by Jenn Bennett
“It wasn’t Alice Cooper,” a woman with dark shoulder-length hair says as she lifts a small cardboard package on the counter. “It was the guy married to the redheaded talk show host. What’s-her-name. Osbourne.”
The woman standing next to her, green-eyed and fair-skinned, leans against the counter and scratches a heavily freckled nose. “Ozzy?” she says in an accent that’s a soft blend of American and Scottish. “I don’t think so.”
“I’ll bet you a cupcake.” Brown eyes dart over the counter to meet mine. Her oblong face lifts into a smile. “Zorie! Long time, no see.”
“Hello, Sunny,” I say, and then greet her freckled wife: “Mac.”
“Sweet glasses,” Sunny says, giving a thumbs-up to the retro blue cat-eye rims I’m wearing.
I have a dozen other pairs, all different styles and colors. I buy them dirt cheap from an online store, and I match them to my outfits. Along with crazy bright lipstick and a love for all things plaid, cool glasses are my thing. I may be a geek, but I am chic.
“Thanks,” I tell her, meaning it. Not for the first time, I regret that my dad is fighting with these women. It wasn’t that long ago that they felt like my second family.
The entire time I’ve known Sunny and Jane “Mac” Mackenzie, who have lived directly across the cul-de-sac since we moved into the neighborhood, they’ve insisted that I call them Sunny and Mac. Period. Not Mrs. or Ms., or any other titles. They don’t like formalities, not in names or clothes. They are both quintessential Californians. You know, just your average former riot grrrl lesbian sex-shop owners.
“Help us out. We’re playing Rock Star Urban Legend Game,” Mac says to me, pushing fiery hair shot through with silver away from her face. “Which heavy metal star bit the head off a bat onstage? Back in the sixties.”
“The seventies,” Sunny corrects.
Mac rolls her eyes humorously. “Whatever. Listen, Zorie. We think it’s either Ozzy Osbourne or Alice Cooper. Which one?”
“Um, I really don’t know,” I answer, hoping they’ll give this up so I can get what I came for and leave. They’re both acting like nothing has changed, that I still come over for Sunday dinner every week. Like my father didn’t threaten to bust up their shop with a baseball bat for driving away his clients and they didn’t tell him to go screw himself while dozens of people looked on from across the street with cell phones recording. The footage was uploaded to YouTube within the hour.
Yeah. Fun times. Dad has always disliked the Mackenzies, when they were just the “weirdo” neighbors across the street. But after their sex shop opened last fall and our clinic started tanking, that dislike turned into something stronger.
But okay, if Sunny and Mac want to pretend as though everything is still normal, fine. I’ll play that game, as long as it gets me out of here faster. “Alice Cooper, maybe?” I answer.
“No way. It was Ozzy Osbourne,” Sunny says confidently, slicing open the package on the counter with a box cutter. “Look it up, Mac.”
“My phone’s dead.”
Sunny makes a clucking sound with her tongue. “Likely story. You just don’t want to lose the bet.”
“Lennon will know.”
My stomach tightens. There are plenty of reasons for me not to want to come over here. The dildo forest. The fear of being seen by someone I know. My dad’s ongoing feud with the two women bantering behind the counter. But it’s the seventeen-year-old boy casually strolling out of the stockroom who makes me wish I could turn invisible.
Lennon Mackenzie.
Monster T-shirt. Black jeans. Black boots laced to his knees. Black, fringed hair that’s all swept to the side, somehow messy and perfectly spiked at the same time.
If an evil anime character sprang to life with a mission to lurk in dark corners while plotting world destruction, he would look a lot like Lennon. He’s a poster boy for all things weird and macabre. He’s also the main reason I don’t want to eat lunch in the school cafeteria with the rest of the hoi polloi.
Carrying a zombie-splattered graphic novel in one hand and something small and unidentifiable tucked under his other arm, he glances at my blue plaid skirt, then his gaze skims upward to settle on my face. Any looseness in his posture immediately becomes tight and ridged. And when his dark eyes meet mine, they clearly reinforce what I already know: We are not friends.
Thing is, we used to be. Good friends. Okay, best friends. We had a lot of classes together, and because we live across the street from each other, we hung out after school. When we were younger, we’d ride bikes to a city park. In high school, that daily bike ride morphed into a daily walk down Mission Street to our local coffee shop—the Jitterbug—with my white husky, Andromeda, in tow. And that turned into late-night walks around the Bay. He called me Medusa (because of my dark, unruly curls), and I called him Grim (because of the goth). We were always together. Inseparable friends.
Until everything changed last year.
Gathering my courage, I adjust my glasses, paste on a civil smile, and say, “Hi.”
He tugs his chin upward in response. That’s all I get. I used to be trusted with his secrets, and now I’m not even worthy of a spoken greeting. I thought at some point this would stop hurting me, but the pain is as sharp as it’s ever been.
New plan: Don’t say another word to him. Don’t acknowledge his presence.
“Babe,” Sunny says to Lennon, unpacking what appears to be some sort of sex lube. “Which rock star bit the head off a bat? Your other, less-hip mom thinks it’s Alice Cooper.”
Mac pretends to be affronted and points to me. “Hey, Zorie thinks so too!”
“She’s wrong,” Lennon says in a dismissive voice that’s so scratchy and deep, it sounds as though he’s speaking from inside a deep, dark well. That’s the other thing about Lennon that drives me nuts. He doesn’t just have a good voice; he has an attractive voice. It’s big and confident and rich, and entirely too sexy for comfort. He sounds like a villainous voice-over actor or some kind of satanic radio announcer. It makes goose bumps race over my skin, and I resent that he still has that effect on me.
“It’s Ozzy Osbourne,” he informs us.
“Ha! Told you,” Sunny says victoriously to Mac.
“I just picked one,” I tell Lennon, a little angrier than I intend.
“Well, you picked wrong,” he says, sounding bored.
I’m insulted. “Since when am I supposed to be an expert on the abuse of bats in rock music?”
That’s more his speed.
“It’s not arcane knowledge,” he says, sweeping artfully mussed-up hair away from one eye with a knuckle. “It’s pop culture.”
“Right. Vital information I’ll need to know in order to get into the university of my choice. I think I remember that question on the SAT exams.”
“Life is more than SAT exams.”
“At least I have friends,” I say.
“If you think Reagan and the rest of her clique are real friends, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“Jeez, you two,” Sunny mumbles. “Get a room.”
Heat washes over my face.
Um, no. This is not an I secretly like you fight. This is I secretly hate you. Sure, he’s all lips and hair and baritone voice, and I’m not blind: He’s attractive. But the only time our former friendship dared to risk one pinky toe over the line—a period of time we referred to as the Great Experiment—I ended up sobbing my eyes out at homecoming, wondering what went wrong.
I never found out. But I have a pretty good guess.
He gives his mom a long-suffering look, as if to say, You done now? and then turns to address Mac. “Ozzy’s bat story was exaggerated. Someone in the audience threw a dead bat onstage, and Ozzy thought it was plastic. When he bit the head off, he was completely shocked. Had to be taken to the hospital for a rabies shot after the show.”
Sunny bumps her hip against Mac. “Doesn’t matter. I’m still right, and you still owe me a cupcake. Coconut. Since we skipped breakf
ast this morning, I’ll take it now. Brunch.”
“That actually does sound good,” Mac says. “Zorie, you want one?”
I shake my head.
Mac turns to Lennon. “Baby, my baby,” she says in a coaxing, jovial voice. “Can you make a bakery run? Pretty please?”
“Mother, my mother. I have to be at work in thirty minutes,” he argues, and I hate how he can be so cold to me one second and warm to his parents the next. When he sets the book he’s carrying on the counter, I see what he’s cradling in the crook of his elbow: a red bearded dragon lizard about the length of my forearm. It’s on a leash connected to a black leather harness that wraps around its tiny front arms. “Got to put Ryuk back in his habitat before I go.”
Lennon is obsessed with reptiles, because of course. He has an entire wall of them in his room—snakes, lizards, and his only nonreptile pet, a tarantula. He works part-time at a Mission Street reptile store, where he can be creepy with other likeminded snake lovers.
Mac reaches over the counter to scratch the lizard on top of its scaly head and coos in a childlike voice, “Fine. Guess you win, Ryuk. Oh dear, you’re coming out of your harness.”
Lennon sets the bearded dragon atop his manga book. Ryuk tries to get away, nearly falling off the counter. “That’s an inefficient way to go,” Lennon dourly informs the lizard. “If you’re going to off yourself, better to overdose on reptile vitamins than jump.”
“Lennon,” Sunny scolds lightly.
A dark smile barely curls the corners of his full lips. “Sorry, Mama,” he says.
When we were younger, people used to taunt him mercilessly at school—How do you know which mom is which? To him, Sunny is Mama, Mac is Mum. And even though Mac gave birth to him, neither woman is more or less in his eyes.
Sunny twists her mouth and then smiles back. He’s forgiven. His parents forgive him for everything. He doesn’t deserve them.
“So, Zorie. What brings you by, love?” Mac says to me as Lennon adjusts his lizard’s tiny harness.
I’m forced to step to the side of Lennon in order to have a conversation that doesn’t involve me speaking at his back. When did he get so freakishly tall? “My mom’s looking for a FedEx package.”
Mac’s eyes shift toward Sunny’s. A subtle but sharp reaction is communicated between the two women.
“Something wrong?” I ask, suspicious.
Sunny clears her throat. “Nothing, sweetie.” She hesitates, indecisive for a moment. “We did get something, yes,” she says, reaching under the counter to pull out a manila mailing envelope, which she hands to me, apologetic. “I may have accidentally opened it by mistake. I didn’t read your mom’s mail, though. I noticed the address after I slit it open.”
“That’s fine,” I say. It’s happened before, which sends my dad’s blood pressure through the roof, but Mom won’t care. It’s just that Mac is now looking extremely uncomfortable. Even Lennon feels more distant than usual, his energy shifting from mildly chilly to arctic. Warning bells ding inside my head.
“Okay, well, gotta get back,” I say, pretending I don’t notice anything amiss.
“Give Joy our best,” Mac says. “If your mum ever wants to get coffee . . .” She trails off and gives me a tight smile. “Well, she knows where to find us.”
Sunny nods. “You too. Don’t be a stranger.”
Now I’m uncomfortable. I mean, more than usual, having to endure the humiliation that is this shop.
“Sure. Thanks for this.” I hold up the package in acknowledgment as I’m turning to leave and nearly knock over a display model of a giant blue vibrator sitting next to the register. I instinctively reach out to steady the wobbling piece of plastic before I’m fully aware of what I’m touching. Dear God.
Under a fan of black lashes, Lennon’s eyes shift to the floor, and he doesn’t lift his face.
Must get out. Now.
Nearly tripping over my own feet, I stride out of the shop and exhale a long breath when I’m back in the sunshine. I can’t get back into the clinic fast enough.
But when I’m settled behind the shield of the front desk, my eyes fix on the envelope the Mackenzies gave me. It’s from a PO Box in San Francisco and is, indeed, clearly addressed to Joy Everhart. Not sure how they missed that, but whatever.
After checking the back hallway and finding it clear, I peek into the envelope.
It’s a piece of paper with a handwritten note and a small book of personal photos. I recognize the photo book’s brand from online ads: upload your photos, and they send you a printed book a few days later. This one says Our Bahamas Trip on the cover in a frilly font.
I open the book to find a million sunny vacation photos. The ocean. The beach. My dad snorkeling. My dad with his arm around some woman in a bikini.
Wait.
What?
Flipping faster, I stare at glossy pages printed with more of the same. Dinner and tropical drinks. My dad smiling that dazzling smile of his. Only he’s not smiling at my mom but some stranger. A stranger with a gold ankle bracelet and long lash extensions. He’s got his arms wrapped around her, and—in one photo—is even kissing her neck.
What is all this? Some fling after my mother died? Someone before Joy? I pull out the letter.
Joy,
You don’t know me, but I thought you’d want to see this, woman to woman. Photos from our vacation last summer.
Good luck,
One of many
My fingers go numb. Last summer? He was here, working at the clinic, last summer. No, wait. There was a week he went to Los Angeles for a massage therapy conference. And came back with a shockingly dark tan . . . that he said he’d gotten after lying out by the hotel pool every afternoon.
“Oh, shit,” I whisper to myself.
My dad is having an affair.
3
* * *
It’s all I can think about. That evening, after Mom returns from seeing Grandma Esther in Oakland and lets me borrow her car, I’m sitting inside the Melita Hills Observatory’s dark auditorium for my monthly astronomy club meeting. Sometimes we head up to the roof with our telescopes, but this month, it’s an info-only gathering. And thanks to that Bahamas photo book, I’m paying zero attention to Dr. Viramontes, the retired Berkeley teacher who’s president of our local chapter. He’s addressing the group—a couple dozen people, mostly other retirees and a handful of students my age—while standing at a podium near the controls that turn the ceiling into a light show of the night sky. I lost what he was saying a quarter of an hour back, something about where we were going to be watching the Perseid meteor shower.
Instead, my mind is stuck on that photo of my dad kissing that woman.
He lied to my mom. He lied to me.
And he forced me to lie, telling my mom that the Mackenzies hadn’t received any of our mail, because no way was I handing over that ticking-bomb package of agony over to my mom. Not right now, when she’s full of cheer and sunshine, encouraging me to go on the camping trip with Reagan. Maybe not ever. I don’t know. This will tear our family apart.
I’ve never been in this kind of position, being forced to decide where I should hide photos of my dad two-timing my mom. Or three-timing. Four-timing? What did that woman mean by “one of many”? The photos are from last summer, and I doubt this woman would want to call him out to his wife if she were still seeing him. So when did the affair end, and how many others were there? Are there?
Does he just pick up random acupuncturists from alternative health conventions?
Are they all locals?
Do I know any of them?
Ugh. Considering all the possibilities hurts my brain. And what’s even weirder about the whole thing is that the strange woman in the photos looks a lot like my birth mother. I mean, clearly it’s not her, and this stranger is younger than my mother was when she died, but there’s an uncanny resemblance. And that just freaks me out.
My dad is having an affair with someone who looks like his
dead first wife. That’s not normal.
What am I saying? None of this normal, no matter what she looks like. I think of Mom smiling this morning, completely oblivious to the fact that Dad’s cheated on her, and it makes my stomach hurt all over again.
Thank God the normal clinic receptionist came in to take over for me at lunch, because no way could I handle looking my dad in the eye.
My stomach is sick. My heart is sick. Everything about this is wrong, wrong, wrong.
And the cherry on top of this shit sundae is that the Mackenzies know. Sunny and Mac saw what was inside the envelope. They had to. I mean, judging from the awkward way they acted, and all that business about meeting for coffee if we ever needed to talk? It’s hard for me to blame them for looking at the photo book. If they really did open it by accident, I’m sure curiosity got the better of them. It did for me.
Huge mistake.
Oh, God. Does Lennon know too?
“What’s wrong?”
I snap out of my thoughts and realize the meeting has ended. The person speaking to me is a brown-haired girl sitting at my side. I’ve known Avani Desai as long as Lennon and Reagan, when we first bonded over astronomy in seventh-grade science class, both acing a quiz about the planets. Avani and I used to carpool to Reagan’s house for sleepovers, staying up late to listen to music and gossip while her parents were asleep. But when I followed Reagan to the elite courtyard at school, Avani stayed behind, secure with her social status. I always envied her confidence. Now the only time I really talk with Avani is during astronomy club.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I tell her. No way am I bringing up the humiliation that is my father’s affair. “I’m just thinking about something.”
“Yeah, sort of figured,” she says with a brief smile, crossing her arms over a T-shirt silk-screened with Neil deGrasse Tyson’s face and the words NEIL BEFORE ME. “You’ve been ‘thinking’ all the way through Viramontes’s meteor shower plans.”
