Alex’s face is impassive. “He’s not going to listen. He’s too stubborn. He’ll be fine.”
“Please try.”
Alex stares at me for a second, and then he says, “What’s going on with you guys?” He runs his hands through his hair and squinches up his face, like he’s afraid to hear the answer. “Please don’t lie to me.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t want to lie to him. I feel like I’ve been lying to everybody lately, and I’m sick of it. Alex deserves better than that.
“We’ve . . . hung out a few times.”
Alex watches me intently. “Did you guys hook up?”
I take a deep breath. “We kissed. But that’s all over with. It was a stupid mistake.” Alex stares at the ground. He won’t look at me. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Alex says, finally looking up. Thankfully, he doesn’t sound angry. Just bummed. He takes the keys from me. “Thanks again for my present.”
“You’re welcome.” I watch as he jogs over to Reeve’s truck, parked in front of Alex’s neighbor’s driveway. He gets in and drives off.
Nadia comes running up to me and asks, “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I say, putting my arm around her. “Let’s go back inside.”
* * *
The next day, I’m lying on the couch, watching TV and texting with Ash, when my dad comes into the living room and sits down next to me. “What are you watching?” he asks me.
I don’t look up so I can keep texting. “I don’t know, some Christmas special.”
What the h happened at Alex’s?? I heard Reeve showed up wasted and Lindy kicked him out!
Not really. Is that what people are saying??
Ren said she had to pick up Reeve off the side of the road!
Of course he called Rennie for a ride. Of course he did.
“Have you finished your Wellesley supplement yet?” my dad asks me.
“Yup, pretty much,” I say. It’s almost true because it’s almost done.
Casually he says, “Do you want me to take a look at it before you send it off?”
“That’s okay,” I say. “I already showed it to my guidance counselor.”
What was he even upset about?
No clue. What did Ren say?
She made excuses for him as always. He’s got her on the hook.
So true.
“It wouldn’t hurt to have another pair of eyes.”
I finally look up from my phone. “Daddy . . . I don’t even know if I want to go to Wellesley.”
Frowning, he says, “I thought we all agreed you’d at least apply.”
“I’m applying, but even if I get in, I don’t know if I want to go there.” I scroll Ash’s and my text conversation and reread what she wrote. “Just because Mommy loved it at an all-girls school, that doesn’t mean I will.”
“I want you to apply so you have the option,” my dad says. “Understood?”
I nod. Fine. I don’t even know if I’ll get in, so whatever.
He clears his throat the way he does when he’s uncomfortable. “The other night at the Linds . . . was that friend of yours drunk?”
I keep my eyes down, but my heart jumps. “What friend?”
“Reeve. That’s his name, right?”
I’m surprised my dad knows his name. My mom probably told him. “No, he wasn’t drunk.” My dad looks skeptical, so I say it again with more emphasis. “He wasn’t drunk, Daddy! He’s not like that. He’s an athlete.”
“All right, all right. I trust you. I just want you to be careful of who you hang out with. Right now you should be focused on your college applications and finishing out senior year well. Don’t get complacent.”
I want to snap back at him, but I don’t, because that’s not done in our family. You don’t talk back. It makes me mad when my dad comes home and tries to play the part of the involved parent when he’s hardly ever even here. He doesn’t have the right to tell me what to do. Calmly I say, “I am very focused on my applications, Daddy. In fact, I’m going upstairs to finish my common app right now.” I stand up.
“That’s my girl,” my dad says, giving me an approving nod.
When I get up to my room, I flop down on my bed and call Ash.
I can hear her munching on something. “I think Ren deserves better. He’s been stringing her along since we were kids. She gives him whatever he wants and he takes, takes, takes. It’s like the freaking Giving Tree.”
I would hardly call Rennie a Giving Tree, but I don’t say so.
Ash continues, “He’s all about himself. He couldn’t care less about anyone else.”
I don’t know if that’s true. In fact, I’m sure it’s not.
* * *
I remember the first time I ever met Reeve. It was back when our house was being built. Nadia was little then. I was seven.
I never saw the house that used to be there. Just pictures of it. It was a two-story house with a wraparound front porch, decorative shutters, and a big iron weather vane. It wasn’t at all my parents’ style. But my mom was set on the spot. It was a large plot, two acres, with a perfect view of the sea. The man who lived there wasn’t even planning to sell, but Dad had a lawyer send him a letter and he offered a ton of money.
The day after Dad and Mom signed the papers, they had the house bulldozed.
This was back when White Haven wasn’t all megamansions. I mean, the houses were definitely big, but I don’t remember many of them having in-ground pools or elevators or five-car garages. It was more about the land. There was a lot of space between the houses, privacy, and they really did have the best views on the whole island. I guess in that way it was destined to end up the way it did. Owned by rich people.
Anyway, since my mom was the one who worked on the plans, she liked to visit the site and see how things were progressing.
One time she took Nadia and me with her.
When we got to the site, they’d poured the concrete foundation and had started framing out the rooms with two-by-fours. There were at least ten pickup trucks parked on the lawn and one big yellow dump truck.
“Oh good Lord,” Mom muttered. “We’ll have to resod the whole front lawn.”
I remember being totally amazed by how big our house was going to be. We’d only ever lived in apartments. Granted, they were luxury apartments, but you still had people living right on the other side of your walls. This house was humongous.
There were a bunch of workmen milling around. They all seemed to have big round stomachs. I held Nadia’s hand and stood close to my mom, while she talked to one of the contractors. Even though it was hot out, Mom wore a black suit and heels, and she kept her sunglasses on even when we were inside the house.
She was arguing about the staircase. She kept pointing to her plans, telling him he needed to follow her directions or else she’d hire another crew. The man scoffed. “We’re the only crew on the island.” My mom said, “I’ll send them in on the ferry and rent them a house.” And that basically shut him up.
While my mom was getting stern with him, he kept looking down at me and Nadia. I think he didn’t like being yelled at by a lady, and especially not in front of children.
And then, suddenly, I felt a big slap on my back.
“Tag!”
I spun around. There was a boy a little taller than me, with a big smile that showed nearly all his teeth, rocking his weight from one foot to the other.
“Reeve!” the man yelled. “I told you to stay put in my truck.”
“You have children running around this work zone?” my mom said, exasperated.
“He was supposed to be at football camp, but my wife apparently wrote the wrong date on the calendar. And she’s away visiting her sister, so . . . I did what I had to do.”
Reeve blinked at me a few times. Then he slapped my arm and said, “Tag,” again. And then he added, “You’re it,” and said the words slowly, as if I didn’t understand English.
“I know how to play tag,” I said, as mean as I could. I hated when people did that, assumed that because I was Asian, I didn’t know English. It drove me crazy.
“Doesn’t seem like it.” He hustled backward away from me.
I dropped Nadia’s hand and sprinted after him.
Mom and the man shouted after us, but I didn’t stop. I wanted to catch him so badly.
Though the man had said Reeve wasn’t usually on site, he sure whipped around through my house like he’d been there before. He knew all these places to twist and turn. He jumped over a pile of wood, ducked under two sawhorses. He was quick, but I was too. I would have been faster if I hadn’t had on dress shoes.
He was almost in my reach when he twisted into a door frame. At the very last second it was like he changed his mind, he didn’t want to go through. But I was already on top of him. I crashed into him and tagged him as hard as I could, and he went flying into the room, skidding across the floor.
It was freshly poured wet concrete. He left the craziest skid mark.
I gasped.
“Damn it, Reeve!”
I turned around, and there was Reeve’s dad, red in the face. He stepped into the room, big boot prints on the concrete. I guess he didn’t care about ruining it, since Reeve had already taken care of that. He picked Reeve up by the back of his shirt, like cats do to their babies. Only he wasn’t gentle. He looked like he was going to kill Reeve. And Reeve looked scared. His whole face changed.
My voice came out in a squeak. “I—It’s my—”
It was my fault, I’d pushed him, but Reeve didn’t let me say it.
“Sorry, Dad. I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”
Mom and Nadia came up then, and they gasped too.
Reeve’s dad, seeing them, set Reeve down. “We’ll fix this right up—no charge, of course.” He glared down at Reeve. “Get in the truck. Now,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Yes, sir,” Reeve said.
I felt so bad. Mom put me and Nadia in the car. As we drove away, I saw Reeve sitting in the bed of his dad’s truck, like he’d been told. He didn’t look scared anymore.
He grinned at me.
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
* * *
KAT
CHRISTMAS MORNING, MY PLAN WAS to wake up early and make pancakes for everybody. But I stay up late watching A Christmas Story with Pat the night before, so I end up oversleeping. It’s after ten by the time I finally get out of bed.
I put my grubby terry-cloth robe on over my T-shirt and trudge over to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee, and I’m surprised to see Dad and Pat at the kitchen table. Pat’s got his head bent over a bowl of leftover soup, and Dad’s drinking coffee. “Merry Christmas, DeBrassios,” I say, my voice scratchy from sleep. “I was going to get up early and make pancakes, but—”
“But you’re a lazy little shit?” Pat finishes, slurping his soup.
I grin and pour myself a cup of coffee. “Like my big brudder.”
I take my coffee into the family room and turn on the Christmas tree lights. It’s bare under the tree. We already did presents last night, as is the DeBrassio tradition. I got my dad a new fishing pole I’d been saving up for, and I got Pat a vintage Italian motocross decal off the Internet from some guy. My dad gave me a hundred-dollar bill, and Pat said he’d give me my gift later. Like hell. Pat’s all about rain-checking gifts.
I turn on the TV, and it’s A Christmas Story again. It’s the end of the movie, where they’re at the Chinese restaurant and the waiters are singing “Deck the Halls” and they can’t say their l’s. It’s racist as shit, but it’s still a good movie.
Then Dad and Pat come in, and Dad says, “Katherine, I think there might be one more gift for you under the tree.”
“Get your eyes checked, old man!” I tell him, pointing to the bare rug.
“Pat!” Dad barks. “You were supposed to put it under the tree this morning.”
“Chill out, chill out,” Pat says, and he goes to his room and comes back with a box wrapped in Santa Claus paper. He hands it to me. “Here.”
I look from Dad to Pat. “What is this?”
Dad’s grinning. “Open it.”
I tear into it—it’s a new laptop. My jaw drops. “No way.”
“It’s for college, Katherine.”
There’s a huge lump in my throat, and tears are pricking my eyelids. “How—how did you even afford this?”
“I finished that canoe last week,” Dad says, beaming at me proudly. “And Pat helped.”
I stare at Pat, who is standing against the doorjamb with his arms crossed. “For real?”
“Yeah, dude. I worked my ass off to kick in on this, so you better not fail out of Oberlin.” Pat shakes his finger at me.
I wipe my eyes with the back of my arm. “I haven’t even been accepted yet.” I should tell them about the whole early-decision beat-down I suffered, but I don’t have the heart.
“You’re getting in,” Pat says.
“Even if I do get in, it’s so far away. . . . Maybe I’d be better off going to school somewhere nearby, so I could still come home and help out around here.”
“No way,” Dad barks. “You’re out of here as soon as you graduate. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
I can barely see him through my tears. “Thanks a lot.”
Pat leans forward and says, “Dad and I can fend for ourselves. Your ass is going to Oberlin. You’re gonna get straight As, and then you’re gonna get rich at some fancy job, and when you do, you’re gonna send lots of dough home to us.”
I laugh. “You’re still gonna be living at home in five years? Loser.” Then I stand up, and on shaky legs, I hug them both.
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
* * *
LILLIA
CHRISTMAS DAY PASSES IN A blur. We go to church in the morning like always; then we come back, and my dad makes a Korean rice-cake soup and my mom bakes frozen cinnamon rolls she ordered from Neiman Marcus. We eat them as we open presents. I get a new laptop and a mint-and-lavender cashmere sweater and new riding boots and little things like my favorite perfume and the sugarplum face cream from New York.
I should be happy, because I love presents and I’m getting everything I asked for and more. Nadia is squealing over every one of her gifts, hugging our mom and dad each time she opens something, taking her time getting through her pile so she can make it last longer. I can barely muster up smiles and thank-yous. I’m the worst daughter ever.
My parents definitely notice. They keep shooting each other concerned looks. At one point my mom sits next to me on the chaise and puts the back of her hand to my forehead to check if I have a fever.
I didn’t think it would be this bad. That I’d hurt this much over something that was supposed to be fake.
When all the presents have been opened, Mom gives a nod to my dad, and he steps out of the room. When he comes back, he has two huge boxes in his arms. Nadia jumps up and tries to take one of them, but Dad says, “These are both for Lillia.”
I open them. It’s a brand-new luggage set from Tumi, both hard shell in gleaming white. One large roller bag, one smaller roller that will fit in the overhead.
“For college,” my dad announces. “Wellesley has some amazing study-abroad programs, you know.”
I don’t even have the energy to say anything back to that. That I’m still not totally sold on Wellesley. I just nod and click the suitcase latch open and closed a few times.
“Your father picked the set out himself,” Mom says. “He figured you’d like the white.” She rests her hand on my knee and gives it a hard squeeze.
I automatically look to my dad. “I love it.”
“Merry Christmas, princess,” he says.
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
* * *
MARY
IT’S FINALLY NEW YEAR’S EVE.
Sn
ow is coming tonight, a few inches. And the wind is howling. Rennie’s party will still go on for sure. I just hope the ferry runs tomorrow. I can’t wait to see my mom and dad.
I have a special outfit planned for the trip home. Pencil skirt, heels, a cream-colored blouse. I want to look beautiful and mature when they see me again. I want them to see that, see how I’ve grown. They mean well, but they’ve always babied me so much. When I go back with them, I want them to treat me like a teenager and not a kid.
But first I have a party to attend and two very special people to say good-bye to.
I take my time doing my hair and makeup. I paint my lips ruby red and put my hair in a bun. I put on a dress I found in my closet—it’s white with gold bangles and beads and a drop waist. I scramble around for my gold slingbacks.
The doorbell rings. Geez, those preservation ladies won’t quit. I figure Aunt Bette won’t answer like usual, but the doorbell keeps chiming, insistent.
Weird.
Eventually, I hear Aunt Bette open the door.
“Erica?”
I freeze.
“Oh my God, Bette. Look at this place.”
That voice. I haven’t heard it for so long.
My mother. She’s . . . she’s here! I leap up and hurry down the stairs and when I see her, I stop short.
Mommy?
There she is, standing in the foyer in a long black coat. Her hair is gray, almost as gray as Aunt Bette’s. How could she have aged overnight? I haven’t been gone that long.
“What’s that noise?” my mom asks.
“It’s Mary,” Aunt Bette says.
My mom says, “Bette, please. Please don’t torture me like this.”
I stop dead in my tracks. Something is wrong. Very wrong.
I can feel the heat and the panic rising up inside me. The picture frames on the staircase walls start to shake, and I have to tell myself to calm down, just calm down.