A Flicker in the Clarity

by Amy McNamara

  I make a face, then try to erase it before Em sees. I flop on the couch and fantasize about repainting our dark apartment, brightening it up in here. Redecorating sounds way more fun than Ben’s party, but the party’s all Emma’s been talking about. It’s all anyone’s talking about. Ben’s parents are super divorced. Not the amicable shared-custody kind, more like the I-hate-you-so-much-you’ve-ceased-to-exist-for-me kind. Ben treks back and forth between them, and he’s been forgotten by both more than once. When we were younger, he kept clothes at Jack’s, because his parents were always leaving town, each assuming the other had him, leaving Ben locked out.

  He’s getting them back now. Ben’s annual blowout parties are the stuff of legend. At the last one, kids from four different schools showed up. For Emma it’s the best night of the year, a chance to meet new people on her turf, especially new guys.

  “Hmm,” I say, noncommittal.

  “Hmm, what? It’s a solid plan, girl.” She wiggles into a slightly more upright position.

  “And wouldn’t Jack love that.” I’m sarcastic. “If I show up with Theo, I’ll never get him off my case.”

  “Jack,” Emma scoffs. “Who cares what Jack thinks?”

  I do. I think. Why do I?

  “Let it go, Evie. You owe him nothing. Oh my God, you have Theo! So Jack’s jealous. Who cares? Jack’s not your problem anymore. Besides, he’s got Alice, as long as she’ll put up with him.”

  I’m dying to ask her what she means by that last part, but I don’t want to talk about Alice. Not with Em. I’m pretending Alice doesn’t exist.

  “Evie, work with me here. It’s a perfect plan and you know it.”

  “And how do I ask him? No phone, remember?”

  She lets out a huff of frustration. “Jesus. You know where he lives. Go there, obviously. Grab what’s yours!”

  Grab what’s mine. Emma’s preaching against her own philosophy, but I don’t point out the inconsistency, because Ryan dumped her. She gets wiggle room today. Besides, I know how her mind works. This isn’t really about finding a solution to my problem. She thinks if I get Theo to come to the party then I’m guaranteed to go too, and she wants me there. Needs me. I’m not a party person, but she does better with guys when I’m around. It’s like color theory. We’re a complementary color scheme. Opposites on the wheel make each other look better. It’s all about the contrast.

  To be fair, I’d never go to parties if it weren’t for Em, and some of them have been pretty fun.

  “And that’s not weird? Me showing up like that?” I can’t tell if she’s serious or just drunk serious, but she looks pretty locked in on the idea.

  “Not at all.” She shakes her head vehemently. “He lives in a public space. Aren’t you still supposed to go pick out something, some thank you? You pick your gift, then casually ask if Theo’s around. Piece of cake. I’ll go down there with you. Tomorrow, after school, okay? If we don’t go then, it will be too last-minute.”

  She’ll probably flirt with him again.

  As if he can hear my thoughts, Marcel puts his paws on Em’s lap and whimpers pitifully at her until she says yes, then he lumbers up on her, leaning his head into hers and licking her face.

  “Hello, fat weirdo. Ever hear of a toothbrush?” She scratches him behind the ears.

  But I shake my head. “No way. Can’t do it.”

  “You have to! Don’t be such a chicken. He’s obviously totally into you.”

  I press my lips shut tight. I can’t tell her I’m scared I read it all wrong. I can barely think it. It’s too humiliating.

  This is so typical—me worried, her wild. I climb off the couch and flip through the mail. Another official-looking letter from our building owners. I stick it back with the rest of the mail and add it to the pending avalanche on the sideboard.

  I stare at her a second, but it’s clear she’s expecting a response. A commitment.

  “Fine,” I say finally. She doesn’t look like she’s going to forget about this idea anytime soon.

  She yawns huge. “Okay, buzzkill,” she says. “Got more food?”

  “Grapes okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  I push through the swinging door to the kitchen, but the grapes aren’t on the counter where I left them this morning.

  “No grapes,” I shout out to Em. “I’ll find something else.”

  She doesn’t answer.

  I pour us both big glasses of water, grab a packet of spicy seaweed, and head back out. When I step through the swinging door I almost crash into my mom.

  “Whoa!” I say, holding the water high so I don’t douse either of us.

  “Hello, girls. What’s this I hear about a party?” She’s standing there smiling at us both. It’s disconcerting.

  “You scared me!”

  I’m shocked to see her. She’s barefoot, in leggings and a T-shirt, flipping through the mail I just tossed on the sideboard. She looks flushed, like she just woke up or something.

  Emma’s face is rigid and fake-happy. I think she’s trying to look sober, but she’s making it worse, and distractedly petting Marcel on top of it all. He’s going to snap at her if she doesn’t stop. Marcel rejects distracted affection. All or nothing with him.

  “What are you doing home? Are you sick?” I ask.

  A wry smile crosses her face and she looks like she’s about to say something, then changes her mind.

  “Took a vacation day,” she says, pulling her fingers through her hair. “I’ve been lounging in bed like a queen. Napping and reading.”

  She hands me a small stack of postcards and envelopes from various colleges, then sets the rest of the mail, scary letter and all, back on the mountain on the sideboard. I glance at the postcards. My SAT scores attracted a few schools, at least. I test well. It’s the rest of it I find hard. The postcards are all idyllic photos of beautiful students laughing on lush lawns, like college is one big fancy picnic. I drop the stack on the table.

  “You girls have a lot of homework tonight?”

  “Almost none.” Em shoves Marcel off her lap and sits up straight. It looks weird, extra formal. My mom reads Em like a book, and she knows it. She’s panicking that my mom’s onto her, that she’ll tell her parents, or kill the plan to go to Ben’s, or both.

  Marcel flops near the couch with wheezy complaint.

  My mom smiles at us like she’s clueless about Em. I have no idea what’s going on. Before I can think of a way to ask, she says, “We’re low on groceries. Why don’t you girls go out for shakes?”

  No questions about the party. Or Em.

  “It’s my treat. You know I love having you here, Emma.” She eyes Em apologetically. “But I’m pampering myself today and was still looking forward to a hot bath in a quiet house.”

  Em’s off the chair and slipping on her shoes before I can answer.

  My mom pulls a card from her purse and holds it out. I take it, incredulous. She’s definitely been replaced by a clone.

  “Maybe pick up something for dinner too?” she asks. “I was very lazy today and didn’t do any shopping.”

  “Will do.”

  I eye her closely. She looks okay. But something’s up. She’s never home during the day like this. When I was younger I was terrified she’d get sick too. Like my dad. I’d lose her and then be alone in the world.

  When I reach for the card she pulls me in for a quick hug and kisses the top of my head.

  I try not to think about all those legal-looking letters or what would happen to us if she lost her job. It’s just a day off. A worm of worry wiggles through me.

  Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

  EVERYONE’S BUZZING ABOUT BEN’S PARTY ON Saturday. Even in the library. Two quivering and pimpled freshman are stationed at the checkout desk, but they look like they’re using what little muscle mass they have to keep breathing and don’t seem at all likely to ask the people yammering at the top of their lungs in the library to shut the heck up so those of us who are, as Dr. Holmes put it,
tardy on our Investigation can get a little work done.

  Em came in this morning wearing this dusty blue sweater that looks super cute on her. Did she dress up on purpose? She and I are going to see Theo after school, and I’m a little tense.

  I’m contemplating yelling Quiet! when my phone skitters across the carrel, because, hey, what’s one more distraction?

  “Yeah?” I answer, in a whisper I hope is loud enough to remind everyone else that’s what they should be doing.

  “Hey, Evieeee . . . ,” Emma says, dragging my name out into something strange.

  “Can’t talk. In the library,” I hiss.

  “Oh, sorry. But, um, okay, can you do me a favor? Will you go to my locker and see if my wallet’s in there?”

  She’s using her innocent flirt voice, and not for my benefit. This one’s high and thin. Before I can ask what’s wrong she laughs and says, “Um, there’s been a misunderstanding?”

  “Where are you?”

  “It’s totally ridiculous, but I’m in security at Urban.”

  “What?”

  “Can you bring me my wallet?” More laughter.

  I start throwing my stuff in my bag and clear out of the library.

  “Like, now? I think it fell out of my bag in my locker this morning?”

  “Emma . . . ,” I say, checking my phone. “I’m only free another twenty minutes.”

  “Okay, thanks! I’m in the one by Union Square.”

  She laughs, staccato. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. A girly machine gun.

  I rush past Dr. Holmes and Ms. Vax talking in the hall outside his office. I nod a polite hello when I dart by, but he shakes his head at the phone I still have stuck to my face, and Ms. Vax holds up a hand like she’s going to catch me and make me stop avoiding her. I mouth sorry to them both and keep going.

  “It’s a mistake, obviously. I explained it to them already. When I didn’t see my wallet in my bag, I panicked and shoved the shirt in there a second so I could have my hands free to look for it?” Weird breathy laugh. “They’re making me wait here until you can come . . . so I can pay for it?”

  She’s totally stealing. I don’t know why I’m surprised. Something was bound to happen. Emma’s like a kettle, the water gurgling up the spout until it starts to shriek.

  “On my way.”

  I race down the stairs two and three at a time. I have math next. If I run I might make it. I don’t bother checking her locker. Emma doesn’t use a wallet. She’s not that organized. I’ll give her mine.

  Banned

  I DON’T KNOW WHY I’M NERVOUS, it’s not like they caught me, but still, when I walk in the store, my knees feel loose. I find her in the back corner behind the fitting rooms in a dingy office under overbright lights. No hipster sound track in here. Just two bearded dudes in skinny jeans and wool hats, who, when you look a little closer, have this take-no-prisoners hardness in their eyes. They’re saying something about calling the police when I walk in.

  With her dark hair twisted in a topknot and her cherry-red lips, Emma doesn’t look nearly as tough as she’s trying to. I hand her my wallet and stare them down while she rifles through my cash like it’s hers and pays for the contraband. I have four dollars left when she’s done. With one guy in front of us and another in back, they march us up and out through the store under the blatant stares of other shoppers. I’m wondering if they take lessons in how to totally humiliate people when I see Emma’s hand flash out like a mad bird toward a spinning rack of jewelry, then come flying back toward mine to press something sharp against my palm. Feels like a bee sting. I close my fingers around hers, because the whole thing happens in a millisecond, but then it feels like time slows, and my insides turn to liquid.

  “If we see you in this store again, we will call the police,” the smaller of the two says as we near the door.

  “This is such bullshit!” Emma shouts before we’re even out the door. Still holding my hand tight, she does this defiant little skip-stomp thing, like it’s 1980 and she’s a punk-rock rebel kicking her way out of the Chelsea Hotel and not a sixteen-year-old girl who’s just been caught shoplifting in a hipster clothing conglomerate.

  I feel like I’m going to throw up. Whatever Em pressed into my palm is biting my hand. My face is hot and I’m light-headed. The cold air hits me like a slap.

  “AS IF!” Em shouts, gripping my hand harder and rushing us down the wide sidewalk toward Union Square, cackling like a hyena. She looks back toward the store. “BANNED!”

  Like she’s proud.

  “Open up.” She grins, uncurling my panicked, fist-tight fingers from hers. “Let’s see what we got!”

  A small cardboard earring card sits bent on my damp palm with two tiny pale-blue studs glittering on it. I whip my hands back like they’re hot, which I guess in a way they are.

  “Nice!” Emma says, catching them before they fall. She holds up the small square and inspects the earrings she grabbed.

  Correction.

  The earrings she made me grab on the way out.

  “You made me steal those,” I say slowly.

  “Shut up. I’m the one who took ’em. Wasn’t that a total rush?”

  Her coat’s open and her hair is whipping wildly around her face in the arctic wind that rolled in again and has everyone waddling around in jackets as big as down blankets.

  “Quit looking at me like that. You were an innocent bystander. Besides, if they’d seen it, they’d be out here by now!”

  She laughs, then takes my hand again, pulling me along so fast we’re almost running.

  I blink back tears the cold wind is stripping from my eyeballs.

  “Fucking awesome!” she shouts, not noticing the glare she gets from a nanny passing with her charge.

  I’m speechless. My tongue dried up and blew away.

  She breaks away from me and does a little skipping twirl, her arm aloft, curving over her, delicate in a way that reminds me of the ballerina in my old jewelry box after I bent the spring she was on, dooming her to Swan Lake in a wonky oval.

  She laughs again, maniacal. “Oh my GOD! That was so freakin’ close!”

  I laugh then too—it’s the adrenaline—even though this is so not cool. I hate her in this moment and I wish I felt as free.

  “What were you thinking?” I ask, when I finally get a grip. I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and let people push past. “You made me steal something and you owe me fifty bucks.”

  “Oh, Saint Evie,” she says, slowing when she hears the edge in my voice. She rolls her eyes. “Are you sure you’re not Catholic? Jeez. Stop acting like I did something horrible. Do you know how rich that company is?”

  I march up, grab her arm.

  “Listen, Peter Pan—”

  “Ha! Robin Hood, you mean Robin Hood!” she laughs.

  “Whatever.” I look her right in the eyes. “Seriously. What the hell?”

  She makes this face almost like she pities me, like she’s been trying, but I obviously don’t get it, and for a disorienting second I’m swayed.

  “Jesus, Evie,” she says. “You and money. It’s not the most important thing.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I mumble, feeling simultaneously outraged and like a stick in the mud. A lot of people steal. Maybe I’m making it into too big a deal.

  “Come on . . . I even got something for you. . . .”

  Before I can reply to that utterly clarifying information, she unzips the front of her coat and reaches into her shirt, extracting another pair of stud earrings on a card. She hands them to me. Tiny compasses, each with a real spinning hand.

  “Ta-da!” She holds them out to me on her small white palm like a thoughtful gift.

  I’m speechless.

  “Map girl, they’re for you!” she says, like I don’t get it. “Perfect, right?”

  “What else do you have on you?” I stomp my foot on the sidewalk so hard it hurts my jaw. “What if they searched you? Or called the police, or your parents? Emma, what t
he hell?!”

  She blinks at me a second, then pockets the earrings, disappointed.

  “Oh my God, Evie. Jesus. Relax. I know my rights. They can’t randomly search a girl like that. They only had those two guys on duty. They had to find a female clothes-folder person to come sit by the open door while we waited for you to get down here. There are laws and stuff, you know? And they didn’t call my parents. So stop freaking out. I needed a rush, but you’re still the voice of reason. And you saved me, poor Emma the fuckup. You had my back this time. Please, please don’t make this into a thing.”

  I pinch the frozen bridge of my nose.

  “Besides, that shirt was not worth fifty bucks.”

  Her logic.

  “I wanted something new. For Ben’s,” she says, sounding slightly less rebellious.

  I don’t point out that she could have easily bought something new.

  She hops up and down on her tiptoes, renewed by the thought of the party. Apparently I’m not the only one still supercharged with adrenaline.

  We stare at each other a second.

  “I’m missing math,” I say.

  She rolls her eyes. “One class. You’ll live. I have a good feeling, Evie. Things are changing. You’re going to ask Theo, and I’m going to meet someone, and Ben’s will be fu-u-un. . . .”

  She links her arm through mine and turns us back toward school.

  “Mandi says Ben’s dad’s got a new place, some glassy penthouse. A bunch of her LaGuardia friends are coming. Guys too.”

  I’m still speechless.

  She makes this little tsk sound with her mouth. Lowers her chin and looks up at me with those innocent eyes.

  “Evie.” She pats my arm. “Don’t be such a grandma,” she pleads. “Come on. We can’t go to Theo’s with you all in a snit. It was stupid. I’m sorry. I was bored. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

  But she will.

  She will one hundred percent for sure do it again, and I know because I’m looking at her. She isn’t the slightest bit ashamed by what happened. Emma’s high from this, totally flying. She’s out here smashing things and I’m running after her trying to fit it all back together. Her body’s here, walking next to me, but the rest of her is somewhere else, free, dispersed, and thrumming. I can hardly spot her, she’s vibrating so fast.