Will pulled his car into one of the empty spaces, between a rusted-out truck propped up on concrete blocks and a scary-looking van for plumbers or kidnappers. “Wow,” he said, gazing at the building. “Really?”
“Yes,” I said. “Honk the horn.”
“That’s rude,” he said. “You’ll get us shot.”
“Not for that,” I said. “They’re used to it.” Teenage high school dropouts had their own code. I was a little horrified that I knew it so well.
He hit the horn, two short beeps.
“No, really lay on it,” I said.
Grimacing, he gave the horn a good long honk.
I watched the apartments. Violet opened a door and waved. I waved back so she’d know where we were, because Will’s down-and-out 1970s Mustang blended in pretty well with the other vehicles in this lot. Will fit in himself with his aviators on, his hat backward, and his shirt off. I didn’t mention this to him.
The next second, Ricky appeared beside her in the doorway. He grabbed her raised arm. She jerked away from him and vanished into the apartment. He shot us the bird before following her.
“Nice,” Will said. “Shouldn’t we go help her move her stuff? Because it looks like that asshole isn’t going to.”
“Nah, she won’t have much.” She hadn’t left with much, and I doubted she’d had the money to buy anything while she’d been here. “But here’s how you can help.” I dug in my purse and handed him the cigarettes and lighter I’d bought when we’d stopped for gas. “Stand against the bumper, light a cigarette, and glare toward the apartment. Flex your guns if you can find an excuse.”
He stared at the package in my hand. “I’ve never smoked.”
Sighing impatiently—and then wishing I hadn’t, because Will was doing me some very serious favors here—I unwrapped the cellophane and drew out a cigarette for him. “Light the tobacco end, with brown stuff in it. Suck on the filter end. Just inhale the smoke into your mouth, not your lungs, so you don’t have a coughing fit.”
Taking the cigarette and lighter, Will swore and slid out of the car, slamming the door behind him. He rounded to the front on the side nearest the apartments and leaned back against the hood, as instructed. Though the midday was oppressively hot and sunny and calm, like every August day in Florida that happened to be hurricane free, he cupped his hand around the cigarette while he lit it, as if he were standing in a high wind. Then he exhaled in one steady stream of smoke. He must have seen this on TV. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t tell whether he was glaring at the apartment, but he’d followed my other instructions impeccably. He was probably following that one too.
Ricky watched him through the apartment window. If he’d toyed with the idea of convincing or forcing Violet to stay, in the face of my tough boyfriend who’d come to help rescue Violet, now he was thinking twice.
Ricky disappeared from the window. Violet backed out the door. Ricky came after her. I could see him yelling and hear the echo on a two-second delay. But he didn’t follow her, just hung on to the doorjamb and hollered as she jogged down the stairs with a garbage bag slung over her shoulder.
“Show’s over,” I told Will. “Come inside.” I was afraid that if he was going to get shot, now would be the time.
He bent toward my window and blew smoke at me. The sight surprised him, and he jumped a little. “Sorry,” he said, exhaling more smoke at the same time. He coughed and turned whiter than normal. “What do I do with this?” Discreetly he held up the butt in front of his body, where Ricky wouldn’t see what he was asking me.
“Throw it on the ground and step on it to put it out,” I said carefully, like I was presenting Smoking 101 on Sesame Street.
“That’s littering.”
I gestured out the window. “They seem to like that here.”
He couldn’t argue with that. He threw down the cigarette to join the others on the asphalt, ground it out under his shoe, then rounded the car and slipped behind the wheel, reeking of smoke. “I think I might throw up.”
“From the heat or the smoke?”
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the seat. “Both.”
“Sorry,” I said, patting his knee. “You did great.”
“How many other sisters do you have, again?”
I watched Violet turn around in the parking lot and scream a parting shot at Ricky before running toward us. “Two,” I said absently, “but they’ve already been through this, so maybe we’re done.” More likely, we weren’t done, but Will and I would have moved on from each other by the time history repeated itself.
With a start, I realized that my usual way of thinking about Will was wrong. We were together. He would still be around the next time Violet did something stupid like this.
Or, now that I finally had a boyfriend, maybe it was my turn to do something stupid.
Stupider.
I got out of the car and pushed my seat forward so Violet could collapse into the tiny back seat with her garbage bag containing all her worldly possessions—other than the ones littering my own bedroom floor. Will immediately cranked the car and backed out. I think all three of us tensed, watching the rearview mirror, until we made it up the ramp onto the interstate.
Violet let out a long sigh. “Where’s Dad?”
“Asleep.”
“On the weekend?”
“Yes, he’s going in tonight. He’s worked the last twenty-eight nights without time off.”
“Jesus,” Violet said. “Well, thanks for rescuing me, sis.” She leaned over the seat to plant a kiss on my cheek. “And you.” She kissed Will’s cheek.
“Violet is like me but drunk,” I explained to Will, “even when she’s sober.”
“Violet Cruz,” she said, sticking one hand very close to Will’s face.
Will reached back to shake her hand awkwardly without looking around at her. “Will Matthews.”
“You talk funny,” she said. “Are you from Russia?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Are you a friend of Tia’s, or . . .”
“I’m her boyfriend,” he said self-righteously.
Violet gasped dramatically. “You have a boyfriend?” she squealed at me. “You said you would never have a boyfriend.”
“Yes.” My stomach turned upside down. Now I knew how Will felt. I might vomit, but not from the heat.
“Are you pregnant?” she asked me.
I whipped around in my seat. “Sit down and put your seat belt on.” Waiting for her to do this, I said, “You look like shit.” She really did. She used to put a lot of effort into her clothes and hair and makeup, drinking up anything Izzy could teach her. This morning she wore sweats pushed up to her knees and a tank top. She could have used her blue-and-green bra. She had dark circles under her eyes. At least her dirty hair was done up in a cute topknot like she hadn’t completely lost touch with how teenagers dressed when they were trying to look like they didn’t care but they actually did.
She smirked at me. “Thanks.”
“You look like you dropped out of high school and spent the last five months smoking pot, getting screwed, and watching TV.”
“The cable got cut off.” She settled back against the seat and let out another long sigh. “Downtown Tampa is really beautiful.”
I looked around at the skyscrapers surrounding us as the interstate snaked through town. I supposed it was a pretty city. But then, when we crossed the bay, she said, “This bridge is really beautiful,” and when we turned onto the coastal highway, she said, “This town is really beautiful,” even though at that point we were passing a used car lot. I thought she was just glad to get away from Ricky.
“Oooh, boiled peanuts!” she exclaimed at a hand-lettered sign in front of a big boiler on the side of the road. “Stop stop stop! I haven’t had breakfast.”
Neither had I.
Will might not have either, but it was all about Violet. He pulled the Mustang into a gas station parking lot and stopped. I climbed out of the car and pushed the seat forward to let Violet out. As she stood, she asked me, “Do you have three dollars?”
“Listen,” I told her. When we were little, my sisters had screamed bloody murder at me when I so much as touched something of theirs. I wanted them to love me, though, so I let them take anything of mine that they wanted—until I figured out what was going on. I had really gone off on Izzy one day. It had been a week before any of them spoke to me again, much less laughed at my jokes, but they did not take my stuff anymore.
“O-kay,” Violet said, digging in her own pocket for cash and stomping toward the guy ladling peanuts into plastic bags that looked, frankly, used.
I leaned against the car while she finished this important transaction. Will looked at me through the window. “You’re not dealing well with this.”
“Shut up,” I snapped. I knew I should regret that, because Will was helping me out and I was supposed to love him, but all I felt was fed up.
Violet skipped back to the car and ducked inside. As I slammed the door and Will pulled back onto the road, she tried to hand me a peanut still in its shell. “Want one?”
“Violet,” I said.
“Jeez!” She exclaimed. “Will Matthews, do y’all eat boiled peanuts in Russia?”
He laughed nervously. “No.”
And then, of course, she shelled the peanut and pressed the meat of the nut past his lips, into his mouth.
“Would you stop?” I whined, so annoyed by her manic mood swing. Any other day I might have thought she was halfway cute, but not while Will was there to see.
Will spit the nut into a napkin. “That is horrible! Nuts should not be mushy.”
Violet giggled and retreated quietly into the back.
After a pause, Will held his hand out toward her over the seat. “Give me another.”
He was so adorable. Handsome, strong, stoic. Vulnerable. Willing to laugh at himself at every turn. A wave of love washed over me, a yearning to touch him and talk to him alone, chased closely by blind panic that this was exactly how Violet had felt at first about Ricky.
“Ahhhhhh!” Violet yelled, teasing Will. “I knew it.” She shelled a peanut and put the meats in his palm.
They settled into a companionable silence. The car roared along the road. Alt-rock whispered on the radio. Violet cracked nuts and deposited some in Will’s hand whenever he held it out. Only I was fuming in my bucket seat, knowing now that I would have to break up with him as soon as we got home.
16
HE WAS SO SURPRISED AT my words that he stepped backward, crunching through the magnolia leaves in the driveway. To give himself time to think, he reached through the open window of his car, snagged his T-shirt, and pulled it on.
He recovered quickly after that, walking forward to tower over me again. “No,” he said. “You’re upset. It’s been a really stressful morning. Just have something to eat, a shower might be nice, go to work. I’ll come pick you up after your shift at the shop, and we’ll talk about it.”
“See?” I spat. “This is how it starts. You convince me of things. You get everything you want, and I forget what I wanted in the first place.”
I was serious, and he began to get it. His nostrils flared as he said, “So you’re breaking up with me after we’ve been together for . . .” He pulled out his phone and glanced at it. “Nope, it hasn’t been quite twelve hours.”
“That’s a record for me,” I said, “because I’ve never been with anybody at all.”
“I don’t think this is funny!” He half turned away from me and ran his hands up the back of his neck, where his long hair used to be. “When you said on the first day of band practice that Beverly tricked me . . . no. You’re the one who did that. You wanted another hookup that didn’t mean anything. Maybe you even wanted to see this look on my face again. Do you get off on making me feel like an idiot?”
“Listen,” I seethed, then cringed at the volume of my voice. I would wake my dad over this stupid shit. Though my heart was racing, I managed to say calmly and reasonably, “I haven’t been the person that you wanted. I’ve sent you mixed signals. I’ve also changed my mind. But I’ve never lied to you. What I’ve said and done is exactly what I was feeling at the moment, and—”
“That’s enough,” he barked, putting his hand up to stop me. “I’m going to get in my car and drive away. You can’t change your mind after this. Don’t flirt with me. Don’t cry. Don’t stare at me and look jealous when I go out with somebody else. You’ve jerked me around enough, and now it’s over.”
“Fine.” I shrugged and headed for the house. Behind me I could hear the Mustang backing out of the driveway and roaring down the street. In front of me, my vision collapsed into a tunnel, dark all around and clear only at the center. I opened the front door.
As I stumbled inside, I heard Harper say Breathe inside my head. I inhaled a long noseful of stale air, a house full of dust.
I left the front door open.
Violet was in my room—our room—lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. The manic mood that took over her when she was stressed was fading away now. She and I were opposites in that regard. She was normally more serious and got silly under pressure, whereas I was silly and got serious when everything went to hell, like now.
She looked up at me. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“I’m sorry. It’s kind of a mess.” Just as when Will came over, I was seeing the house through the eyes of someone who didn’t wade through it daily.
“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “You’re sweet to come get me in the first place. And the house was a mess when I left.”
This was true, but I was pretty sure it was five months’ worse now. Before, we’d been kicking things aside to make a path through the den to our bedroom, but I didn’t remember that we’d been balancing piles on top of piles like now.
“Anyway,” she said, gesturing to her bed, “I won’t have trouble finding my stuff, because everything’s exactly where I left it.”
I took another long breath, shallower now. My body wanted the oxygen. When I was angry, I needed to remember to keep breathing. But now that I’d noticed the stale smell, I didn’t want to inhale it. I said slowly, “I . . . am going to call in to work and ask for the afternoon off . . . and clean.”
“Really!” she exclaimed as though this was a novel idea, like hanging festive streamers from the ceiling. She sat up and said, “I’ll help you.”
We stuffed a towel under the door of my dad’s bedroom and set up an electric fan for white noise outside the doorway so we wouldn’t wake him with our banging around. With both of us working, it didn’t take us long to pick up, sort through, and stash away everything in our tiny bedroom, and vacuum and dust the whole thing. She moved on to the bathroom. I tackled the laundry room. The den was going to take longer. By that time, some of my adrenaline from my fight with Will was draining away, but I wasn’t ready to think about him yet. As I folded blankets into boxes and found a place for books on shelves, I listened to Violet talk about Ricky, and what had gone wrong.
“You know, I never liked school, and I wasn’t doing too well. The whole thing seemed pointless. The only time I felt great was when I was with Ricky. Then he decided to drop out of school and get a job. I wouldn’t see him anymore. He asked me to go with him. And I felt so unexpectedly great thinking about that possibility, like the doors of heaven had opened. I’d thought I was saddled with high school and more school and living here for another few years, but instead of that, I could become an adult right then.”
I gazed at a history report that I was supposed to turn in last May but had gotten lost under the cushions of the sofa, apparently. I didn’t understand what she meant, not really. I didn’t see what was so
awful about living here, or how a life with Ricky could seem better.
But I did understand how she felt good about herself when she was with Ricky. That’s how Will made me feel.
And I understood her view that a different life was within her grasp, a better life, like a magic door opening. I felt that way every time Will wanted us to get more serious. The thing was, Violet thought this was a magic portal. I thought it was a painting of a magic portal, like on the cover of one of Sophia’s fantasy novels. If you tried to step into it, you would realize it was only 2-D.
“I don’t know what to do now,” Violet murmured, wiping off a photo of Dad and Izzy and setting it on a shelf.
“Sure you do,” I said with all the fake cheerfulness that went with pathological cleaning. “You’ll get a job.” I snapped my fingers. “Actually, I have a good fit for you. You always loved helping Dad restore the woodwork and the fountain in the white house, right?”
“Aw, the white house!” She sounded as sad as I was about the loss of our mansion. We’d never talked about it, because moving out of that house had been tangled up with Mom leaving.
“I might be able to hire you at the antiques shop if you wanted,” I said.
“I love that place,” she said. “How’s Bob?”
“Better,” I said. Man, hiring Violet for the shop was the best idea I’d had in years. She would get a steady job that paid okay. With her working there too, I could wean Bob and Roger off relying on me to the point of making me feel trapped. I would have been impressed with myself if I hadn’t been panicking about Will underneath.
“You get a job there,” I told Violet, “live here, and go to school. Look for one of those programs where you study for your GED and take college classes at the same time.”