Adriene didn’t strike Skye as Gretchen’s type. For one thing, Adriene seemed like she could actually have a conversation, without constantly scanning her surroundings for people she might need to impress (or gossip about).
Skye had years of experience watching what happened when Gretchen was around, though. Even the most normal-seeming girls would start auditioning for an ensemble role in The Gretchen Show.
Skye avoided making eye contact, but Gretchen walked right over anyway. To her surprise, the two girls already knew each other.
“Hey, Skye. Hey, Adriene,” Gretchen said.
Adriene didn’t seem interested in Gretchen, which was good, except that it activated Gretchen’s radar for threats to her place in the pecking order.
“So, Skye. Are you still at that world peace school, where you call teachers by their first name?”
“Mmm,” Skye replied, though Gretchen had actually mashed up two different schools.
“Wait, really?” Adriene turned to Skye, eyes wide. “That sounds awesome.”
“Yeah. Skye’s mom teaches art,” Gretchen added, trying to up the ante.
“That’s so cool. Like painting? Pottery?”
Once Gretchen realized she could not enlighten Adriene about Skye’s inferior social status, she left to find someone less hopeless across the pool.
“How’d you guys meet?” Skye asked, nodding toward Gretchen’s receding form.
“Our new house is down the block from theirs. They invited our family for dinner to welcome us to the neighborhood.” Adriene rolled her eyes.
“You didn’t like her?”
“I don’t know.” Adriene shrugged. “I just didn’t have that much to say to her.”
“What did you think of her mom?”
“She’s pretty. Their house is pretty, too, I guess,” Adriene said. “I just wasn’t that comfortable there.”
Skye felt something shift inside. She had never really felt comfortable at the Hathaways’ either. She’d just been too busy idolizing Mrs. Hathaway and trying to get in Gretchen’s good graces to realize it might not be her fault she felt that way.
“I wonder where Gretchen learns it,” Adriene said.
“Learns what?”
“That look.” Adriene twisted her face into an exaggerated version of Gretchen’s sneer.
“Maybe there’s a school.”
“Can you imagine?” Adriene laughed.
Could she imagine? There was nothing Skye liked more than attaching “can you imagine” to some weird scenario. It was just hard to find other people who liked it as much as she did. Not everyone obsessively watched Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live, after all.
“They probably have a class on facial expressions,” Skye said. She wagged her finger like a schoolteacher. “No, no, no. How many times have I told you? Both eyebrows up, but just one side of your lip!”
“And one on brainwashing techniques, so they can attract followers,” Adriene added.
They spent the rest of the afternoon laughing as they made up more classes and lesson plans. The next day, Skye invited Adriene over to her house. If anything about her life was going to push Adriene away, she wanted it to happen sooner rather than later. Plus, her mom was in relatively good shape at the time, and who knew how long that would last?
Adriene thought everything about Skye’s house was cool: the drop cloths and easel in the dining room, the coffee table with ceramic high-heeled shoes as legs, the wavy stripes on the staircase risers. As they walked upstairs, Adriene looked over the paintings of baby wrens and chickadees along on the staircase wall.
“These are amazing,” Adriene said.
“Yeah, my mom’s kind of known for those. She sells a lot.”
The way her mom painted them, with a few bold strokes of brightly colored impasto oil, the little birds that looked tiny and vulnerable in the backyard now appeared stout and hardy.
Adriene looked around Skye’s room, taking in the neatly made bed, orderly bookshelf, and little containers for school supplies on her desk.
“So, you’re the organized one,” Adriene said. From anyone else, it would sound like a jab at the rest of the house, but from Adriene it just sounded like an observation. She peered at a photograph on Skye’s dresser.
“You play ice hockey?”
“My grandfather got me into it. He used to be one of the team doctors for the Capitals.”
“I didn’t know girls played,” Adriene said. “That’s neat.”
“Gretchen thinks it’s weird.”
“Of course,” Adriene said, without looking up from the picture. “But if she found out she was good at it, suddenly it wouldn’t be weird anymore.”
The last stop was the back patio. As they reached the sliding glass door, they could see Anne outside, waving around a handheld butane torch as she talked to Flora.
Skye’s mom was pretty, though she hid it well. Her blond hair was chopped short, tucked behind a bandana, and her baggy cotton pants and oversized men’s T-shirt hid her slender figure. She was one of those lucky blondes who could actually get a tan. (Skye had her mom’s height and long legs, but she was pale with red hair and freckles. Under the circumstances, she thought this was a pretty raw deal.)
Flora had on a giant caftan and big plastic hoop earrings, and her prematurely gray hair reached all the way down her back. Though she looked every bit the daffy artist, Flora was actually her mom’s steadiest friend. It was always a good sign when she was around.
Skye slid the door open and brought Adriene outside. After she made the introductions, Adriene asked her mom what she was doing with the torch.
“It’s called flame painting. I use it to put a design on this copper sheet. When I’m done, I’ll bend it into a dome like this.” She picked up the sheet and folded one side under the other. “It’s for the bird feeder. Keeps the squirrels from getting the seed.”
“I am here to make sure she does not do a mistake and burn the house,” Flora said in her thick Portuguese accent.
“I am not going to do a mistake and burn the house!” Anne laughed. Skye liked when her mom laughed. It made her eyes shine.
“Only because I make you be outside!” Flora said, throwing her hands up.
Skye and Adriene hung out with them for a while. Skye’s mom was in funny art teacher mode, and Adriene obviously got a kick out of her. This was better than thinking she was strange, but in Skye’s experience, people who were dazzled by her mom at first often wound up disappointed. Artist Anne Demarest could be irreverent and freewheeling, but at some point, they expected a more mom-like version to come out. Adriene learned pretty quickly that Anne had no other gear, but she liked her anyway, just how she was.
Over the year, Skye had told Adriene things she had never shared with anyone. She even let her know the truth about her dad, that her mom had picked him out of a catalog at a sperm bank. (And not a very detailed catalog. Skye knew three words about her father: “healthy graduate student.”)
“Is your mom a lesbian?” Adriene asked, her eyes wide, apparently thrilled by the idea.
“No. She wanted a baby, but she doesn’t believe in marriage.” Adriene looked disappointed, so Skye added, “She does have some lesbian friends, though.”
“Does she have a boyfriend?”
“Not now. She’s gone out with a few guys, but she never gets really serious with anyone.”
Adriene nodded to signal her understanding, then looked thoughtful for a minute.
“We should call him Don,” she said finally.
“Who?”
“Your dad. Short for ‘donor.’”
So “Don” he became (or sometimes “Don the Mon,” or “Don Juan”—Adriene was still trying to come up with a last name). They joked about him all the time.
By the end of summer, Skye and Adriene were inseparable. When school started, they got together every weekend, and since they lived so close to each other, they sometimes did homework together during the week.<
br />
But one thing kept nagging at her, like a kid tugging on her mom’s skirt: Adriene liked the sitcom, but what would she think of the drama? Skye had hoped she would never find out. There was always the chance her mom’s last rehab visit would be her final rehab visit, right? No such luck, unfortunately.
Skye had not lied to Adriene once in the year since they’d been best friends. As she reached Adriene’s house, she decided that the only thing worse than revealing the truth would be to lie and have Adriene find out later.
* * *
“Get this. My grandmother came over this morning. She’s taking me to Maine tomorrow.” Skye tried to look annoyed, instead of nervous.
“What? No way! Why?” Adriene sounded disappointed.
“So, I haven’t told you this, but my mom is an alcoholic,” Skye said, fiddling with a Japanese eraser on Adriene’s desk. “She’s going into rehab. Gran’s at my house figuring it out right now.”
“Oh my God, really?”
Skye nodded.
“That sucks. My uncle Kostas is an alcoholic, too.”
To Skye’s relief, Adriene looked sympathetic, not scandalized.
“I didn’t think Anne even drank. She never has wine at our house.”
“She’s a binge alcoholic. It’s like an on-off switch,” Skye said, reverting to Gran’s terminology. “She quit cold turkey when she was in her twenties but started drinking again when I was three. Flora’s been sober for thirty years, and she took my mom to Alcoholics Anonymous. That worked for a while, but she’s been relapsing every couple of years. This will be her third time in rehab.”
“At least she quits for a while,” Adriene said with a sigh. “My uncle has never tried to stop. How does your mom act when she’s drinking? Does she get, like, angry?”
Skye hesitated. A month ago, the answer would have been a decisive “no,” but Skye had seen a different side of her mom recently. At first it was directed mostly at impersonal targets, like traffic and politicians. (For some reason, she was especially mad at Newt Gingrich.) In the past week, it had circled closer and closer to home, like a burglar looking for an open window. The night before, the unthinkable happened and her mom had turned on her.
Skye didn’t want to get into that now, though. As a rule, her mom was still mellow to a fault.
“Not really,” she said finally. “You know how she is normally? Sort of out there?”
Adriene nodded.
“She’s like that, but times a hundred. Less bouncy, though. More lazy.”
“I see. I couldn’t imagine her being like my uncle,” Adriene said. “He’s a horrible drunk, screams and throws mugs and plates and stuff.”
“Wait … he throws plates?” To Skye’s surprise, the nervous knot in her stomach was gone, and in its place a giggle was forming.
“Or whatever’s nearby, I guess.”
Skye burst out laughing.
“What?” Adriene demanded, wanting to be in on the joke.
Skye managed to stop laughing just long enough to get a question out.
“Sorry, but isn’t throwing plates a Greek thing?”
“Oh! Yeah. I guess they do it at weddings and stuff in Greece,” Adriene said, still confused.
Then it clicked, and Adriene started laughing, too. Soon she was on her feet, pretending to clean a house. “Don’t mind him, it’s a Greek thing,” she said, waving her hand as she ducked imaginary plates.
Once they squeezed all the humor they could from the scenario, Skye’s mind returned to the original subject.
“Anyway, while my mom’s in rehab, I have to stay with my grandmother in Maine.”
“That probably makes sense,” Adriene said. “What’s it like up there?”
“The house is cool. Really old, up on a cliff. It’s in this place called Haven Point, where everyone knows each other. It’s almost like summer camp. They even have teams, green and blue. Every family is one or the other, and they compete all summer in golf and tennis and stuff. It’s supposedly for the kids, but grown-ups get really into it, too.”
“It sounds fun, at least?” Adriene said.
“I don’t know. I liked it when I was young.” Skye shrugged. For some reason she couldn’t name, her visits in recent years had left a bad taste in her mouth.
“Why doesn’t your mom take you there?”
“She hasn’t been to Haven Point since before I was born. She hates it, says it’s full of ‘elitist hypocrites.’” Skye lifted her fingers in air quotes.
“Does it bug her that you go with your grandmother?”
“Probably.” She shrugged.
Definitely, she thought, as she felt something unpleasant curl inside her.
* * *
The night before, Skye had come home from babysitting to find her mom sitting at the dining room table, drinking from a mug. (As if Skye wouldn’t notice the half-empty bottle of wine on the table.)
“Hi, Mom,” Skye said as she headed toward the staircase.
“So, Skye, Gran’s coming in the morning to take you to Haven Point,” her mom slurred. Her voice had a nasty edge.
Skye’s stomach pitched, as shame and disappointment warred inside her.
Gran knows.
Skye had a million questions, but she continued toward the staircase without asking them. She knew better than to try to talk to her mom when she was drunk, never mind drunk and angry.
But Anne was not finished.
“Poor Skye. Couldn’t take care of herself. Had to call your grandma, didn’t you?” The last words ran together—hadtocallyourgrammadinyou—but the mockery was unmistakable.
“What?” Skye spun around to see her mother openly sneering at her.
“And now you get to go to Haven Point to be with all the pretty people,” she jeered.
Skye felt a terrible tightness in her chest, like something had grabbed hold of her heart. She clenched her jaw and continued up the stairs, determined not to let her mother know she’d gotten to her. She closed her bedroom door, dragged a wastebasket to her bed, and sat down, head between her knees, thinking she might throw up.
When the wave of nausea finally passed, her mother’s words echoed in her mind. It was all so bizarre, so twisted. Skye had spent weeks trying to avoid going to Maine, and now this was supposedly what she secretly wanted? Skye only went to Haven Point when her mom was in rehab. She’d never once asked to go.
And I need Gran to take care of me? What a joke. Skye’s mom was hopeless on the best of days. Schedules, forms, three balanced meals a day—all the stuff other moms worried about, Skye always had to handle on her own. Gran might help with ways to work around her mom’s shortcomings, but ultimately Skye had to take care of herself.
It was so ludicrous she might have laughed, but it was too sickening to be funny. Skye thought she had built sturdy walls around herself to protect her from what was going on at home. Now she realized her fortress had been nothing but a bubble. And with just a few snarling, slurring words from her mother, it had burst.
CHAPTER TWO
October 1944
Walter Reed Army Medical Center,
Washington, D.C.
MAREN
As usual, there were three hours of work left and two hours in which to do it. Maren smiled as she watched Dorothy imperiously demand compliance from a soldier who refused to turn away from the wall so she could change his bandages.
“Listen, Corporal Hines. I know you’ve had it rough, but we must get to this at some point.”
The soldier had come by his nasty mood rather honestly. He had left an arm behind in France, and under the bandages, the right side of his face was badly disfigured. He had no right ear to speak of.
His attitude was not uncommon on the amputee ward. After a time, the soldiers moved on to convalescence, a more hopeful place where they were fitted for prosthetics and learned to adapt. But here, still recovering from surgery and new to their loss of limb, their spirits suffered.
Dorothy didn’t give eve
ryone the “dowager duchess treatment,” as Maren called this particular tactic. But Dorothy, who could read a soldier’s emotions like they were running across his forehead on a ticker tape, adapted her approach accordingly.
Corporal Hines scowled, but compelled by her tone, he finally turned over.
“Thank you, Corporal. Much better,” Dorothy said in a cheerier voice as she shot Maren a look of amused relief.
Though Maren’s patient was also badly wounded, he gave her less trouble than Dorothy’s, as he was in a drug-induced slumber. She worked furiously anyway, conscious of the endless row of soldiers awaiting attention. As she was about to finish, she heard footsteps approaching their corner of the ward.
“Hello, Dorothy.” Maren turned to see a doctor addressing her friend. He was young, probably no older than thirty, tall, and thin, with well-defined cheekbones and large dark eyes framed by thick lashes.
“Oliver! Oh dear, I mean, Dr. Demarest,” Dorothy said with a little laugh. “How are you?”
“Very well, thank you. I suspected I’d run into you before long.” He gestured toward Corporal Hines. “Will you introduce me to your friend?”
“Corporal Hines, this is Dr. Demarest. See? I promised you would get the very best care here at Walter Reed, and here’s my proof. I’ve known Dr. Demarest almost all my life. He is the best doctor there is.” Dorothy’s tone carried its usual note of conviction.
Maren returned to the bandages, but after a moment snuck another glance. She had never seen the doctor before, but that was not unusual. Walter Reed was enormous, with multiple wards. Even after several months, she was still meeting new doctors and nurses daily.
Dorothy ceded her spot at the soldier’s bedside to Dr. Demarest and moved to her next patient.
“Doc, I feel so much pain there.” The soldier pointed to where his amputated arm had been.
“It is unfair, isn’t it? To lose your arm, then experience pain where it was? Phantom pain is unfortunately quite common. It is also generally temporary.” His tone was formal but sympathetic.
Haven Point Page 2
