He stared at me, frowning. “I hear your subconscious saying monkey.”
“Right,” I said. “Monkey.”
“Are you mad at me for knocking you over with the door today?”
“Yeah, I’m furious,” I said in a monotone, rolling my eyes.
He faked a grimace. “I need to be more careful. Do you—”
“My turn,” I said. “Are you really a Young Republican?”
“Would that matter?”
I thought about it for a second. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I’m not. I’m not in any political party. I speak for myself.”
Interesting answer. And suddenly the car felt like it was a hundred degrees, and I would have liked maybe three more bucket seats between us.
“I have to go,” I said. “Thanks for the lift.”
“Your shutters are goldenrod, not yellow,” he replied. “See you tomorrow?”
“I doubt it!” I said, but I could feel my lips betray me with a hint of a smile. I ducked my head and turned away.
The front walk felt like marshmallows beneath my feet as I tried to get to the porch, knowing he was watching every self-conscious step I took. When I reached the stoop, I turned back to look at him. He took his eyes off the roof and looked at me.
“It’s a mess,” he called, “but I kind of like it.”
Then he honked and waved and drove off.
I walked through the front door feeling a little dizzy. I stopped in the foyer and looked around.
Architectural jumble. Well, maybe he had a point. The entryway was even more ornate than the outside of the house—the wide stairway spilling out only a few feet from the front door, the high ceiling with crisscrossing arches, and wood-paneled walls with intricately carved details, like cherubic faces and squirrels and birds and sprays of flowers. It looked like a fairy tale had exploded all over the walls.
Straight ahead was the hall that led back to the living room. To the right was the kitchen, and just past that, the dining room. To my left was a sitting room that nobody ever sat in.
What did Carter know, anyway? I went up the long, straight staircase to the dark hall of bedrooms.
Mine was the first one on the left. I went inside and flopped onto the bed, my eyes sweeping the plaster molding for signs of architectural failure.
I had to stop thinking about Carter Blume.
Part of me wanted to develop the pictures from the previous night, but my eyelids started to feel like they were being pulled shut. I gave up and closed them, the delicious promise of a nap settling over me like a blanket.
I don’t know how long I’d been asleep when I heard my sister’s voice.
“Now, Arabella,” she said. “Don’t be a pig. You have to share.”
A pause.
“I know it fits you perfectly, but she’s new and she doesn’t have anything to wear. Think what she’s been through. Don’t you care about her feelings?”
Another pause. I pressed my hands against my head.
“But what if we have company again? You know Sar—”
I couldn’t take it. I reached up and thumped on the wall with my fist.
A minute later there was a tiny tap-tap-tap on my door, and Kasey popped her head into the room.
“I didn’t know you were home,” she said. Her eyes were wide.
I traced the outline of the bump on my forehead. “Why are you talking to your dolls, Kasey?”
“I’m not,” she protested.
“You know you’re thirteen, right?”
“That’s not what I was doing!”
“It’s just a little crazy, that’s all.”
“I am not crazy, Alexis! You’re so rude!” She slammed my door and stomped back to her room.
I tried to go back to sleep, but I felt a little bad. So I got up and knocked on Kasey’s door.
She opened it a crack. “I’m writing a story and I was just working on the dialogue!” she said, before I could apologize.
She backed away from the door, and I followed her inside.
It had been a while since I’d been in her room. She’s too worried that I’ll break something. Even our mother isn’t supposed to go in there, according to Kasey. If I banned my parents from my bedroom, they’d assume I was operating an international drug cartel, but Kasey’s always been the well-behaved daughter, so she gets away with it.
I stared at the dolls, which were lined up on the built-in shelves like a sinister chorus. There wasn’t room for all of them—there were more in an old cabinet squeezed between the bed and the window, and half the closet was filled with them too.
Kasey had rag dolls, porcelain dolls, talking dolls, peeing dolls, baby dolls, dolls in elaborate costumes, and dolls stripped down to their pantaloons (like the poor new girl, whichever one she was). Some were so old and used that their soft, smooth cheeks had been worn to a shine. Some were brand new. Some were half bald. Some were pristine.
But they were all creepy. It was the only quality they shared.
I was dying to photograph some of them, but that was just unheard of. Impossible.
Kasey seemed to realize for the first time that I’d entered the forbidden zone.
“Let’s go talk somewhere else,” she said, trying to sound chipper.
“You’re utterly transparent,” I said.
But I let her guide me out into the hallway and back to my room. We both flopped backward on my bed, and she grabbed my old blue teddy bear, Mr. Teeth, and started tossing him into the air.
“How was school?” she asked, in the tone of voice that means she wants something.
“Fantastic,” I answered. “How about for you?”
She hugged the bear tight to her chest. “Not so great.”
“No? What happened?”
She shrugged and yawned. “Don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.” Let’s see, a half-hour whinefest about the middle school cafeteria running out of pudding versus peace and quiet? I didn’t press for details.
“Hey, Lexi,” she said, her voice small and hopeful. “Did you do an ancestor report in eighth grade?”
“Don’t remember.”
“Everybody does one.”
“Then yeah, I guess.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I must,” I said. I’m a pack rat, like my mom. Thankfully I’m also obsessively neat, like my dad. I even have file cabinets of my very own. (Thanks, Santa!) “I wouldn’t have thrown it away. Why do you ask?”
“I have to do one,” she said. “And it’s hard.”
“When’s it due?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Kasey!” I said, sitting up. “You always do this!” Every couple of months, it seemed, the whole household was thrown into chaos because of some academic crisis caused by Kasey’s poor planning.
I thought she might cry. “I know, but I can’t help it.”
“That’s a cop-out. You could. If you tried.”
She pulled Mr. Teeth tightly across her face. “I know. I know. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know—”
“God, stop!” I said, grabbing the bear away. This was the way most of her weird moody spells started—she’d get all wound up about nothing.
She closed her eyes and sighed. “You don’t have to help me.”
“Seriously, tomorrow?”
She nodded. She looked completely miserable all of a sudden. Her face had gone all splotchy, and her blue eyes were bright like she might start crying.
Kasey’s in eighth grade. That means she has less than a year to pull herself together enough to survive being my sister at Surrey High.
She’s supersmart, but it’s the kind of smart that makes you think she’s going to end up a mad scientist. She can read something in a book and remember it exactly. She can’t see scary movies because she’ll remember all the scary parts perfectly and have nightmares for months. I’m smart too, but I’m more like “take the toaster apart and put it back together and, l
o and behold, it still works” smart.
“I’ll help you, I guess,” I said. “You can’t just not turn one in.”
She made a gurgly sighing noise. “Oh, thank you.”
“You should try to plan ahead next time.”
She sniffed. “Who are you, Mom?”
I whomped her with Mr. Teeth.
“Is it in your files?” she asked, popping up off the bed. “Can I look?”
“I’ll find it for you,” I said. “Later. Right now I need a nap.”
“Yay, yay, yay,” she said, dancing out into the hallway.
One second, the weight of the world. The next, lighter than air.
Must be nice.
A thought occurred to me. “Hey, Kase, come back,” I called. “I heard the stupidest thing today.”
She reappeared in the doorway, looking at me curiously.
“It’s dumb,” I said. “It’s silly . . . it’s just something Pepper Laird said.”
Her eyes were still wide, but a deep crease spread over her forehead.
“When Mimi broke her arm, that was an accident, right?”
Kasey was quiet for a moment.
I swallowed hard. “I mean, Pepper’s totally stupid, I just thought I’d ask.”
“They’re both stupid,” Kasey said. “Stupid Pepper and stupid Mimi.”
“Right,” I said. “So you aren’t friends with Mimi anymore?”
Kasey scooped Mr. Teeth off the bed and threw him at the headboard. “Mimi Laird is a fathead liar! She has no idea what she’s talking about! She’s just clumsy. She’s a liar. A clumsy liar.”
“Calm down, Kase,” I said. “Forget it. I believe you.”
“I hate Mimi, and I hate her stupid sister!” Kasey said, running out and slamming the door. The whole house shook.
I guess that could have gone better.
I settled back onto my pillow and let my eyes close, lulled by the sound of the blinds rattling in the wind.
I dreamed I was standing on an island in a swamp full of alligators. I could see their backs floating in the water, like logs. And then I saw Kasey swimming toward me, blissfully unaware of the predators that surrounded her. So I pulled out a rifle and shot any alligator that got close to her. Then Kasey was with me on the island, braiding my hair and singing me Christmas carols. And a battered doll in a ripped petticoat came out of the water and walked over to us, but Kasey couldn’t see her. And the doll pointed at Kasey and looked at me and said, Your sister is crazy.
AH, DINNER AT THE WARREN HOME. At best, an adventure in awkward silence, punctuated by the occasional screech of a fork on a plate. At worst, an apocalypse. That night it seemed like we might be in for an easy ride.
I was in the kitchen when Dad showed up with Chinese food from the Golden Happy Family restaurant, which is like a huge joke. I doubt they would let us eat their food if they knew how far we were from being a golden happy family.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I said, turning away.
Dad and I used to do all the father-daughter groups and camping trips and all that. But as I got older we stopped hanging out. Sometimes it feels like he’d rather spend all his time watching football and forget he even has a family. But every once in a while I miss the stuff we used to do together. He’d always made me laugh.
Lately he had this permanent sad-dog expression on his face, like he wished we could still be buddies or something—and I was pretty sure he didn’t know he was doing it. I couldn’t even look at him. Like now, I stared at the floor instead.
“I talked them into extra fortune cookies,” he said.
I didn’t want to see the “please be my friend” look in his eyes.
“Great,” I said, and ducked out of the kitchen. He stood there with his briefcase in his hand, his jacket draped over his arm. It was like a little knife stabbing me in the heart, to think I was hurting his feelings.
Oh well.
“Where’s Mom?” Kasey asked, slinking into the dining room and sitting in her usual chair.
Dad set the containers of food down in front of us. “Off saving the world from a critical stapler shortage.”
I stabbed my fork into a piece of pepper beef. For some reason it doesn’t bother me when Kasey and I talk about our mom, but when Dad does it, it feels . . . wrong. He’s supposed to defend her, not make fun of her.
Mom is a district manager for a big office supply company. She’s been trying to make the jump to vice president for, like, two years. Which means she’s always at the office—and when she’s not, she’s grouchy because she can’t stop worrying about being at the office.
We spooned our food out in silence. Kasey’s plate was mostly rice, with the tiniest bit of kung pao chicken. She hates spicy food, but the rest of us eat it, and as usual, she just lets everybody steamroll her. It’s like she thinks we won’t like her anymore if she says what she really thinks. Or that our parents will think she’s “bad”—bad like me.
We always eat our fortune cookies first. I unwrapped mine and broke it in half, then read the slip out loud:
“‘Home is where the heart is.’”
Kasey shrugged, unimpressed, and unfolded hers. “‘You are a very trusting person.’” She balled it up and tossed it over her shoulder.
“These aren’t even fortunes,” Dad said. “They’re just sayings.” He cracked his cookie open and looked at the little paper. “‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be.’”
The front door slammed. Mom’s heels clack-clacked past us down the hall as she dumped her briefcase in the living room. She came back, sat down, and started serving herself.
“Well, look who’s on time,” Dad said. He picked up a fortune cookie and pretended to nod. “‘Confucius say: paper clips more important than family.’”
Mom dropped her spoon with a clatter. “Darrell, please don’t start with me tonight.”
Dad shrugged and went back to his food.
“I get to go see the Homecoming parade on Friday,” Kasey said.
“That’s interesting,” Dad said, completely uninterested. “Who’s Surrey playing in the game?”
All eyes on me.
“Oh, please,” I said. “You’re kidding, right? Like I care.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you to show a little school spirit,” Mom said. As if she were a fan of high school football. Mom can take a simple observation, such as saying that it wouldn’t hurt for a person to show a little school spirit, and say it in such a way that she might as well be saying, “It wouldn’t hurt you to stop clubbing those baby seals.”
“I think they’re playing West Hardy,” Kasey chirped. “Aren’t they?”
“I have no idea,” I said, even though there were about a hundred trees’ worth of “Go Eagles! Beat the West Hardy Wolverines!” posters plastered around campus.
“Are you going to the dance?” Mom asked. Somewhere deep down inside she held on to the hope that one night I’d show up with my brown hair back, a pack of preppy friends in tow, and turn into Teen Princess Barbie, homecoming court, star tennis player . . . like she’d been in high school.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “My only problem is trying to decide who to go with—the captain of the football team or Zac Efron.”
“If you went, I bet you could be the Homecoming Queen,” Kasey said.
I almost said something rude, but then I saw her shining eyes and how a hint of a smile turned her lips up at the corners. She really meant it.
“I’d need a fairy godmother,” I said. Kasey laughed.
“You’d need a miracle,” Mom said down to her plate. Then she glanced up in surprise. If we were on a sitcom, she would have said, “Oh, did I say that OUT LOUD?” and the canned laughter would have kicked in.
Silence sank over us. The only sounds were chewing and Mom’s knife sawing through her chicken. My mother uses a knife and fork on foods that were never meant to be eaten that way. I personally think a psychologist would have a lot to say about it.
<
br /> “Kasey, I don’t think a plateful of rice is an acceptable meal,” Mom said suddenly.
Kasey ducked her head down as Mom spooned a heaping serving of spicy beef onto her plate.
“She doesn’t like that stuff,” I said.
“This has nothing to do with you, Alexis,” Mom said.
“Tell her you don’t want it, Kasey,” I said.
Kasey was tracing figure eights in her food. She clearly didn’t have the least intention of eating any, but she didn’t protest.
Mom let the subject drop. I think she felt like she’d done her motherly duty, and now she could go on with her life.
She stuck a final forkful into her mouth and pushed her chair away from the table.
“Sorry to eat and run,” she said. “I just have a bunch of reports to look over. We have a consultant coming in tomorrow, and I need to brush up on some quarterlies out of the sales department.” She says this stuff as if it means anything to us. “I’ll be in my bedroom. Knock if there’s an emergency.”
“Mommy,” Kasey said suddenly. “I need to talk to you.”
Mom looked only slightly concerned. “Is everything okay?”
“I need help with a project.” Kasey stared down at her food. “It’s for school.”
“Can we talk about it later this week?”
“No,” Kasey whined. “I don’t have very much time.”
Mom sighed. “Look, Kase, I’m totally swamped. Maybe Alexis can help you.”
“Hey!” I said. “I have my own stuff to do.”
“But it’s extra credit,” Kasey said. The Holy Grail of middle school academics.
“Then your father can help you.”
Dad was reading the sports page by this point. He looked up, bewildered. “What? I’m going to Jim’s to watch baseball tonight.”
“Dad didn’t grow up in Surrey,” Kasey said. “It needs to be someone who grew up in Surrey.”
Mom looked around helplessly. “I don’t know what to say, sweetie. I wish you’d come to me sooner. You should have sent me an e-mail.”
“Nobody likes me,” Kasey said, staring down at her plate, which was overflowing with food she couldn’t eat.
“Don’t be silly,” Dad said in his best “Dad” voice. Then he looked at his watch. “Better hit the road. Don’t wait up.”