“I—no, it’s okay.” I’m taken aback, tongue-tied.
“You’ve always been such a treasure,” she says, out of nowhere. “We’ll get to spend some time together. I’m looking forward to that. I’ve missed you. You’re growing up so fast.” She sniffles a little. I want to pull away, but I don’t. My body is tense, though. How long is she going to be here?
All I want to do is get past everything that’s happened. Now I’m going to be reminded of it every day.
That night, upstairs in my room, I close the door and take Shiri’s journal out of my desk drawer. I run a hand over the battered faux-leather cover, but I don’t open it. I could show it to Auntie Mina. Would Shiri have wanted that? I don’t know. It wouldn’t make things normal again. It wouldn’t make Auntie Mina happy again, and it wouldn’t bring Shiri back. And I feel just as powerless. I can’t go back in time and do things differently. I can’t go back and be a better cousin, a better friend. And so what if I’d sent her more emails, called her more often? Would it even have mattered?
I clench my jaw against unshed tears. I can’t answer those questions. She stopped really confiding in me once she left for college; I think she started to change even before that. But I didn’t notice. I don’t think any of us did.
“Oh, I’m writing a paper about the existentialists for my philosophy class,” Shiri said. It was a couple of weeks after she started college. She sounded excited about her classes, upbeat and energetic.
“Yeah?” I moved the phone to my other ear and absentmindedly clicked the computer mouse, scrolling through the photos she’d emailed me from Blackwell Cliffs: her new dorm friends, scenes of the campus, an odd one of Shiri looking pensively out a café window at the autumn leaves, her eyes shaded by a floppy knit hat. “What’s that all about?”
“You’ll read about it in English next year … Existentialists believed we live in an indifferent, uncaring universe. That life is basically meaningless and we’re all essentially alone,” she went on. I wasn’t sure how something that sounded so depressing could get her so charged up. “So I’m going to try to refute that—that we’re not essentially alone, that it IS possible to truly know other human beings. That the universe DOES care—and sometimes it’s even out to get us.”
I can’t prove it, but I’m convinced now that she was talking about underhearing. By then, she’d been living with “that” for nine years.
If I’d been Shiri … if I had Uncle Randall for a father and I’d been underhearing his thoughts for years, totally unable to control it … maybe she had good reason to feel like the universe was out to get her.
On Christmas Day, my mom cooks up her usual huge brunch, complete with pancakes and a mystery-meat casserole. We light up the interfaith tree and open our small presents, and Mom laughs out loud at the bright-pink beaded curtain. In the evening, my dad sips at a beer and falls asleep in the armchair, while Auntie Mina and I cuddle up under a blanket and watch A Christmas Story, drinking hot chocolate and eating popcorn. Shiri loved that movie. It’s almost like she’s there with us, giggling next to us on the couch. It’s almost like old times. Almost.
Auntie Mina’s phone rings late that night, when we’re cleaning up the popcorn mess and rinsing the hot chocolate mugs in the kitchen sink. It’s Uncle Randall. She insists on talking to him and goes into Dad’s study, closing the door on him when he tries to follow. She emerges a few minutes later, her face tear-streaked but set. Dad asks her what happened, but she refuses to talk about it. Exasperated, he goes into the kitchen and bangs dishes around, cleaning up the pots and pans from dinner.
The tension builds over the next few days.
Uncle Randall calls her phone, every day. One morning at breakfast, my dad sets his coffee mug down and asks bluntly, “Why do you keep talking to the man?” He fixes her in a steady gaze, a muscle working in his jaw.
Auntie Mina shifts a little, not quite meeting Dad’s eyes. “He’s just trying to help me get my resignation paperwork done. I have some unused sick days that they owe me. I should be able to use that money to help out here until I find a teaching job.”
“You know that’s not necessary,” my dad says.
“But we’re very glad you’re following your bliss,” my mom puts in. “And that you won’t be working at the same place as Randall. That was never good for you two.”
“Understatement of the year,” I mumble into my plate. It wasn’t just “not good,” it was stifling. But Uncle Randall saw her quitting as evidence that she’d had this long-term grand plan to leave him. She can’t seem to see how suspicious and vindictive he is.
She claims, even now, that he isn’t still harassing her.
He hasn’t called our home phone or dared to show up in person yet; at least, not that I know of. But he knows Auntie Mina’s here. It’s only a matter of time.
The chocolate-chip cookies are fragrant, golden-brown, and perfect. At least they were when I threw them onto a paper plate and covered them with foil. I’m walking fast, but I know they’re going to be stuck together by the time I get to the Dohertys’ place.
I won’t need to worry about it, though. I’m not staying for the party, no matter what Spike says. I refuse to hang around and make nice with Cassie. Or any of the others—it’s not like they’ve tried to call me. Elisa just gives me this apologetic little look every time we see each other at school, and when I try to say hi, she finds an excuse to run off. Fine.
I walk faster.
Spike, at least, has been more or less his old self. So I’ll make a brief pre-party appearance. I need a break from my house, anyway. Mom and Auntie Mina have been in the living room all day filling out job applications. My dad has been in his office with the door closed, preparing his classes for the spring semester. Mom keeps trying to get him to come out and “be sociable,” but all he says is, “Ah, you guys don’t need me.”
I don’t blame him for feeling useless. Mom’s been a force of nature. She made Auntie Mina an appointment with the counselor; she’s helping with the job applications, the trial separation. And Auntie Mina keeps looking at me with these sad eyes, as if there’s anything I can do other than remind her of what she’s missing.
It’s nice to get some air, even if it’s chilly winter air. It’s almost dusk, and the streetlights are starting to come on. As I hurry past the empty neighborhood park and cross the street to Spike’s house, my phone buzzes.
It’s a text, from Mikaela. Mikaela, who I haven’t seen in the week and a half since our big fight. She did send me a text on Christmas Eve: SORRY I WENT NUCLEAR. HAPPY CORPORATE GIFT-BUYING HOLIDAY. I wasn’t sure how to react. She was so livid at the solstice party, I assumed she didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I sent back a one-word reply—THX—but still, I haven’t been quite ready to forgive and forget.
And now she wants to invite me to a New Year’s Eve party at Cody’s house as if everything’s just fine. Maybe she’s over it, but I’m not sure if I am.
For now, I push her to the back of my mind and knock on Spike’s front door. Mrs. Doherty opens it and almost bowls me over with a big, floral-scented hug.
“Sunny, it’s marvelous to see you. Do I smell cookies? You really didn’t have to bring anything.”
“I’m just sorry I can’t stay,” I say. I even mean it, a little. I wouldn’t mind hanging out if it was just Spike and his parents.
“Did you walk? You sweet girl. Let me get you something to drink.” Mrs. Doherty ushers me into their spacious living area and puts my cookies on the kitchen counter with the other food. The counter, which separates the kitchen from the living room, is covered with dishes of nuts, bowls of chips, vats of dip and salsa, trays of vegetables and cheeses. A huge cooler of sodas is open on the tiled floor next to the counter.
Spike walks in from the backyard, where I can see another cooler of sodas and a scattering of folding chairs set up next to the patio furniture.
“Dude, Mom. It’s like a Costco exploded in here.” He grins at hi
s mother and then wiggles his eyebrows at me. “Hey. You brought more food?”
“Oh, you’re going to complain about that? I can take these yummy, fresh, delicious chocolate-chip cookies back home with me if you don’t want them.” I press my lips together, trying not to smile.
“I never said that.” He heads straight for the plate of cookies and grabs three. “Wanna check out the setup in the back?”
I accept a glass of Coke from Mrs. Doherty and follow Spike out the sliding glass door and into their spacious backyard.
“Welcome to my palace of decadence.” He gestures extravagantly at the hanging strings of white lights illuminating the back patio, the little metal lanterns decorating the raised wooden deck where Mr. Doherty installed a hot tub last year.
I try to look suitably impressed. Inside, though, I’m feeling sad. Not quite nostalgic, but I’ve had some good times here.
I wonder if Spike told his mom why I haven’t been around lately. Maybe she’s talked to my mom. Probably not, though. They used to be on the PTA together when we were kids, but I’m positive they don’t talk much anymore.
Sometimes it seems like the world is full of dead friendships.
I’m not going to let this bother me. I stuff my feelings down, deliberately relax my tense shoulders. Spike’s quiet for once, fixing one of the strings of lights back into place. The backyard is empty except for us, and peaceful. A breeze whirs lightly past my ears, I shiver, and then—faintly—I hear voices:
—going to be SO fun, Spike’s best party yet, can’t wait
to see everyone—
—first party with Elisa and me as a couple—
will she—will we—
—hope this color doesn’t make me look pale—
Elisa. James. Cassie. I shake my head back and forth a little. My breath catches at their excitement, their happiness. The corners of my mouth turn up involuntarily. Then the elation dissipates like water running down a drain, leaving me feeling insignificant and small. My hands clench at my sides. Their happiness—it’s got nothing to do with me.
Obviously they’ve moved on with their lives.
And now it’s my turn.
Spike says something about James’s brother’s band playing during the party, and then he whispers something to me about the “special punch” that Cassie is bringing, but it doesn’t matter. I hear the doorbell ring inside. It’s time for me to go.
I hug Spike on my way out the side gate, surprising him.
“Sure you don’t want to stay?” He cocks his head like a little puppy. “I have it on good authority that the punch contains only the finest generic vodka. And you don’t have to talk to Cassie.”
I shake my head. “I’m supposed to be home.”
I don’t belong here. I know that. Even though, when I look at Spike, I think about all the times I spent here before we met Cassie, and I feel like I’m already home.
It’s the Monday after Winter Break. I drive to school feeling relieved to get out of the house, but I’m also apprehensive because today’s the day I’m determined to talk everything out with Mikaela. We need to settle this. I know I want to. I know she wants to; she sent me enough emails over the break, though all I did in response was text her to say Happy New Year.
She has to know the things she said were unfair.
And I need to know that I can trust her.
My morning classes blur by. The lunch bell rings at the end of fourth period and I’m startled enough to jump. I grab my backpack and grit my teeth.
After buying a diet soda, I walk as calmly as I can toward the back of campus, but my steps start to drag. Maybe she’s going to want to keep fighting about this. It doesn’t matter. I still have to talk to her. And at some point I need to figure out what to do about Cody. He needs to understand that this isn’t just a joke, a trick. That this is serious, and my underhearing is real.
I hitch my backpack up and finger-comb my hair before rounding the corner of the art building. My stomach churns. I step around the back toward the awning.
Everyone’s there. It looks like that first week I started sitting with them, before I broke into their tight-knit little group. Mikaela is standing at one end talking animatedly to Cody. She laughs and thumps him on the head. Cody flips her off. Becca is putting on burgundy lipstick. David is drawing in his sketchbook. Andy and a couple of his friends, dressed nearly identically in concert T-shirts and black jeans, are eating cafeteria pizza.
I stride forward before I lose my nerve. I head for an empty half-spot at the opposite end of the table from Cody and set down my brown paper lunch bag. Becca says hey, and David looks up briefly and smiles. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. Nobody seems to know what happened over the break.
Small favors.
I glance out of the corner of my eye at the other end of the bench. Mikaela looks at me and … doesn’t smile, exactly, but the corners of her mouth twitch into a sort of grimace. Cody just gives me a long, considering look. My hackles rise. I wonder if they’ve been talking about me. Again.
I’m not going to let it get to me. I pull out my sandwich and carrot sticks and start eating. After a few minutes, I catch myself smiling at something Becca says. Slowly the tension in my body eases. Mikaela walks to our side of the table to get something out of her messenger bag and says quietly, “Are we okay? You never answered my emails.”
“That depends,” I say. I swallow hard. “Got a few minutes to talk?”
She nods. When I get up a few minutes later and start walking, she grabs her bag and follows me around the corner. The ground is damp from an earlier drizzle, so instead of sitting, we stand awkwardly a few feet from each other.
“So, talk,” she says. “I know you have something to say. You were glaring at me all through lunch.”
“I wasn’t glaring,” I start, my voice croaking a little. I clear my throat. “Look. The last time we … after the party. I was really mad.”
“Well, I was too,” she says, staring over my shoulder at the jasmine. Then she sighs and looks directly at me. “I have to be honest. I was pissed. I felt like you didn’t understand anything about me, even though you have this … you know. Thing. I felt like you should just be able to automatically, like, read my mind and figure it all out, know exactly what to say.”
I open my mouth, then close it again.
“I know that’s not true; you told me how it worked. But that’s the thing!” she bursts out, starting to pace back and forth. “You told me all this stuff about—you know. And it was hard to deal with. I freaked out. I couldn’t handle it myself. So I told Cody. But I swear I didn’t know he was going to tell anyone! I didn’t know what to do during that stupid party. I was mad at him, and I was mad at you for running out and leaving me in there. But I’m sorry I yelled at you, okay?”
This is too hard. I don’t know what to say. She’s apologized, but she still sounds mad, and I’m still upset. And I don’t know how to make it better between us.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” I say miserably.
Mikaela lets out a frustrated noise. “No, that’s not it. Don’t think that. I shouldn’t have said anything.” She fidgets restlessly, shifting from foot to foot. “This sucks. It really does.”
She looks at me. Even though she sounds angry, her eyes are pleading, as if she wants to say more but doesn’t know what or how.
I sigh. “What if we just agree to be done fighting? Can we just … decide to be okay?” I’m still mad, but I don’t know what else to do. We’re at a stalemate, but we both regret what happened. We’re both sorry.
“Yeah,” she says. She looks relieved, and the tension in the air seems to dissipate a little. She moves as if to head back to the picnic table. But I still have something I need to say.
“Mikaela, wait.” She stops and turns toward me again. “I didn’t realize I felt that way about Cody. That’s why I didn’t say anything. I didn’t realize you—that you—” I clear my throat. “If you guys are toget
her—I didn’t know.”
She grimaces; waves a hand dismissively. “We’re definitely not together.”
“But—”
“No. Believe me. I’ve tried, but he’s not interested. I think he likes that Rennie chick.” A mixture of feelings roil around in my chest. Relief, hope, disappointment.
She pauses for a minute and her expression grows tense again. I can see she’s trying to force out something difficult, something she’s not sure she wants to say.
“You know, about Cody.” She looks me in the eye. “He’s not evil, even if he does think the sun shines out of his own ass. He really does want to help you with your … power.”
“Uh huh. I was thinking I’d give him a few more weeks of the silent treatment.” We start walking back toward our lunch table.
“Seriously, you should talk to him. He might understand more than you think. He’s got family issues too.” She looks off into the distance again. “And he really is sorry. I know that for a fact because I ripped him a new one after the party.”
I’m surprised. Lord knows he deserved it, but I still don’t know what to think. Mikaela would probably prefer to keep Cody all to herself, if she had the option. If he didn’t have a thing for someone else. Maybe she wouldn’t even be telling me this if she thought there was the remotest possibility of something happening between the two of them.
She’s looking at me expectantly. So I say, “Maybe I will talk to him.” I smile, a little weakly. In reply, she gives me a quick, fierce hug.
“You’ll get through this,” she says. I’m not sure about that, but I can’t help being relieved anyway.
By the time we return to the lunch table, the group is already starting to scatter. Andy and C.J. are heading to the parking lot to try to sneak a cigarette before fifth period. I wander over, trying to look casual. I peer over David’s shoulder at his latest sketch—a surprisingly realistic scene of the group eating lunch—and compliment him. He looks up, startled, and grins, ducking his head shyly. I move down to the table to Cody and try to figure out what to say.
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