by Mark Levin
“Why, yes,” her husband replied nervously. “I was going to surprise you.” He turned quickly to Maddy. “You were right about needing to save money this year, Mads. So guess what, everyone? I arranged a house swap!”
The girl blinked. Didn’t they usually stay in a hotel?
“A what?”
Roger wagged his head enthusiastically. “You heard me. For a week in July we’ll be living in Paris in the home of Xavier Vadim and his family.”
Now Rebecca blinked. “We’re going to Paris?”
Maddy couldn’t tell if her mother was happy or sad. But she didn’t have time to worry about it. She had questions of her own. They all did.
“This Vadim family is going to stay in our house?” Maddy asked.
“Right!”
“In our rooms?” Benji asked.
“You got it. Relax. It’s all good. He’s a chemistry professor.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“It was simple, Mads. Vacationswap.com.”
“A website?” Maddy said. “This Vadim guy could be a ten-year-old boy, for all you know. Or a serial-rapist-vegetarian-robber-murderer.”
“Just as long as they don’t rifle through our closets,” Rebecca said.
“Ditto my computer,” Benji said. “Or use my music for scrap paper or knock over my Lego Death Star.”
“Relax,” Roger said. “We’ll lock away what we don’t want them to use. And you don’t have to worry that the flight over will break the bank. I booked the tickets using frequent-flier miles.”
Rebecca narrowed her eyes. She knew from hard experience what the words “frequent-flier miles” could mean.
“We are flying direct, right?”
Maddy could hear the irritation in her voice. She was angry—and rightfully so—for having been kept out of the loop on the family’s summer plans. To the children’s alarm, their father didn’t answer immediately but dug into another piece of lasagna.
“Dad?” Benji said once his father had swallowed. His voice trembled.
Roger washed down his food with a swallow of water. “Well, there are some minor connections.”
“Some?” Maddy asked.
“Three, actually.”
“Three!?!”
Maddy and Benji hadn’t heard their mother shriek that loudly in months.
“Rebecca, it’ll be fine,” their father said. “We fly from Chicago to Philly to Miami to London to Paris. Oh, wait.” He laughed embarrassedly. “That’s four, isn’t it?”
Rebecca stood, her face twisted into a horrible grimace. “Four?”
Her children worried she was going to either throw her lasagna at their father’s face or dive for his neck across the dining-room table. Instead, she collapsed back in her chair and buried her head in her hands.
“Relax, sweetie,” Roger said. “It’s going to be fun! Gay Paree! Maddy can practice her French.”
“I got a C-minus.”
“That’s why I said practice! Come on, people! This is amazing! Oh, wait a second.”
“What?” Maddy said.
“I forgot a minor detail.”
“What detail?” Rebecca asked. “What detail?”
Roger swallowed. “After London there’s a quick stop in Amsterdam.”
“Five connections!?”
Rebecca rose from the table like a ghost, lurched to her left, then teetered to her right before stumbling blindly out of the room, her face twisted in a silent scream. A moment later they heard the door to the master bedroom slam. As Maddy and Benji sank deeper into their chairs, Roger cleaned the last bit of lasagna from his plate.
“Delicious meal,” he said. “Pourquoi pour les dessertes?”
Chapter Three
Despite his impressive intelligence and musical talent, Benji was still a nine-year-old boy at heart. Sitting on his desk alongside his books on global warming and the history of Western chamber music was a stack of baseball cards, a Slinky, and a container of Silly Putty. On the wall by his bed were posters of the 2011 Cubs and Bulls. On his bed stand stood his famed Lego Death Star. At night he slept in Spider-Man pajamas.
Only not in his own bed. Starting at age three, Benji had gotten in the habit of waking in the middle of the night, stumbling half asleep down the hall to his parents’ room, then crawling under the covers at the foot of their bed. In the beginning, Roger had dutifully roused himself and carried his son back to his own room. But when Benji continued to arrive night after night with the regularity of a punctual train, Roger and Rebecca resigned themselves to sharing their bed—a situation that gave young Benji a bird’s-eye view of his parents’ evolving relationship. If he had been a bit older, he might have found what he saw every morning troubling: Roger and Rebecca Hitchcock never woke in each other’s arms—they hadn’t done that for years. In fact, they rarely even slept facing each other but passed the nighttime hours back-to-back, each clutching a pillow. Which was exactly how they were sleeping on the morning of July 6—departure day for France—when the alarm went off at seven a.m. sharp.
“OK, Hitchcocks!” Roger called. For someone who had been sound asleep a few seconds earlier, he sounded weirdly awake—then again, he had been looking forward to this day for months. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and glanced at the clock. “We leave for the airport in exactly ninety-seven minutes!”
The three months since the now infamous “dinner of the five connections” had passed quickly. Though Benji was still sorry about missing out on Camp Keys, with a short pep talk from his dad he had quickly gotten on board with the idea of the Paris house swap.
“How’s my wingman?” Roger called, looking down the bed.
Benji rubbed his eyes and reached for his glasses. “Good to go, Dad.”
“Nice.” Roger nudged his wife’s back. “Come on, Rebecca! Time to take this show on the road.”
In theory, Rebecca had quickly grown to love the idea of a Paris vacation. But she was so riddled with worries—the cost, how her kids would get along, how she and Maddy would get along, the language barrier—that she found it hard to make the leap to actual ongoing enthusiasm. Now she buried her head under a pillow.
“Gimme five more minutes. The plane doesn’t leave until one fifty-five.”
“International flight,” Roger said. “Long-term parking. We gotta be there two hours early.”
With that, he all but bounded out of bed and began to straighten the sheets.
“What in the world are you doing?” Rebecca asked.
“Just making the bed.”
Finally, Benji saw his mother’s face appear from under the pillow. He had seen the expression before, a mixture of intense irritation and exasperation.
“While I’m in it?”
Roger forced a smile. “Then get up. We’re at ninety-six minutes and counting.” He scratched his side and looked at Benji. “Wingman, you’re in charge of passports.”
“You got it, Dad.”
“You de man!”
“No, you de man!”
As father and son slapped five, Rebecca rolled to a sitting position and reached for her bathrobe.
“That’s progress!” Roger said. “Now listen, everyone. I already left clean hand towels for the Vadims in all the bathrooms, so if you wash your hands, dry them on your pants. OK, now. Time to wake Maddy.”
“You start,” Rebecca said with a yawn. “Then I’ll take over.”
Benji knew that waking his sister was often a two-parent job. Where he was a sleepwalker, Maddy was a sleep-later, prone to stay up all hours on Facebook; waking her for school was often a half-hour drag-out fight. He could only imagine how hard it would be to get her upright for the purpose of putting her on a plane headed away from her cherished pool. But Roger was undaunted. Still in his pajamas, he strode purposefully down the hall and rapped sharply on his daughter’s door. Benji trailed behind for a front-row seat.
“OK, Mads!” Roger called. “La vacatione is about to commence! Day of the big house s
wap, ma chérie!”
Thwap!
Roger and Benji exchanged a glance. Had Maddy really thrown a shoe at her door?
“Leave me alone!”
“Maddy!” Roger called. “We’re at ninety-five minutes. Your mother will check in on you in exactly thirty seconds.”
Maddy lay back on her bed and closed her eyes, despairing. Though she would never admit it, as the end of the school year approached she had secretly looked forward to seeing Paris. Who wouldn’t want to check out the Mona Lisa, walk by the Seine, and eat chocolate crepes, even if it was with her parents and little brother?
Then, on the last day of school, everything changed. First came the news that Noah Willis and Alex Mackie, two ninth graders with impressive biceps, had gotten summer jobs as lifeguards. Suddenly every week at the pool seemed doubly precious. Now Grace and the rest of her friends would have a leg up on being the first of their group to date a high-schooler—no mean feat.
But that wasn’t all. During the final lunch of the year, word had spread around the cafeteria that Noah was having a blowout party in just a few weeks. Then, to Maddy’s absolute delight, shock, and amazement, the older boy had approached her in the parking lot after the last bell.
“Maddy, right?”
Maddy gave Grace’s hand a tight squeeze. How was it possible that a mere boy could make her so unspeakably nervous? Even if he did have bluish gray eyes, thick hair, and a cleft?
“Yeah?” she said. “I mean, yes. Maddy. Me.”
Noah glanced to his right as though looking to an invisible wingman for moral support. Grace shoved Maddy lightly forward.
“So you know my party next month, right?” Noah went on finally.
“Right.”
“Well . . .” He paused.
Maddy looked at Grace, then back at Noah.
“Yeah . . . ?” she said.
“You’re coming, right?”
With a raucous “yes!” a split second from exploding joyously into the air, Maddy felt her heart crumble. Paris! Who cared about the Mona Lisa, chocolate crepes, or the Eiffel Tower compared to an invite to a party from a ninth grader?
Now she opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, remembering the look on Noah’s face when she broke the news. He had actually looked bummed—over her! But the look on Grace’s face was altogether different. Though her friend did her best to act disappointed on Maddy’s behalf, Maddy saw the slight smile and crinkle around her eyes. Was Grace secretly happy that Maddy would be out of the picture so she could horn in on Noah for herself? No doubt.
Suddenly a short week in Paris seemed endless—every second counted.
“Maddy, dear! Come on. We have to get to the airport.”
Maddy sat up in bed and sighed. Her mother, the real thorn in her side. For every annoying thing her brother did, her mom did three more. Which was doubly painful because they had once been close. But over the past year, mother-daughter communication had gone into freefall. There were days when Maddy felt as though her mind were exploding along with her body—days when she wanted to tell her mother everything. Her emotions swooped high and low like a deranged bird’s. But her mother did it every time. Whenever Maddy geared up to bare her soul, Rebecca managed to say or do something irritating.
“I’m telling you, it’s the hormones.”
That was Grace’s answer to everything. But couldn’t hormones be controlled? What better time than now to call a truce in the year-long impasse in mother-daughter relations? After all, if Maddy knew anything, it was that she’d need her mom’s support if she had any hope of staying home.
“OK,” she told herself, sitting up in bed. “Be nice.”
“Maddy!”
“Coming, Mom.”
She brushed a hand through her hair and swung open the door. Her mother was standing before her in a bathrobe.
“Are you packed?” Rebecca asked. She glanced into the room. “And cleaned?”
Maddy looked behind her. Her room looked like ground zero for a hand-grenade test site. “Getting there. But Mom . . . listen, can we talk? ”
“Now?”
“Yeah. Is that OK?”
While her default reaction had been suspicion, Rebecca allowed herself a thin smile. Perhaps the timing wasn’t great, but was Maddy ready to confide in her again? Like old times? “What is it, dear? We do have a plane to catch.”
Maddy drew in a deep breath. Time to go for broke. “Listen, Mom. I’ve been thinking. You let me stay here with Grace and I’ll make all the beds, mow the lawn, and take out the trash all summer.”
Rebecca’s thin smile tilted downward.
“I’ll throw in French tutoring,” Maddy said. “I’ll go once a week. No, twice a week until September.”
“Not this again, Mads.” Rebecca sighed. “Tutoring is no substitute for a trip to Paris. If you want extra help in French, we’ll see if we can get you a tutor when we get home. You’ve got to get that C-minus up.”
Usually, a mention of grades made Maddy furious. Now she forced herself to stay calm. Perhaps she needed to change tactics? Rebecca was already turning back to her room to get changed.
“Mom.”
Rebecca stopped. “Yes?”
“There’s this . . . this boy.”
Rebecca blinked. Was her daughter actually offering up personal information? She took a step back up the hall. “What?”
“A boy,” Maddy said. “And his name is Noah and he’s having a party.” Maddy paused. “He invited me. Personally.”
Maddy saw her mother’s eyes open wide with a wisp of pleasure. Maddy held her breath and awaited the verdict.
“That’s wonderful, dear,” her mother said. “Will his parents be home?”
“Come on, Mom. I don’t know. But he’s in ninth grade. He can handle it.”
“Well, when is it?”
“This weekend.”
Maddy saw her mother register what Maddy was really asking.
“This weekend?”
“Mom! Please!”
Rebecca sighed again. Why did she always get put in the position of being the bad guy? “Noah will still live here when you get home.”
“Righto!” her father called, hurrying by with a toiletry kit. “Remember! You’re a Hitchcock first!”
Rebecca put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Sorry, Maddy. Your father is right. I want to hear more about Noah. But family first.”
Her mother tried to pull her close, but Maddy withdrew as if her mother’s arms were toxic. “Oh God, Mom! I open up to you and you give me the family togetherness speech? Excuse me while I puke myself.”
She slammed the door. Rebecca tried the handle. It was locked.
“Maddy! Maddy! Open up! Come on, young lady!”
A moment later Roger hurried back up the hall and put his face to the door. “Maddy? Pack a change of clothes in carry-on. You know how you get motion sickness.”
That suggestion was greeted by the sound of violent retching. If Roger was concerned, he didn’t show it. Instead, he turned to Rebecca and winked.
“She’ll be there.”
The next hour passed in a mad flurry. Bowing to the inevitable, Maddy emerged from her room. Showers were taken, hair washed, clothes put on. Though they had started two days earlier, there was still plenty to be packed. When it became obvious even to Roger that the first suitcase he had picked wasn’t large enough to hold what the family needed, everything was dumped out onto the floor, then repacked into one that was bigger. Books, sunglasses, iPods, and snacks were crammed into carry-ons. At the same time, last-minute preparations were made to get the house ready for their guests. While Roger had already carefully cleared out two of his drawers for Xavier Vadim’s use, Rebecca frantically moved half of her shirts, slacks, and dresses out of her closet to make room for Beatrix Vadim’s clothes. In their own rooms, Maddy shoved the mess on her floor under her bed and Benji cleared out his shelf of baseball cards.
And then there were the untouchab
les—the things each Hitchcock didn’t want the Vadims to see or use. Benji put a password protocol on his computer and locked his music inside the piano bench. Rebecca hid her favorite shoes. Maddy shoved her diary into the air-conditioning vent. Roger tucked away his best wine.
Which left the family pictures. With exactly twenty-two minutes until departure, Roger came upon Rebecca hustling through the house with an armload of family portraits lifted from the walls.
“What in the world?” Roger asked. “The pictures, too?”
“So maybe it’s overkill, “ Rebecca said defensively, “but I don’t want strangers we met on the internet who might be serial-rapist-vegetarian-robber-murderers looking at all of our photos.”
Roger sighed. Over the past three months, he had tried to be patient. In truth, he understood his wife’s concerns. It was a bit strange to be opening their home to complete strangers, even ones who seemed as refined and trustworthy as the Vadims. But was it really necessary to leave the walls completely barren? Where was the trust? Just as Roger was about to say something, the picture at the top of the pile caught his eye—a snapshot of happy days, when Maddy was nine and Benji five—the greatest Hitchcock vacation of them all: Maui.
“Wow,” he said. “Remember this? Back when I could lift Maddy on my shoulders and we could afford hotels?” He smiled, remembering. “Look at Maddy doing gymnastics on the beach.”
Rebecca allowed herself a small smile. True, both kids had gotten sunburned and the coffee at the hotel was weak, but all in all, it was one of the good ones. But the happy memories were soon clouded by ongoing anxieties.
“Gymnastics,” she said with a rueful smile. “Which she quit after one year.”
“No, no,” Roger said. “She took gymnastics for three years. She could do some awesome flips.”
Rebecca smiled. “She was invited to a party by a boy, you know.”
“She told you that?” Roger asked.
Rebecca nodded. “Maybe she’s ready to open back up to me?”
Before Roger could respond, a voice pierced the hallway: Maddy’s.
“Just so we’re clear, family members! I’ll go on this stupid vacation because I have no choice! But let it be known that I am being dragged against my will by parents who wouldn’t know the right thing to say if it did a tap dance on their head, then bit them on the butt!”
