Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright 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
Acknowledgements
DUTTON CHILDREN’S BOOKS
A division of Penguin Young Readers Group
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the
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Copyright © 2009 by Deborah Lytton
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Published in the United States by Dutton Children’s Books,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
www.penguin.com/youngreaders
eISBN : 978-1-101-04625-8
http://us.penguingroup.com
For Ava and Caroline
Chapter 1
I open my eyes.
And I realize. Today is the day. Today is my twelfth birthday.
Today I am finally old enough to get my ears pierced.
I jump out of my soft lavender bed and stand in front of the mirror barefoot in my blue pajamas with little white puffy clouds all over the legs. I turn this way and that way. To be truthful, I’m a little disappointed. I don’t look older at all. I’m still the same me. The anomaly in an all-blond-haired, blue-eyed family with my red curly hair, army-green eyes, and a freckle for every day of my life—which would be somewhere around 4,380.
“Jane, breakfast!” my mother calls from downstairs.
“Coming,” I call out.
“And get your sister,” my mother adds.
Just then I notice something different, and I peer closer to be sure.There it is. A new freckle, right on the bridge of my nose. Number 4,381. Not exactly what I had in mind. But by tonight I will look different, I remind myself. By tonight, I will have pierced ears.
I turn toward the bathroom door. We have one of those bathrooms that connects my sister’s room and my room, with a lilac-colored door on my side and a rose-colored door on Lizzie’s side.
My door is locked from the inside, and I can hear water running.
“Lizzie,” I call. “Breakfast.”
I hear the toilet flush and then my sister’s muffled voice, “No thanks.”
I shrug and turn back toward the mirror. “Happy Birthday,” I tell myself with a smile.
When I get downstairs, I see a shiny pink-and-silver “Happy Birthday” banner hanging over the doorway to the dining room.
My father is already sitting at the table, reading the New York Times.
“Hi, Dad,” I say as I make my way to his chair.
“Hi, honey,” he responds. He breaks away from his reading long enough to say, “Happy Birthday.” I drop a kiss on his cheek and then turn to look for my presents.
On the small, round table underneath the window, I see three wrapped boxes. One large rectangle and two smaller squares. I hold my breath. I’ve been hinting madly for a digital camera. Could it be? I resist the urge to shake the boxes. I’m twelve today, not five. I can wait.
I sit down at the table.
I might be able to control myself from shaking boxes, but there is something much more important on my mind this morning, and I can’t hold it in.
I’ve noticed that if I tell my parents something as though I’m the parent, I get a better response, so I say it very matter-of-factly, “You and Mom said on my twelfth birthday—and that’s tod—”
Just then my mother comes in from the kitchen, carrying a plate of banana-chocolate-chip pancakes, my absolute and total favorite.
“Mom! You remembered!” I exclaim, and jump up to hug her.
She smiles at me. “As though I haven’t made this for you every birthday since you were three,” she teases.
“True,” I say. “But today is extra special.”
“Twelve is a big birthday,” my mother agrees. “Something is supposed to happen today, only I can’t seem to remember what . . .” My mother is always pretending not to remember things that are really important to us. Like getting my ears pierced.
“Can we go after breakfast, please?” I beg, completely forgetting my parentlike voice.
“I think we said thirteen,” my father says as he turns a page. I can’t tell if he’s teasing me or not.
“No, no, you said twelve! Believe me, I’m sure of it. I’ve been waiting seven whole years. Misty got them done in second grade; Zoe in kindergarten. I’m probably the only girl over ten in America—no, wait—in the entire universe, who doesn’t have her ears pierced.”
My mother places a heaping stack of pancakes in front of me. “I always said you had the memory of an elephant,” she says. “If you’re not busy after breakfast, I thought we might head over to the mall.”
“I’m not busy,” I say as I dive into the pancakes.
“Where’s your sister?” my mother asks as she brushes her hand across her perfectly-combed-into-a-chignon, never-a-hair-out-of-place, blond head.
“I called her,” I say with my mouth full of pancakes.
“She’s not going to pull this again,” my father says.
“Harold,” my mother responds. “I went ten rounds yesterday over a glass of milk.”
My father stands and throws his paper to the ground. “When is she going to stop this nonsense?” His mouth pinches into a tight, straight line.
My mother walks to the doorway. I watch her hands as they reach up to her already perfect hair and smooth it back.
“Elizabeth
,” she calls sweetly. “Breakfast is on the table.”
Silence.
“I’ll get her,” I tell them. I pass under the “Happy Birthday” sign and head up the stairs.
Lizzie is my parents’ perfect child. The one they are always bragging about to their friends. She’s sixteen years old. Gorgeous. Popular. A straight-A student. Lizzie, with long, straight hair the color of sunshine, blue eyes the color of the sky on a summer day, and a smile full of cloud-white never-had-braces-but-are-still-perfect teeth. She doesn’t have a freckle on her.
When Lizzie walks into a room, the air changes. It whirls around her, like an attention tornado. Everyone wants to be near her.
Knock. Knock.
“Lizzie?” I call out softly. No response.
I open the door a crack. The shutters are closed and the room is dark, but I can still see her. Lizzie, hunched over her desk. Writing. It occurs to me that my sister is always hunched over lately. I wonder why I never noticed it before.
In the shadows, I spot the photographs taped around the edges of Lizzie’s mirror. There are models in bathing suits, actresses at film premieres, marathon runners, cheerleaders, homecoming queens. All of Lizzie’s goals end up on the mirror. She calls it her Secret of Success.
I take a step into the room. Maybe she didn’t hear me.
“Lizzie . . .” I try. I stop when I hear her words.
“Not hungry.”
“That’s not the point,” I say, trying to be parentlike.
“Not hungry,” she says again.
“Please . . . for me.” It’s my birthday. I don’t say this part. I don’t know why; I just don’t.
Through the darkened room, I see her stand up. As she comes toward me, the light from the hallway shines on her. In the spotlight, Lizzie is all golden. And truly movie-star gorgeous. Except my sister looks like she’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
She clutches a tiny turquoise box in her right hand.
All of a sudden tears burn my eyes and all I know is I want to hug her. I reach out my arms and wrap them around her. She feels so fragile. Like she might break if I squeeze her too hard. She leans into me for a second. And then she’s gone. Back into that place she goes.Where I can’t come.
She holds out the box to me. “Happy Birthday, J,” she whispers softly, liltingly, in her beautiful voice. She’s called me J since I can remember.
“Thanks,” I murmur as I touch my fingers to the box, suddenly self-conscious. I start to untie the little silver ribbon, but Lizzie stops me.
“Open it later,” she tells me.
“Okay,” I say as I gently take her hand and lead her down to the lion’s den.
Back at the table, we all pretend everything is normal. Except that Lizzie hasn’t eaten a bite of food. I, on the other hand, am on my second stack of pancakes.
And then it begins.
My mother looks at Lizzie, who is cutting a grape into four pieces.
“Honey, why don’t you try a pancake?” My mother is like a food cheerleader.
“I hate pancakes.” This is her new thing. She hates everything my mother wants her to eat.
“Nonsense.” (My father’s favorite word.) “Pass the toast, Elizabeth.”
I take another bite of pancakes. Gulp orange juice.
“You used to love them.” My mother won’t give up.
“Well, I don’t anymore.”
“Be happy,” my mother urges. “Smile.”
My sister doesn’t smile. And she doesn’t reach for the large plate of toast either, so I do it for her. My dad is back inside the business section and doesn’t even notice who has handed him the plate.
“Thank you, dear,” he mumbles.
“I’m not eating the pancakes,” Lizzie announces.
Now my father looks up from the paper. Uh-oh, I think. And I start shoveling food into my mouth.
“Doesn’t matter, you’re going to eat it, young lady.”
It’s amazing. I’m shaking in my chair, but Lizzie is totally unfazed.
“No,” she says firmly.
My father looks at my mother. I think he must be really mad. We don’t say no to him. Ever. My mouth is so full I have to breathe through my nose. I gulp some milk to wash the pancakes down.
And then he uses it. The Voice. He never yells, he doesn’t have to. He just uses The Voice. It’s low and gravelly, and sounds like a volcano rumbling down in the center of the earth, ready to erupt. “Enough of this nonsense. I’ll hear no more of it.”
I want to be invisible. I wish I could close my eyes and just disappear. Go someplace quiet. A beach somewhere, a treetop, a cloud.
“Just eat five bites.” My mother, the hostage negotiator.
Lizzie glares at her.
My father reaches for his coffee. Stirs ivory cream into the java. I watch it swirl, wondering how he can be so calm.
“Three?” My mother is backing down already.
Lizzie crosses her arms over her bony chest. Her mouth in a thin line.
My mother moves to stand behind Lizzie’s chair. I’ve now moved on to sausage. I’m not even cutting it, just stabbing the links with my fork and biting.
My mother cuts three smallish bites of pancake on Lizzie’s plate. She spears one and wedges the fork into Lizzie’s fist.
Lizzie’s eyes meet mine. I can see the glisten of tears in the pools of blue. She speaks to me without words. It’s a language I’ve been speaking since I was a baby. I understand Lizzie’s facial cues as though words were coming from her lips. Her eyebrows raise slightly, her mouth crinkles. Lizzie is telling me she’s sorry this is happening right now. She hasn’t forgotten it’s my day. But she can’t help it.
I give her a look back. It’s a look I’ve been giving her my whole life, and with twelve years of practice, I’m really good at it. I tilt my head to the left and give a small half smile without teeth. This is the look that says, It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I don’t really feel this. What I really feel is that everyone should just smile and eat breakfast together. Because a girl’s birthday is the one day of the year that should be about her. Instead, I take care of Lizzie. She’s counting on me.
Lizzie gives me back a look with a small relieved smile. More tears in the pools. And this is her way of thanking me.
While my sister and I are wordlessly conversing, Mom is waiting. Her arms are crossed over her chest and she is waiting on Lizzie to eat. Dad is waiting, his eyes fixed on Lizzie’s plate.
Lizzie stabs one teeny piece of pancake and lifts it to her mouth. Ever so slowly. She opens her mouth, still watching me. And slips the morsel between her lips.Then she chews. And chews. And chews. She must chew fifty times. I can hear her jaw grinding. There can’t possibly be any food left between her teeth. But still she keeps on grinding.
I can’t watch. I look down at my plate and count the flowers along the edge of the china. One rose, two daisies, three pansies, four—
“There,” she announces triumphantly as she plunks the fork back onto the plate.
“It’s a start,” my mother admits encouragingly. But that’s it. Lizzie has eaten all she’s going to eat for the morning.
“May I be excused?” Lizzie asks softly.
“Go ahead,” my father answers.
“I’m going for a run,” Lizzie announces. And before I know it, she’s out the door.
My mother makes a soft sound like a kitten mewing. I recognize it as her version of a sob. But we don’t cry in the Holden family. At least not in front of anybody.
Within seconds, she escapes to the kitchen. And out the back door. Probably for a cigarette. She thinks we don’t know that she smokes. She promised us she would quit over two years ago, but the smell of smoke is a dead give-away. (The mints she eats and the gardenia perfume she sprays on do nothing to cover the smell of Virginia Slims.) And anyway, who spends that much time in the garage?
After a minute, my father stands and leaves the table.
And I sit there, too stuffed to move, and stare at the sparkly pink sign.
Chapter 2
For ten minutes, I sit at the empty table. Then I pry myself out of the chair, and go outside to find Lizzie. I know her route, but I can’t begin to run on such a full stomach. I walk down the street instead. It gives me time to think. About other birthdays. I remember my fourth birthday. My parents gave me a set of crayons and special art paper. I tried to draw a flower, but it kept coming out all lopsided. I remember crying. Until Lizzie sat behind me on the floor, placed her hand around mine, and drew the flower with me. And then we drew another. And another. Until the entire paper was a garden of the most beautiful flowers I had ever seen. Then she helped me color them. We made pink roses, red geraniums, purple irises, yellow daffodils, blue cornflowers, orange poppies. I was so proud of that picture. Lizzie refused to take any credit for it, boasting to my parents that I had drawn it all by myself. It was our secret.
I see Lizzie running toward me now, her blond hair flowing behind her like a yellow scarf blowing in the wind. When she sees me, she slows down.
“Don’t you ever get sick of pretending to be happy all the time?” She pants as she speaks.
I shrug. I don’t really know what to say. “I guess.”
“What do you think would happen if I brought home a C?” Lizzie asks, her blue eyes sparkling with the thought.
“Would you?” I ask. I can’t even imagine such a thing. Lizzie has always been a straight-A student.
She shrugs. “Maybe.” She bends over to touch the ground, stretching her legs.
“I could give you pointers,” I tell her. “I bring home C’s all the time.”
Lizzie throws back her head and laughs at this. I love her laugh. It sounds like little tiny crystal bells. I smile big and slip my hand into hers. And that’s how we walk all the way home.
As soon as we get back to the house, I go to find my mother. I am only thinking of one thing. Getting my ears pierced. I find her sitting in her favorite green-and-white-checked armchair. Staring at the wall. Whenever she sits here, she’s upset about something.
Jane In Bloom Page 1
