It Started with Goodbye

by Christina June

  “Yes.” She turned to Hunter and put her hands up in front of her chest, gesturing wildly. “Hunter. Tatum just launched a graphic design business. You have an event that requires advertising. Tatum could make a poster for Sol Jam. Her work is fabulous!” Abby had put on her “I want to sell you something” voice that I knew she had to use when convincing local businesses to buy ad space in the school paper.

  Hunter studied me for a moment, beads of sweat forming at his hairline. “That could be cool.” He moved on to the last of the honeysuckle, and Abby and I followed. We clipped for a solid six or seven minutes before he spoke again. “Do you have a card or something?”

  “Yeah, in my car.” I pointed back toward the parking lot.

  “Cool,” he repeated. “I’ll check with my buddies. Even if the property owner, Owen, doesn’t want to advertise, I’m sure making something up for just our band and our fans would be okay.” I was a little impressed that Hunter’s band had actual fans. “I’ll let you know, okay?”

  “Definitely.”

  Behind him, Abby squeeed silently. I rolled my eyes at her and grinned. By the time we finished for the day, the last of the honeysuckle had been packed tightly into the plastic bags, all three of us had sweated through our shirts, and I was still grinning.

  While bringing the full bags to Alicia’s flatbed truck for disposal, Abby smacked me on the arm again. “I have an even better idea!”

  “Better?” I asked. “How is that possible? And why do each of your ideas involve hitting me?” I smirked at her.

  She ignored me and pressed on. “Hunter, what if I were to do a whole spread on your band for the first issue of the paper? I could, you know, come to practice, interview the other members, take a bunch of photos. It’ll be great.” She turned to me. “Don’t you think readers would like that, Tatum?” Abby’s expression was pleading with me to support her.

  “Oh right, yeah, for sure. I think that would be the most widely read issue in school history. Definitely,” I deadpanned. Abby’s blue eyes darkened in exasperation.

  Hunter eyed us like girls were the weirdest creatures he’d ever seen. He took the bags from us and loaded them onto the flatbed with a thunk. “Maybe. I’d have to check with the band.”

  “It would be pretty amazing advertising,” I said. Abby smiled at me gratefully. “For free, I might add.”

  “Exactly! This would be the best possible exposure. You end the summer with a bang and start the school year right.” Abby nodded her head furiously, agreeing with herself.

  I kept the ball rolling. “I bet you would get snapped up for sweet sixteens, quinceañeras, graduation parties. Maybe even the epitome of high school band achievements—a school dance.”

  Hunter looked at me in disbelief. I guessed his sarcasm detector was in the shop that day. “Like I said, I’ll have to ask the guys. Not really something I can decide by myself, you know?”

  “Of course, we understand,” Abby said, “Make sure to mention that the deal includes the sparkling wit and intellect of two beautiful women.” Two? Did she mean me? “That will definitely push them over the edge.”

  Hunter laughed at that, while I put a hand up in the air to halt the conversation. “Pause please. Who is this ‘we’ you speak of?”

  “You and me, silly. You’re our resident designer. How else can you be expected to find inspiration without seeing your subjects close up? Hear the music?”

  I shook my head. “Right, but you seem to forget that I’m not here”—I gestured to the park and the office building—“by choice. I am effectively under house arrest for the rest of the summer. There is no band practice for this girl.” As much as I wanted to go to help Abby with her article and go to Sol Jam—which, despite the awkward name, sounded awesome—I couldn’t go without Belén’s approval. And there was no way she would let me out.

  “The thing with Ashlyn?” Hunter questioned. I nodded slowly, my mouth suddenly dry. “I never heard exactly what happened.” He looked at me expectantly, like it was no big deal to share personal details about my shady criminal past.

  Abby’s eyebrows lifted ever so slightly. I knew she’d been waiting for me to spill all the ugly details.

  I gulped the humid air. No time like the present, and no use keeping it in any longer. “Right. So, there was this tiny misunderstanding at Mason’s right before school ended.”

  Hunter and Abby stood still, like statues cemented to the insanely hot asphalt, as I told my tale of woe. They didn’t move a muscle until I finished, closing my monologue with a scarily accurate impression of Belén reprimanding me for losing my keys. When I stopped speaking, I realized all the other kids had packed away their bags on the truck and left. The sound of Alicia turning on the engine jolted me back to the park and out of my nightmare, which was in fact still my reality. I looked down at the ground, shifted my weight, and tried to slow my heart rate, which had elevated as I spoke.

  As the truck backed out and drove toward the main road, Hunter started shaking his head. “Dang, girl.”

  “Yep. That pretty much sums it up.” I kicked a stray rock with my toe.

  “How do you live with rules like that in your house? I’d go bananas.” Hunter’s face bore a look of disgust, which oddly annoyed me. It felt a little weird to hear someone besides me criticize Belén.

  “Well, I guess . . .” I tried to be diplomatic. “She feels very . . . strongly that there’s a right way to live your life.”

  “Don’t all parents, though?” Abby asked.

  “I guess so. I just wish her ideas weren’t so . . .” I said, fumbling for the right word. “Narrow.”

  On some level, I got where Belén was coming from. She wanted Tilly and me to become productive citizens and go out into the world to do good things; I knew that at my core. I was just a little tired of defending why the things that made me happy were just as good as the ones she thought were best. I couldn’t wait to be out on my own, where no one would be looking over my shoulder, evaluating everything like I was an employee or something.

  Abby’s sympathetic face was on, and she looked itchy to give me a hug, but also wary, like she was afraid that if she touched me, I might cry or break or punch her. Maybe all three.

  “Do you hate her?” she asked in a small voice.

  “Belén? No. She and I just don’t see eye to eye.”

  “Ashlyn, I mean.”

  Oh. I pulled in a breath. “No, I don’t hate her either.”

  As I said it, I knew it was the truth. We had too much shared history for me to ever hate her, no matter how upset or annoyed I was with my estranged best friend. The first day of middle school, when we were forced to “dress out” for gym for the first time, Ashlyn and I were randomly paired to share a locker. She was painfully thin, with blonde hair reaching the middle of her back, and had been doing her best to cover her chest, which was still too small for a bra but covered in one anyway. She slipped the gray cotton shirt over her head and shoulders as quickly as humanly possible. We’d eyed each other warily at first, making sure that our street clothes never touched as they rested side by side in the blue locker while we sat in lines, tween robots doing pushups and crunches at the sound of a whistle. When Mr. Barton, the PE teacher fresh out of college and still struggling to grow facial hair, made us do a timed mile run, Ashlyn and I discovered we both were terrible runners. We competed with each other for last place, and eventually we started to talk, and then to laugh. We vented about our lack of athletic skills, about our strict parents—Belén and her father—and about our absent parents—my dead mother and traveling father, and her mother, who spent her days at the spa and expensive lunches.

  When Jeremy Wu dumped me in eighth grade after a lengthy three-week relationship (for a cheerleader with better calves than me), Ash invited me to sleep over at her house while we blacked his face out of every yearbook she owned. When Ashlyn was named second place in the regional geography bee, I was sitting in the audience cheering the loudest, glittery s
ign in hand. And also comforting her when her father chastised her for not knowing which body of water had the highest level of salinity. In addition to countless sleepovers, we’d eaten lunches together, studied at each other’s homes, gone stag together to school dances. We’d both had other friends, of course—since she was far more obsessed with grades and test scores than I was, while I spent my free time in the computer lab or in the art room—but we always came back to each other, like boomerangs.

  I wanted to believe that Ash would come back this time. We were bigger than this. Better than this. I just didn’t know how long it would take her to get here.

  Hunter was still shaking his head. “You’re a better person than I am, Tatum. I would have walked and never looked back.”

  I flinched.

  “Aren’t you even mad? You seem kind of over it,” Abby said.

  “I’m definitely still mad. She made a choice that has pretty much ruined my life as I knew it. I’m holding out hope that she’ll admit that to me one of these days. I’m mad that she decided to slum it with a complete moron who didn’t have the brains to see the eight million holes in his grand plan to get rich quick. I’m mad that my dad all but ignored the fact that I was just trying to keep an eye on Ash, and that he left right when I needed him.”

  I was on a roll, why stop? “I’m mad that Ash’s mistake just confirmed I don’t deserve my stepmother’s time, attention, and, God forbid, affection. And because of Ash, the stepmonster felt I needed a babysitter every waking moment of the day, so she brought her mother—a very cool person, but still—to live with us for the whole summer. And I’m also mad that my perfect stepsister, who barely speaks to me as it is, can hardly look at me now.”

  We stood there quietly in the wake of the wave I’d just cast at them; no one dared speak. I looked down at my chest rising and falling, the cotton of my T-shirt sticking awkwardly to my skin. I pulled the sides of my shirt down over my hips and spoke in a voice half the size as before. “So to answer your question, yes, I’m mad. I think I’ll probably be mad for quite a while.”

  This time, Abby didn’t hesitate. She closed the distance between us and wrapped her arms, just as sweaty as mine, around me, our skin fusing together. I let her hold me, and closed my eyes as I rested my cheek on the mahogany curls lying on her shoulder. I heard Hunter’s footsteps come behind me, and a hand patted the exposed space between my shoulder and Abby’s arms.

  “I’m just gonna go ahead and say yes to the newspaper story. We’d love to have you come see us play. Both of you.”

  I offered him a tentative smile. “I’d like that. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it happen. But I’m sure I’d like it.”

  Abby walked me to my car after we said goodbye to Hunter. “Hey, so, do you think your stepmother would let you come over to my house for dinner this week? We could talk about what we want to do for the article on the band. Maybe if she knows my parents will be there the whole time, she’ll say yes?” Her face was so full of hope. I missed hope. I appreciated Abby’s effort, and her concern for me, but I couldn’t share her optimism.

  “I will ask. My dad did say that all outings had to be approved ahead of time, but he didn’t say outings were off limits.”

  Abby’s eyes crinkled as she grinned. “All you can do is ask, right? Maybe she’ll surprise you and say yes. Tell her she can even call my mom to confirm there’ll be appropriate supervision.” She winked when she said “appropriate.”

  I couldn’t help laughing at her determination, but the little voice inside my head reminded me to not hold my breath.

  When I came in the house, Belén was in the kitchen chopping cucumbers for a salad. I watched her make each cut with military precision, and wondered if she’d been watching my new favorite cooking show and learning about knife skills. No one else was around, so I knew this was my chance to ask her about going to Abby’s. I inhaled, squared my shoulders, and set my keys down on the table with a clink. Belén looked up, startled.

  “Tatum, you’re home.” It was more scientific observation than greeting. I knew I couldn’t roll my eyes and have my request granted, so I forced a smile instead.

  “Hi, Belén.” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. I rarely called her by her name. “I wondered if you would allow me to have dinner with my friend, Abby Gold, and her family one night this week. Her parents have invited me to join them.”

  Belén’s only reaction was to blink her long lashes. Well, then. How else could I convince her it was okay for me to go?

  “I promise to call you when I get there and when I leave, and if you want to talk to Mrs. Gold for confirmation of my arrival, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

  Another blink.

  “Please?”

  Belén set down her knife, turned around, crossed her arms against her chest, and watched for a minute. My hands began to shake, so I knotted them behind my back and studied the chipped polish on my toenails to avoid her stare.

  Finally, she spoke. “It’s very generous of your friend’s family to invite you, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  My cheeks burned instantly. How could she say no? There was nothing deceitful about my request. Granted, she had never met Abby or her parents, but I’d offered a solution for that, hadn’t I? I didn’t understand.

  “Why not?” I was practically whispering, the corners of my eyes stinging with almost-tears.

  “I think you need to stay focused on your community service and your job. You don’t need any distractions to steer you off course.”

  Were we on a ship now? I opened my mouth to retort and then realized what she wasn’t saying. She was afraid Abby wasn’t a good influence. She wasn’t on my approved list of people I could interact with outside of the plant removal team, so it was an automatic no. It didn’t matter how great or responsible or mature I said Abby was. Once Belén decided something, there was no changing her mind. I’d learned that the hard way.

  My shoulders slumped in defeat. “Right.”

  I wished I could jump off Belén’s ship onto a lifeboat and row myself to sunnier shores, but instead I went up to my room to work until dinner was ready. Except I was a glutton for punishment, so instead of opening the files I’d been working on, I decided to email Ashlyn first.

  Dear Ash,

  Me again. Hope things are going well at Blue Valley. Are you in summer classes? Anything interesting? Tea Parties for Beginners? The Art of Croquet?

  You’re not missing much here in Arlington. I’m spending my days pulling plants out of the ground and my nights designing. I’ve gotten a couple new clients recently, so that’s a plus. I’m making a book cover for this girl who writes science fiction. I’m starting with a black-and-white photo of the inside of a clock, all the gears and stuff. Thoughts?

  Belén is being her usual self. Tilly is ignoring me. Blanche, Belén’s mom, is living with us, and she’s pretty cool. My dad’s gone again.

  Let me know how you are. Please.

  Be Well,

  Tate

  She hadn’t responded to my earlier email, which left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I still wanted to update her on what was going on with me. I had no idea if Ashlyn was coming back to Henderson in the fall, but part of me hoped so. Selfishly, because I wanted my friend back. Unselfishly, because I knew she’d probably need someone on her side if she did return. I used Be Well again because, the truth is, that’s what I wished for her. I knew, no matter how mad I was at her—and that anger was beginning to fade ever so slowly—she was probably hurting too.

  On my way back down to dinner, I heard Blanche and Tilly talking softly in the hallway. Not wanting to interrupt, I did what any good stepsister would do—hovered around the corner and eavesdropped.

  “Of course they hurt, Abuela. That’s part of dance.”

  “Yes, I suppose it comes with the territory. But I’m allowed to be concerned.” Blanche paused. “I imagine it probably hurts less than if you cut off a toe or a heel, yes?” She
chuckled. No response from Tilly, though. Did she not recognize a joke? “Sore feet aside, is it going well? It’s hard to tell when I listen to you and your mother discuss things.” Her keen sense of observation was apparently not limited to me.

  I heard Tilly inhale slowly, like it took a great amount of effort. “I love it. Honestly, Abuela. All the sacrifices I make are worth it. I feel like I’ve really hit my stride this summer.” There was a soft reverence in her voice, almost like a prayer. For a second, I forgot it was Tilly speaking; my breath caught in my throat.

  “I’m glad, Matilda. If you’re happy, I’m happy. You just let me know if I can get you some ice for those feet, okay?”

  Tilly giggled softly, a rare break in her stern façade. “I will. Thank you, Abuela.”

  “Te quiero.”

  “I love you too, Abuela.”

  After their footfalls disappeared, I peeked out from behind the corner in the hall, made sure the coast was clear, and followed them down to dinner, captivated by the strange display of affection from my stepsister.

  Later that night, I put the finishing touches on Emily’s book cover. I was pretty impressed with myself, given it was my first time making one.

  Abby had recommended checking out recent steam-punk series she called “super popular” and the classic The Time Machine for inspiration. When she’d brought me her personal copies, dog-eared and creased, she said, “Treat them well. They’re precious cargo.” I had promised I would, and took them home to study.

  Satisfied with the finished product, I sent the cover off to Emily. I checked my inbox again, which naturally was empty. I didn’t know what else I could do. On one hand, if Ash was still having feelings about “the incident,” then I couldn’t expect much. I could picture her, hands hovering over her keyboard like mine had, trying to choose just the right words and then, being so unsure, talking herself out of replying at all. On the other hand, we were friends. That had to count for something. We’d been friends for years, and I thought that should at least get me a reply to my inquiry about her health.