DEDICATION
For Mom
For the days you sat by the fire reading Jane Austen
and showing me what it means to love a story.
You never let me forget that I am special. I love you.
CONTENTS
Dedication
Part One
One
Two
Three
Part Two
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Acknowledgments
Back Ads
About the Author
Books by Rebecca Maizel
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
PART ONE
Sophomore Year
Late May
ONE
“CUT! CUT! CUT!” MS. TAFT SAYS WITH A SIGH. “I swear, you two are going to send me to an early grave.”
She means Wes and me.
“Shouldn’t have cast best friends for the leads,” I hear from the front row, but before I can make a face at my other best friend, May, she sticks out her tongue at me. She’s Hero in this spring’s play, Much Ado About Nothing, and the velvet fabric of her dress spills over the armrest of the auditorium chair.
I’ve been standing on this stage since school ended two hours ago and I’m starving. I know it’s nearly time for a dinner break but if I take my cell phone out of my pocket, Taft will confiscate it. Nearly on cue, it vibrates.
“Wes, don’t reach for Penny’s arm during this scene,” Ms. Taft says, and walks onto the stage from the first row of auditorium seats. “I know I sound like a broken record, but Benedick doesn’t know he’s in love with Beatrice yet.”
Wes takes a purposeful step back from me and sticks his hands in his pockets. Great. Nice work, Taft. He always sticks his hands in his pockets when someone is making him uncomfortable. The vibration against my hip bone buzzes again. Get the hint, I am at rehearsal. I silence it by pushing the top button without Taft seeing me.
Ms. Taft goes on. “The characters are still bickering and arguing as they always do, so it doesn’t make sense for you to touch her like that, in such an affectionate way.”
“Okay, okay, I got it,” Wes says quickly.
“Ms. Taft,” I say, stepping forward and overenunciating my words. “Wes isn’t doing a very good job of acting.”
“Oh, here we go,” Taft says with a roll of her eyes. She’s always telling me I like to share my opinion a little too much. But I just grin and turn to Wes.
“We’re actors!” I say it really slowly and loud. “See, acting is when you pretend you’re someone else and you—”
Wes steps forward and smacks me on the arm with his script. I jump away, laughing, when my phone buzzes yet again.
“Food’s here!” May calls, and everyone drops what they are doing at the same time. Taft puts down her script. “I’m starving.” She heads backstage, her curls flying behind her. I slip my phone out of my pocket.
“Penny!” Wes calls. “I have to talk to you.” I shake the phone at him, signaling for him to wait a sec, and disappear behind the curtain. When I pick up, it’s Bettie, my parents’ housekeeper.
“Penny, I’m sorry to bother you,” she says quickly after I say hello. “Have you heard from your dad? He’s tried to call you. He’s on his way home.” I check the time. It’s only 6:45 and Dad was supposed to be at the Best Of Rhode Island Gala with Mom. Her business was voted Best Event Planning and PR company in Rhode Island two weeks ago.
I step closer to the curtain so the fabric muffles my voice. I immediately think of wine bottles on the counter and the steep staircase in our house. The drinking wasn’t so bad before. I barely remember her drinking when I was a kid. But the last two years, she drinks every night. “Is everyone okay?” I whisper.
“Your mom’s okay, but she got into a very public screaming match with one of her client’s mothers at the Gala. She pushed the woman. The news is planning to run a story. It’s bad, honey. She’s been ousted from her own company.”
Ousted. Pushed.
“I’m here now and your dad is on his way—but I wanted you to know, honey. So you wouldn’t be surprised when you got home.”
She says something about “what I should expect when I get back” but she hangs up before I can hear anything in the background like voices or Mom crying.
When I step back out, May joins me but this time in her regular clothes.
“Pizza’s here! Are you guys deaf?” She means Wes and me, as we are the only people left out here. It doesn’t appear that Wes heard me on the phone, which is good.
“I’ll be right back,” Wes calls from the other side of the backstage. May loops her arm through mine. I touch her arm with my fingertips when I would really like to squeeze and have her tell me that my family hasn’t been outed—that my mom is okay.
And it only occurs to me that I didn’t know, right until this very second, that Mom’s drinking had become a secret.
“It’s pineapple pizza!” May sing-songs. “Your fave.”
I can’t even imagine Mom being drunk in public, especially at the Best Of party.
“Hello? Earth to Penny?” May says.
“Sorry! Just thinking about my lines,” I lie but with a lift to my voice. I bury how I feel about Mom under the muscles, near the bones.
“What’s up?” May nods to Wes. I shrug. When it comes to Wes and his love for inventing things lately, it could be anything.
“PS?” May whispers. “What was that about Wes touching you for the third time?” She unlatches from me and sits down on the stage. “He couldn’t keep his hands off you.”
“We were just doing the scene,” I say.
I’ve been standing forever, and it’s a relief to sit down.
“He’s always touching you,” May says.
“Uh, he’s my best friend. Since eighth grade. Will you guys give it up already?”
People have been trying to get Wes and me together since we first met. May, Karen, Panda, and Richard—the whole theater crew. Wes has always waved it off so I haven’t let myself believe it could be true. I’ve just pushed it to the side and kept myself in check. We’re good at laughing, at acting, and at being best friends. I haven’t wanted to screw it up between us.
If he didn’t want me, I wouldn’t be able to hide his rejection the way I hide Mom’s drinking.
Bettie’s voice rings through my head again. Ousted. Public screaming match.
Wes comes back out carrying a cardboard box in his hands. He’s changed back into his street clothes, so he’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans. His forearms flex as he puts the box down, and when he looks up at me, he smiles with his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth. His eyes glint in their devilish way.
Damn it. I’ve let May brainwash me.
“Can you handle that, Gumby?” I say, shaking off Bettie’s words ringing in my head and the yelling voices that will no doubt be filling the house when I get there. Wes’s arms wrap around the box. He’s not all arms and legs like he was in eighth grade when he got that nickname. It doesn’t really fit anymore.
“Got it, doll,” he says, and makes sure to emphasize the word.
A flick of fire rushes through me.
“I am no one’s doll,” I snap.
“Ooh, did I hit a nerve, toots?”
“Toots?” I should kick him.
“Honey? Babyface?” he c
alls from where I can’t see him.
“I’ll show you a baby face!” I cry back.
“Don’t get her started!” May says with a cackle. “Though she be but little, she is fierce!”
“Stay right there, dollface,” Wes calls. His footsteps make loud thumps backstage because he’s gotten so damn big lately.
With a sharp click the stage and front row of the auditorium fall into darkness. The track lighting in the aisles gives the room a frosty gray halo, but the light doesn’t quite reach the whole stage.
I can see the outline of the cardboard box from where I sit. Wes bends over and pulls out some kind of contraption—a small globe on a black base. Even though Wes is large, he’s gentle as he places the globe quietly onto the stage.
“Okay, okay, this is it,” he says, and even though his features are cast in shadow, I can tell that he’s smiling.
“Can we hurry it up? I’d like to eat pizza sometime today,” May groans.
It’s amazing that I was so hungry five minutes ago. Bettie called and I’ve completely lost my appetite.
“So, remember the other night. At the beach?” Wes says, and a whoosh of adrenaline sweeps through me at the memory. Of course I remember. I lied. I told them I just wanted to go to the beach when really Mom was drinking again and I just didn’t want to be home.
That night, Wes, Panda, May, and Karen came to get me in Wes’s minivan. We drove out to Narragansett Beach and lay out looking at the stars. We were just us. The four of us laughing and making fun of Taft, like always. I didn’t bring Mom up and no one asked. It was perfect. Until now.
“On the beach,” Wes continues, “you said you wished the stars weren’t so far away, that it wasn’t fair.” Even in the dark, his voice sounds happy. “So I built this,” he finishes.
“Because of what I said?” I say, and my voice wavers.
With a little click on the globe, a swirl of purple, green, and silver stars projects against the black curtains.
Clusters of silver stars rotate in a slow trance. Galaxies shift in and out of view—blue, then pink, then silver circling again and again. The universe really could be right here on our stage. And maybe in some ways, it is.
Wes made me a planetarium?
“This beats the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling,” May says from the space on my left. Wes lies down on the other side of me, laughing. I’m surprised how strong his laughter is and . . . how deep.
“Unbelievable,” I whisper at the stars, careful not to look over at Wes. I’m not sure if I’m talking about the buzzing energy between us or the stars on the ceiling. Something about looking at Wes while lying down in the dark is too much for me right now. It’s almost enough to make me forget about Mom and what awaits me when I get home.
“Is Penny actually speechless?” May says. I keep my eyes on the constellations.
“I got the images of the constellations to project at the highest possible resolution,” Wes explains proudly as the stars and planets circle overhead.
“Some of the stars look like little fireflies,” May says quietly.
“Guys!” Taft pokes her head around the curtain. “Come eat, we only have time for a ten-minute break. Oh cool!” she says, and her eyes lift to the constellations. “You know”—she motions to the stars with her pizza crust—“we could use that if we did Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Taft disappears and I hear snippets of chatter from backstage. My stomach growls properly. Maybe I could eat a slice. I offer May my hand and we stand up.
“What do you think, Berne?” Wes says once he’s up and packing the planetarium away in a box.
Again, my eyes flick to his muscles as he picks up the box and places it on a counter backstage. He really has been working out. How have I never noticed it before? I wonder what it would be like to kiss him.
“What do I think?” I fall into step with him, and we make our way to the dressing room, following the laughter and the smell of pizza. I want to say how much I love the planetarium, how important it is that he heard me that night. I struggle to say thank you, but looking him in the eye to say something so true stops my words.
“You’ve got too much time on your hands,” I say instead, and punch him lightly in the shoulder. He looks a little hurt. “I’m kidding. Thank you.”
“Always, Berne,” he says. The spark that I love is back behind his eyes. May pulls on my hand, drawing me back a bit to let Wes walk ahead. Once he’s out of earshot, she nudges me with her elbow.
“You better be excited,” she says.
“For what? He’s getting really good at . . .” I search for a word that makes sense. “Crafts. That’s all it is.”
May raises an eyebrow.
“He’s just into building contraptions right now,” I insist. “He wanted to build that tree thing for Much Ado.”
I wink at her and skip through the doorway of the dressing room before I can hear what she says in response.
“Bonjour!” I cry out, and leap to the table of pizza like a ballerina. “Comment allez-vous?” I curtsy at the small smattering of applause and pull a pizza slice onto a paper plate. I sit down in a seat next to Karen and make sure to pull a chair close for May. My cell phone vibrates in my pocket again, but I ignore it. I just have to get through rehearsal. Then I can think about what’s happening at home.
“Do you ever enter a room normally?” Karen laughs, and takes a bite of her pizza.
“No,” May answers for me, sitting down on my other side.
We listen to Panda describe a video game that none of us have ever heard of. Panda’s boyfriend, Richard, shakes his head in mock disapproval. He has such a calming presence next to Panda’s loud joking and laughter. Richard’s skin is a rich brown, made even deeper by the royal blue of his shirt. Wes sits down beside Richard and leans forward to hear the conversation. As I take my first bite of pineapple pizza, May tilts her head closer so her hair lightly touches my cheek. “Blow me off all you want, Berne. Do your normal ‘it’s no big deal’ thing like you always do. But”—she lowers her voice and nods to Wes on the other side of the room—“thou knowest he did it for you.”
TWO
MY MOTHER IS ON THE SCREEN. SHE’S IN THE glittering dress she wore to the Best Of party. She steps from the curb with her assistant, Lacey, and she stumbles onto the street, nearly headfirst. Lacey tries to pick her up from under her arm but she shoves Lacey and falls into the car.
I flinch, wanting to reach out and catch her.
The news runs the story about Mom for two or three days. During class on Monday, May asked if I wanted to talk about it, but I quickly changed the subject to rehearsal. Panda brought it up at rehearsal, but I spotted Richard across the parking lot and called him over, abruptly ending our conversation.
I’ve been trying to focus on other things.
“I’m telling you. He’s been avoiding me since Tuesday,” I say. I’m on the phone with May on Saturday, days later. It’s finally the start of tech week. I snatch up pants, T-shirts, and some toothpaste so I can brush my teeth before scenes. I shove them into a duffel bag to bring to school. Rehearsal started ten minutes ago.
“You’re opposite one another in the play. How can he avoid you?” May asks.
“You know what I mean,” I say. “Ever since the planetarium light show, he’s been all weird. He’s conveniently missing during breaks and I haven’t seen him at lunch.”
“Well, get your ass here. Taft is freaking out about you being late,” May says, and I can tell she’s brushing her teeth backstage—her pre-rehearsal ritual—because her words are garbled.
“My dad is still at work. I need to get my mom to drive me,” I say. “I’m almost out the door.”
May inhales like she is going to ask me something, but she doesn’t.
“Two weeks until I am free from permit land.” I say quickly and lift the heavy duffel with a groan. “Gotta go. See you soon.” I hang up before May can ask if Mom is okay to drive. I don’t even kno
w if she’s okay. She hasn’t left the house in a week. I walk into the kitchen.
“Mom!” I call.
Out of habit, I check Mom’s work calendar that hangs in the kitchen above the messy counter. Bettie always cleans up the empty wine bottles Mom leaves lying around, but today she left at four, so there are two. There’s a bottle of white in the sink that’s empty, and one on the counter that’s half-finished. Mom’s not going anywhere tonight.
Maybe I can drive myself. I only have my permit, but our town is small and if I drive carefully, I should be fine. I can’t ask Wes to come pick me up. He can’t see Mom like this. Sure, he’s seen her glassy-eyed, but Mom’s always been dressed up in her pearls and hiding her sadness behind designer clothes. It’s when the doors are closed, the events are over, and the house is empty that a dark room is her favorite place to be. Since she’s been fired, that’s the new normal.
When I’m at the kitchen table, zipping up my bag, my cell goes off a few more times: May, Panda, and Taft, asking where I am. The last is a text from Wes.
WES: Should I get u?
I look around at the empty kitchen, the quiet house. Mom must be up in her room. Maybe if Wes comes to get me there’s a chance he won’t see her. My fingers hover over the phone, but then Mom comes into the room, holding her cell phone and a wineglass. That’s the same blouse and pants she was wearing yesterday. Third time this week that she hasn’t changed clothes.
“Mom?” I say. “Are you okay?”
She hip checks the island and places the phone and glass down, messily, so the base of the wineglass rocks back and forth. I reach out to keep it from falling to the floor. I could tell Wes he can’t come in, that I’ll meet him outside. That would be awkward too and he would want to know why.
Mom moves to grab the second bottle. It glugs as she pours a big glass.
“Are you sure you want more?” I ask. I try to choose my words really carefully. No judgment.
“I’ll decide when I’ve—” she starts, and rests her hand on the island but slips on a puddle of wine on the counter. I run to help her, but she catches herself on her elbow with a smack. Her eyes are heavy, but open. I should call Bettie. I can’t leave her like this and go to rehearsal. She can’t be alone.
A Season for Fireflies Page 1
