Text copyright © 2014 by Patrick Jones.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jones, Patrick, 1961–
Controlled / by Patrick Jones.
pages cm. —(The alternative)
Summary: Rachel Kelly was prepared for a high-stress, over-scheduled junior year filled with AP classes, orchestra, and an unrequited crush but after her troubled cousin Misty moves in and upsets Rachel’s controlled life, Rachel finds herself becoming sympathetic toward Misty.
ISBN 978–1–4677–3902–3 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978–1–4677–4635–9 (eBook)
[1. Cousins—Fiction. 2. Conduct of life—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Personality disorders—Fiction. 6. Family life—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.J7242Con 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013041391
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 – BP – 7/15/14
eISBN: 978-1-4677-4635-9 (pdf)
eISBN: 978-1-4677-7380-5 (ePub)
eISBN: 978-1-4677-7381-2 (mobi)
1
“Rachel, we need to talk.”
I’m barely through the front door, viola case still in hand. But my parents are blocking my path to my bedroom. I follow them into the kitchen.
“Rachel, honey, sit down.” As always, I do as I’m told.
“I have some news about my sister,” Dad says real soft. But the news doesn’t form into words. Dad just sits there and stares at his hands.
Finally, Mom speaks for him. It’s what she does best. “Your Aunt Molly died.”
I’m not sure what I should pretend to feel. Surprise? Sadness? I’ve met Aunt Molly maybe twice. It’s not like I actually knew her. And judging by the little that my parents have said about her, she wasn’t worth knowing. But Dad is working his jaw and not making eye contact. That’s code in our family for I’m upset. I won’t talk about it. But you should care.
“Sorry, Dad,” I say. No points for creativity. But what else do they expect? “How did it happen?” That’s what I’m really feeling: curiosity, like a person driving past a car wreck.
“Does that matter?” His nonanswer is the answer. A drug overdose is my best guess.
“So, we have to go to the funeral?” I prompt. That wasn’t how I was counting on spending my weekend. School starts next week, and I need to be ready. I don’t have time to go all the way up to Hibbing and back.
He sighs. “The funeral will be here, in Woodbury. But it’s not just that. Her daughter—your cousin, Misty—needs a place to live.”
“Wait … what?” Every molecule in my body suddenly screams in fear.
“Your mom and I are going to pick her up tomorrow. She’s moving in.” I wish life had sound effects like a movie. I want thunder.
“Do I have to share my room?” I think of my closet. My bookshelf. The corner where I keep my viola case and my folders full of music. There’s no space for another person.
“She’ll stay in Denise’s room. Denise doesn’t need her own room here while she’s across the country in grad school.” Out East, overachieving, as always.
“But what about when Denise comes home at Thanksgiving?”
Dad sighs again. Why does he sound like he has asthma whenever I even hint at talking back? “We’ll work something out,” he says. “For now, the main thing is to be there for Misty.”
“Honey, we expect your help on this,” adds Mom.
“Misty will go to school with you. She’s actually in the same grade as you.” Even though she’s a year and a half older? That sounds promising. Besides, don’t kids like Misty go to alternative schools, like Rondo in St. Paul?
“I barely know Misty,” I remind Dad. “You never wanted Aunt Molly around.”
“She’s still family,” Dad says. “And she’s only seventeen. She can’t live on her own, and I won’t let her go into foster care. She needs us.”
“For how long?”
“At least until she graduates from high school, so this year and next,” Dad says.
“Oh, you think she’ll graduate?” I snap. Her mom was a dropout. That’s one of the few things I know about her.
“I told her that’s a condition of her living here.” Mom now. “She’s got to stay in school. Rachel, honey, you can help her. You’re a straight-A student. You can set an example.”
“Mom, seriously?” I’ve scheduled out my junior year, and this won’t fit into it. Three AP classes, first-chair viola in orchestra, college visits in the spring, but not this.
“You can at least be a friend to her,” Mom adds. “I’m sure she needs that right now. And I suspect her friends from home haven’t been a good influence.”
I can’t believe this. My parents have always made decisions for me, which is annoying but usually not worth a fight. But this is the first time they’ve picked a friend for me. That’s a new low. “She’s a stranger. You can’t just assign her to me!”
“This is going to be hard on us all,” Dad says. “We’ll all have to adjust to the change.”
I want to shout: I like my school. I like my friends. I like my life. And I don’t like change.
“What happens if it doesn’t work out?” I ask. When’s the last time I asked that question? Third grade, maybe, when Mom told me I was going to learn to play viola?
“It will work out.” Mom’s eyelids flicker like hummingbirds. Just like mine do when I tell a lie.
2
“Do you have something I can wear to the funeral?” Misty asks. She picks at clothes in my closet, wreaking havoc on my system.
“I don’t think we’re the same size.” I’m small, everywhere. She’s big. Not fat but curvy. And we definitely don’t share the same fashion sense. She’s wearing a too-tight, long-sleeve gray tee, even in the August heat. The cheap bracelets covering both arms don’t help.
“Maybe you could look in Denise’s closet. I think she’s a little closer to your size.”
“Really?” Almost everything Misty says sounds like she’s surprised.
“You’re taking her room, why not take her clothes?” I let myself get snide with her, the way I never do with my parents.
She steps away from my closet and I shut the door, fast.
“Could you help me get my stuff from the car?” she asks.
“Sure.” I lead the way outside into a wave of heat.
“So what’s Woodbury High like?”
I still think she should be in Rondo Alternative, but nobody asked my opinion. “Avoid jerks, you’ll be fine,” I answer.
“Everything at my old school sucked, except my friends,” Misty says. “So much d-r-a-m-a. Hey, that’s a sweet ride your dad’s got. Could you drive me back up to Hibbing sometime to visit my friends?”
I look away. “You don’t have a license?” I ask.
“I drove my mom lots of—” s
he starts/stops. “But I couldn’t afford the driving class.”
“Oh.” I don’t ask why she had to drive her mom. I don’t want or need those details.
“You’ll meet my friends soon. They all said they’d come down from the Iron Range to visit me.”
Dad had left the trunk of the new Lexus unlocked. I pop it open. “Sounds good.” Why do I lie to her? Nothing about that sounds good. I don’t need to meet her friends. I already have Dana and Sarah.
When Denise moved to college, her belongings filled two cars. Grad school took a U-Haul. “You take two, and I’ll take two,” Misty says.
Misty, why do the contents of your life fit into four black trash bags? I think as I pull two over-stuffed bags from the trunk.
We take trash bags into the house rather than out to the curb. I’ve entered a backwards world.
3
“Don’t even think about it, Rachel.”
Mom scolds me for reaching into the pocket of my black dress to check my phone. Dana just texted me about setting up an AP Chem study group.
“Be respectful,” my mother hisses.
“Okay, Mom, relax.” Like relaxing is something anyone in our family knows how to do.
I glance at my father. He’s crying. He’s the only one, but it is a small crowd. Just us four standing in the cemetery. I haven’t seen Dad cry since Grandpa died. I haven’t seen Mom cry since … ever? But she’s holding Dad’s hand. For her, that shows a world of feeling.
Today, it’s Misty who wins the prize for giving away the least emotion. Her mom is in a wooden box about to go into the dirt, but Misty is stone-faced. “You okay?” I whisper to her as we wait for the minister to show up. She’s wearing Denise’s clothes—a black dress and, despite the blistering heat, a light sweater.
“Thanks for being here,” Misty says, too loud for the setting.
“I’m sorry Mom wouldn’t let me invite my friends Sarah and Dana to be here,” I whisper.
“She wouldn’t let my friends come from Hibbing either.” She’s so loud; does she know that? When Mom and Dad said no to friends, Misty threw a fit. Yelled. Cursed. But no tears. Just like now. “At least you’re here.”
“Of course I’m here. I’m family.” I try to sound like I mean it. If I had to move three hours away from Dana and Sarah, I’d want someone to tell me a kind lie.
“No, you’re more than that,” she says. “You’re the best friend I’ve got in two hundred miles.” The sun burns my skin. Misty’s sad smile chills me. I wish Dana and Sarah were here.
A car door slams behind us. Finally, the minister. We turn. Then stare.
It’s not just the minister. Three other men are walking this way too.
“What’s he doing here?” Misty spits at my father.
Dad looks unsure of himself. Misty kicks the dirt with Denise’s ill-fitting black shoe. “If he’s here, I’m not!” Misty’s voice is loud enough to raise the dead around us.
Dad reaches out for Misty’s arm, but she’s too fast, too strong, too angry. She runs for the car.
“Misty!” Mom yells.
“Let her go,” Dad whispers.
The three men join us at the grave site. The man in the middle nods at my father. I peer at him out of the corner of my eye. Too-large blue suit. Short red hair. Unshaven face. Flat eyes.
“Dad, who is that?” I whisper.
Dad never looks up. “Misty’s father.”
The minister finally starts reading. Typical valley of death stuff. Dad cries more. I should hug him, but I can’t take my eyes off these three men.
The other two men don’t wear suits. They’re in uniforms. Shined black shoes. Tan shirts and slacks. Hats, which they’ve respectfully removed. The large man in the middle bows his head and raises his rough-looking hands for the prayer. Along with the minister’s voice, I hear the same noise that caught our attention when the men first approached.
It’s the rattling of the prison chains around Misty’s father’s wrists and ankles.
4
“Oh my God, Rach, who is that?” I have no idea why Misty keeps calling me “Rach.”
“Colt Martin,” I answer. Stupid me. If I stop answering to “Rach,” maybe she’ll stop saying it. “And his girlfriend, Shawna Reeves,” I add.
“He is so hot!” Colt is one of the Woodbury’s sun gods. I’m not even in his orbit. I pray Colt can’t hear us from across the Kohl’s store crowded with back-to-school shoppers.
“He’s probably here just to spy in the girl’s dressing rooms. He’s a perv.”
“Oh, but he is fine.” Misty’s face glows despite, or maybe because of, the layers of makeup.
“Yeah, and he knows it. He’s obsessed with himself.”
“I can see why.” She’s almost panting.
“Remember when you asked about what Woodbury High was like? I said it’s okay if you avoid jerks. And Colt is one of the biggest jerks.”
“What did he do to you?”
I shrug. People like Colt don’t even know I exist. Except when they need a target for a joke.
“Name one thing.” Sometimes Misty gets the tone and glare of a school bully.
“Okay. For breast cancer awareness month, Colt offered free hands-on mammograms.”
Why is Misty laughing? Laughing loud enough to draw attention. Probably even Colt’s attention. I frown. “Both of Dana’s grandmothers died of breast cancer. It’s not funny.”
Mom comes up the aisle toward us. “Girls, are we about ready?” She sounds exhausted.
“I didn’t find anything.” I can’t shop with Mom. I need Sarah and Dana’s fashion guidance.
“Misty, what about you?” Can Misty tell from the tone that Mom is angry? Misty turns around with her shopping cart full of clothes. Mom’s mouth twitches.
“We agreed on a certain amount of money.” Agreed means Mom decides.
“I guess I got carried away, Mrs. Kelly. I can put it all back if you want me to.”
I kept telling Misty she was getting too much stuff, but she just laughed. Now she’s acting all humble—but also putting it on my mom, saying “if you want me to.”
“No, but let’s see what you really need.” Mom starts looking through the clothes.
Misty pouts. “I need all of it.”
Mom laughs. “I don’t think you need these.” She pulls a pair of red thong underwear from the cart.
“Yes, I do.” Misty takes the underwear and puts it back in the cart. Right on top.
“I’m not paying for a seventeen-year-old girl to wear thong underwear,” Mom says as I blush.
“Why not? You have the money. Why can’t you spend some on me and not just on Rachel?” Leave me out of it, I think. Yet I can’t help being a little impressed. Nobody ever questions Mom.
“I’ll buy the other things,” Mom says. “I just don’t approve of this.”
“Never mind!” Misty topples the cart. The clank of its metal frame hitting the floor echoes through the aisle. Clothes spill out in a tornado of color.
“Pick that up.” Mom’s voice doesn’t change, of course. She would never yell in public.
“Or else?” Misty folds her arms under big breasts, almost pushing them in Mom’s face.
“Or I’m not buying you any of this.” Mom uses the stern voice that I’ve dreaded all my life.
Misty snorts. “Whatever, Karen, I’ll just steal it later. And don’t tell me what to do ever again.”
For the first time I can remember, Mom is speechless. She stands there with her mouth open, like Misty stole her voice box.
I’m silent too. Not because I have nothing to say but because I don’t dare let out the cheer that’s building inside me. Go, Misty, go!
“Girls, we’re leaving,” Mom says. But it’s pretty clear that Misty just arrived.
5
MISTY TO ME: “What’s up, Rach?”
I sigh. After avoiding it since the day she moved in, I finally friended Misty, and now she’s interrupting my li
fe online as well as at home.
ME TO MISTY: “Nothing.”
Why is she messaging me from the other room? Why does she keep calling me Rach?
I go back to chatting with Dana, Sarah, and—sigh, heartbeat, sigh—Kevin Liu.
MISTY TO ME: “What time do we roll from the crib for school?”
ME TO MISTY: “6:30.” I have orchestra zero hour. I don’t know her schedule.
I minimize Misty. I chew on a nail and ponder what to say next to Kevin. I type, erase, repeat, but don’t hit Send.
“Rachel, honey, time for bed,” Mom says from my doorway.
“Okay, Mom, I’m logging off.” She heads toward the living room, where Misty is using the old desktop.
I take a quick look at Kevin’s page. We’ve got three AP classes and orchestra together. He’s the kind of person who always gets voted Most Likely to Succeed. Not to mention Most Likely to Steal Rachel Kelly’s Heart.
“Misty, I said now,” Mom says from the other room.
I look at Misty’s page and her most recent adds. Sarah. Dana. When did she friend them? Why?
“I won’t tell you again.” Mom cranks it up another decibel. “That’s it!” Two-decibel increase. Now defined as shouting. “Jack, get out here!”
My father stomps by my room. This is going to be a good one. I race for the door to listen.
“Misty, I told you. You need to be in your room and in bed by 11:00 on school nights.”
“Why can’t I have a computer in my room like Rachel?”
“Trust is earned.”
“So you don’t trust me!”
“Misty, honey, we barely know you.” Mom reduces the volume. “Just calm down.”
“Don’t call me honey, Karen, and don’t tell me to calm down!”
“Let’s not wake the neighbors.” Dad sometimes walks angrily or talks harshly, but like Mom, he rarely yells.
“Why? Don’t you want them to know that someone like me is living in your house?”
“Misty, you’re my niece and we want you here. I know this isn’t easy, losing your—”
“I lost all my friends and you won’t let me visit them or let them come here!”
“We want you to settle in here first, and then we’ll visit your friends.”
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