making the whole situation worse.

  Kris and Pete are also dressed up—Pete in a suit and tie, Kris in a floral sundress with a blazer on top. They look like Sunday-school teachers, and I wonder if they’re worried about what impression they’ll be making, too.

  “All parties in the matter of Maritza Reed please report to courtroom four.” The voice crackles over the intercom, and the noise of everyone waiting in the lobby lowers to a hush as we all strain to hear if our case is being called. We’ve apparently all been given the same arrival time, but the order in which we are called seems totally random, like someone back there is just drawing names out of a hat. Hearing my name is a relief, but it also sends me into a panic. Immediately I feel sweat start forming under my arms. I hope I won’t have damp spots on my sweater when I’m standing in front of the judge. Suddenly every little thing feels like it could make a difference in what happens to me in there. What will the judge think if I’m sweaty? What will he think about the tiny moth hole at the hem of my cardigan? What will he think of my messy hair, my shaking hands, or my voice, which will be sure to quiver or crack when I’m forced to speak?

  Tess is with us, too. She’s dressed in her sassy professional clothes, her overstuffed leather bag heaved over her shoulder as she stands and cocks her head for us to follow. We push through the door to find a windowless room painted gray, with gray institutional carpet. It doesn’t look anything like on TV, where the courtrooms all have dark, carved wood and big windows, with the lawyers’ feet click-clacking on the shiny wood floors. The only thing that looks remotely judicial is the black robe on the judge, who is sitting at an elevated podium at the front of the room. Tess leads me up to a table near the front, where a young guy in a suit is already seated, a folder on the table in front of him.