by Maria Padian
I need to be careful.
“That’s probably not a good topic around this crowd,” I echo, tilting my head toward the girls. Who are definitely watching us. The guys catch on immediately, and laugh.
“Fair enough,” John says. “Hey, can we take a pic?”
I shake my head and begin backing away, toward the house. “Nah, but thanks,” I tell him. Before they can argue with me, I cross the flagstone patio and head inside. It’s almost time for the food to come out, and in the kitchen the caterers have kicked it up a notch. I wander in to watch. One of the women catches my eye and smiles.
“Can I get something for you, miss?” she asks.
At first I’m not sure who she’s speaking to. Then I realize: me.
When did I become “miss”?
“Oh, no. Nothing, thanks,” I tell her, smiling back.
She hesitates. “Is everything okay? Do they need something outside?” She seems concerned.
“No, it’s great. Everything’s great,” I tell her.
She waits. It occurs to me I’m getting in her way. She has a job to do, and as long as I stand here, she’s tasked with serving. Me. The guest. I turn to leave the kitchen, and as I do I knock over a stack of mail at the end of the counter. It flies across the floor: bills, flyers, catalogs. As I hurry to gather them, one piece catches my eye.
It’s imprinted with a logo in one corner: little blue people beneath a green roof. With their arms raised up in a familiar “Say Amen!”
The Habitat newsletter.
“There you are!” I hear Aubrey exclaim. She’s tracked me down. “Yikes, what happened?”
“Hurricane Izzy,” I confess. We quickly gather the mail.
“Dad wants to make a toast before we eat,” she says. “Let’s go outside.”
I follow her. As we cross the living room, I can’t help asking: “Aubrey, do your parents belong to Habitat for Humanity? I see you get their newsletter.”
Aubrey slides open the big glass doors. “Probably. My parents belong to a lot of groups,” she says. Nonchalantly. The same way she’d confirm that her parents also own a lot of socks. No biggie.
We’re still wearing our jerseys while Mr. Shackelton makes an emotional toast about the team, the season, the “family” of Clayton County High students, faculty, and staff. Everyone claps—Mr. Shackelton is clearly the Man; Charlie Crawford would have liked him, and not just for his grill—then eats huge portions of awesome food.
We wear our jerseys as the last of the guests head out, the guys urging Sam to join them later at so-and-so’s house for another party. Aubrey has fallen asleep with Frank on the big sectional sofa in the basement playroom and doesn’t hear Ned and John invite me to come with. I decline—I have to head home, I tell them, but thanks. Mr. and Mrs. Shackelton have turned in for the night and left Sam and me to dry the last of the big serving bowls and put them away in the cupboards. I dry; he puts away because I don’t know where they go and besides, I can’t reach that high.
I’m still wearing that jersey when I tell him I’m going to leave and he says to hold on. Wait. We haven’t really spoken all day.
We’re in the big living room. The one with the wall of windows and the huge flat-screen. I’m standing near the sliding door, poised to go. I’m about to return home to the real world, and it’s not lost on me, not lost at all, which side of the glass I belong on. It’s been an amazing day with amazing people, but . . . really.
Then Sam comes up to me and we’re alone, completely alone, for the first time.
“D’you have fun today?” he asks.
“A little,” I tell him. “Might have been an okay day.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “It was okay.” He steps in close and I can smell his warm boy smell, something like cotton and grill smoke and soap. Sweat, because we’ve been working. “Can I ask you something?”
“Okay.”
“Why’d you ghost me the other night?”
“My phone died. I only got it back in service today. I am not kidding.”
He looks like he’s trying to decide whether to believe me or not. “That’s so lame it’s gotta be true.”
“It’s true,” I tell him. I have to look up because he’s that close and that much taller than me. His eyes seem very big. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“Yes. And no,” he says. “Maybe I don’t want to talk.”
“So what do you want to do, Sam?” I barely say it. I whisper it. Breathe it. Imagine it.
He puts both hands on either side of my face and lowers his lips to mine, and like that I’m kissing Sam Shackelton. This warm, dizzy buzz spreads through me and builds as he slips his hands to my waist and pulls me against him, and threatens to spill over, a too-full cup, overflowing, as he slowly nudges my lips open with his.
That’s when a fist-sized rock comes hurtling through one of the Shackeltons’ windows and the night is full of shattered glass.
20
For once, Mami doesn’t interrupt. She listens, still as a stalking cat, frozen in single-minded focus on my long, unwinding, horrible confession. Like she can’t quite believe it but can’t make me stop.
Or maybe it’s just that I’ve gone so long telling her so little that she’s simply drinking it all in.
At any rate, she’s not angry. Even though I walk in the door waaaaay late.
Turns out police take their sweet time questioning witnesses at a crime scene. Which is what Sam and I became, after his frightened parents rushed into the living room to find us dusted with shimmery powder. No blood, no shards protruding from our necks, even though daggerlike triangles lay scattered on the floor inches from our feet. Only a light snowfall of powdered glass in our hair, on our shoulders.
“Don’t rub your eyes!” Sam warned me as his mother dialed 9-1-1. He could see the glisten on my lashes, my lips. As his mother dialed and we stood there, stupid with shock, Mr. Shackelton raced outside to see if he could catch a glimpse of the Rock Thrower.
But I knew she was long gone. Of course, I didn’t say that. Not to them, anyway.
I do, however, tell Mami. Every single bit. Every awful detail. Like stones I’ve been carrying for way too long, I unload them on my mother. I realize I’m exhausted, and not only because it’s late.
From the spying weeks ago to my new friendship with Aubrey, to Perry’s, the basketball games, Melissa, I tell her. Even the kiss. I tell her about the kiss. Because I’m not ashamed of it (wasn’t she once a pretty girl kissing some handsome American on a beach in Puerto Rico?) and because it explains the Rock. It explains the Thrower. I get what happened. And why.
You throw a rock and break things because there’s nothing else you can do.
And then you have everyone’s attention.
“Who is this girl they think did it?” Mami finally asks when I stop for a breath.
“Melissa,” I tell her. “She’s Sam’s old girlfriend. They think she saw us kissing and threw the rock.”
“But you don’t think that?”
“Melissa has other weapons,” I say. “And Roz is always spying on the Shackeltons. Way more than the one time she took me.”
“But this Melissa. You say she tripped you at the basketball game? That is very bad, Isabella. Maybe you are wrong. Maybe she did throw the rock.”
I shake my head. I’m no Melissa fan, but the truth is screaming at me. “Melissa was part of the tripping but not the actual tripper,” I explain. “And yes, those girls are horrible. And yes again, Melissa has the motive. Aubrey was all over that with the cops, telling them how mean Melissa has been to me and showing them the Steamer Girl stuff. But Mami, it was Roz. I know it was Roz.”
My mother is quiet for a long time after that. She is thinking; I know the expression. But there’s also something there I can’t quite place. A mixture of sadness and resolv
e. Like someone who’s decided it’s time to put down the old, sick family dog.
“You did not tell them it was Roz,” she finally says. It’s not a question.
“I can’t, Mami. And yeah, partly that’s because I don’t want to admit to them that I stalked their house, too. But mostly it’s because I don’t want to get her in trouble.”
Mami nods. “But this other girl? Even if she is mean, she should not be blamed for something she did not do.”
“She won’t. There was another party tonight. A zillion people will say she was there when the rock was thrown. It’ll all go down as a big mystery.” The Shackeltons will put in motion-sensor lighting. A better alarm system. Maybe even buy a big guard dog. Poor Frank.
Melissa will be fine. The Shackeltons will be fine, especially if they throw enough money at home safety improvements to help them all feel better. I’ll be fine. Actually, I’ll be more than fine. Because if Sam and I weren’t a thing before, we sure are now. Especially since he seems determined to announce it to the world, starting with the police. Telling Mami about the kiss was nothing after sitting on the Shackeltons’ couch, answering questions from the cops while he held my hand. The whole family (including Frank) seemed distracted by the little ball of intertwined fingers perched on Sam’s knee. And the expressions on their faces were priceless when Sam’s reply to “Where exactly were you when the rock was thrown?” was: “I was kissing Izzy good night in front of the sliding door.”
That could have gone a lot of ways, but while Mr. and Mrs. Shackelton definitely looked a little whiplashed—Melissa’s chair in the dining room was practically still warm—they smiled at me. And Aubrey mostly just looked amused. Like her big brother finally got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Considering Aubrey might have shrieked I was her friend first and thrown another rock at us? That was a pretty good reaction.
Here’s who’s not fine and who won’t be fine: Roz.
And what Mami says next confirms it.
“That Roz. She is not all right, Isabella.”
I feel a clench in my gut. I know what’s coming. “I know, Mami. But she wasn’t thinking straight. All she could see was her best friend with the guy she likes. And I lied to her. I did. Over and over.” I try to imagine what that must have been like for Roz. I can picture where she was standing. How long was she out there? How much had she seen before her hand found that rock?
If it had been Melissa and Sam at the glass door, she never would have thrown it. This has nothing to do with the Shackeltons and the assholes at her school and everyone and everything that pisses her off. This is about me. Izzy Crawford. Her best friend. On that side of the glass.
There are a lot of things Roz has to put up with. But that’s the one that got her.
“You cannot have a friend like that, mija. I know what you are thinking. And I am sorry for her, too. But your life is taking you somewhere else.”
“She’s not a bad person, Mami. It’s just that . . . she did a bad thing. The two are different, you know?”
Mami purses her lips. The way she does when she disagrees. “There are things we cannot control in life, Isabella. Things that are not our fault. But then there are choices. And more than anything, our choices are who we are. What we choose to do. Who we choose for our friends. You make good choices. Most of the time.” We both laugh a little. “But a person who makes bad choices? You cannot help that person. And they will drag you down.”
I can’t speak. The knot in my stomach has moved up to my throat.
“Hiding in that boy’s backyard was a bad choice, Isabella. Lying to me was a bad choice. You have to cut yourself off from a friend who encourages that.”
“I know, Mami. But she’s also funny and generous. She loves Jack. She helps me. A lot. Like with rides, and . . . all sorts of stuff. She’s really my friend. And I feel bad. I feel bad for her and I feel bad that I hurt her. But I also feel bad because . . . I’m happy. You know? About all the good things. Like, the new house. And my school friends. And now . . . Sam. He’s really nice. Maybe I should feel guilty that he likes me, but I don’t. I don’t!”
Mami is nodding as I speak, which probably makes what happens next happen. I burst into tears. God, I’m so tired.
“Do you remember, Isabella, when your daddy was alive and we went to the beach in Maryland?” Mami says.
I nod. I remember that vacation very well. It was the same summer as the last Crawford reunion, and we rented a house near the ocean.
“Do you remember the bucket of crabs?”
One afternoon, the three of us were wandering down the beach when we came up to a group of boys who were catching baby crabs and dropping them in a bucket. There must have been hundreds, teensy crabs all scrabbling for a foothold and crawling on top of each other. It was awful and pathetic and fascinating. A little gross, too.
“Your father,” Mami continues, “pointed out how the crabs stopped each other from escaping. As soon as one got out of the pile and started climbing from the bucket, the others would grab its leg and pull it back. It was terrible, not only for the one that almost made it but for them all. If they weren’t so stupid, they could have made a chain, worked together, and all escaped. Instead, they spent their energy preventing the one crab from leaving, and in the end all died.”
“I’m sorry, Mami, but is that supposed to make me feel better?” I can’t help asking.
“No, not better. Wiser,” she tells me. “Isabella, I am working so hard to get us out of the bucket. You are working, too. With your job and your grades and now with the Habitat people. But, Roz? She is the crab pulling on your leg. Daughter, please. If she will not climb with you, shake her off.”
We go to bed after that, but I don’t sleep. I stare at the ceiling until the first gray streaks of light peek around the window shades and the birds put up a racket. Even though I can tell it’s going to be a nice day, I dread getting up. Because I know what I have to do.
21
Shawn smells like cigarettes and sour laundry. He stands in the doorframe of the Jenkinses’ home in a stained T-shirt and low-riding jeans (the waistband of his underwear on full display). He leers at me when I ask for Roz.
“Come right in, little lady,” he says with exaggerated politeness, swinging the door open wide. I step into a room strewn with junk: random shoes, abandoned dirty dishes, brimming ashtrays. The ripe odor of kitchen trash fills the place. There’s no sign of Gloria.
“Her majesty is down the hall,” Shawn informs me, then bellows, “Roz! You got company!”
I head straight for her bedroom. The less time near Shawn the better.
She opens her door as I’m reaching to knock and our eyes lock. I half expect her to slam it shut, and she hesitates, as if she’s considering that very thing. But then her jaw tightens and she tilts her head toward the bed, closing—and latching—the door behind us.
Unlike the chaos in the rest of the place, Roz’s room is neat. Crowded, but neat. Her collection of secondhand-store finds is arranged by season and color in her tiny, overstuffed closet, with shoes either in boxes or stacked on wooden racks. In one corner she’s set up a folding table for her necklace creations, with plastic boxes filled with beads and loops of string and wire arrayed on hooks. The walls are papered with pages ripped from fashion magazines or Roz’s own sketches: eye makeup ideas, dress designs, cool bags.
This is where Roz the Stylist lives. On the other side of the flimsy door held shut by the cheap latch she picked up at Home Depot (the lock on her knob has been busted forever) is her actual life. Pre-Shawn, we used to spend hours in here, both of us lounging on the bed, staring at the magazine pages and spinning out crazy ideas for when she would be Dresser to the Stars. I once asked her if County had any tech classes in fashion design; one of my old schools did.
“Yeah, but they’re stupid,” she sort of growled. “The
teacher’s an idiot and the kids are losers. They’re not actually into fashion. They just want to get out of taking math.”
She plops herself on the bed, her legs outstretched, the pillow a backrest. I stand.
“In case you were wondering,” I begin, “I didn’t tell the police it was you.”
One corner of one eyebrow arches, and her lip curls in a snarl. She looks like she can’t decide whether I’m worth laughing at or not.
“Oh, and I suppose I owe you a big fat ‘thank you’ for that?” she replies. “Don’t kid yourself. No one gives a damn what you tell anyone.”
Deep down—really way deep down—I had hoped, prayed, I was wrong. That maybe Melissa was as scary awful as Roz has claimed, and she did throw that rock. But Roz doesn’t ask what I’m talking about. She doesn’t even bother to deny it.
“What the hell were you thinking, Roz? I mean, are you insane?”
Her eyes widen. “Are you?” she fires back. “What, you think these people are for real? And Sam could actually be into you? Wow. Talk about delusional. If I wasn’t so pissed off at your lyin’ ass, I’d feel sorry for you. But frankly, you deserve what’s coming. Good luck.” She folds her arms over her chest and stares at me. “And by the way, Steamer Girl, after that little show you put on at the game yesterday, how did you think I’d not finally find out?”
“I guess I wasn’t thinking,” I tell her. “I just wanted to piss off Melissa.”
“Well, you sure managed to do that,” Roz concedes. “It’s the first time I’ve seen someone spontaneously combust on social media. She took off on you so bad that even her friends started commenting she was losing it.”
“At least she lost it in the fake world. But what’s your excuse? I get you’re angry at me. Yes, I hid things from you. The Sam stuff just . . . happened . . . and I didn’t know how to tell you and then it was too late. I’m sorry. But that doesn’t excuse what you did! Roz, we could’ve gotten seriously hurt!”
