Sources Say

by Lori Goldstein

  “Gramps, it’s fine,” Angeline said, but he was already sending a text. Her heart swelled.

  Back on the news, Angeline read: “‘And now everyone else knows she’s innocent too! Social media is blowing up—a thousand sticks o’ dynamite in support of this one! You want to know what’s next for our Angel, well, I’ll tell youuuu!’” Angeline had pointed to the phone. “Lots of u’s here.” She continued, “‘I hereby announce Angeline will be my special guest at my very first inaugural Evelyn’s Epic Everyday Boot Camp.’”

  “‘Inaugural’ means ‘first,’” Cat and Gramps quipped at the same time.

  Excitement—and a touch of unfamiliar fear—had preceded Angeline’s next move. She lowered the phone and spoke directly to the camera. “Since Evelyn’s telling secrets, I may as well share one of mine. Hope it’s okay, Evelyn!” She flashed a mischievous smile. “While I didn’t win this election, I received an even greater reward. Getting to see how people responded to the #MoreThanOurParts hashtag. Something that, thanks to Evelyn’s boot camp, I’ll be taking wider under Ask an Angel. I’m going to enlist my followers to not just use the hashtag but embody it by donating, volunteering, and mentoring young women. I’m confident, knowing Evelyn, that she’ll do the same. Bring. It. And flutter your wings, my angels!”

  Angeline and Cat high-fived, and Gramps said, “Nicely done, granddaughter!”

  Because Angeline had perfectly manipulated Evelyn into supporting Ask an Angel’s new initiative. Her mom tried not to look pleased but failed entirely.

  The rest of the segment played out, with the principal promising to ramp up investigations into security, parental influence, and, of course, the Frankengirls. Footage rolled of Cat addressing the student body, and again, Angeline felt a surge of pride for what Cat had accomplished.

  Gramps shut off the TV and moved to his favorite armchair beside the couch.

  Her mom slid from the sofa onto the coffee table, leaving Cat and Angeline side by side. “Let me see if I have this right. You not only didn’t win, you basically did away with the office of student council president? I underestimated your ability to finagle your way out of a deal.”

  “Wait, what? No, Mom . . .”

  She smirked, then let it evolve into a genuine smile. “I’m so proud of you, Angeline.” She looked at Cat. “And you. But I’m especially proud that you did this together.” The silence grew along with the glistening in her mom’s eyes. “I was starting to think I’d made a mistake.”

  “But you’re the one who forced me to run,” Angeline said.

  “Suggested,” she teased. Her mom’s eyes swept over Angeline and Cat, holding them both equally. “I meant a mistake in letting you figure this out on your own.”

  Something tingled beneath Angeline’s skin, and Cat nervously laughed. “What? How to almost get an entire school expelled?”

  “Not exactly.” Her mom reached for Angeline’s hand. “That you’re stronger together than you are apart.” She then took Cat’s hand and joined them as one. “I never wanted to push.”

  “I did,” Gramps said.

  “Almost wore me down too.” Her mom smiled gently. “But I didn’t think more interference was what you needed. Time was. To find each other again, to start to undo the damage done by your dad.”

  Angeline felt Cat stiffen and watched as she slipped her hand free and secured it under her thigh.

  “Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d been the one to see that this life wasn’t for him. If I could have prevented the wedge he drove between you.”

  “Dad?” Angeline said, extracting her own hand. “But he didn’t do anything—”

  “Exactly.” Her mom sighed heavily. “Which meant you both spent so much time competing for attention he couldn’t give. You stopped being a team. My two girls, so strong on your own, but so perfect together. Supporting each other, helping each other, accomplishing great things togeth—”

  “Stop,” Cat said softly. “Just stop . . .”

  Her mom eyed Cat quizzically and set a hand on her knee, but Cat brushed it off and sprang to her feet, scaring Tartan into their grandfather’s lap. “I didn’t do that, any of it. It’s the opposite. This, all this . . . it’s my fault.”

  “Cat, hey, it’s okay,” Angeline said uneasily. “I understand why you wrote the story about Leo.”

  Cat wove around the coffee table and paced in front of the TV, her cheeks shining red.

  Angeline raised an eyebrow at her mom and shrugged before adding, “Cat, listen, I get it. It’s actually kind of, I don’t know, nice? You thought you were helping me.”

  “Helping?” Cat came to a halt, kneading her hands in front of her stomach. She then blurted out, “Emmie. The Shrieking Violet didn’t only learn things from Sammy.”

  “The shrieking . . . what?” Angeline’s mouth felt dry, like it was stuffed with cotton.

  Cat kept on kneading. “I was watching you, everyone reacting to you, and I was, I don’t know, upset, maybe jealous? And she was there. She listened.” Cat swallowed. “She was using me, I see that now, but then, I was . . . lonely, I guess. I wanted us to be friends. I wanted her to like me and—”

  “Like you?” A match flamed inside Angeline’s chest as she realized what her sister meant. Cat’s the one who told Emmie? Told her everything? “You did all this . . . to me . . . because you needed someone to like you?” Angeline gave a harsh laugh. She ignored the “Calm down” from her mother and the “Now, just wait” from Gramps and tore past Cat, heading for their room and the door she could slam and the phone she could snatch up to tell Maxine all about this. All about what her dear sister had done to her.

  The sharp pain that ricocheted through Angeline’s chest stopped her.

  Maxine. She had to talk to Maxine.

  About Cat.

  Her instinct. A habit ingrained.

  Angeline spun around and faced her sister—the sister she’d been complaining about to her own friends for years. Now she was on the other side.

  Realizing how wrong that was.

  And how much it hurt.

  She stepped closer, struggling to take a full breath, smelling the butterscotch of Cat’s hair, feeling their closeness and their distance at the same time. She then looked at her sister. Really looked. At those bangs growing longer, now perfectly framing her face. At her khaki skirt and black shirt and the ease with which she wore them, not trying to be something other than who she was, doing what she loved. What she was good at. And Angeline had mocked her for all of it.

  The pain in Angeline’s chest seared deeper.

  Made her dizzy.

  Made her remember.

  Fraidy Cat.

  That joke. Her joke. Something said in the moment, without thinking of anything but making people laugh. Making people like me. And Cat had been teased for weeks, months. All those years ago, Cat must have thought Angeline was rubbing it in when she gave her that wish rock and told her not to be afraid. Even now, she remembered Cat’s bright pink cheeks, her own clenched fists, the anger and fear and sadness brimming in them both. And their dad there, mopping up the overflowing toilet.

  He never even asked what’d happened. Her mom was right. And not. Because he might have been the one to let that wedge slide in, but Angeline had hammered it into place.

  “I should have been a better sister,” Angeline said.

  Cat’s face sagged. “No. I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

  Angeline shook her head. “Our fault, can we at least agree on that?”

  Cat nodded, guilt still clouding her eyes. “But from now on, we protect each other. We don’t have to always like each other while doing it, but we still have to do it.”

  “I’ll like you,” Angeline said, but the heaviness of the moment made another instinct kick in. “Well, most of the time.”

  Relie
f spread through Cat’s smile. “Bring. It.”

  Something warmed Angeline from the inside, and she longed to reach for Cat, but her mom rummaging inside her worn messenger bag interrupted. She pulled out a packet of tissues, handing one to Gramps before taking one for herself.

  “I guess you were right,” Angeline said to her. “Dad left us a long time before he moved out, didn’t he?”

  Her mom blew her nose. “It’s true. Someone doesn’t need to physically leave in order to be gone.” She balled up the tissue and hesitated before tossing it to the side and again digging into her bag, sending it to the edge of the coffee table as she drew out PTA schedules and flyers for SAT prep courses. “Same way they don’t have to be physically present to be here.” She found her phone. “Your dad saw the news reports. He wanted to call you both.”

  “But he doesn’t have our numbers,” Cat said. “We didn’t have phones before.”

  “I’m giving you his,” her mom said. “He’d like to hear from you, if that’s something you want.”

  Angeline sought out Cat, who glanced down at her feet. And so Angeline turned first to her mom, then Gramps. “And that’s okay with you?”

  Gramps responded first. “Of course. Missing your dad’s nothing to be sorry about.”

  Angeline thought back to that day at the beach when she wished with every rock in her bucket that her father would be there for her. Something she never told anyone. Something she tried so hard to forget. “But I was. None of you seemed to miss him, so I didn’t think I should. Could.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Her mom hopped up and placed a hand on each of Angeline’s shoulders. “That’s on me. You were both so young and never asked about him much, so I guess I thought out of sight, out of mind. But maybe that was to protect myself more than you.”

  Angeline started shaking her head. Because it was true that she didn’t ask about him, didn’t seek him out, ignored Botox Wife’s social media smiley faces, sent the requisite Father’s Day cards in response to his requisite birthday ones. And still, she’d spent her whole life trying to get his attention, even now, racking up as many hearts and likes as she could from everyone else because she couldn’t get them from him. She hated him. She missed him. And she needed both of those things to be okay.

  The creases around her mom’s eyes were the only evidence of how heavily this all weighed on her. She always put Angeline and Cat first, and Angeline loved her with every cell of her being for it.

  “People can disappoint you,” her mom said. “They can also surprise you. Only you can determine if the risk is worth it. You each decide what you want, okay?”

  Each of them—separately, like they’d been for years. Finally, Cat lifted her head. Angeline looked into her sister’s eyes. “Or maybe we could talk about it? Together?”

  Cat beamed. “I’d like that.”

  As their mom stole another tissue, her bag slumped to the floor. Angeline picked it up, felt the threadbare fabric, and suddenly said, “You need something new, Mom.”

  “Don’t start. Replacing it would be like replacing you two.”

  “But that’s the problem. Ever since Dad left. You’ve made us your everything.”

  “I didn’t make anything. You are my everything. If only I didn’t have to go to work, I could be here all the time.”

  “That’s not a good thing,” Angeline said, and her mom’s face fell. “The sentiment is, but you need more. Especially now. Like you said, everything will be different next year. You’ve taught us to put all our energy into what we love. But it’s okay for you to love more than us. I want you to.”

  “Me too,” Cat said. “Though I want Gramps to vet him.”

  Angeline nodded. “Sure, that, date. But also . . . maybe cut back on PTA and take some photography classes?”

  Her mom’s brow knitted.

  Gramps leaned forward in his armchair. “That studio in the harbor has a sign in the window for a leaf-peeping retreat. What do you say? Early Christmas present?”

  She shook her head. “Ganging up again, huh?”

  “Would you like to go?” Angeline asked.

  “A little. And I do have plenty of vacation days . . . so maybe I should think about it? Would that be—”

  Cat tackled her in a hug, reached out with one hand, and drew Angeline into it, where she stayed, finally letting herself be held by her big sister.

  40

  When Cat Freelances

  TWO WEEKS AFTER OPERATION RED, BLUE, AND VIOLET

  Cat waited for the fireworks to explode and bring the newsroom down to rubble. They’d come close before.

  There really should have been a warning sign on the door. A ribbon or a flashing light or maybe a tiny electric shock, something to alert them when Emmie was inside and Angeline was about to enter or the other way around. They’d both become fixtures in Cat’s newsroom since the completion of Operation Red, Blue, and Violet.

  Today, thankfully, Angeline and Leo were just leaving as Emmie came in to grab the camera to take photos for her latest story. Angeline patted Cat’s shoulder, and Leo fist-bumped Ravi, whose artsy surfer soccer player vibe held its own against Leo. They looked good together, the four of them in front of the table with the ski pole leg, in the first and still only square on Cat’s Instagram. For now, it was the life she had and the one she wanted, and it was enough.

  Emmie smiled softly as she tucked the camera in her backpack and left the newsroom.

  Cat didn’t trust her. She wasn’t sure she ever would.

  When Emmie had first come to Cat, asking to work on the paper, Cat’s gut had told her to say no. But Angeline had given Cat a second chance and vice versa. Was that only okay because they shared the same DNA? Or did everyone deserve a take two?

  Angeline didn’t like Emmie working on the paper, but she’d supported Cat’s decision. Maybe because Angeline actually believed in second chances more than Cat.

  She’d texted their dad. Cat wasn’t ready.

  So now Emmie was a reporter, being schooled by Grady, whom Cat had promoted to assistant editor; he was in charge of all their social media accounts after he did a surprisingly stellar job reporting on the protest, live and in print. While Leo dug deep into every idea that reached Student Council 2.0, a name that had stuck no matter how much it made Angeline itch, Angeline had rebranded her #MoreThanOurParts to the less salacious and more empowering #MoreThan. And she was at Leo’s side when his mom nailed her interview with The Today Show and all but secured her congressional win.

  Still Angeline found time to collaborate with Cat. Testing new online formats, like Instagram-style micro news stories and enhanced articles with links to source material so readers could see the evidence directly. Maybe journalists needed to meet readers halfway and evolve like the press had been doing since its inception. What better place for Cat to experiment than here, in this community she knew so well? And it had the makings of a kick-ass essay for her college applications.

  Cat loved seeing the newsroom bustling again—no, not even again. With Angeline and Leo, Grady and Emmie, and Ravi— Ravi, who was at her side now, drawing letters on her forearm with his index finger, totally distracting her from the story she was editing—it was fuller than it had ever been.

  This semester’s Fit to Print award was long gone, but they gave out another next semester. Cat wouldn’t be able to put it on her Northwestern application, but if she won, it wouldn’t just be hers, it’d be all of theirs.

  Ravi treaded farther down Cat’s arm until the tip of his finger grazed the back of her hand. He flipped it over and traced.

  “Uh, think I’m going to need that,” Cat said, goose bumps erupting under her skin.

  “You’re so greedy. Seriously, isn’t two hands to type overkill?” He continued drawing. “I’ll stop when you guess right.”

  She had so much to do: editing this a
rticle, writing her own, plus homework and cooking dinner because it was her mom’s photography class night, and yet this was a priority too. So she closed her eyes and concentrated.

  “I’d love to go to Boston with you.” She faced him, seeing the book on female journalists of the modern era on the shelf behind him. He’d given it to her on their first date, remembering how she’d lingered on it during her first visit to Harbor Books. “Any exhibit you want.”

  “Whoa, that was just Boston, question mark. The rest of that is wishful thinking.” He pressed his lips against hers. “Find me at the bookstore later? There’s a new beanbag chair that could use some serious breaking in.”

  Cat’s temperature spiked. They’d been “testing” the chairs to find the most comfortable one each night as she helped him close. “Are you sure you can’t stay until the pizza arrives?”

  “Mom’s got chauffeur duty for my sister and brother all afternoon. Bring me a slice.”

  He walked out backward, and Cat inhaled, deep from the diaphragm, to steady herself.

  She returned to Grady’s article on the peer jury system, which was the first thing Student Council 2.0 had acted on. It was scheduled to hold its introductory meeting before Thanksgiving break. She continued her edit until she came to the placeholder Grady had left for a comment from Principal Schwartz.

  She texted him.

  Cat: When are you coming back?

  Grady: Mom’s dropping me off now. Sorry, ortho took forever.

  Grady: Stupid retainers.

  Cat set down her phone, and the smell of cheese and grease wafted into the newsroom. She turned, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose at the flash of green.

  The green sweatshirt, worn by a guy holding a Frank’s Pizza box.

  “Nine fifty,” he said.

  But all Cat could concentrate on was the FRANK’S PIZZA written on the arm of his sweatshirt.

  His lime-green sweatshirt.