Brilliant

by Rachel Vail

  “Yeah.”

  “You okay with that?”

  The light turned green. “I guess.” I eased out. “Are you?”

  “It’s going to be hard for all of us,” he said. “Especially Mom. But like everything in life, I guess, it’s just temporary. So we all have to…”

  “I know,” I assured him.

  “I’m so proud of you, Quinn,” he said. “You amaze me, how maturely and lovingly you are dealing with all this. Mom and I really appreciate you.”

  I fake-smiled and kept my eyes on the road. I ventured a question at the next stop sign. “Are you mad? At all? At her?”

  “At Mom?” he asked.

  I shrugged and accelerated. “She’s the one who—”

  “No, Quinn. I’m not mad. She’s the one who what? Supported us all these years? Worked in a high-risk industry and didn’t succeed a hundred percent of the time? Why would I be angry at that? Why would you be?”

  “I’m not.” I retreated. “Sorry I asked.”

  “You’ll learn, Quinn, as you grow up, that everything doesn’t always go perfectly. And when—not if, when—it doesn’t, that’s when your humanity is tested.”

  “Fine, okay, I was just asking. I didn’t say I was mad.” I kept my eyes on the road and didn’t ask my other questions, like, What if I want to invite friends over after school, when we’re living at Grandma’s? Would I be allowed? And how awkward, inviting them to my grandparents’ house! Not that I ever really invited people over, but what if I wanted to? What if things went well with Mason, I was thinking (ha, ha, ha, ha, weird thought even to imagine a future with Mason) and we wanted to hang out or, like, mess around after school? Grandma’s living room? With the doilies? Yeah, right. Or the room Uncle David’s old trophies still decorated, that I’d be sharing with both my sisters? Oh, now that’s romantic.

  And what about family time, just our little family? We were just not going to have that anymore?

  But I didn’t say those things. I was mature and loving; I was Zen; I was just what they wanted and expected me to be. My humanity was being tested, and I did not enjoy the implication that I was doing poorly even for a moment on that fricking test.

  I did my best to ignore the dagger I could feel stabbing me through the right eye, after I checked my rearview mirror and saw it wasn’t there.

  By the time we got home, Allison and Mom were screaming at each other. I rolled my eyes at Allison and mumbled that she should just wear something else. “Who cares? Why does it have to be the shredded miniskirt when it’s going to annoy the hell out of Grandma?”

  Why did she always have to antagonize people?

  She flopped into my room, onto my bed, to complain, and I could have killed her. “Allison!” I yelled. “Get out! Okay? I told you to get out and leave me alone! Why do you have to…”

  “To what?”

  “You know exactly.”

  “What? Wear clothes I like? Is that such a horrible crime, Quinn? Just because I don’t dress like a middle-aged housewife?”

  “I don’t think wearing khaki shorts and a white T-shirt and flats is necessarily housewifey!”

  “Well, then you’re an idiot!” she yelled. “You are the most annoying person ever.”

  “Then get out!” I yelled back. “And leave my Sharpie!”

  “It’s mine!” She stomped out of my room with my Sharpie in her hand and slammed my door shut on her way out.

  Whatever, I told myself. I had no right to yell at her for stealing a Sharpie after what I did. I would have to spend my whole life making it up to her.

  I considered, for the thousandth time, coming clean and admitting to her what had happened. It was just wrong to carry around a lie as I was doing. On the other hand, telling her would only hurt her. She was finally feeling good about herself, after years of definitely not. She had tried to do a modeling thing, which didn’t work out. She did get a callback, but since she refuses to talk about what happened when she went for her appointment, it’s obvious she was rejected pretty terribly. That kind of thing would have sent her into a pit of despair not long ago, but she has sort of come into herself lately, or anyway, that’s what I heard Dad saying to Mom the other night, proudly. So the last thing I needed to do was smash her bud of self-esteem. I have been her protector since she was born. Even if it is me I am protecting her from, I would never want to hurt her.

  First choice would be to erase what happened with Tyler, of course.

  Since that wasn’t an option, I’d just have to not unburden myself at her expense. I was in control of that, at least, and it was the least I could do for her.

  I just wished she’d make it easier to be nice to her. And stop saying the word Tyler to me. It’s going to be such fun sharing a room with her, I thought, and with Phoebe, too, who, okay, is sweet, but right then I hated her anyway.

  I hated everybody right then. Including me.

  I flopped down on my bed and checked my phone.

  Nothing, no messages at all, including nothing from Oliver. Still. Which, fine.

  I opened my computer.

  No emails from him or from Mason, either, which was also fine. Didn’t expect any, since I hadn’t even given them my email address.

  None from Tyler, either. Thank goodness. The internet is such a time sink anyway. I shut my computer and vowed again not to think about that. I changed into some jean shorts, a black T-shirt, and my old high-top Chuck Taylors. And some lip gloss and black eyeliner. Who’s a housewife? Not me. I spent all last night making out with Mason Foley, thank you very much.

  In the car on the way across town, Allison insisted on having her earbuds in and the volume up, which was so annoying. And Phoebe texted her billion friends, giggling softly when they made whatever witty comments. Texting is so ridiculous. I watched the trees fly backward into the past and dreaded the day, dreaded the future of sharing a room with these two girls I would never befriend if they were in my grade, dreaded the polite smiles I would be forced to force for the next few hours.

  And I eavesdropped on my parents as they discussed how right they were to reject the one offensively low offer that was made on our house.

  “There will be other offers,” Dad said quietly. “We’ll do the rest of the work she recommended, we’ll hire the whatever, we’ll have another open house. It’ll work out. And if we have to move out to sell it properly, okay.”

  “I swear I’d rather burn that house to the ground than sell it for that chump change.” Mom shook her head. “Lisa Lenox. That entitled little—”

  “Claire,” Dad said, and glanced in the rearview at us. I pretended to be lost in thought, staring out the window. What a fun day this is going to be, I thought.

  It was even worse than I anticipated.

  Grandpa was all bellowy annoying humor, slapping willowy Dad on the back, calling each of us his special nicknames and holding our faces as he kissed us to ensure we couldn’t escape. Grandma, on the other hand, smiled her tight smile and checked us each out, including Allison’s slashed little miniskirt. Mom said, “Don’t even start with her; do me a favor, Mom.”

  Grandma said, “Did I say one word?”

  And then we went inside to have lunch.

  Grandpa started off by offering Dad a Scotch, which he said no, thanks to, but that didn’t bother Grandpa a bit. Dad took his glass of Scotch and followed Grandpa reluctantly into the living room.

  Mom stayed behind to help Grandma unload what we’d brought and add it to what she had prepared. There was a plate out on the counter, “For the girls to snack on,” Grandma said. There were two slices of cheese and three crackers on the plate, and about six or seven potato chips. There was also a strawberry, sliced in half. My sisters and I stared at the plate, doing the math in our heads.

  “If you finish that, there’s more,” Grandma said, generously.

  Allison took all the chips.

  “What?” she said when I glared at her. “We need more chips, Grandma.”

&
nbsp; “All out already?” Grandma asked.

  “Imagine that,” Allison mumbled, and stuck her earbuds back in as she slumped down at the kitchen table to munch her chips.

  Phoebe took one slice of cheese and balanced it on a cracker. I did the same. Grandma, bag of chips in hand, remarked, “Hungry girls.” And placed five more potato chips on the plate.

  I caught Mom rolling her eyes as she peeled a carrot at the sink, the shreds of carrot skin falling gracefully, like spent confetti onto a paper towel.

  Grandma said we could help ourselves to juice if we liked. I poured myself and Phoebe each half a glass of orange juice from the cracked ceramic pitcher she’d put out. The juice was warm. I was just going to cope, but Phoebe asked sweetly, cloyingly, “Okay if we take ice, Grandma?”

  Grandma nodded. “Of course.”

  I was next to the freezer, so I got us each a cube. They were a little brownish. I tried not to notice. Grandma and Grandpa are not poor; they are very comfortable, in fact. They owned their own contracting business. They just didn’t like to be showy. They’d both grown up working-class and talked often about “showy” people, people who bought multiple pairs of shoes at a time, people who thought the opposite of new was bad.

  People like—it was hard to avoid the obvious—us.

  As much as I might agree about the grossness of our materialistic culture, dingy ice cubes? Seriously?

  Over lunch Grandpa jovially regaled us with many stories of businesspeople he knew who had screwed up even worse than Mom had. Mort Cohen had apparently embezzled funds from his hit-man brother-in-law and hadn’t been seen in months. This one fellow who used to own the shop over in Pelham with the die-cut somethings had invested all his money in Betamax technology back in the 1980s, so he and his wife and four fat kids ended up living in a trailer someplace in Florida, and not the nice area of Florida—and this other fellow had shoveled all his money into a retirement fund that turned out to be a big nothing, and that guy, in his shame, tried to kill himself by jumping out the window of his office and only managed to break his nose. Not even a concussion.

  “So you think you did bad, honey?” he said to Mom. “You’re small potatoes.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Mom said, cutting her quiche into molecule-sized pieces.

  Meanwhile I was trying not to gag from the disgusting juice it was getting harder and harder to swallow.

  “Enough,” Grandma said to Grandpa.

  Grandpa refilled his and my father’s Scotches and we cleared the table.

  I didn’t hear what Grandma muttered about Allison and her hair or her clothes or her attitude or her cell phone that did doorbell chimes and then “Yankee Doodle” in an endless loop throughout the lovely lunch, but I gathered that it was not complimentary. Allison managed to hear her, though, despite the blasting music that was bleeding out of her ears loudly enough for the rest of us to sing along to. She yanked the earbuds out and said, “You know what, Grandma? I know you think I am impossible and ugly, but honestly? You have no idea, and you’re old and nasty, and I don’t care.”

  And then she stormed to the front door, flung it open, and galumphed down the steps and across the flower bed, the yard, the other row of flowers, and out to the sidewalk.

  “That’s how you allow her to talk?” Grandma asked Mom.

  “Mom, please,” Mom said. “Could you not—”

  “Do you want me to go after her?” I asked, my jaw gripped tight. I wanted to smash Allison in the teeth, but to be honest I could also happily have taken a swing at my grandmother, to knock her muttering smugness right across the foyer.

  “No,” Mom said. “Thanks, Quinn. You’re so good.”

  “I’ll clear the glasses,” Phoebe said quietly, disappearing quickly, the weasel. One small machine gun in my hand at that moment and the whole family’d be full of holes. Especially when the men emerged, looking slightly off balance and clueless.

  “Did Back Alley go out for a walk?” Grandpa asked. “Should we all go?”

  “Dad,” Mom seethed, checking her buzzing BlackBerry. “Could you please stop trying to be helpful? It is backfiring.”

  “You’re setting quite an example there, Claire,” he said. “You’re like one of the kids, your face always lit by a screen.”

  “Dad, I…” she said without lifting her eyes from whatever urgent message she was reading.

  What? I was thinking. The cops are on their way to handcuff you? Maybe they could bring some reporters and photographers. Because my life is not deep enough in the toilet after all you’ve done, Mom. The thoughts startled me. Was I mad at Mom? No, I corrected myself silently. It’s Allison’s fault. And maybe Grandma’s. Not Mom’s.

  “Maybe we should talk about where the girls are going to sleep,” Dad said, his words slightly slurred. Dad was not a drinker, and his half a glass of Scotch had clearly gone right to his head.

  “Jed,” Mom said, and passed him her BlackBerry.

  “What?” he asked, not noticing. “I was just, woo…”

  Mom took his Scotch and downed the rest of his drink in a gulp. I stared at her. I didn’t know if I was more surprised by her ease with the Scotch or the continuing vehemence of my anger at her. You gonna get drunk now, Mom? I heard myself think. On top of everything you are now going to start drinking, too?

  “Did somebody take my soup cubes?” Grandma called from the kitchen.

  “Mom, for goodness’ sake, nobody stole your damn soup, okay?” Mom yelled. “How hard do you want to make this on us?”

  “She’ll meet us at home?” Dad asked Mom. “Is she nuts? It’s about nine miles.”

  Mom shrugged and shook her head. “I can’t…What do you suggest, Jed? How many things can I…At least she texted me, right? I am trying to focus on…What?” she demanded of Grandma, who was standing in front of us, her lips pursed, holding out the ice cube tray I had taken four ice cubes out of earlier.

  “What?” Mom asked her again. “The kids used ice? Mom, what? They can’t have ice? Fine. No ice, kids. Damn it, Mom. Don’t torture me. Don’t…don’t be all passive-aggressive; I can’t stand it! We’ll find another plan. If you don’t want us to move in with you, I don’t know why you offered.”

  “It’s not ice,” Grandma said. “It’s soup. It’s frozen chicken soup.”

  I had just taken my final gulp of orange juice in an attempt to keep from blurting out what a jerk I thought everybody was. As a result, I had a mouthful of orange juice/thawed soup. With my tongue I felt a chunk, which, I realized, was not superthick pulp but rather a stewed onion or maybe a piece of celery or turnip or chicken thigh. The explosion of juice/soup out of my mouth all over Grandma’s foyer carpet was a shock to us all, though, in my opinion, completely justified.

  Grandpa, for one, thought it was hilarious.

  We left a bit earlier than planned, Mom clenching her teeth, me and Phoebe and Dad all a bit green, and Allison on a long, pissy hike across town, during which she texted me and confided that she was actually going to Tyler Moss’s house, and if I wanted I could meet her there; she’d really appreciate that.

  Sure. As if that were even a possibility. What fun. I turned off my phone.

  15

  I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING absolutely, resolutely cheerful.

  Adamantly cheerful.

  I was so damned cheerful, any negativity that dared encroach on my space would get punched in the nose. That’s how fricking cheerful I felt.

  I didn’t know if I’d had a dream or what, but my eyes popped wide open at five fifty-five, which I took as a good omen because five is my lucky number, and I knew what I had to do:

  I had to be my very best self. It was so obvious I spared three seconds wondering why I hadn’t seen it before. But then I moved on. Because I was cheerful!

  I just needed to be my best self. Isn’t that what everybody always advises? I think it was Gandhi who said we are more afraid of our power than of our powerlessness, or something like that. And Gandhi is my freaki
ng hero! Here I’d been sinking into gritted-teeth annoyance and petty resentments, fearing—no, dreading—my powerlessness: losing my home, losing my image of Mom, losing my grip on myself as a good and moral and gifted person. But I was just looking at everything the wrong way, which was why I had been acting so badly, doing such flesh-crawling stuff as kissing two boys. Obviously!

  I smiled and got up, brushed my teeth a double round, and then got into the shower, where I lathered, rinsed, and repeated. Vigorously. All while thinking, Life will throw at me what it will. But meanwhile I will hold my head up. I will remember who I am, who we are. We are the Avery family. I am Quinn Avery. I have a piano recital to practice for, and tests to ace, and disadvantaged children to influence positively. I have my eyes set on the horizon of the Ivy League, possibly Harvard, but Yale or Brown would also be good choices for me, and all it will take is hard work, nailing the SATs and ACTs and SAT IIs, which is just a matter of working on it, no problem, and then I just have to manage an excellent audition tape to submit along with my applications, which I am already working on.

  Good, water off. And about paying for college? That should not be a problem, really, I realized as I towel-dried my hair. Dad worked his way through college. Mom was proud of never having asked for spending money from her parents. I didn’t need them to provide everything for me on a silver platter. I didn’t even want them to. And I had an easy way to make some cash—trumpeters and cellists and even, yes, oboists like Jelly always have to pay pianists to practice with them and accompany them to auditions, even for stuff like when they try out, in September, for all-state and all-county band and orchestra. So that would be quick and easy money. And fun, too! I was getting more cheerful by the moment!

  So there were no problems ahead, with the possible exception that I was starting to levitate, I was so heliumified. But I wasn’t even worried about that. The day, the sky, my future—all were bright and clear. Things were better than ever, actually.

  I even made out with Mason Foley, I thought as I whipped my hair back into a tight ponytail. He’ll be in college next year. Maybe we’ll hook up again soon and we’ll end up falling in love and I will visit him wherever it is he’s going to college, and maybe I’ll apply there, too; no need to be a snob—the Ivy League is not the only game in town. There are tons of good schools, and getting a good education is mostly about attitude and your own aptitude anyway. Maybe Mason is actually very artistic and intelligent, not just deadly hot, and all the people who misjudge him will realize he wasn’t a male slut or whatever Oliver was warning me against; he was just searching for me all this time, and his untapped inner depths will come out to join his outer stunningness, and we will live happily and brilliantly ever after.