by Nancy Werlin
Would it be rude if he called Dan or Mike or Jessica to see if they were home? If he left to go hang with one of them?
Nobody would mind. Zach could almost feel how strongly he wasn't wanted in this kitchen or this house right now. He could leave. He ought to go away. It was a force pushing at him. A command.
Go. Go. Go.
"Zach!" It was Lucy, calling from the top of the stairs. "Where'd you put the hair dryer?" Her voice penetrated the command and made him remember that he didn't want to leave. He had to stay and see Lucy off to prom. That was what he wanted to do. How come he had nearly forgotten? He lived here, after all. He wasn't going anywhere. He belonged!
He set his will to it. He was going to stay right here.
He reached for the cheese and crackers, and yelled back to Lucy. "I didn't touch it!"
Upstairs. Lucy dried her hair, braided it, and put on makeup, lightly. There had been no sign of Miranda the last few days, and Lucy was beginning to feel excited after all. Prom would be fun. Gray was so sweet and funny and he had said he liked to dance. He had been spending time with her lately, between classes and at lunch. Their table often would be all friends.
Yes. it would be fun tonight.
She wriggled into the short white silk dress, put on the long, triple-strand necklace of red, green, yellow, and orange hard candies in wrappers that she'd painstakingly sewed together, and looked in the full-length mirror. The final decision: high heels, or the new (clean) red high-top sneakers?
The high-tops. Definitely.
No. The heels.
"Pierre?" she asked the poodle, who was lying almost completely under her bed, with only his nose and eyes peeking out from under the dust ruffle. "What do you think?" But Pierre only whimpered pathetically. He edged back farther under the bed.
Lucy shrugged. She picked up a different shoe in each hand and ran lightly down the stairs to the kitchen. "You guys! I need an opinion." And then she stopped, blinking confusedly at the handsomest man she'd ever seen in real life.
Tall. Dark-haired. Blue-eyed. Slender and broad-shouldered. But it wasn't just this man's looks that were remarkable: something about him bespoke intelligence too, and hinted at that most seductive quality of all: humor.
And yet, Lucy was faintly repelled. Was it the glint of arrogance in his eyes? He knows he's handsome. Lucy thought. And smart. He knows it and he uses it. And most people just cave. I bet, and give him every thing he asks for before he even asks for it.
The man—Padraig Seeley—was now standing up and holding out a hand toward her. He smiled, and it was dazzling. "Hello. Lucinda," he said. "I've been looking forward to meeting you."
Lucy immediately disliked him more, for using her full name. "Just Lucy," she said.
"Lucinda," Padraig Seeley repeated firmly. "It's a beautiful name, which should be used. And it suits you, or will, when you grow into it. Whereas 'Lucy' is, well, mundane."
For a second Lucy glanced at Zach. He crossed his eyes. She repressed a grin.
Padraig Seeley's hand was still outstretched, waiting for hers.
Soledad and Leo were smiling. They had invited him over, or rather. Soledad had. He worked with Soledad, Lucy remembered. She really didn't want to touch him, but it was important to be polite. And it wasn't like it truly mattered.
Lucy reached out to take Padraig Seeley's offered hand.
CHAPTER 8
"Oh!" Lucy said. She waved a red high-top at Padraig Seeley. "Oops! Sony. I forgot I was holding this. Nice to meet you." She spun around, not touching the man after all. Saved by a red high-top sneaker. Ha!
She heard Zach snort and knew he'd understood the little byplay perfectly. She ignored him. They could rip apart this Padraig Seeley later on, privately. How dare he say her name was mundane?
She turned to Soledad. "Mom, which shoes?"
Soledad regarded Lucy, barefoot in her white silk dress, with her braids hanging over her shoulders and her candy necklace dangling nearly to her knees. She wore one sneaker and one high heel on each hand like puppets. She looked preposterous, yet aglow and wonderful. "The sneakers," she said. "For that note of irony you mentioned."
"The heels," said Zach simultaneously.
"You are just so conventional." Lucy told Zach.
"No. Correction: I'm subtle. You've already got the irony going with the candy necklace, and the sneakers would take it over the top."
Lucy snorted. She raised an eyebrow at Leo.
Leo shook his head in mock dismay. "Can you wear one of each?"
Lucy considered. "I would if they were the same height." She smiled. "You know, Dad, you might have the best fashion sense in this family."
"No, he's just afraid to say what he thinks," said Zach. "Another idea is—"
Padraig Seeley cut in. "Let me decide."
His voice was low yet arresting, and as if they'd been commanded to attention, the others stopped talking and their eyes swiveled to him. There was a curious moment of waiting before he added easily, "The high heels. Definitely." In a kindly aside to Zach, he said, "You're right, but for the wrong reason. It's not a question of being subtle. It's a question of elongating Luanda's line." He made a gesture at Lucy's legs. "Irony is all very well, Lucinda, but considerations of beauty must always come first."
Lucy hunched a shoulder awkwardly. She disappeared out of the kitchen again, leaving silence behind her. The silence seemed to go on for a long time. Then the vegetables Leo was sautéing on the stove crackled, breaking the moment. Leo turned to deal with them.
"Excuse me," said Zach, and got up and left the kitchen. He felt a weird sense of relief when he saw Lucy. She was on the stair landing above, balanced on one red foot while she defiantly laced the second high-top on.
"Good choice," he called softly up to her.
"What?"
"I changed my mind. Subtlety is overrated."
"What about beauty?"
"I prefer individuality," said Zach. "Plus I just realized that the high-tops would be better if. you know, by chance you should suddenly need to kick somebody's butt."
They grinned at each other. Then Lucy began to make a kung-fu-type kick, but all at once, a visible shiver took her, despite the warmth of the day. She teetered to the stair and had to grab the banister to recover.
Zach started forward. "Luce—"
"I'm okay."
"Yeah, but—"
The doorbell rang.
The living room filled up with the adults. Everybody looked at the door with varying expressions of expectation.
"I'll get it." Zach said. He went to the door to let Gray Spencer in. Behind him, he could hear Lucy descending the stairs, deliberately clomping on each step in her red high-tops.
Gray blinked happily at Zach from behind his glasses. "Hey, Zach. Long time no see."
In the late-afternoon sunshine, Gray looked exactly as Zach had remembered him, except for his black tuxedo and the white square flower box clutched in one hand. Behind him, at the curb, Zach saw not the hired limousine that Lucy had said he would be using, but a tiny, gleaming, navy and silver MINI Cooper convertible with its top down. Gray saw where Zach's eyes had gone and he swelled up ever so slightly with pride.
The hostility Zach had been feeling toward Padraig Seeley swirled up in him and focused itself on this new target.
"From my grandmother. Great, huh?" Gray was saying. "It's a graduation present."
"Okay, but aren't you still a junior?"
"Well." Gray shrugged. "Gram's a little confused. My parents and I didn't want to hurt her feelings."
Of course not, thought Zach. And you wanted the car. Did Grammy pay insurance too? "Come on in," he said. "Luce is pretty much ready."
"She's going to be so surprised about the car," said Gray blissfully.
"Yeah, she'll be over the moon with joy," said Zach. "Just like it was hers." Then he was sorry. Why was he cutting at this perfectly nice guy? Not to mention at his car, which Gray obviously thought was so great,
but which really was pretty much a girly car.
Okay, so maybe Lucy was way too good for this clown, but it was only a prom date, after all. Right?
As he stood aside to let Gray enter the house, a flicker of something purple caught the edge of Zach's sight. He looked to the left. One of the neighborhood kids, maybe, racing around the Markowitzes' house in some game? There were several kids across the street, hanging out in the front yard of Mrs. Angelakis. Mrs. Angelakis herself was sitting on her stoop with another woman. She yelled across to Zach. "We're all waiting to see Lucy off to prom!"
He waved. "She'll be out in just a few minutes!" He went back inside.
Gray was now shaking hands with everybody. But his eyes were on Lucy, frankly smitten, and Zach knew at once that what he'd told Soledad—that this was probably a just-friends-going-to-prom date—was not the case. At least not for Gray. He couldn't tell what Lucy was thinking. Couldn't tell how much she liked this guy. They hadn't touched or kissed, although now Lucy was taking the white box from Gray and opening it.
"It's so pretty," she said
"It's a camellia. It goes on your wrist," said Gray. "The woman at the flower shop told me that's what all the girls are wearing this year. It has this bracelet thing, see?"
He took the corsage out of the box and Lucy held out her left hand so that he could put the camellia on her wrist. The flower was a soft pink, which Zach thought was too wimpy a color for Lucy. Bui Gray and Lucy were smiling at each other. Zach couldn't help glancing at Soledad. She was the one who had been worried initially. Did she feel better, now that she'd seen Gray?
He couldn't tell. Soledad shook hands with Gray with perfect composure. So did Leo and Padraig, whom Soledad referred to, casually, as "my friend from work." as if he were somebody she'd known for years instead of just a few days.
"Shouldn't we take pictures?" Leo said.
The next ten minutes were a blur of posed photos. Gray once more putting the corsage on Lucy's wrist. Gray and Lucy standing by the stairs. Lucy alone on the stairs, doing a kick with one red shoe, and smirking at Zach while she did it, not that anybody looking at the photo later would know that.
Then there were several family pictures taken that included Gray, which Padraig Seeley insisted on taking. Padraig was, in fact, surprisingly involved with the photos, at one point even taking Gray by the shoulders and physically placing him into the position he wanted. "Lean over her a little. Yes, like that. Move your arm like this. Good." He moved Gray like a puppet before finally stepping back to take the photo.
Then everybody went outside, and from across the street, where several other neighbors had joined Mrs. Angelakis, there came prolonged cheering and yelling and whistling and stomping.
"Looo-cee!"
"Ha! Only you would wear those sneakers!"
"Gaw-JUS!"
Three of the smaller children raced across the street, begging Padraig Seeley, who still had possession of the camera, to take their pictures with Lucy. In the ensuing commotion, anyone listening less alertly than Zach would have missed Soledad's sharp tone as she grabbed Gray's arm, nodded toward the MINI Cooper, and said, "Wait a minute. Are you driving?"
"Well, yeah—"
"Leo! This young man is planning to drive—"
Gray interrupted. "Mrs. Markowitz, wait. Please. Listen. I'm an excellent driver and if you're worried about drinking. I'm not planning—I don't drink, and anyway, you know, the drinking age is twenty-one, and there're going to be adults at both the prom and the after-party, so—"
"Soledad," said Leo soothingly. "That sounds perfectly reasonable. We trust Lucy. If there's a problem, she has her cell phone. She can call."
"No! I agreed to her going in a limo with a driver." Soledad's voice was tight. "I did not agree to this." She glared at Gray Spencer, and then, visibly, took a deep breath. "All right. I have decided. You can take Lucy to the prom, because I see you are not inebriated at this point. But afterward—Zach?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Zach promptly. Gray's face had gone all mottled and red. and secretly, it pleased Zach to see it.
Soledad continued. "When the prom ends, Zach, you will be there and you will transport Lucy to the after-party. Then later on, Lucy will call you from the after-party and you will go get her and bring her home. No matter what time it is."
"Okay," said Zach cheerfully. "No problem."
"Mrs. Markowitz—" Gray looked both furious and humiliated.
"That," said Soledad calmly, "is how it is going to be, or Lucy doesn't go at all."
Gray looked at Lucy appealingly.
But Lucy wasn't looking at him. Or, it seemed, paying any attention at all.
Instead, she was staring at the corner of the house, where a small skinny woman with dull brown hair, wearing a T-shirt and a long, ragged purple skirt, was squatting on the grass. The woman was watching, not Lucy, but Padraig Seeley.
Beside the woman was a twisted old shopping cart, heaped high with plastic and glass bottles.
Zach recognized her. It was Miranda.
CHAPTER 9
Quickly Zach glanced at Lucy, moving his face in a silent apology. Lucy had told him that Miranda was back; had asked his opinion about telling or not telling her parents. But because Miranda had not appeared for the last few days, they had decided to let it go, that there was no need to upset Soledad and Leo. Now it was clear that this decision had been a mistake.
Lucy met Zach's glance. She shrugged, making a quick quirk with her lips that seemed to be a failed attempt at a reassuring smile. Then her gaze went right back to Miranda.
Lucy wasn't sure how long it took the others, besides Zach. to notice that her birth mother was there. It might have been several minutes, or only one. It didn't matter. For that period of time, it was as if Lucy were alone, watching Miranda as she crouched in her homeless person's rags beside the comfortable home in which her daughter lived without her.
She came. Lucy thought. Irrationally, part of her felt glad, almost as if, like Mrs. Angelakis and the other neighbors. Miranda had come on purpose to see Lucy dressed up, looking unique and pretty. To see her off and to wish her a good time at the prom.
But Miranda was not even looking at Lucy. And Lucy was momentarily frozen. Frozen and desolate.
Then Soledad gasped and said the single word: "Miranda." And she did what Lucy never could. She ran. She grabbed Lucy's mother and embraced her. "Miranda!" Soledad was crying. "Oh, sweetie, have you come, let me help, thank God you're all right—"
Like an eel, Miranda twisted from Soledad's grasp. Soledad reached out again, but Miranda turned sharply and elbowed her in the face. Soledad screamed in surprise and pain. Blood began gushing from her nose. And in the same moment, Miranda reached into her shopping cart and, grabbing bottles two at a time, began lobbing them fiercely, rapidly, at the prom group that was still standing on the front walk.
Smash! Crack! Crack! Smash! Bottles flew pell-mell through the air. A glass bottle crashed into a thousand shards by Lucy's feet. An instant later, she felt Zach grab her and yank her behind him.
One plastic bottle ricocheted against Padraig Seeley's chest. It was followed by a glass bottle, which, astonishingly, he caught in midair. For a second, Lucy thought he might have been smiling. Meanwhile, another glass bottle flew half an inch past Gray Spencer's head to smash against the passenger-side door of the MINI Cooper.
Gray yelped.
Meanwhile, Leo was yelling something in the direction of Zach and Lucy. Lucy couldn't make out what it was, though, because Miranda was now also screaming, a stream of imaginative, bawdy insults.
Zach tugged at Lucy. She resisted, trying to wrench her arm free so she could go to Soledad. She could see blood running from Soledad's nose, and that she was attempting, futilely, to pinion Miranda's arms from behind. "Mom!" Lucy shouted.
Another bottle crashed near Lucy.
"Miranda, stop it!" Leo yelled. "Lucy might get hurt!"
In the background, Mrs. Angelakis was also
yelling: "Her again! This time I'm calling the police!"
"Lucy, get down!" Zach had a grip on Lucy's wrist, smashing her corsage. "Crawl toward the house! Do it now!" When she didn't, he tripped her with one foot and shoved her down to the ground. Lucy spared one second for indignation, but then she began crawling grimly in the direction Zach was pulling her. She was vaguely aware that she was sobbing, in harsh little gasps.
Another glass bottle exploded right in front of Lucy on the brick steps of the house.
Almost simultaneously, Lucy heard the squeal of car wheels. She misted in time to see that it was the MINI Cooper. Gray Spencer was making his getaway.
Then Leo moved. Later, Lucy realized that only seconds had elapsed between the first hurled bottle and Leo's response, but at the time, it had felt like eons.
He ran across the lawn, straight toward Miranda and Soledad. A glass bottle hit him on the shoulder, but he kept going. And an instant later, Leo had grabbed—not Miranda, and not Soledad—but the shopping cart, now half-empty. He raced with it across the street into Mrs. Angelakis's front yard.
The silence that followed was almost shocking. But it lasted only a few seconds before a wailing began and increased. Police sirens, Lucy realized. She could feel Zach's hands on her arms, hear him talking at her. She realized that he was still trying to get her to go inside the house.
But she wouldn't. Lucy stood up. She felt the ruined (lower on her wrist dangling from the bracelet. She turned to face the front yard, which now contained only Padraig Seeley, unruffled, surrounded by plastic and shattered glass. She looked past him.
Two police cars pulled up to the curb. The noise of their sirens bumped down to beeps.
