Your mother will win her seat on the bench.
Your father will win his freedom.
And you will smile as you smother in your sheer, shiny coffin.
“I’m back,” Della announces, as if you’d even realized she was gone, and plops into the seat next to you. “Here, I brought you a cranberry juice.”
You hate cranberry juice, don’t you? You thought you did, but now you don’t know. The glass is cold and slippery with sweat. “Thanks.” You drink it and still don’t know if you hate it.
“I’m so excited,” Della says and stops, gnawing on her bottom lip. Glances around and leans forward, curtaining off the crowd with her gleaming hair. “I’m not supposed to tell you this yet, but who cares. Guess where I’m going to high school in September?”
Her breath blows hot on your collarbone. “I don’t know. Switzerland?”
“No,” she cries, giggling and shoving you. “Here, Blair. With you, my best friend in the world! My mother’s already talked to your mother and they both think it’s a great idea because then you can be my guide dog.” She laughs and leans against you, blanketing you in hair. “But not really a dog, of course. You can just show me around and teach me how to act, and we can join clubs and play sports—”
“But you’re only twelve,” you say.
“I know, but I’ll be thirteen soon, plus I’m advanced study and my grades are spectacular,” she says matter-of-factly. “My mother says I’ll graduate with the highest honors and be class valedictorian, too.” She sucks down the rest of her juice and bounces to her feet. “Want another one?”
“No,” you say, staring at your empty glass. “I’ve had enough.”
“Well, I’ll bring you one anyway, just in case you change your mind,” she says and heads off across the crowded room.
You can’t do this. You won’t.
You rise and beeline for the powder room.
Your mother is in there freshening her makeup. She stiffens when she sees you. Checks the row of stalls and finds them empty. Her expression is carefully neutral. “I imagine Della just told you the news.”
“What are you doing to me?” you whisper.
“Oh Blair, please don’t be dramatic,” she says, rubbing the end of her eyebrow. She hasn’t done that in a while. You must really be getting on her nerves. “What’s done is done, and it can’t be undone.” She opens her purse and hands you a travel toothbrush and paste. “Here. You had onions on your vegetable burger.”
You take them from her and face the mirror. Open your mouth and scrub away the offensive proof of your hunger.
“Believe me, Blair, I’m not entirely comfortable with this school arrangement, either, and if I could have found a graceful way to get out of it without alienating the Lunas, I certainly would have.” She tugs up your neckline and frowns at your locket. “But I can’t. Their support has been invaluable and we have to return the favor.”
“I don’t,” you say and spit foam into the sink.
“Of course you do,” your mother says, taking the toothbrush and handing you a wet paper towel. “Wipe your mouth. You’ll have a wonderful time—”
“No,” you say, blotting your lips, “I won’t.”
The temperature in the room plummets.
“Grandpa looked awful yesterday, didn’t he?” she says, holding your gaze. “I’m sure your grandmother would love to have help with him this summer, and we could probably send your school records down, too. Just think of life then, Blair; housework, cooking, babysitting Grandpa while Grandma watches her soaps, going to the grocery store on the senior citizen bus…. It wouldn’t be my choice, but if that’s what you really want…”
The wail that rises inside of you never makes it out.
Your mother hands you a breath mint.
You take it, and the brief rebellion is over.
You meet Ardith the next morning at the bookstore for coffee. She asks about the party she wasn’t invited to and you tell her everything.
“So what happens to us when Della comes to our school?” Ardith says, but she already knows. School is the only constant, available arena for your friendship and now that will be closed off, too.
You rummage through your pocket and hand her one of the two slim, silver rings you’d found in your grandmother’s gift box of family heirlooms.
“Here. It says ‘You and No Other’ in French. I looked it up online. I have one, too.” You show her your pinky and force a smile.
“Happy graduation.”
Ardith slips on the ring. “I don’t have anything for you,” she says quietly.
“You’re wrong,” you say. “You’ve always had everything for me.”
The sun stays out for a little while, but then it’s time to go home again, and this pattern continues all summer. You live and laugh with Ardith and struggle for every breath in the rest of your world.
You’re Della’s favorite person now and so you stay over her house occasionally, sleeping in a black T-shirt and boxers while Della wears Disney’s Jasmine pajamas. You lay beneath the crisp, flowered sheets in the second twin canopy bed in the perky, pink room and watch as Camella Luna brushes Della’s hair until it crackles. Listen as they discuss her mother’s latest causes, her father’s successful surgeries, and current events, like the effects of the monsoon season on low-lying Third World countries.
And when her mother tucks you both in and kisses you good night, you’re so choked with jealousy that you can only whisper it back, while Della calls, “And don’t let the bedbugs bite!” with all the blithe assurance of a child who’s never been anything but the center of a benevolent universe.
“Floods are scary, don’t you think?” Dellasandra says, rolling over to face you. The night-light shines on her and sinks you into shadows. “I would be so sad if a wave wrecked my house and I lost everything.” She shivers. “Maybe we could start a relief effort in high school for the victims of monsoons, like they did with the tsunami or New Orleans. What do you think?”
You shrug. “Maybe.”
“What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?” she asks, her voice gossipy, with no trace of any past traumas. “Do you know what my worst thing is? My mother told me she was pregnant and I was going to have a brother or sister, but she miscarried in the third month and has never been able to get pregnant again. It’s been four years. Isn’t that sad? Of course they thought about in vitro fertilization and adoption, but in the end they decided that I was enough.” She scratches her nose. “Sometimes it’s lonely being an only, but not a lot. I’m not that good at sharing anyway. My mother says you’ll help me with that, too, since we’re both onlies and kind of like sisters now. So I guess my worst thing has a happy ending after all, huh?”
“I guess,” you say, toying with your locket under the covers.
“Let’s not talk about sad stuff anymore. Hey, I know! You should come to Hidden View with us,” she says, sitting up straight. “It was featured in this book and you would really like it there. It’s a bed-and-breakfast in the middle of the woods—”
“No thanks,” you say. “I’m not into woods.”
“But you’ll love it,” she says, throwing back the quilt and clambering out of bed. “I’m going to go tell my mother we have to take you there.”
So the Lunas take you to Hidden View, a deadly dull historic house bordering a state park, where you sleepwalk while Della expounds on the characteristics of pinecones, fungus, and the waning of the moon.
And they take you down the shore, where Della overindulges and you wait outside a Seaside boardwalk bathroom stall while she barfs up cotton candy, funnel cakes, hot dogs, and half a pound of saltwater taffy. She covets the stuffed tiger you won and mopes till you hand it over, then gives it to a toddler crying in a stroller.
You feel like smacking her.
“Don’t be mad,” she says, prancing along beside you, oblivious to the stares. She’s wearing red shorts and a tank top and looks like a flamenco dance
r.
“I gave it to you because I thought you wanted it,” you say.
She laughs. “I did, and then I didn’t,” she says, bumping against you. “Now neither of us has one, and we’re equal.”
And then she darts ahead to catch up with her parents and wheedles her father into dropping fifty dollars to win her a stuffed penguin, which she cradles in the crook of her arm all night long and never gives to any wailing toddler.
Her family carts you to an art museum. Della steers you into the Norman Rockwell room, where she squeals when she spots her favorite—Girl at the Mirror—and tells you her parents found an original sketch made in the course of developing the painting, had it framed, and gave it to her for her eighth birthday.
You feel like telling her you have Norman Rockwell’s original head in a jar but you don’t, because she’ll probably want that, too.
Della’s thirteenth birthday arrives, and besides receiving a bash that makes your graduation party look like a jaunt to Chuck E. Cheese’s, she gets a diamond pendant and a four-day cruise to the Bahamas. While Della burbles and pores over the breathtaking travel brochure, Camella Luna takes you aside and explains that it wasn’t Della who excluded you from this trip, but she and Dr. Luna.
And you listen, nodding like you understand while she tells you what an important milestone turning thirteen is, and how she and Dr. Luna wanted to make it a special rite of passage for Della, a family trip full of love and cherished memories of their daughter’s transition from child to beautiful, young woman.
You smile, like yes, of course, that’s wonderful, like you have so many cherished, family memories of your own that you would never think of denying Della hers.
Whatever.
August draws to a close. The Lunas return from the Bahamas, tanned and radiant. Della gives you a souvenir T-shirt and an earful about eating conch salad, swimming with dolphins, and the glory of being thirteen.
She also tells you that Ladylee Linnea and Masterful Boy are going to have puppies. You smile and say good. Spending the summer in a body cast has worn you down.
You’ve watched the Lunas watch their daughter, seen the soft, helpless pride in her father’s eyes when he calls her an enchantress, and the constant affection between mother and daughter. Camella Luna braids Della’s hair while waiting in line at the amusement park. Della tucks herself in between them after a nature walk. Dr. Luna brings home fresh bagels on “family Sundays,” which is the only day you’re excused from duty and are left to wander your own deserted house in something less than peace.
The summer is gone, used up, and nothing marks its passing.
You sunbathe topless in the backyard, half hoping Horace will show up to mow, but when his shadow blocks the sun and the gap in his shorts reveals his interest, you get angry, throw on your shirt and stalk into the empty, air-conditioned house.
You don’t want Horace, and you don’t want family Sundays, either. Or a stupid Jackie O locket or a white lace tablecloth or a designer wardrobe or a dog or another faceless date with sweaty hands and a raging hard-on.
You don’t want anything you have.
You want to take Wendy for a walk and meet up with Ardith. Go to the raggedy little park in your old neighborhood and sit on top of the jungle gym with your bare feet dangling, trading secrets as Wendy snuffles the grass for hints of squirrel. You want to race Wendy into the kitchen of the old house, salivate at the scent of macaroni and cheese, laugh as your mother calls, “Shut the door! What do you live in, a barn?”
You want to be glad that her law practice is barely surviving because your father is still in the family and brings home just enough money to squeak by.
You were never an enchantress. Your parents never waited with bated breath for your next brilliant pronouncement or scoured the world for an artist sketch to make you happy, but for a while you were all together, four on a team, and you were pure.
But not anymore.
Life is fractured. You hate it. You hate your father for betraying your mother and your mother for betraying you. You hate Della for her stupid innocence and sheltered, easy life. Your classmates for their spiteful baby games and the rich boys who’ve showed you the types of games to follow. You hate Ardith’s brother for crushing your ideals and the Lunas for nurturing Della’s.
The scar on your forearm is thin and white, not big enough to adequately represent the blistering inside of you.
Your breath whistles in your nostrils.
You call Ardith, but she’s out with Gary.
You don’t know what to do. Your mind won’t empty into the empty space around you.
If you could cry, you’d be howling.
So you remove the black-handled paring knife from the drawer. Slide the sharp edge across your forearm. The pain is relief, hot, immediate, and real.
Your blood is the color of cranberry juice, which you now know helps prevent urinary tract infections. You laugh at your thoughts as the blood snakes across your skin.
There’s no vow to make this time, only temporary peace as the full blackness inside of you fades to a dull, numbing gray.
Your cell phone rings.
You start. Blink.
Blood spots the counter. You wipe it away. Blot your arm and pull the phone from your shirt pocket. Check the caller ID.
It’s Ardith.
You answer it. “Hi.”
“Blair?” Ardith’s voice rattles. “My brother just got in a head-on collision and totaled his car. He was drunk and running and he wouldn’t stop and he spun out and smashed into—”
“Is he alive?” you say, because you don’t care about her brother but you do care about her, and her panic is scaring you. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. No. You don’t understand,” she says, and her terror is a hand clamped around your throat. “He hit Officer Dave.” And she bursts into dry, racking sobs.
Your knees buckle.
Chapter 24
Ardith
God, I don’t know if I can do this.
Tell you how Blair looked when she came over the windowsill into my room. She was…bloodless, except for the smear she left on the wall. Her skin was wax and she was covered in a clammy sweat. She said she ran all the way over, but I don’t know how she made it on those wobbly, rubber legs.
Yeah, now I know it was shock, but I didn’t realize that before. Maybe because I was in total shock myself.
I mean, one minute I was walking down Main Street, coming home from Gary’s Labor Day picnic, and the next minute my parents screeched up, screaming for me to get into the car because my brother was in a bad accident and we needed to get to the hospital.
When we got there he was sitting on a bed in the ER with only a stitched eyebrow and some bruised ribs. There was a cop standing next to him acting pretty cold, though, and that’s when I started to get a really bad feeling.
The first thing my brother said to my father was, “You’d better get me a fucking lawyer. They’re charging me with attempted vehicular manslaughter.”
“What?” my father said, turning on the cop. “What kind of bullshit is this? My son wouldn’t try to kill anybody—”
“Your son is under arrest for the attempted murder of a police officer,” the cop said icily. “And if Officer Finderne doesn’t make it—”
I made a noise, a hoarse, wounded animal sound. “D…D…Dave F…F…Finderne?”
“Yeah, that’s the dickhead who’s been harassing me,” my brother sneered, still brimming with beer muscles. “Like I was gonna pull over for him!”
But I was already out of the room, running toward the nurse’s station.
Officer Finderne was in critical condition. He was in surgery.
Was I family? Miss, was I a member of Officer Finderne’s family?
I wanted to be. I wished I was. I couldn’t stop shaking.
The next thing I remember was being hustled out of the hospital by my parents, who had to get home fast and find my brother a good lawye
r.
I ran in ahead of them and called Blair. I think she collapsed when I told her. I’m not sure. It’s a little hazy. I heard her drop the phone and then all this weird scrabbling. I remember begging her to come over…
When I close my eyes, I can still see that blood smear on the wall.
School started three days later. Our sophomore year, the beginning of high school.
My brother was out on bail by then. He started his senior year.
You see, thanks to the overwhelming local news coverage of Assistant Prosecutor Jeanne Kozlowski, standing tall and grim at a press conference, vowing to prosecute this case personally, my brother did get a good criminal defense lawyer.
Chapter 25
Blair
You know that my mother decided to represent Ardith’s brother.
No, she didn’t know he was related to the forbidden loser Ardith, and Ardith’s parents didn’t know that their big-shot lawyer with the grandiose plan was the little slut from Christmas’s mother.
All they knew was that Attorney Brost listened very carefully to what their son had to say about police harassment, leaned back, smiled, and said, “We’re going to win this case. We’ll use all the weapons at our disposal, including your spotless adult record and the media. I will expect you to go to school, go to work, go home, and stay out of trouble. If you follow my advice, you will not only walk away from this a free man, but the subsequent civil suit will make you a wealthy one. Appearances count. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
And according to my mother, who burbled the story as I turned to stone in my chair, this handsome young man with the soulful, puppy brown eyes held her gaze and, without blinking, said, “Yes.”
“This is it,” she said, clasping her hands in front of her as if in prayer. “The one I’ve been waiting for. Of course if the cop dies it’ll make things more complicated, but still, with the right jury, well, anything’s possible. I’ll have to make sure it includes a few angry, young males.” She winked. “Little inside info for you, Blair. When you want to win, stack your deck and harness the nature of the beast.”