“Jesus Christ,” she adds angrily, standing up now to pace. “He was a bloody anesthesiologist. He knew exactly how to overdose. He’d made a career out of preventing overdoses.” I never knew what kind of doctor he was. No wonder his oncologist remembered him; even if they hadn’t worked together, this is, like Jeremy said he said, the kind of story you don’t forget.
“And you didn’t want me to know.”
“Of course not. Oh God, when you were in first grade, do you remember, you asked me why you didn’t have a daddy. I couldn’t, I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to think he left you like that.”
“It was third grade,” I say quietly.
“It would have been the only thing you remembered him for.”
“You didn’t give me anything else to remember!” I shout, standing up too now. “I pretended my parents were divorced ever since then—since that day in third grade. I told everyone he left us to move to Arizona.”
She looks shocked, like it never occurred to her that not knowing made me different, made me have to create some better story, some easier explanation.
“You never told me stories about him, never told me about the things that we did together before he died. Maybe I could have had some memories if you’d helped me.”
She doesn’t say anything. I keep digging for information. “And so no one outside the family knew, then. Everyone figured it was the cancer.”
“Yes. In that case, the cancer was a convenience.”
“I’m glad it was convenient for you,” I say, and I hate how nasty I sound.
She looks straight at me now, and her expression is devastating. I immediately regret being cruel, having shouted. “You said you were old enough now,” she says softly. “You said you could take it. No one outside the family knows, and no one should. This is a”—she chokes on the word—“a private matter.”
I nod. “Yes, Mom, it is a private matter, a matter for family. But I’m just as much a part of this family as you are, and you didn’t trust me with it.”
“Well, you have it now. What are you going to do with it?” She looks frightened.
This question stops me cold. I’d been so concerned with getting the facts that I never gave any thought to what I’d do once I had them. I sit back down on the couch, lowering myself onto it without turning to look and make sure it’s there. “I don’t know. I’m just—I’m going to live with it. I’m going to figure out how you live with it.”
She nods.
I look up at her and ask: “How have you lived with it?”
She sits down next to me.
“It’s not as hard as you think,” she exhales. “You just … get used to it.”
“I’ve been used to living without a father for a long time.”
“Yes, but now you have to be used to living with a father who took himself away from you.”
As if she can hear me thinking the word “abandon,” my mother shakes her head.
“I was mad at him for so long. He knew what he was doing. He put his affairs in order and made sure that you and I were taken care of. It was his idea that I sell our townhouse. I remember thinking he was nuts to want to move when he was still sick, but he did, and so I said okay. After he died, I figured out what he was doing: he’d wanted me to have the money; he knew we wouldn’t need such a big place; I think he even knew me well enough to know that I’d want to move in with my mother. He set up a trust for you, for me—everything. I was so mad at him for that.”
“Why?”
“At least if he’d left things a mess, I could have believed that he’d lost control somehow. But he planned it all perfectly, just like he did everything else.” She presses her hair back from her forehead. Her eyes are very bright, but she keeps talking to me. “Connelly, you know, I just loved him so much. I thought I made him happy. I hated being apart from him even for a day—I always wanted to be near him. I thought he felt the same way about us. I was so mad that you and I weren’t enough for him to live for.”
She sighs; traces her lips with her finger, thinking; and her voice is different, softer, when she continues. “But eventually you stop being mad; eventually you realize that being mad is worse than what he did. Eventually you understand that he tried his best to live and he couldn’t.”
I’m not entirely sure she believes what she’s saying. It sounds too much like something you’d read in a book about how to get over your husband’s suicide. And I can’t help noticing that it’s ironic that I invented a father who abandoned us, because she was scared that if I knew the truth, I would always think that my father did abandon us.
“But I didn’t think you could understand. You’re still so young, and you didn’t know him like I did. And I just didn’t want you to think that your father didn’t love us, didn’t love you, enough.”
“I don’t think that.”
“Not yet.” She exhales slowly. “But you will. You’ll be angry soon, just like I was. But when you are angry, I want you to remember what I’m about to tell you: He loved you more than anything. This thing inside him killed him the same as the cancer might have. If he could have survived it, he would have.” This time, I know she means what she’s saying, and I believe her. I know that she’s right; I know that she’s telling the truth.
And then she hugs me, tight. I can’t remember the last time we hugged like this, but I must have been younger, because now I notice that my mother is small—smaller, in fact, than I am. I can feel how skinny she is: I can feel the bones in her arms and hands pressing hard around my ribs. She holds me so tight that it hurts, but I don’t mind. Instead, I wonder that someone this thin and this small can be so strong. And I do feel—if only for a second—anger at the man who left her alone, who left us alone together. I recognize that this small piece of anger has just found its way inside my body, where it will dig in under my skin and try to grow stronger. I know that whether or not it was the right thing to do, my mother wanted to protect me from this anger. But I feel ready to begin the work of overcoming it.
When she releases her grasp and looks at me, she holds my hands. And I wonder if she and my father had liked holding hands, or if they were one of those couples that would never do that in public. And now I know that I will ask her someday.
She hugs me again before we retreat into our rooms, the opposite ends of the apartment that maybe don’t seem so far apart now. I take off the clothes from the funeral, taking care to put everything back in its place. It’s only four in the afternoon, but I’m getting ready for bed. I think this is the most tired I have ever been in my entire life. When I climb into bed, the sheets are smooth and I fall asleep fast. I wake up later to the ringing of the phone, and I know that Jeremy is waiting for me downstairs.
“Were you sleeping?” he asks as I step off the elevator.
I nod. “I’ve been sleeping all day.”
“I’m jealous. I’m so tired, but there are all these people at our house, all waiting to talk to me or feed me or see if I need anything. I thought everyone would be gone by now, but there’s a bunch of guys smoking cigars in my father’s study. I had to sneak out.”
“I can’t imagine how tough this day was for you.”
Jeremy nods and then he grins, one of his crazy big smiles. “We got lost on the way to the cemetery.”
“What?” I ask, beginning to laugh.
“In that hearse, with Kate in the back—I swear to God, all of a sudden we were driving down past all these cookie-cutter houses. The driver just kept going because he didn’t want us to know he was lost. Then all of a sudden he pulled into one of the driveways—you know, to turn around. That kinda gave it away, finally.”
“That’s really funny,” I say, covering my mouth.
“I know; my parents and I were laughing so hard, you wouldn’t believe it. Felt like Kate was playing a trick on us.”
“Maybe she just wanted you to remember something funny about today.”
Jeremy nods. “Yeah, I bet she did
.”
“I bet she did,” I echo.
Jeremy shifts his gaze beyond me, out onto Madison Avenue, and smiles faintly. I smile too. I know we’re both thinking about Kate. Being without her still feels new, and strange.
Jeremy lights a couple of cigarettes, and we both take long drags.
Jeremy exhales. “Did you do it?”
“I did.”
He smiles at me. “Good.”
He doesn’t ask me for more, and I don’t want to tell him yet. I’m not ready to tell him yet. I know my mother wouldn’t want me to, and I’ll respect her wishes for now. I know I will tell him. But not tonight; maybe not for a long time.
“How do you feel?” he asks.
I think for a moment. My body is finally completely calm. The itching has stopped and my skin feels soft under my clothes. It occurs to me that this is the most princess-y thing ever to happen to me; not Rapunzel, a peasant girl locked in her tower, but Sleeping Beauty in the woods, a princess from a different kingdom. They tried to protect her by raising her without letting her know who or what she was. And then one day, maybe because of a boy she met in the forest, she’s told that she’s royal, but that hers was a tragic and dangerous beginning, a tightly kept secret. But still, she returns to the palace to live the life she was born for—which, as it happens, totally plunges her into that world of danger from which they’d been trying to protect her all those years. If only she’d always known the whole story: maybe then, she wouldn’t have pricked her finger on that spindle after all. Or, at least, she’d have known what to expect when she did.
And so I feel, for once, like a princess.
I answer Jeremy: “Different.”
He nods. “How do you feel?” I ask.
He smiles down at me, tosses his cigarette on the ground, and puts his arm around me. “Different.”
I toss my cigarette next to his and stamp them both out.
“And cold,” I add, relaxing in his hold.
“Me too. Only a few more months and we’ll be smoking in the springtime.”
I smile and lean against him. I feel warm.
But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.
—Ernest Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my friends and colleagues at Random House Children’s Books: Thank you very much for supporting this book.
Thanks to Erin Clarke for her constant guidance and encouragement; for knowing what needed to be said, as well as what was better left unsaid. Thanks to Nancy Hinkel and the entire Knopf editorial team. My thanks to Chip Gibson for his support, sense of humor, and unending kindness. Thanks to Kate Gartner and Isabel Warren-Lynch for the beautiful cover. Many, many thanks to my friends in marketing and publicity. And, to my family in retail and consumer marketing: Thank you for being a splendid place to call home.
My endless appreciation to Sarah Burnes for her unyielding optimism, patience, and editorial savvy. Thanks to everyone at the Gernert Company, especially Courtney Gatewood.
I have been very lucky to have had magnificent teachers—at P.S. 24, Spence, and Barnard—as well as lucky to have read extraordinary writers, whose work has made my life infinitely better. Thank you for encouraging me to write and, moreover, for teaching me to read. Thanks especially to Mary Gordon and Caz Phillips.
Thanks to my marvelous group of friends and my extended family—and a special thank-you to those of you who were indulgent enough to read early drafts of this manuscript, and patient enough to tell me which title you liked best (over and over again!). Your advice helped shape this story into the book it finally became. Thank you to Tina Dubois Wexler, Joanne Brownstein, Rachel Feld (mentor, cheerleader, friend), Jessica DePaul, Ruth Homberg, John Adamo. Thanks also to Roya, Arielle, Noreen, Jen, Mindy, Ranse, Phil. Thanks to the entire Gravitt family: Janie, Brian, Laura, and John.
Much love, gratitude, and admiration to my father, Joel Sheinmel; my mother, Elaine Sheinmel; my sister, Courtney Sheinmel; and my grandmothers, Diane Buda and Doris Sheinmel.
And to my best friend and my most beloved, JP Gravitt: Every day when I wake up and you are there, it is a good day.
My little dog—a heartbeat at my feet.
—Edith Wharton
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alyssa Sheinmel was born in Stanford, California. She is a graduate of New York City’s Spence School and Barnard College.
Alyssa lives in New York City and works in children’s book publishing. The Beautiful Between is her first novel.
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Alyssa B. Sheinmel
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/teens
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sheinmel, Alyssa B.
The beautiful between / by Alyssa B. Sheinmel. — 1st ed
p. cm.
Summary: Connelly Sternin feels like Rapunzel, locked away in her Upper East
Side high-rise apartment studying for the SAT exams, until she develops an unlikely
friendship with her high school’s Prince Charming and begins to question some of the
things that have always defined her life.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89620-0
[1. Friendship—Fiction. 2. Fairy tales—Fiction. 3. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S54123Be 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2009022772
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
The Beautiful Between Page 15
