CHAPTER
16
PEYTON DIDN’T want me at his graduation. Actually, he didn’t want any of us there. But my mom was only willing to compromise so much.
“It’s not that he doesn’t want to see you, or that he doesn’t miss you,” she’d explained the next morning. “He’d just prefer that you not interact with him in that setting yet. I thought that might have changed by now . . . but it hasn’t. It’s actually a very common sentiment among the incarcerated when it comes to family, children in particular.”
She was speaking slowly, carefully picking her words. What a difference twelve hours made. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been disappearing upstairs in tears; this morning, she was at the coffeepot calm, rested, and capable. She was also clearly concerned about how I’d take this news, somehow having forgotten that I’d never wanted to go in the first place.
“I understand,” I said. “It’s fine.”
She was still watching me as I took a bite of my breakfast. Suddenly, my welfare was very important, which would have been nice had I not known the real reason she was suddenly so invested. By focusing on Peyton’s not wanting me to go, she could skirt the wider truth of how he really felt about having her there. My mom had always been good at narrowing an issue.
“As I told you,” she continued, “Peyton’s time at Lincoln will be marked by a series of transitions. It’s very possible that his emotional need for us will at some point manifest itself in his feeling like he has to pull away. So the key is that we allow him to do what he thinks is necessary, while at the same time making clear that we are here and not going anywhere.”
My dad, who was getting a rare late start to the office, walked into the kitchen, adjusting his tie. He’d already eaten, but still stopped by the eggs on the stove, picking out a bite with his fingers.
“So you’re all still going?” I asked. “To the graduation?”
“Your father and I will go. We’ll ask Ames and Marla to stay here with you. That’s probably the best plan.”
“I don’t need anyone here with me, though,” I said quickly. “I mean, it’s only one night.”
“It’s already arranged,” she told me, glancing at my dad. “Right?”
“I mentioned it to him last night.” He wiped his hand on a dish towel. “Apparently things with Marla have . . . cooled. But he’s happy to do it.”
“Really?” My mom looked at him. “I had no idea! He hasn’t said a thing to me about their breaking up.”
Considering how much he and my mom talked, this was kind of surprising. But I had learned not to put much past Ames.
“He didn’t sound too upset about it,” my dad said now, eating another piece of egg. “Anyway, he’s got to work that night, but he’s going to try to get off early.”
“He shouldn’t do that,” I said, apparently too adamantly, as they both looked at me, surprised. “I’ll be fine.”
“Sydney, we’ve had this conversation before. I don’t want you here alone,” my mom said. “Ames stayed with you last time, and it worked out well, didn’t it?”
“I’ll stay at Layla’s,” I said, instead of answering her.
“On a school night? No.” She sat back. “Frankly, with all the time you’ve been over there and at their pizza place, I worry we’ve overimposed as it is.”
“Let me invite her here, then.” I thought for a second. “Actually, we could use the studio that evening. That way, you guys wouldn’t even be bothered with it.”
She blinked at me. “The studio? Peyton’s studio?”
“Yeah,” I said as she looked at my dad, who shrugged. “You said that Mac’s band could use it, to record.”
“Mac,” she repeated, like she was trying to jog a distant, faded memory. “I don’t—”
“Layla’s brother. My friend.” I turned to my dad. “You met him last night. I asked if his band could use the studio to record this demo, and you guys said yes.”
“Oh, Sydney, I don’t know,” my mom said. “Even if Peyton was okay with that—and really, we’d have to ask him—it couldn’t happen with us out of town.”
“But you said—”
“Then I spoke without thinking,” she told me, looking at my dad again. “Or we did. The bottom line is, until this graduation thing is over, I really can’t focus on anything else.”
“It’s not just anything,” I said. “It’s my thing. My friends.”
I could tell I’d surprised them. I’d always accepted being second in importance; it was my place in the pecking order. But when it came to this—to Mac—I was ready to fight. Like finally I felt I had a real reason. It would have been better if it had been for me, myself. But I’d still take it.
“You didn’t even know these people three months ago,” my mom said. “I find it hard to believe they’re suddenly more important than family.”
“Mom—”
“We’re not talking about this anymore,” she said, rising from her seat and pushing her chair in. “We will go support your brother because he needs us, whether he’s choosing at this moment to admit it or not. After that, we can talk about everything else.”
She walked to the coffeemaker, her back to me as she refilled her mug. My dad watched her go, then gave me a sympathetic look. But once again, he didn’t do anything. Like this was her job, it was decided, and he couldn’t go over her head, as much as I wished he would.
Even though this was the way it always went, I felt a flush of anger rise in me, unexpected and unprecedented. Something had changed. Before, she’d grouped me within “anything else.” Now, “everything.” I’d always been the other, the one not Peyton; I’d come to accept it. But finally, I’d met people who saw me differently. Now that I’d been real and first to someone, I never wanted to be invisible again.
* * *
“So what I’m thinking,” Eric said, “is that we start strong with a Logan Oxford, end big with that ‘Six of One’ with my solo. We’ll put Layla doing vocals on another one in the middle to shake things up.”
“Yeah, but which one?” Mac asked, peeling another clementine. He had Irv’s phone disassembled in front of him, replacing the shattered screen, a result of its being sat on. Just looking at all the tiny screws made my head hurt. “It’s not like we have anything rehearsed with her.”
“It’s not complicated, it’s pop music,” Eric told him. “And she knows all these songs already. It’s just a matter of picking one with the perfect meaning.”
“You just said it’s simple, though,” said Irv, who was finishing off what was by my count his third chicken leg. “So how can it have meaning?”
“That’s where the irony comes in.” Eric sighed: yet again, none of us were keeping up. “I’m going to pick a song that is clearly from a guy’s point of view, then turn it on its head both with the original arrangement—I’m thinking acoustic, maybe—and having a girl singer.”
“We,” Mac said quietly, picking up another screw. “We will pick a song.”
“Right, right,” Eric replied, flipping his hand. “Consensus rules. But let’s be honest: I’m the one who’s really driving the depth of our message.”
“‘Depth of your message’?” Irv repeated, then laughed out loud. “Man. You’re outdoing even yourself right now.”
Beside me, Mac laughed, too, and I forced a smile, trying to join in. I hadn’t yet figured out how, exactly, to break the news that my parents were not actually okay with the band using the studio. So I hadn’t, instead just sitting there getting more and more anxious as they made their plans to do just that.
I wasn’t the only one out of sorts. Even though she was partly the subject of this conversation, Layla wasn’t paying attention. Instead, she was focused on her phone. It was clear enough by her face she wasn’t happy, but the fact that her lunch was untouched just sealed it.
“You
okay?” I asked her for the second time that day. I’d bumped into her in the hallway after homeroom, just in time to see her hanging up, looking irritated. We’d both been running late and headed in opposite directions, so when she said she was fine, I’d taken her at her word.
“Yeah,” she said, not looking at me. “Just . . . Spence stuff. It’s stupid.”
I hesitated, not sure how much to push this issue. Since she and Spence had been spending more and more time together, I’d only gotten bits and pieces from her about their relationship. I had noticed that the swooning, “He’s so great and sweet!” phase had waned. Apparently I hadn’t been wrong about her perfect boyfriend having his own complicated history. After some prodding, she’d admitted to me that not only was it mandatory community service he’d recently completed, he’d been expelled from three schools before landing at W. Hunt. At the time they’d met, he was keeping in line and on the upswing. With people like that, though, there was always a down waiting.
“So what I’m leaning toward,” Eric continued, “is going with a Paulie Prescott for Layla’s song.”
“Paulie Prescott? Was that the guy with the hair?” Irv asked.
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Mac told him.
“The hair.” Irv reached up one hand, swooping it over his head. “Remember? Dude looked like he’d been in an air tunnel, all the time.”
“No, that was someone else,” Eric said. “The other guy, with the really high voice.”
“Abe Rabe,” Layla and I said at the same time. She didn’t even look up.
Mac raised his eyebrows, the new screen in his hand. “Wow. That wasn’t weird or anything.”
I smiled at him, thinking again of what had happened the night before. Despite my initial nervousness around him, when he pulled me close it felt familiar, like we’d done it a million times. No awkwardness, no adjustments needed. I’d just pressed myself against his chest, the pendant on his chain against my cheek, and breathed in his smell. I knew very little for certain, but I was sure that if my father had not come back down the stairs moments later, I would have kissed him. So sure that now, sitting close but not too close, him smiling at me, it felt like I had.
“Paulie Prescott was the fake gangster,” Eric said. “Rich kid from the suburbs who sang about his past being street. He had that whole bad-boy-trying-to-be-good thing going on. Girls ate it up.”
“Oh, right,” Irv said, wrinkling his nose. “I hated that guy.”
“Everyone did.” Eric had no problem speaking for the world. “But that’s why it’s intriguing to have Layla do one of his songs. Take away the production, the facade, and shift the braggadocio to a female point of view? That’s going to be deep. Epic.”
“Did you just use the word braggadocio?” Mac asked him. “Are you drunk?”
Layla suddenly got to her feet, grabbed her bag, and started walking quickly toward the main building. We all just watched her go in silence. Then Irv said, “God, what’d you do, Eric?”
“Me?”
Mac was watching me as I stood up. “You know what that was about?”
“No,” I said, picking up my backpack. “But I have a hunch.”
I checked the girls’ bathroom first, as it was my go-to place for taking refuge, but the only people there were a group of dance team members busy doing a makeup tutorial. Out in the hallway, I thought for a second, then headed to Layla’s locker, my next best bet. On the way there, I found her sitting on the stairs. When she saw me, she bit her lip.
“Okay,” I said, joining her. “What’s going on?”
She sighed, stretching her legs out in front of her. “Spence has just been . . . into some stuff lately. That he shouldn’t be doing, with his history. Basically.”
“Drugs?”
A slight nod. “Just pot. Some pills. They make him different. But when I nag him, he gets mad, then doesn’t answer my texts. Then I don’t know what he’s doing, which is worse.”
“You’re not going to be able to fix him,” I told her.
“I know, I know.” She pulled her knees to her chest. “It sucks, because if I say something, he disappears. If I don’t, I have to watch him sabotage himself. It’s like I can’t win.”
A couple of guys carrying instrument cases pushed past us on their way up the stairs. I said, “I hate that feeling.”
This wasn’t particularly wise of me, or enlightening, at least as far as I was concerned. But hearing it, Layla exhaled, then leaned her head on my shoulder, closing her eyes. I tried so hard, so often, to say just the right thing, only to come up short. It felt good to get it right for once, even if it was by accident.
* * *
“Okay,” Mac said as I climbed back into the truck. “Work your magic.”
I looked down at the order in my hand. Four fettuccine alfredos, four salads. “Someone’s pretending they’re cooking dinner. Five dollars says they already have serving dishes ready to dump this stuff into.”
“You’re on,” he said, cranking the engine.
Usually, I was confident enough about my predictions that they were accompanied by trash talk. Today, though, I just wasn’t in the mood. Between knowing I’d have to tell Mac (who’d have to tell Eric, who would be crushed) about the studio being a no-go and Layla’s confession earlier (which she’d sworn me to secrecy about), there was a lot I was having to keep in. That this meant holding back from Mac just made it worse.
When the door at the house was answered by a young woman in a dress and pearls and heavy makeup, wearing a shiny diamond ring and a new-looking gold band, I could barely muster a pat on my own back. Even though it was pretty cool.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she said, untying the apron she was wearing, which said KISS THE COOK (still sporting crease marks—its first use, I guessed). “My in-laws will be here in twenty minutes.”
“Enjoy your meal,” I told her, handing off the food. She gave me a grateful look and a big tip before shutting the door.
Mac, who had been watching from the truck, just looked at me as I returned. “Okay, I used to think this was impressive. Now it’s getting sort of creepy.”
I managed a smile as I got in the cab. “Leave me alone. I have few talents.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s true,” he replied, shifting into reverse. “You manage to get Layla to talk to you.”
I knew he’d been waiting for me to tell him what had upset her at lunch. Because I’d made a promise, though, I only said, “That’s relationship stuff. All girls have a knack for that. It’s part of our genetic code.”
“Really.”
“Yep.”
It was obvious I was dodging the issue, but thankfully, he let it go, instead handing over the next order. “Good luck with this. It’s a real doozy.”
I took it, glancing at the ticket. “Two large cheeses, four garlic knots? What’s complicated about that?”
“Read what it says at the bottom.”
“ALLCOUP?” I asked. The word was underlined. Twice. “What does that mean?”
He put on his turn signal, switching lanes as we approached a light. “All coupon. That means they have enough discounts that it’s free.”
“Free?” I looked at the ticket again. “How is that possible?”
“It’s not supposed to be,” he told me. “We run a special on Thursdays. The ad’s supposed to say if you buy a cheese pizza and knots, you get a pizza and order of knots for free. But about a year ago, the copy for the ad got messed up. Badly.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” he continued, turning onto a side road, “they left off the first part and only printed the second.”
I had to think for a minute. “So it said you could get a large pizza and a side of knots for free? No purchase required?”
“Yup.”
That was a lot of d
ough. Literally and figuratively. “How many were given out?”
“They were sent in the mail,” he replied. “To every listed address in city limits.”
“Oh, my God,” I said. “Your dad must have been freaking.”
“He was.” He sat back, running a hand over the wheel. “Most people would have just copped to the error and not accepted them. But he’s not like that, so he still honors them. Although it makes him really grumpy.”
That explained why the underlining for ALLCOUP was several shades darker than the word above it. “So this has been going on for a year?”
“We don’t get many anymore. But there are a few people who, once they realized the error, made a point of collecting as many as they could get their hands on.”
“And they fit a type,” I said, finally getting it.
He nodded. Then he waited.
I thought for a moment. “They’re smart. Resourceful. Plus, they had time to collect coupons and could keep them organized. That’s a lot to do for free pizza, though, so they’re either broke or young. Most likely both.”
We were approaching a street of apartment complexes now. “Anything else?” Mac asked me.
“Boys,” I told him.
“What’s your reasoning there?”
“I don’t have any. It’s just a hunch.”
My second of the day, so far. But this one I felt less confident about than guessing the source of Layla’s issue. When Mac got out with me, I assumed it was not only because this was an apartment, to which we always went together, but also because he wanted to see me get one wrong for once.
We walked up two flights to a door with music thumping behind it, and he knocked. A moment later it was opened by a skinny guy, a college student most likely, wearing a plaid shirt, jeans, and a headset.
“Seaside Pizza,” Mac said, his voice flat. “You placed an order?”
“We did,” the guy said. He glanced over his shoulder to the room behind him, where I could see two other guys on a couch, also in headsets, video game controllers in their hands. “And what was the total on that?”