You Don't Live Here

by Robyn Schneider

  Oh god.

  She went on, saying how important it was to start off on the right foot and know the right people, and I had this horrible flash of a country club version of Tara Angel sneering down her nose at my Forever 21 flats.

  “What if they don’t like me?” I asked weakly.

  “What’s not to like?” my grandmother retorted as though the notion was ridiculous.

  I’d given my grandparents the impression that I had plenty of friends back home. I didn’t want them to think I was weird, or that my mom had failed to equip me socially or whatever. Old people never get how brutal high school can be, how a screencap or a bathroom emergency or a vindictive friend can cause someone’s permanent undoing.

  “Don’t worry, sweet pea,” my grandfather said. “I’m sure you’ll be just as popular here as you were at your old school.”

  I nearly choked. At least before I’d been invisible. Now I was a new student, and people paid attention to those. What’s her deal, they’d wonder. And then they’d find out: I was the sad new girl with the dead mom. Or earthquake girl, which was even worse.

  But I had a plan. A foolproof way to get through the next two years: I’d do what had worked before. I’d sign up for yearbook, sit at their lunch table, and volunteer to photograph events so it looked like I had a social life. I didn’t need to make friends, I just needed to not make enemies.

  Which meant that, whoever it was my grandparents wanted me to meet tonight, all I had to do was not make them hate me.

  And so I took a steadying breath and followed my grandparents through a lobby and onto an oceanfront patio.

  Waiters in bow ties stood at drink stations, mixing cocktails and pouring wine. Passed hors d’oeuvres were being served. Music played, soft and inoffensive. A silent auction was set up along the back wall, where you could bid on spa packages and ski retreats. We’d had a silent auction at my high school to raise money—my mom had donated a haircut, and the woman who’d won it had angrily demanded her money back when she realized my mom wasn’t a dog groomer. We’d laughed about it for days.

  This was another new thing: the discovery that all of our inside jokes were buried along with her.

  My grandfather disappeared instantly into a clutch of older gentlemen, who were recapping some golf game. Eleanor steered me toward a woman with short gray hair and a prominent gold cross necklace, who introduced herself as Joan, from the book club. Her nose was sort of melted, and her skin was strangely tight, and she could have been anywhere from fifty-five to seventy.

  “Please tell me you’ll be at the next meeting,” Joan said, giving my grandmother a double air kiss.

  “I’ll be there,” my grandmother promised.

  “Thank god.” Joan dropped her voice to a whisper. “I need a buffer. Annette won’t stop going on about her kitchen renovation, and there’s only so many times you can look at photos of marble slabs without going crazy.”

  My grandmother snorted.

  “And this must be Sasha,” Joan said, swiveling in my direction. “Has anyone ever told you that you look just like”—Don’t say it, I thought—“Audrey Hepburn?”

  “Never,” I said, flattered, even though I didn’t see it at all.

  “The spitting image,” she promised.

  She switched gears, asking me about school. They were standard questions, easy conversational volleys that I tried to return to my grandmother’s satisfaction.

  “Hold on, that’s my grandson,” said Joan, waving over a tall, impossibly handsome blond boy. Water polo, I guessed. With a side of homecoming king. “Cole, come here! I want you to meet Sasha.”

  “Hey,” he said, running his hand through his hair before offering it as an afterthought. “What’s up?”

  Did every teenage boy shake hands in this place? It was even weirder than using a shower squeegee. I clasped his hand briefly, mumbling a hello.

  He was even better-looking up close, all broad shoulders and broader grin. His eyes were green, and his eyebrows thick and brooding. His hair magically stayed where he’d finger-combed it, a perfect golden swoop.

  I pictured his yearbook caption easily: Most Likely to Succeed. He was the kind of boy who expected the whole world to fall willingly into his lap. And the kind of boy who definitely didn’t talk to awkward, invisible girls like me.

  And yet my grandmother was expecting it. Oh god, was Cole who she pictured I’d have as a friend? The idea was so absurd I almost laughed.

  “Sasha will be starting at Baycrest this year,” Joan said.

  “Dope. So you’re a freshman?” he asked.

  I knew I looked young for my age—the perks of being five-one—but still. My cheeks went pink.

  “A junior,” I mumbled.

  “Whoa, really?” Cole grinned. “Same.”

  “I’ll be seventeen in November,” I said, in case he thought I was still fourteen, but really, really smart.

  “Mine’s January third,” Cole said mournfully. “Doesn’t it suck having a birthday around the holidays?”

  “Totally,” I said, relieved he wanted to talk about something so normal. “It’s like I’m being greedy, wanting presents early.”

  “At least having to celebrate yours doesn’t interrupt your family’s annual ski trip.”

  “God, how horrible,” I said, deadpan. “What do they do, stick a candle in a mug of hot chocolate?”

  “Shhh! Don’t give anyone ideas,” Cole said.

  His eyes lit up when he smiled, shining bright and clear as stained glass. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a conversation like this with a boy. Certainly never with a boy who was so attractive. Which had somehow brought down my guard. All of the clever remarks I kept locked inside my head were spilling out unprompted, and to my total surprise, they were working.

  But it was probably only going well because I was an unknown quantity. He’d learn soon enough that I wasn’t worth paying attention to. Sasha Bloom, a disappointing mystery. That’s what he’d think, if he bothered to think of me at all.

  Our grandmothers had drifted away, and I wondered why Cole was still here with me.

  “I like your dress,” he said, filling the pause.

  “Thanks, it’s my mom’s.” The words were out of my mouth before I could think twice, and I instantly regretted them.

  “Are your parents here somewhere?” he asked pleasantly, twisting around, as though he expected a smiling mom and dad to materialize out of ocean air and insist on shaking his hand.

  “Um,” I said. I still wasn’t used to this. To the screeching halt, followed by the swift calculation of whether to tell him the truth or spare him the awkwardness. I went with the truth. “Actually, my mom died.”

  “Oh. Shit.” Cole made a sympathetic face. “I’m so sorry.”

  I’d been expecting him to react with half-terrified politeness. To cut his eyes anxiously toward the door. Not to roll with it.

  “Thanks,” I said. “So now I’m living with my grandparents.”

  “Good thing you’re a freshman,” he teased. “Because it would really suck to start over junior year.”

  “Oh my god,” I said. “For the last time—”

  My grandmother interrupted then, to say that our table was ready.

  “Well, nice to meet you,” I told Cole.

  I knew I should be relieved that I’d gotten through our little chat without making a bad impression. But to my surprise, I wished he’d stick around. He made me feel like a normal girl, and it had been a long time since anyone had made me feel like that.

  “Actually, I’ll join you,” he said, and then turned to Joan. “If that’s okay, Gran?”

  “Always,” she said, beaming.

  “You don’t have to,” I said, in case he hadn’t really meant it.

  “My parents are over there,” Cole said with zero enthusiasm, nodding toward a sleek blond woman in a pantsuit, who reminded me of a greyhound, and a bald man glued to his phone. Next to them was a taller, older, more
muscled version of Cole, who seemed like he got really amped about protein shakes.

  “Wow,” I said. “Did he eat a Hemsworth?”

  Cole snorted. “Honestly? It would explain a lot.”

  The six of us sat down at one of the round tables. I was between my grandfather and Cole. Another older couple joined us, introducing themselves as Dick and Annette. My grandmother looked like she’d swallowed a bug as Annette took out a hilariously outdated iPhone, showing off pictures of her ongoing kitchen remodel, with extra close-ups of the marble, which was apparently being reinstalled on Thursday and was an ongoing saga. Joan was trying not to laugh.

  Cole, it turned out, did play water polo in the spring. And soccer in the fall.

  “No football?” I asked, taking a sourdough roll from the basket. It was still warm, and the pats of butter had been pressed to look like tiny seashells.

  “Nah, that’s my brother Archer’s thing.”

  “Besides cannibalism,” I said, biting into my roll.

  Cole laughed.

  “You’re funny,” he said.

  Boys never complimented me like this back home. There had been school Sasha, who was quiet, and home Sasha, who had plenty to say.

  Now, it felt oddly switched. Because at home I didn’t want to talk about anything, especially how I was doing (the correct answer always being “fine, thanks,” whether it was true or not).

  Sitting there in my cocktail dress, next to this smiling, attentive boy who had completely rolled with it when I’d told him about my mom and then gone right back to teasing me, I wondered. Maybe, in my months of grief, some of the weird, awkward parts of me had been polished away to reveal a bright newness underneath. Maybe the scars left by my middle school years had finally faded, and my grandparents were right that I could make friends here.

  After our plates were cleared and the waiters came around with silver coffee pots, Cole asked if I wanted to get something to drink.

  My grandmother nodded at me encouragingly, so I followed Cole over to the bar. He waved for me to go ahead, pulling out his phone and returning a text.

  “Um, ginger ale?” I said.

  “And a scotch old-fashioned,” Cole added blandly, taking out his wallet and stuffing a dollar into the tip jar. The moment he ordered, I realized I’d made a mistake.

  “So, you know what our grandmothers’ book club really is, right?” he whispered as we waited for our drinks.

  “Wine and gossip?”

  Cole grinned, shaking his head.

  “Nope. They read porn together,” he announced dramatically.

  “They do not!”

  “Swear to god,” he promised. “All that Fifty Shades stuff.”

  “That’s not porn,” I said.

  “Then what is it?”

  “Bathtub erotica?” I suggested.

  To my surprise, he laughed.

  “Ugh, that’s worse,” he said with a shudder. “Now I’m picturing my gran in the bathtub.”

  “Okay, fine, flannel pajamas erotica,” I corrected.

  “Much better!” He offered me a high five, and I took it, wincing at the force.

  “Oww,” I complained, shaking out my stinging palm.

  “Don’t be such a girl,” he teased, smiling.

  The bartender handed over our drinks, and I saw Cole eyeing mine. God, I wished I’d ordered anything else.

  I knew I should make a joke about it—something self-deprecating and clever. I was trying to think of one when a beautiful Persian girl hurried over, a silk dress swishing against the tops of her thigh-high suede boots. Her long brown hair was perfectly curled, and her makeup was expertly applied, and her eyelashes went on for miles. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but she was ridiculously intimidating.

  “Cole!” she scolded. “Why was your family at my table, but not you?”

  “I’m magic,” he said, grinning.

  “You’re bullshit.” The girl shook her head, pretending to be annoyed, but she was smiling. “Hi, I’m Friya.”

  “Sasha,” I said.

  “She’s Eleanor and Joel Bloom’s granddaughter,” Cole said, slinging his arm around me.

  “Really?” Friya smiled in my direction, as though that was all the information she needed. “That’s so crazy. My dad works at Russ, Khan, and Bloom!”

  “Hold up,” Cole interrupted. “What happened with you and Nick?”

  “We’re over,” Friya said. “That asshole. He wasn’t helping that girl with her math homework. He was full on subtracting her clothes and dividing her legs. She literally failed summer school.”

  “Want me to beat him up?” Cole offered.

  “God no,” Friya said. “But maybe give him really evil looks, so he worries you might?”

  “Can do,” Cole promised.

  Friya smiled. She was so confident, so effortless, the kind of girl who never worried about anyone’s approval. I wondered if she just rolled out of bed in perfectly layered gold jewelry.

  I could barely handle Cole—adding this girl into the mix was too much. She didn’t even need to glance at my shoes for me to know they weren’t good enough. I got that just from existing near her. I was about to make an excuse and head back to the table when Friya’s phone buzzed with a text.

  “Everyone’s down by the pool,” she said.

  “Tell ’em we’ll be there in a sec,” said Cole.

  “Well, it was nice meeting you,” I said, relieved it was over.

  “Noooo, you have to come with us,” Friya insisted.

  “Yeah, Freshman, you can’t bail on me now,” Cole teased, his eyes shining.

  “Freshman?” Friya wrinkled her nose.

  “He wishes. I’m a junior,” I said.

  “Oh my god, Cole!” Friya scolded, giving him a shove. “I hate you.”

  The pool was closed for the night, umbrellas folded and cushions removed from the chaise longues, but no one seemed to mind. In their cocktail attire, clutching drinks they’d brought down from the club, they looked impossibly cool, like a glossy magazine spread advertising a fragrance I could never afford. They were nothing like my classmates back home. Which, hopefully, was a good thing.

  “There you are. Finally.” A tall black girl peeled herself off a lounge chair and pressed Friya into a hug. Her hair was twisted into two long braids, and with her gold hoops and gauzy, printed maxi dress, she looked like the kind of girl who got style snapped at Coachella. She introduced herself as Whitney. It was clear that she was in charge, and that Friya, for all her glamour and confidence, was eager to impress her.

  Then there was Whitney’s twin brother, Ryland, who was the prep to her boho in a pair of round glasses and ankle-length khakis. He barely glanced up from his phone, and I couldn’t tell if he was permanently sour or if he just didn’t find me all that interesting. And finally, there was Ethan, a surprisingly eloquent surf bro, who said it was, and I quote, “an absolute pleasure to make your acquaintance,” with zero traces of irony.

  “Same,” I said, wondering how on earth anyone would ever think I belonged here.

  I felt about seven years old, with my soda and my borrowed dress, staring at five of the most sophisticated teenagers I’d ever encountered.

  They chatted about classmates I didn’t know and teachers I’d never heard of. I smiled, crunching the ice in my glass and watching without comment as Ethan slipped his arm around Whitney’s back. She snuggled into him, her face lit up in the glow of her phone screen. She was tapping through stories from someone’s house party, and she kept tilting her screen so he could see.

  Cole pulled out a JUUL, passing it around. I took a pull, even though I never vape, just so I didn’t look totally pathetic. Ryland wandered upstairs after a while and didn’t come back. I sat down on his abandoned chair, barely saying a word, letting myself fade more and more into the background.

  As I listened, I learned that over the summer, while I had moped around the house reading and feeling sorry for myself,
Ethan had built houses in South America, and Cole had interned at a tech startup, and Whitney had done a pre-college program, and Friya had volunteered with an animal rescue. Somehow, they’d also found the time for family vacations to Europe and SAT courses and music lessons and off-season sports.

  Their lives sounded stressful and overscheduled, and I got why they were hiding out here, drinking and smoking. And why they all seemed low-key pissed that their parents had dragged them out on the last weekend of summer, instead of giving them a night off.

  Thankfully, I wasn’t nearly as interesting as the drama that was unfolding on some girl’s Insta stories. And so I was forgotten as they all leaned forward, watching the volleyball team play Never Have I Ever in someone’s living room.

  They were still engrossed in it when an elementary-school-age surf bro came down the path, cupped his hands around his mouth, and bellowed, “Ethan! Mom said to tell you we’re leaving.”

  My shoulders sagged in relief.

  “Thanks for the red alert, little man,” Ethan called back, amused.

  “Guess we should get back up there,” Whitney said, stretching.

  “Nice meeting you guys,” I said politely.

  “Same,” they all said.

  And just like that, they dissipated. I was the last one up the steps to the clubhouse, and when I glanced back down at the pool, I felt as though, if I closed my eyes and disappeared right then and there, no one would notice.

  Chapter 7

  MOST OF THE TIME, MY NIGHTMARES weren’t so bad, but that night, they were relentless. I dreamed I showed up at my new school, except somehow it was twenty years ago. I chased my mother’s ghost through the hallways, screaming at her to wait, to stop, to help me. And then I was lost, and suddenly my old middle school classmates surrounded me. Their laughter rang cruelly as Tara came forward, looming impossibly tall, with a dark horrible void where her mouth should have been.

  “It’s just a dare, Sasha,” she crooned. “It’s just a kiss.”

  I was dragged forward, powerless, and then my mother’s body fell from the sky. Except it wasn’t her, it was me, and the ground was shaking, crumbling, and then—