I studied the view out the passenger window, wondering what I hadn’t understood. Mom. Uncle Eddy. Naked in my parents’ bed. I was eleven, not stupid.
She kept talking. “I love your daddy, Sophie. You know that.”
She pulled the car into our driveway, and I turned to see her gazing at me, pleading. That look confused me.
“Are you and Uncle Eddy getting married?” I asked.
She recoiled, her eyes round with surprise. It took her two tries to speak. “No! Geez, Sophie, no!”
“Are you and Daddy getting a divorce?” I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t cry again.
That time she didn’t answer so quickly. Her hands gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. Her lips—bare of any lipstick for once—tightened at the corners in a tense frown. Finally she said, “I don’t know, baby. I’m not sure we can all keep on like this.”
Her blue eyes blurred with tears, but she no longer seemed bitter. She looked sad. And scared. I’d never seen her afraid. I threw myself against her.
Her arms closed around me, and her sigh lifted my head against her chest. “Oh, Soph.”
“I won’t tell, Mommy. I promise.”
I didn’t know I was lying, but I think she did. She held me anyway.
For the next two weeks we continued living our lives like always. During the hot days, I played with Carey and Blake, returning home dirty and exhausted. Uncle Eddy disappeared, or at least he never showed up when I was around. And my mother . . .
She sat on the porch swing, pushing off the ground with a bare foot, her eyes latched on to something in the distance that I couldn’t see. During dinner I would be telling her about my day, but she was no longer part of my world. She’d become a ghost I couldn’t catch hold of. Worse, she’d made excuses to avoid speaking to my father when he called. Even when they’d fought, she had always spoken to him. Every conversation could be the last. We all knew that. But my mother, she seemed to be slipping away.
I could think of only one person strong enough to make her stay. One person whose word was law in our house. If my father told her to stay, she would do it.
So I broke my promise to my mother.
When my father called home, I told him what I’d seen. He didn’t ask to speak with my mother. He didn’t comfort me. Instead, he told me to get to bed and hung up.
I went to bed, scared I wore my guilt on my skin. That my mother would come to tuck me in and guess what I’d done. But she didn’t come into my room that night, or any other night that week. I started to fear that she would never tuck me in again. She hardly looked at me, but sometimes I would catch her staring at me with great pain, as if she knew I’d betrayed her.
So when she dropped me off at my grandmother’s soon after, I knew she was mad at me. She drove away with Uncle Eddy, and I guessed she was leaving my father.
But I never—not once—expected her to leave me, too.
If only I’d just kept my damned mouth shut.
* * *
The longer I sit in the shadows of the hospital lobby, the more the rage expands, stretching into corners inside of me. Questions pile on top of one another in incomplete, incoherent, half-formed thoughts. How could she—? Where have they—? What are they—? Why?
My muscles tighten with the effort to be still when I feel like I could explode and burn the hospital down with Edward inside it.
Surveillance, I decide.
I will stake out the hospital. Every free minute I have, every minute I am not at school or imprisoned in my room, I will be here, waiting for her to return.
Some screwed-up part of me hoped she’d died in a car accident five minutes after she’d driven away. I fantasized that her last thoughts were of me, wishing she’d never left. The stupid daydreams of a naive little girl.
Because the truth is, she really did abandon me. Like I was scum. Like I was NOTHING. Like she guessed I would become Sophie Topper Quinn, town slut. Unworthy of her, the original town slut.
Too damned bad for her.
I have things to say.
And I don’t really give a shit if she wants to hear them.
Chapter Eleven
I don’t tell my father I have seen them. I don’t even consider it. I’m not sure what he would do, if anything, but there is a slim chance he could make them leave. He has power in our world. I will not allow them to leave before I talk to my mother.
Now I have another secret.
Seven for a secret never to be told.
* * *
School sucks, but not like before.
I am different.
The rage, rekindled when my mother nonchalantly walked through the hospital, burns slow and bright. I think my skin glows with it, because the threats and the cruel treatment stop. Badass Jamie pushes me in the hallway once. I spin to face her, and something about me sends her backing away with a new caution. In the week that follows my mother’s visit to the hospital, Jamie does not bother me again.
I’ve waited at the hospital in the evenings as much as I can, but I haven’t seen Uncle Eddy or my mother again. I decided not to ask questions. I don’t want them knowing I’m looking for them. Now I live for the weekends when I will have uninterrupted hours to search them out.
And then on Friday, my superawesome luck strikes again.
Mr. Horowitz finds me in the library where I’ve been spending my lunch periods despite Mrs. Hall’s harsh stares. I suspect she has tattled on my whereabouts when she tilts her head toward me as if Horowitz has asked her a question. He approaches my table, and I slam my book shut, tipping my head at Mrs. Hall with defiance when she looks down her nose at me. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to snap a shot of her falling asleep on the job today. The flash woke her up on the wrong side of her desk.
“Mind if I join you?” Horowitz asks, his thick brows raised. They look like two aged caterpillars about to brawl.
I shrug, and he sits across from me at the table. Horowitz isn’t so bad, but I don’t have him for any classes since he teaches sophomore English. He and his wife are new in town. They moved to Sweethaven last year, when Mrs. Rocher finally retired after forty years.
“You’re a chatty one, aren’t you?” he says in the silence that follows.
I’ve been quiet too long, I realize. Months, in fact. It just seems easier to keep secrets when you keep your mouth shut. I shrug again.
He stretches an arm across the chair next to him and studies me. I can’t be much to look at these days, armored in flannels, jeans, and boots. The better to hide my body after the picture that revealed too much.
Horowitz’s brown hair flops on his forehead. My hair is curly; his is spring-loaded. “That yours?” He points to the Nikon sitting on the tabletop.
I nod. I’m rarely without it these days. I don’t trust others not to mess with it if I leave it in my locker. Better yet, you never know when a good picture will come along.
“May I?” he asks. At my nod, he picks up the camera and turns it on. “Nice,” he says with a tiny smile. “I think you caught the real her.”
The shot of the sleeping Mrs. Hall is on the tiny screen. George hates pictures like this, preferring action shots, but I find something interesting in how unguarded people are when they relax.
Awake, Mrs. Hall is aggressively cheerful, smiling brightly at most everyone. Asleep at her desk, Mrs. Hall’s mouth droops into the saddest frown, her head resting on an outstretched arm, reaching for someone who is not there. My guess is, her husband. It’s no secret she still grieves for him, though it’s been three years since he died in Baghdad.
Horowitz takes his time, flipping through the pictures on the screen. Some he pauses over longer than others. Most of them are of George and Don Baruth from the day before. They’d played poker as George interviewed Don about his Korean War experiences. Don had smiled sweetly and nodded when I’d asked if I could take a few pictures.
“Who’s this?” Horowitz asks, showing me a shot of
George.
“Someone I work with at the VA Hospital,” I say.
“You care about him very much,” he says, tapping the camera thoughtfully.
Curious, I lean forward to study the LCD screen. “Why do you say that?”
“He looks upset, angry even, but somehow you managed to show him with compassion.”
He’s right. George was angry, listening to Don speak about the treatment he’d received at various hospitals when he’d first returned from Korea. Or rather, the lack of treatment he’d received. PTSD—Don said the doctors called it “operational exhaustion” in those days. It hadn’t been understood—still isn’t fully understood—and it’d caused him to lose his family and his home. He hadn’t been able to shut off the violent reactions he had to normal, everyday situations, like how certain noises could set him off. Almost sixty years later, the nightmares haven’t stopped, and I wonder if my father has them too. George does. He told Don so in his rough voice when the older man set down his cards and started to cry.
Horowitz shuts off the camera and places it on the table in front of me. “You’re very talented, Miss Quinn.”
“And?” He must want something from me. Why else would he seek me out in the library?
He laughs. “I’m not very subtle, am I? My wife says it’s a fault.” He places his hands on the table palms up. “Here’s the thing. Yearbook needs a photographer. My kids are doing their best, but it’s not really their forte. If I don’t get some decent shots in the next two months, we’re going to end up with a lot of cutoff heads. You’re always hauling that thing around, so I thought maybe . . .”
“You know who I am, right?”
He actually blushes, but his eyes never leave mine. “You can take pictures. That’s all I care about.”
I have to give him credit for not jumping on the Slay Sophie Quinn bandwagon. But then, he’s not from here. It’s hard to remember that the rest of the world doesn’t live by our code. Maybe Horowitz sees more shades of gray.
“Look, I appreciate the offer, but you have to know it would never work. People don’t exactly smile and say ‘Cheese’ when they see me.”
He folds his hands and considers me. He doesn’t look ready to give up, and I sigh.
“Seriously, this is a bad idea.”
“Think of it as something to put on your college applications.”
“I’m a senior,” I counter. “That ship sailed last semester.” I’d applied to a few schools with photojournalism programs in the fall, but I didn’t yet know if I’d been accepted. Boston University was my dream school, but I wasn’t holding out any great hope.
“Okay,” he says. Now he squares his shoulders like he’s getting ready to negotiate. “What can I do to convince you?”
I’m tempted to roll my eyes, but I stop to think about his request. Maybe there is a way to work this to my advantage.
“Sixth period,” I say. “I have study hall with Mr. Baransky.” And Nikki, who likes to use the class to torture me. “You get me out of sixth period, and I’ll take your photos.”
“Deal!” He says it so quickly I wonder if that’s what he intended all along. I’m sure it is when he continues. “I’ll have you transferred into my sixth-period Yearbook class tomorrow. You free tonight for your first assignment?”
I scowl and give a sharp nod. I can’t exactly admit I’d rather be stalking the halls at the hospital. He takes a slip of paper out of his back pocket and tosses it down next to my elbow.
Horowitz nods at the paper. “Think candid shots. And welcome to the Yearbook staff, Miss Quinn.”
He practically skips out of the room, and I pick up the paper with suspicion. A ticket. The Spring Semiformal, I read. The last place I’d want to be tonight, and he knew it.
Ambushed. Damn, Horowitz is good. He’d make a great soldier.
* * *
At dinner that night, I tell my father about Horowitz asking me to cover the dance for Yearbook. He grunts and continues eating his meat loaf. I take that as him giving his permission to go.
Standing in front of my closet a half hour later, I curse Horowitz. I have nothing to wear. It’s bad enough I’m going, but the best dress I own is the one I wore to last year’s spring dance and it’s now too big. I hadn’t realized I’d lost weight, but it doesn’t surprise me, considering I don’t eat half the dinner my father serves every night. Our neighbors’ brown Labrador, Rueger, has gained ten pounds, though, eating all the steak, meat loaf, and pot roast I’ve given him. Mr. Daltry swears old Rueger grins like an idiot whenever he sees me from their front window.
I wish I could be at the hospital searching for my mother instead of going to a stupid dance. Thinking of my mother, I remember the few belongings of hers that I’d secreted away in the attic. She’d left some of her clothes and jewelry behind in her hurry to get away from us. My father had thrown out most everything, but I’d managed to hide a few things.
It takes minutes of searching through dusty boxes to find a dress that fits me. Violet chiffon ruffles fall below a ribbon sash at the waist, and a sweetheart neckline hugs me, set off by the two cap sleeves. The dress is perfectly modest, but I feel decadent wearing it. After dressing, I barely have time to throw my hair back into a messy knot and add a tiny headband for decoration. A little makeup and I’m out the door with my camera and my coat.
Walking through the gym entrance, I remember a different time, a better time, when Carey walked in at my side. Graduating early meant Carey missed prom, graduation, and his senior trip. So he’d insisted we make the most of Homecoming. I’d agreed, wanting to hold on to him for as long as I could.
Blake, Angel, and I had laughed our asses off when Carey was crowned Homecoming King to Jamie’s Queen. She had campaigned hard, though, and deserved it, but Carey grimaced his way through the ceremony. He dropped his crown on my head as soon as he left the stage, refusing the King and Queen couple’s dance. Jamie had glared at me for the rest of the night, but I hadn’t cared as Angel and I danced circles around the boys.
Good times. The best times.
Now, any hope I had that I would go unnoticed in the dark gym is lost when I arrive to find Angel and Nikki working the ticket table at the entrance.
Nikki takes one look at me and snaps, “No way. We don’t have any tickets left.”
I hand my ticket to Angel. “Relax, Nikki. I’m here to work. Yearbook.”
Angel takes the ticket. “Since when are you on Yearbook staff?” she asks, curiously.
My smile is wry. “Since Mr. Horowitz conned me into it this afternoon.”
She points to my coat. “Let me check that for you.”
Something about Angel has changed. She hasn’t smiled at me, but she seems nicer than before. It makes me suspicious, but I unbutton my coat and pass it to her. I hear a whistle, and turn to find Josh Danvers standing behind me.
His appreciative look turns into a scowl. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Nice to see you too, Josh.”
Nikki glares at me, and I remember she’s dating Josh this week. “Nice dress,” she says, but it’s clear she doesn’t mean it.
“Thanks,” I reply anyway. I don’t mention it was my mom’s. I’m not stupid enough to bring those comparisons on myself. Instead, I nod at Angel and head into the gym with my camera.
The gym has been transformed into a “Springtime in Paris” theme, with cardboard Eiffel Towers propped against the walls and tissue-paper flowers hanging from the ceiling. Students are having their pictures taken in front of a one-dimensional Arc de Triomphe, and the place has been lit up to resemble the City of Light. It actually looks pretty amazing, though the scent of sweat lingers under all the glitter.
A few people watch me. Feeling out of place, I put my camera to my eye and start snapping pictures. It takes a while, but as I move about the room, I lose myself, focused on capturing the perfect shot of Emmy Hawn dancing with Charles Brown. They look so in love, so unaware of anything outside their bubble, and I hop
e, for their sake, they can stay there.
Then Sam Ivanov dominates the dance floor when the music speeds up, and people are gathering around him to watch. These shots will show their faces shining with laughter and their bodies completely relaxed, swaying to the music.
Before I know it, an entire hour has passed. I finally manage a break and grab myself some juice. I sit at an empty table and take a sip, making a face at the alcohol aftertaste. Josh Danvers must have struck again with the flask he’d swiped from his father. Carey and I used to laugh about this, picturing Josh as a frat boy at whatever party school he ended up at.
Josh is a jerk, but I kind of miss him. Which is entirely pathetic because I’d never liked him all that much. The idiot used to put his hand on my leg when Carey wasn’t around.
As if thinking about him can make him materialize, he appears beside me. He’s wearing his usual belligerent look, and I grimace.
“Hey, Josh,” I say, praying he’s not here to pick a fight.
“Hey, Q. You think Carey knows you’re here partying while he’s off getting tortured?”
Nice. Right for the throat. I’m tempted to ask him why it’s okay for him to party. He’s Carey’s friend, after all. But the double standard is alive and well in our town, and I don’t want to fight. I gather my camera and rise, intending to leave. He blocks my path, and I close my eyes, feeling like I’m living out a stupid teen movie cliché. I try to step around him, and he heads me off again, bringing the scent of whiskey with him. He’s either drunk or on his way to it.
“Look, I just want to leave, okay?” I say in a quiet voice.
“No, it’s not okay. Nothing you’ve done is okay. I can’t believe you stabbed him in the back the way you did. He was my friend.”
“Is.”
“What?” Josh asks, confused.
“Carey is your friend.” It’s a stupid thing to point out, but I can’t let it go. “Don’t talk about him like he’s dead.”
If I Lie Page 7
