by Cat Clarke
“That’s not true.”
Laurel shrugs. “I need to be more independent.”
She’s right, I suppose. And maybe she’s feeling stifled, hardly ever being alone. It hasn’t occurred to me before, that maybe it’s hard for her to have people around all the time. With Smith, she was left alone for hours on end—sometimes even days. She’s used to her own company. Maybe she even prefers it that way.
“Don’t forget to take your phone.” I sound like Mom, which makes me cringe. “Text if you need me or if you just feel like some company.”
Laurel takes two big gulps of tea, then winces because the tea’s too hot for gulping. “Thanks. I’ll be fine, though. Really.”
“And you’re sure you know how to get to the sushi place?”
She says nothing. Instead, she stands and takes something out of the pocket of her jeans, unfolding it carefully for me to see. I drew the map last night, only getting it absolutely right on my fourth attempt.
“Sorry. I know you’re perfectly capable of finding your own way around.”
“Really? Is that why you felt the need to mark which side of the road I should walk on?” She laughs.
“It’s only because there’s a building site there at the moment, and the pavement’s closed….I didn’t want you getting run over.” I sound ridiculous. I am ridiculous. Laurel is nineteen years old. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay! You don’t have to keep apologizing! It’s nice that you care.”
“What exactly are you planning on doing this morning, anyway?”
Laurel takes her mug over to the sink and squeezes some dish soap into it. She turns the tap on too fast, and a spray of water shoots up from the sink, splashing her. “Shit! Shit shit shit shit!” She slams the mug down on the counter so hard I’m worried she might have cracked it.
I get up and help her, dabbing at her shirt with a clean dish towel. “It’s okay. It’ll dry in a few minutes.”
“Are you sure? Maybe I should change my top.” She looks at her watch; Mom bought her the same one I have. I swear sometimes she forgets that Laurel and I aren’t actually twins. “Yeah, I’m going to change.”
I explain that there’s really no need. She can just keep her jacket buttoned up till the shirt is dry. Laurel doesn’t seem convinced, but I manage to persuade her. I make her check that she’s got enough change for the bus, then she’s out the door.
Mom comes downstairs a couple of minutes later and asks where Laurel is. “But nothing’s open at this time! Why didn’t you tell her?”
I should have known this would somehow be my fault, despite the fact that Laurel is a grown woman. I say as much to Mom and she apologizes. The apology throws me off; normally we’d be gearing up for an argument right about now.
“She’ll be fine,” Mom says distractedly as she opens the fridge. “She’ll be absolutely fine.”
“Of course she will.”
“There’s really nothing to worry about.”
“No, there really isn’t.”
“Okay, then! Breakfast…Did you finish the milk again?”
Now it’s time for an argument. You’re so selfish, you never think of others, if only you could be a little more thoughtful sometimes. I don’t even bother to hide the smile on my face. There’s something profoundly reassuring about hearing the same old spiel. There’s no point telling her it was Laurel who used the last of the milk to drown her cereal. I’m happy to take the blame, so the argument sort of fizzles out before it’s even started.
While she’s waiting for her toast to pop up, Mom tells me that she’s got a surprise for Laurel and me. I ask what it is, and she says I’ll have to wait and see. I tell her she’s infuriating, and what’s the point of telling me there’s a surprise if she’s not going to tell me what it is? She should have just kept her mouth shut in the first place. So she gives in and tells me: she’s treating us both to a shopping spree. A thousand pounds each to spend this afternoon, from her share of the book-deal money.
Mom looks so pleased with herself that I don’t tell her it’s a crazy amount of money to fritter away in one afternoon. She’s arranged for us to meet a personal shopper at the fanciest department store in town—the one where you have to run a gauntlet past terrifying women intent on giving you a makeover or spritzing you with perfume that would give Cynthia Day’s a run for its money. She asks me if I think Laurel will be happy about it, and I say that I’m sure she will be. “It’s every girl’s dream, isn’t it?” she says, sounding hopeful.
I bet she hasn’t told Dad, because I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t approve. He’d be thinking about how it might look if the story gets into the papers—us cashing in on what happened to Laurel. A photo of Laurel emerging from the shop, laden with bags emblazoned with designer logos. Jeanette Hayes would have a field day.
I suppose we’ll just have to hope the photographers stay away—that no one in the store calls them to tip them off about Laurel’s presence. And that none of the sales assistants or other shoppers think to snap a picture of Laurel on their phone. Perhaps we’ll be lucky.
I don’t want to spoil this for Mom; she looks so happy. The physical changes in her are almost as noticeable as those in Laurel. Before Laurel came home, there was something pinched and angular about Mom’s face. Her eyes had this haunted, sometimes vacant quality. The angles are still there, but it’s as if they’ve been softened somehow—someone has smudged those hard lines, rounded off the corners. Her eyes are starting to look like the eyes of a normal person with a normal life. I’m not the only one to notice. The Us Weekly website printed two pictures of her side by side last week. Before and after. Complete with commentary from three different beauty experts. One of them was certain that Mom has “had some work done” and suggested she’d be better off using a different shade of blush.
I spend the rest of the morning in my bedroom. It’s easier to stop myself from saying something mean to her that way. I scroll through the usual suspects—the websites most likely to have mentions of Laurel. I’ve got it down to a fine art now—no more than twenty minutes. There’s nothing interesting today—there hasn’t been much for the past couple of weeks. I know I should stop checking, that it might seem a little obsessive, but I can’t help myself. Besides, no one else has to know. Mom’s stopped reading the papers altogether, which is why she has no idea about that stupid Us Weekly feature.
I’m always careful to delete my search history so that Laurel can’t see what I’ve been looking at. For some reason it feels like a betrayal—reading what people are saying about her and not telling her. But that hasn’t stopped me.
It seems like Laurel is on my laptop all the time since her little tutorial with Thomas. I don’t mind, but she doesn’t seem to realize that I need it for schoolwork. She never uses Mom’s desktop, even though Mom’s hardly ever on it. I have a brain wave and Google to see if the store has an electronics department. With a thousand pounds to spend, Laurel can buy a much better computer than mine. Or maybe I should buy one and give her my old one. It’s not like I’ll find any clothes there that I would ever actually wear. I just have to get Mom to agree to it, because I’m pretty sure that’s not what she had in mind when she planned this little shopping spree.
When Mom calls from downstairs, I realize I’ve lost track of time down the Internet rabbit hole, and I won’t even be able to have a shower before we leave. A few extra sprays of deodorant will have to do.
“We have to go now!”
“All right, all right, I’m coming!”
“I don’t want your sister arriving at the restaurant before us. I told you to be ready by twelve-thirty!”
I ignore her and chuck my phone into my bag. A quick look out the window, then I put an umbrella in, too. I’m heading out the door when I realize I haven’t deleted my history. Best to do it now, just in case I forget later.
I do it as fast as I can, ignoring Mom’s increasingly annoyed shouts.
I stop when I get to the first s
ite I looked at this morning. The next link on the list isn’t one of mine. I’m not sure what makes me click on it, particularly when it sounds like Mom’s head is about to explode if I keep her waiting any longer. But I do.
It’s a map of Blaxford, a town about an hour away. I’ve never been, but I recognize the name. One of Aunt Eleanor’s ex-boyfriends lived there. She hardly ever stayed over at his place—apparently the police sirens kept her awake at night. (Mom told her not to be such an insufferable snob.)
It must have been Laurel; Mom never touches my laptop. But why would Laurel be looking up a map of Blaxford of all places? I check the next link. Another map, the city this time. That makes more sense. Still, I wouldn’t have bothered drawing her a map if I knew she’d already looked at a proper one.
I clear the history, deleting all the links. I close the lid of the laptop, then shove the computer under my pillow. Laurel will have to ask if she wants to use it again. I don’t mind sharing, but maybe it’s time I stopped making allowances for her. She needs to learn that she can’t always have her own way, that people won’t always be falling over themselves to make things easy for her. The sooner she realizes that, the better.
Laurel steps in front of the three-way mirror and examines herself from every possible angle. Mom has tears in her eyes; the personal shopper has dollar signs in hers. You’d think she was trying on a wedding dress, the fuss they’re making. The dress is nice—there’s no denying it. It’s red and short, but not too short, and the fabric clings in all the right places, but in a classy sort of way. Still, it’s not worth five hundred bucks. No dress is worth that much.
“Doesn’t she look wonderful, Faith?”
I smile and nod. She does look amazing. Mom suggests Laurel take her hair down, so she shakes it out of the ponytail, and it’s almost like a slow-motion shot from a commercial.
“Oh yes!” says the personal shopper.
Laurel giggles and twirls around. The Laurels in the mirror giggle and twirl, too.
“It’s too much,” Laurel says when she’s stopped twirling. “I can’t…”
“You can and you must!” says Mom emphatically, as if we’re talking about something really important here. My suggestion that Laurel buy a laptop with her money didn’t exactly go down well. I should have known. Mom said that today isn’t about buying things we need—it’s about having fun, apparently. She said there would be plenty of time—and money—for boring things like computers.
The personal shopper (who seems to think that Laurel looks amazing in everything, even the things that really don’t suit her) says that she sold the exact same dress—in the same size!—to a basketball player’s girlfriend last weekend. When Mom asks which one, the personal shopper says a name and Mom pretends to know who she’s talking about.
The dress is wrapped up in tissue paper and carefully placed in a shiny black bag with ribbons for handles. Laurel hugs Mom and thanks her. Then Mom turns to me. “It’s your turn now, Faith!”
The personal shopper looks about as happy as I do at the prospect; Laurel clearly makes a better mannequin than me.
—
We spent a fortune at the sushi place, piling up the plates. Laurel was a bit dubious about raw fish to start off with, but she soon got over her squeamishness. She loved the conveyor belt, just like I thought she would. That was the main reason I’d suggested we go there for lunch. She couldn’t stop staring as the dishes went by. “And we can just take whatever we want?” she said, shaking her head in disbelief.
I kept on expecting Mom to ask the question, but she kept on not asking the question. In the end, I had to do it. “So…Laurel…what did you do this morning?”
“Nothing much. I just wandered around.” She took the last slice of miso eggplant—the one that I’d had my eye on.
“For four hours?”
She shrugged. “I went to a café, too.”
“Which one?”
Mom gave me a sharp look, but I pretended not to notice.
“I can’t remember. Starbucks, maybe?”
“They all look the same, don’t they?” Mom says helpfully.
“So you didn’t go to Blaxford, then?”
“Why on earth would Laurel go there?” Mom laughed as if it was the most absurd idea in the world.
Laurel’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Where?”
Mom told her about Eleanor’s ex-boyfriend (such a good-looking man) and that he tried to get Eleanor to move in with him and his three kids in their tiny apartment but Eleanor said no and broke up with him. “She said she just couldn’t see herself living in a place like that, but I think it was more about the children, really. Three kids under ten? Not exactly Eleanor’s cup of tea, and that’s an understatement. I mean, she likes children—she really does. But she’s never wanted any of her own.” A pause for a long, wistful look at Laurel, barely a glance in my direction. “She doesn’t know what she’s missing out on. I think it affected her quite deeply—what happened to you.” She squeezed Laurel’s hand. “She saw what it did to me, losing you like that.” Laurel put her arm around Mom’s shoulders, and it made me wish that I were the one sitting next to Mom.
Laurel had arrived at exactly the same time as us in the end, so Mom’s worrying about being late had been completely unnecessary. There had been one booth free next to the conveyor belt. I slid in to one side (with my back to the door, knowing that Laurel would want to sit facing it), Laurel scooched into the booth on the other side, leaving Mom with a choice. Which one of her daughters would she choose to sit next to? No contest.
—
Later in the afternoon, Mom insists that I at least buy something, and in return I insist that we go to a different shop. The personal shopper makes a (very) halfhearted effort at stopping us: “I’m sure we can find something you’ll like!”
Mom thanks her and stage-whispers, “Oh, you know what they’re like at that age! No appreciation for the finer things in life.” I don’t even mind because at least she’s agreed that we can finally leave this awful place teeming with awful women buying awful clothes.
We go to the Gap, and yes, it’s boring, but at least the clothes are normal here. I buy a pair of gray jeans exactly the same as the ones I’m wearing, ignoring Mom’s suggestion to look at the other colors they have. Laurel decides to buy the same jeans as me, and suddenly Mom’s saying, “You can’t go wrong with gray, can you? Classic.” The sales assistant clearly recognizes Laurel but is trying her best to act like she doesn’t. It’s exactly how Martha and I acted when we saw someone from The Voice at the Olive Garden last summer.
We stop for coffee at around four-thirty—an independent coffee shop, at Mom’s insistence. We end up in another booth, and yet again Mom sits next to Laurel. They’re talking about clothes, and I’m bored out of my mind. Laurel tries to persuade Mom to buy something—to treat herself to a new coat or handbag.
“No, no, I don’t need anything.”
Laurel elbows Mom gently and says, “You deserve to be spoiled, too, you know! You’re so busy looking after the rest of us that you forget to look after yourself. What do you think, Faith?” She looks at me in that chummy, conspiratorial way that usually makes me feel happy.
“Yeah, I suppose so.” I don’t have the energy to fake enthusiasm. I have a killer headache and my feet are sore, and I’m starting to feel like an outsider in my own family.
Mom says, “I think someone got out of the wrong side of bed this morning.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing! No need to be so touchy!” Mom laughs and takes a sip of her coffee. “Now, where shall we go next? I’ve nearly run out of that conditioner I like, so I was thinking we could pop into the drugstore, if you don’t mind. Maybe you could get some nail polish to match your new dress, Laurel?”
“Sounds good to me!”
Laurel always says the right thing. She never seems to be grumpy or tired.
—
Mom can’t find the con
ditioner, so she sends me off to ask someone if the line has been discontinued. I have no idea why she doesn’t just ask someone herself. Maybe she’s testing me, trying to push me until I snap. I interrupt a couple of sales assistants barely older than me, and one shoots me a hate-filled look before she turns her back to stack some shelves. The other one is helpful but has more to say about hair products than I would ever want to hear. All I want to know is whether they have Mom’s conditioner or not, but she’s busy telling me about limited editions and argan oil.
While the sales assistant is droning on, I catch sight of Laurel at one of the makeup counters. A flicker of movement catches my eye, and I lower my gaze to Laurel’s hand. It glides over the counter, over the shiny tubs and bottles and compacts. Her fingers curl around something—mascara or eyeliner, perhaps?—and she drops it into the bag from the department store. Then she does it again, watching the two women behind the counter the whole time.
The sales assistant finishes her spiel by suggesting we try another branch, and I thank her. She wanders off, but I stand stock-still, staring at Laurel. She picks up something else, but this time she doesn’t drop it in the bag. She twists the cap off and draws on the back of her hand, testing the color. Finally, she turns away from the counter and sees me. She smiles and waves.
I turn my back on her and go to find Mom to tell her the bad news about her conditioner. She sighs and says, “Back to the drawing board,” and goes to choose another one. I’m tempted to tell her what I saw. What would she think about her darling daughter shoplifting? She probably wouldn’t believe me, but the proof is right there in Laurel’s bag.
I’m going to tell her. “Mom?”
“Yes, darling?” she says distractedly.
I’m trying to decide the tone I should adopt—shocked? Sympathetic? Shocked yet sympathetic?—when I realize it’s too late. You can always tell when someone’s standing right behind you.
“Mom? Will you come and help me choose a nail polish? I think I’ve narrowed it down to two—one of them is a slightly better color match, but the other one says it lasts for seven days.” Laurel’s voice is the very essence of breezy.
