I let her hug me.
“You look so grown-up,” she murmurs. “When did that happen?”
When you were stuck in concrete, I think. I’ve aged ten years in the past six weeks. But I tell her, “It’s just the dress.”
Then I hear my father’s voice behind me, and I’m glad because it gives me an excuse to turn around.
“Wow.” My dad pats my shoulder, over and over. “Just … wow.”
“You liked it?”
He nods.
“Really?”
“I loved it,” he says firmly. To my mother he says, “Hello, Fran.”
“Hello, David.”
They do a weird, polite cheek kiss thing.
It’s awkward for a moment. Then my dad says something that kills me. “She looked like you up there.”
“You think so?” my mother says.
“Spitting image.”
It’s good to see my mom smile, but then Regina has to go and ruin it. “Where’s your wife, Dave-O?” she says. “Is it past her bedtime?”
“She’s home with the baby,” my dad says, ignoring the barb. He looks at his watch. “I should be getting back … Anna? You coming with me?”
I remind him that I’m sleeping at Sarabeth’s tonight. Her mom will drop me off in the morning. “Thanks, Dad,” I tell him, “for coming.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it,” he says, and squeezes my arm.
After he leaves, Mr. Pfaff appears out of nowhere. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him in jeans.
“Anna … you were great.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“Really great. I didn’t know you could sing.”
I shrug. There’s a lot Mr. Pfaff doesn’t know about me.
I am trying to think of a way to free myself from this conversation when I notice Mr. Pfaff noticing my mom. I am ever so slightly horrified when he says, “Frannie?… Frannie Whipple?”
My mother looks at him. “I’m sorry. Do I—”
“Peter.” He points to his chest. “Pfaffenbichler … Staples High School? Inklings?”
Something clicks into place and my mom’s mouth drops open. “Oh my God.” To Regina she explains, “Pete and I worked on the school newspaper together, a hundred years ago.” They go through the whole how-long-have-you-lived-here, how-did-we-not-know-this routine, and then Mr. Pfaff says, “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“You have.” She grabs hold of his goatee. “What’s this?”
His face turns pink.
My mom smiles. “I like it.”
“You do?”
“I do. You look like a journalist.”
Now he’s smiling, too. Wait—are they flirting? Please tell me that my mother and my English teacher are not sharing a moment. This is too Twilight Zone for words.
Luckily, Shawna grabs my arm and drags me away. “He did it,” she says.
“Who did what?”
“Mr. Winters. He gave me three days’ detention for saying damn.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “We’ll do it with you.”
“I’m not worried.” Shawna laughs. “I don’t even care! My dad will be pissed because I’m making him look bad, and he and my mom will have a huge fight about whether or not to ground me, but since he didn’t come tonight, he won’t know until Winters calls him—”
“Your dad didn’t come?”
Shawna snorts. “Ha!”
“Why ha?”
“Are you kidding? It’s my mom’s weekend. My parents can’t be in the same room for more than five minutes or they start throwing things.”
I nod. “Rough.” It occurs to me that my parents did pretty well tonight, considering. Maybe it’s because Marnie didn’t come. Maybe it’s because my mom is actually taking her medicine. It doesn’t really matter what the reason is. I’m just glad, in a weird way, that they were both here.
“Whatever,” Shawna says. “I don’t care if my dad’s mad. It was worth it. This is the best night of my life!… Come on.” She grabs my hand. “Let’s go find Sarabeth.”
* * *
She looked like you up there. You think so? Spitting image.
All night at Sarabeth’s house, the words whisper in my head. It’s the nicest thing my father has said to my mother in a long time. He made her smile tonight, and I don’t know why, but it feels like a good omen.
The three of us lie on the floor in Sarabeth’s basement, eating popcorn and talking. About everything. Teachers we like. Teachers we can’t stand. Boys we’d kiss. Boys we wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. We have a heated discussion about whether the boys who were mean in elementary school could eventually become nice boyfriends.
“Everyone’s capable of change,” Sarabeth says.
“No way,” Shawna says. “Once a jackass, always a jackass.”
“What about Inspector Gustav, from Hugo?” I say. “He’s the ultimate jackass until he falls in love.”
“Or Snape, from Harry Potter,” Sarabeth chimes in. “Everyone thinks he’s bad, but really, he’s just heartbroken.”
“Or Mr. Pfaff—” Shawna says.
I whack her with a pillow.
“Hey!” Shawna whacks me back. “He could be the best boyfriend ever, you don’t know. He could be your mom’s true love.”
I stare at her. “I don’t want my mom to have a boyfriend.”
“Why not?”
“I want her to focus on getting well.”
Sarabeth smiles. “Maybe Mr. Pfaff is the best medicine.”
“Please,” I snort.
“He can read Shakespeare to her,” Shawna says. “He can recite sonnets.”
“Any day now,” I say, “you’ll shut up about Mr. Pfaff and my mom.”
Shawna smiles wider.
Sarabeth giggles.
I whack them both with a pillow. “I will never. Tell you guys. Anything. Again.”
“Sure you will,” Shawna says.
“You love us,” Sarabeth says.
When Sarabeth turns out the lights and our voices fade into silence, I lie there in the dark thinking, I love these freaks.
Maybe Sarabeth is right after all. Maybe everyone is capable of change.
CHAPTER
22
MARNIE AND MY FATHER are both in the kitchen when Mrs. Mueller drops me off. Jane is in her high chair, gumming on a teething biscuit.
“How was your sleepover?” my dad says, giving me a clap on the back.
“Fine,” I say.
“I heard you were amazing last night,” Marnie says. She turns to my dad. “What was that word you used, honey? Radiant?”
“Luminous.”
Marnie’s head bobs up and down. “Luminous … that’s right … well, I’m sorry I missed it, Anna. I hope someone took video.”
“Mrs. Mueller did,” I say.
“Great! Will you ask her to email it to me?”
“Uh … sure.”
“Marnie’s muffins were very popular, by the way,” my dad says.
“What?”
“The muffins she baked. For the concession stand.”
Right. I forgot about Marnie’s muffins because she didn’t come to the talent show. My dad delivered them for her.
“Everyone was raving.” My dad puts his arm around Marnie. She looks at him. He squeezes her shoulders.
I’m getting a weird vibe here. I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel like I’m watching a play.
“We should celebrate!” my dad suddenly exclaims. He whips around to the refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of sparkling cider. “Martinelli’s apple-pear … Rhode Island’s finest!”
That’s when it hits me: I’ve heard these lines before.
It’s like a sucker punch, the feeling. I close my eyes. Fine, I think. It’s going to be fine.
“You okay, kiddo?” my father asks.
I nod.
Marnie is opening the cabinet, taking down wine glasses.
Of course, I think. The puking. The raw chicken … First we�
�re going to toast the talent show, and then they’re going to tell me she’s pregnant.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I blurt.
My dad smiles and pops off the top. “Can you give us a minute?”
I nod dumbly. I watch him pour the cider. I take the glass he offers me.
Just rip off the Band-Aid, I think. One baby, two babies, does it really matter? I was never going to live here permanently; it was just a place to sleep while my mother was in the hospital. Soon we’ll be back to Wednesday nights and every other weekend. So why do I feel so sad?
“A toast,” my father says, raising his glass. “To my beautiful, talented daughter.”
“Hear, hear,” Marnie says.
We clink glasses.
“I’m proud of you, Anna,” my dad says. “I know this hasn’t been an easy time for you—”
“It’s been fine,” I murmur. “I’m fine.”
“You’re better than fine,” Marnie says. “You’re great. You’ve been a huge help to me—especially these past few weeks…”
“I really have to go to the bathroom,” I choke out. I turn and run out of the kitchen.
“Anna?” my dad calls after me. “You okay?”
“Fine!” I manage to call back. “Just give me a few minutes!” And I sprint, as fast as I can, through the house and out the front door.
* * *
There is only one place I want to be right now, and that is in my own bed, in my own house, and I won’t stop pedaling until I get there.
The key is where it always is, under the loose brick on the patio. You have to wiggle the knob to open the front door. I haven’t forgotten.
I step inside, smell my house smell, see the funky antique hat rack and the gray flannel couch and the framed picture of the three dancing cats on the wall, and immediately start sobbing. I sob and sob, like a little kid. Tears, tears, tears—and it’s not just about another baby. It’s about everything. All the old hurts that led me to this point. I run upstairs and fling myself down on my bed and cry, thinking, Why did my dad leave? Why weren’t we enough? And when I’m all cried out, I close my eyes and sleep.
* * *
I don’t know how it happens, but when I wake up, my mother is sitting on the edge of my bed.
“Hey,” she says softly. “I thought I might find you here.”
Just seeing her face makes me cry all over. She puts her arms around me and doesn’t say a word.
“Marnie’s pregnant,” I say finally, mopping my face with my sleeve. “Again.”
“She is?”
I nod.
“Your father didn’t mention that.”
“You talked to Dad?”
“He was worried about you. He didn’t know where you went. He said you left to go to the bathroom and you never came back.”
“He didn’t tell you about Marnie?”
“No.”
“They were just about to make the big announcement. They had sparkling cider, just like last time … and I couldn’t … I just had to get out of there.”
My mother nods.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“I’m your mom,” she says, smoothing back the hair from my face. “I’ll always know where to find you.” She sits there, looking all maternal, and it suddenly makes me mad.
I pull away from her.
“Are you…” She folds her hands in her lap. “Do you think you’re ready to come home?”
“Are you?”
“I think so. Yeah. I’m shooting for next weekend. What do you say?”
“I don’t know,” I mumble.
There’s an expression on her face I can’t exactly read. Sadness mixed with disappointment mixed with something else.
“I understand,” she says softly.
“It’s just … you look better now. You’re saying all the right things now … but what happens when we come back here? What happens in a week? What happens in a month? Am I going to wake up in the middle of the night and find you cleaning the kitchen with Q-tips? Or, worse…” I look around the room, throw my arms in the air. “Hanging from a ceiling fan?”
She doesn’t answer at first. I watch her blink and swallow. “What do you want me to do, Anna?”
“I can’t find you like that again. Don’t put me in that position. I can’t be worrying all the time that my mother is going to kill herself.” The words are tumbling out of my mouth like hot coals, burning my tongue. “It’s not my job to worry about you. It’s your job … you’re the parent … you can’t … you need to stay on your medication, because if you go off … you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”
“I know,” she says, looking down at her hands.
I’m sorry, I almost say. I’m sorry I said that. Except I’m not sorry. I meant every word.
“I haven’t been a perfect mother, but I swear, Anna, I’m trying.”
“I know, Mom.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“Will you at least think about what I said?” Her eyes soften as she looks at me. “About moving back?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you.”
I let her hug me for a minute. Then I pull away.
“I should go, though, okay? If Dad’s worried.”
She nods. “I’ll walk you out.”
* * *
By the time I get back, it’s dark, and I hope that my father and Marnie are upstairs in bed. But no such luck. My father is on the porch, sitting on the top step.
Crap, I think, leaning Marnie’s bike against the side of the house. Crap, crap, crap. I walk slowly up the front walk.
“Anna,” my father says.
“Congratulations,” I mumble, but I can’t look at him. I focus my attention on the bottom step.
“Honey, it’s not—”
I hold up my hand. “Please don’t say anything. I figured it out. And I’m sorry I took off, but I just couldn’t—”
“Marnie’s not pregnant.”
I look up. “What?”
“Your mother called. She said you told her Marnie was pregnant. And I’m telling you she’s not.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Marnie’s not pregnant?”
“No.”
“So, what—?”
“She’s starting her own business. That’s what we were going to tell you. Marnie’s Muffins.”
“Marnie’s Muffins,” I repeat.
“Healthy versions of your favorite baked goods. Delivered right to your door.”
“Oh,” I say. “Oh.”
“She said she got the idea from you. From some show you were watching together?”
“Cupcake Wars,” I murmur. I’m still staring at the bottom step.
“Come here,” my father says. He pats the space beside him and I sit. My heart is thudding in my chest. I don’t know if it’s from shock or relief.
We’re quiet for a minute. Both of us looking out at the yard, listening to the stillness.
“I fainted when you were born,” my dad says. “Did I ever tell you that? The second I saw your face, I passed out cold.”
I shake my head. “You never told me.”
“You were so beautiful I couldn’t breathe. Technicolor. Covered in slime … the loudest cry I ever heard … I looked at you and time stopped.”
“Please.”
“It’s true.”
I roll my eyes.
“You can ask your mother,” my dad says. “After I came to, I held you in my arms and I said, My life will never be the same. I’m a dad.”
“Stop it,” I say.
“You think I’m making this up,” my father says. “I’m not. Nothing changes a person more than becoming a parent … You, Anna Sophia Collette, changed everything.”
I look down at my shoes. “I did?”
“You did. And so did Jane. And, if Marnie were to get pregnant again, which she is not, but if she were,
that baby would change everything, too.”
“Well,” I say, trying not to sound like a snotty teenager, “that’ll be great. Then you can give the new baby my room.”
My dad looks at me, frowning. “Who said anything about giving up your room?”
“No one. I just assume, if there’s ever a new baby…”
“Anna. You really think I would kick you out of your room? I told you the day we moved in, that room is yours.”
“Yeah, well, you only have three bedrooms.”
“So?”
“What about Marnie’s business?”
“What about it?”
“Won’t she need a space?”
“She’ll have the kitchen. And she can share my office if she needs to. We’ll manage, okay?”
I nod.
“Okay?” he says again.
“Okay.”
“Come on.” He stands up, turns toward the house. “There are some strange-looking muffins sitting on the kitchen counter. I’ll warm one up for you.”
CHAPTER
23
“HEY, ANNA.”
I turn my head. Ethan Zane is looking at me and it takes a second to realize that he is the one who is talking. To me.
I glance around the English room to see if this is a joke, but no one is laughing. No one is even looking at us except for Dani.
“Hey,” I say.
He squints, reminding me of his superlative in our seventh-grade yearbook: “Class Eyes.” Ethan Zane has chameleon eyes. When he wears green, they are green. When he wears blue, they are blue. They even change in the light. A girl could get hypnotized looking at those eyes.
“Nice job in the talent show,” he says, cocking his head at me like I am some exotic bird he has noticed for the first time, even though we have known each other since kindergarten. Which, come to think of it, is probably the last time he talked to me. Pathetic.
I lift my chin, say, “Thanks.”
“You surprised us up there,” Dani chimes in. “You haven’t been onstage since what—fifth grade?”
“Something like that.” I squint down at the short story Mr. Pfaff photocopied for everyone and asked us to discuss while he talks to someone in the hall. “This is like eight-point font. How are we supposed to read this?”
“I’m trying to give you a compliment, Anna.”
I look up. “Is that what you’re doing?”
“Yes.” Dani is frowning, which I know means she’s annoyed that I’m not giving her 100 percent of my attention. “You were good.”
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