She picks up on the first ring. “Sloane,” she cries.
“What’s wrong?”
There are several sharp sniffs before she answers, “Brice broke up with me.”
“Oh.” Part of me, the bigger part—the sympathetic friend part—feels really and truly bad for her. The part that still wasn’t dealing well with the idea that my best friend was dating my almost-boyfriend is doing a little dance.
I punch that part of me in the gut.
“I’m so sorry.”
Tru looks at me, concern in his dark eyes. I shake my head and mouth, Boy trouble.
He nods and puts the car in gear. Nothing gets a guy’s attention elsewhere faster than tears and boy troubles.
“What happened?” I ask, because I know I should.
“I don’t know,” she wails. “He’s been away with his family on Martha’s Vineyard. He gets back tomorrow. We’re supposed to go out for ice cream, but he texted me that he doesn’t want to see me anymore.”
I mutter a string of curses that seems to impress Tru, who gives me a thumbs-up.
Even though I have every right to say I told you so, I bite back the words. She doesn’t need to hear that right now. But we both should have seen this coming.
Brice and I met a year ago summer, when Mom and Dad decided to take our first real family vacation in years. Martha’s Vineyard had sounded so romantic, like something out of the Kennedy era. When I saw Brice walking on the beach, I’d been drawn to him. He seemed so perfect. Tall, sweet, interested in me and the things I wanted to talk about—art, culture, philosophy.
When I found out he lived in New York, only a few blocks from our brownstone, I’d thought it was fate. We never actually got around to doing anything more serious than talk, but it felt like it was going somewhere.
We agreed to meet up at a sushi place in our neighborhood when we got back. I’d been nervous, so I brought Tash. I never told her I was interested in Brice that way.
In hindsight, that was a mistake.
“You’re so much better than him,” I tell her. “He’s a loser, and he doesn’t know what he’s giving up.”
Sniffle, sniffle. “I know. I just…” Her voice catches, and it takes her a few seconds to be able to finish. “I thought he was the one, you know? I was going to… I was going to…”
She doesn’t have to finish that sentence.
“And it’s a good thing you didn’t,” I say. “Brice is a slimebucket. He should come with a warning sticker glued to his flat ass.”
That elicits a snot-filled giggle from Tash—and another thumbs-up from Tru, who is steering us into the huge line of cars trying to get away from school for the weekend—so I figure I’m on the right track.
“You’re so much better off without him.” I know I am. “Now you can be all footloose and fancy-free for senior year.”
She sniffs, more decisively this time. “You’re right. I can flirt with whoever I want.”
“Date whoever you want.”
“Kiss whoever I want.”
“Take whoever you want to Whack Tie.”
“You’re right,” she says, almost no trace of tears and self-pity in her voice. That’s the Tash I know.
We talk for a few more minutes, until I’m sure she’s in a better place. I’ve experienced enough Tash breakups to know that, A) the pity party isn’t quite over yet, and B) she’ll be back on her dating feet before Monday. Tash never stays down for long.
When we finally hang up, I feel emotionally drained. I let my head fall back against the headrest and close my eyes.
For a long time, I was mad at Tash. Even though she didn’t know how I felt about Brice, it had somehow seemed like a betrayal. Like she had unknowingly violated the friend code.
But now… Now, I feel guilty. If I had told her about Brice, about how he essentially led me on and then tossed me aside, maybe she wouldn’t be heartbroken right now. I hadn’t warned her, and he did the same thing to her. She’s paying the price for my wounded pride.
I’m a terrible friend.
The sound of the Mustang’s engine is like a soothing rhythm, a white noise that calms my thoughts and helps me get my emotions under control.
Tru maintains the silence until we reach the freeway entrance, when he asks, “Whack Tie?”
I half laugh. That wasn’t the question I expected. Then again, what did I expect him to ask about? Girl talk and feelings?
No, Whack Tie is about right. “Yeah, it’s SODA’s answer to a prom. A big party with crazy rules.”
“Like what?”
“Like…no outfit can cost more than fifty bucks, head to toe,” I say. “No taxis or limos, only public transportation. No Top 40 music.”
“Sounds like my kind of party.” Tru grins. “NextGen has an unProm.”
I gaze out the window as he merges into Friday afternoon traffic. And by merge, I mean inches his car into the standstill. If I thought rush hour traffic had been bad the rest of the week, Friday really blows that out of the water.
“But I guess you’re not planning to be around for unProm,” he says as he makes it into the slow lane.
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
Traffic moves a few inches forward, and somehow Tru turns that into an opportunity to get across to the fast lane. Which is really false advertising at this point. But at least it’s moving, which is more than I can say about the other lanes.
“So, this Brice guy sounds like a real winner,” he says as we finally pick up speed.
I groan. “He’s a waste of a perfectly good trust fund.”
“Need me to beat him up?”
“Would you?”
Tru laughs and I find myself laughing, too. It’s not that I actually want Brice to get hurt, but a black eye and a bloody nose would probably do him a lot of good.
“Just tell me if I need to hop on a plane,” Tru says. “I’m there.”
It’s a joke. But somehow it almost feels like it isn’t.
“Thanks,” I say, patting his hand that is resting on the gear shift.
My stomach does a little flip-flop-dip, like the thrill when a roller coaster makes a dive.
I let the touch linger a little longer than I probably should. But when I pull my hand into my lap, I notice that Tru is smiling. And, for once, it’s not his charming faker. An honest smile.
As the Austin traffic drips by, I can’t help a smile of my own.
Chapter Nine
I jolt awake Saturday morning, and at first I’m not sure why. As Tru can now attest, I am not a morning person.
I’m more of a noon person.
Stopping for coffee has become our regular ritual. Before that, I am barely intelligible.
Then I hear it. The faint buzzing ring of my phone. It’s buried in here, under the covers…somewhere… Ha! Found it!
Dad’s face stares up at me from the screen.
“Dad! Hey, what’s up?”
“Are you still in bed?” he asks. “At ten o’clock?”
I squint at my phone, trying to make my blurry eyes see numbers. Clearly I’d been out on the roof sketching until the way-too-wee hours last night.
“No, it’s an hour earlier here,” I say when I can finally see them. “Not later.”
“Oh, sorry.” He sounds distracted.
Best guess? He’s on his way in to work.
“Sorry I haven’t had time to call,” he says. “The project deadline is coming up and it’s making everyone at the office extremely tense.”
“I understand, I—”
“Large coffee, two Splendas and a splash of half-and-half,” Dad says. Obviously not to me. “Sorry, sweetheart, what were you saying?”
“Just that I know you’re busy.”
That hasn’t changed. Dad is always busy. Why would I think that, just because I’m halfway across the country from my entire life, that his has changed in any way? Even Mom is job hunting, so she’ll probably end up just as busy and not around. As
always.
“Tell me about school,” he says, then, “Thank you,” to the barista. “How’s Texas?”
“Gross,” I say. “Hot. Humid. Boring.”
He laughs. “Sounds like the Texas I know. What about the school?”
I flop back onto my pillows. “School is school,” I say. “It goes.”
There is a long silence. I can picture Dad navigating his way from the little coffee shop in the ground floor of his high-rise office, through the security checkpoint, to the elevators. If I don’t make my plea soon, I’ll lose him to the signal.
“I want to come home,” I say plainly.
“I know you do, sweetheart. I miss you, too.”
The sounds of footsteps on marble echo through the phone, and I know he’s crossing the lobby. Even on a Saturday morning, the building bustles with the energy of a never-sleeping multi-national corporation.
I resort to begging. “Dad, please. You can talk to Mom,” I plead. “You can convince her to—”
“It isn’t only your mother’s decision.” The phone gets silent, and at first I think he’s stepped onto the elevator and I’ve lost him. But then he says, “What you did was reckless and dangerous. Better that you spend your senior year somewhere you hate than in jail or worse.”
“Come on, you’re being a bit overly dramatic.”
“The rules aren’t changing,” he says. “No trespassing. No guerrilla art. No staying out past curfew. No—”
“Tash. No disobeying a direct order. No skipping class or not turning in homework or getting called to the office. I know.” They’re burned into my brain. If it weren’t against one of The Rules, I would get them tattooed on my forearm.
Okay, so I’m not explicitly forbidden from getting any skin art, but it’s definitely implied.
“Mitchell, wait up.” Dad’s voice is muffled, like he’s holding the phone to his chest. “We need to run the new numbers for accounting.”
Mitchell’s reply is equally muffled. “I was just on my way up to do that.”
“I have to go,” Dad says. “We’ll talk again soon.”
“Okay Dad. Bye, I love—” The phone goes dead before I can finish.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Dad never says it back.
“Love you, too,” I say to the ceiling.
I know that he does. He has to, right? He’s biologically obligated.
But sometimes—okay, most of the time—it feels like he loves his work more. Is it any wonder I’m such a mess when it comes to love and relationships? See: Daddy, issues with.
Morning sunlight streams in through my window. All I really want to do is pull the covers over my head and sleep until noon.
I yank up the comforter. But instead of closing my eyes, I find myself staring at the way the light glows through the fabric and feathers. A chaotic pattern of translucence and shadow. I can’t stop staring.
“Why am I not asleep?”
When no answer—and no drowsiness—comes from the void, I flip the comforter back and roll out of bed. If I’m going to be up this early, I should at least have a cup of caffeine to show for it.
I shuffle downstairs, into the kitchen, and stop dead in my tracks when I see Mom standing at the stove. Cooking breakfast.
And not just a toaster waffle breakfast.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” she says with an uncharacteristic smile in place.
“What are you making?” I ask, completely in shock.
“Pancakes.” She casually flips one over, revealing a perfect golden finish. “Apple cinnamon.”
I can’t speak, can only blink for several seconds as she flips three more perfectly cooked pancakes. The closest thing Mom ever came to non-frozen breakfast was bringing home doughnuts, croissants, and the occasional cronut.
“Do you want juice?” she asks.
I jerk myself out of my shock. “Coffee.”
She gives me a look, and I can feel the lecture coming.
I hold up a hand to stop her. “I am awake and up before noon on a weekend,” I argue. “I deserve coffee.”
To my continued shock, she smiles and says, “Fair enough.”
What’s going on here? It’s almost like old Mom is back—and better than before. I am immediately skeptical.
While she flips pancakes onto plates, I make myself a cup of coffee from the single-cup machine I had to convince her to buy in the first place. As the caffeine juice brews, I inhale a deep scent of hazelnut-flavored perfection.
“Come on,” Mom says, carrying a tray containing the pancakes, two glasses of orange juice, and a bottle of maple syrup to the kitchen table. “We can have our first real breakfast in our new house.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say something snarky about the house, or at least its location and/or temporary nature, but the lure of maple syrup on pancakes wins. I slide into the seat across from her and take a sip from my steaming cup of coffee.
“Maybe we can make this a regular ritual,” she says, placing one of the plates in front of me. “Mother-daughter time on Saturday morning.”
I half snort. “Until you get your job.”
As soon as she does, it’ll be back to normal. No baking, no breakfasts, and certainly no mother-daughter time on a morning when she could be at the office. Which is pretty much every morning.
I stuff a big forkful of pancake into my mouth. It is maybe the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Seriously, I feel deprived that for the first seventeen years of my life, Mom never cooked. That’s a tragedy.
“That’s not true,” she says, placing her napkin in her lap. “In fact, I’ve already found a job, and here I am.”
We’ve only been here a few days, and already she’s found work? Maybe part-time, temporary attorneys are in high demand.
I finish chewing my pancake and wash it down with a swig of juice.
“What’s the job?”
“Legal advisor to the Museum of Classical Art Austin.”
“Wow, that’s…”
“Cool, right?”
“I was going to say big.”
And by big I mean real. That’s a real job. Not just something temporary to fill her time while we’re stuck in Texas. Not some part-time, filling-in gig.
Not the kind of job you find in less than a week of job hunting.
The hair on the back of my neck tingles.
“You didn’t just start looking for a job, did you?”
She looks down at her plate. “I started putting out feelers just before summer started,” she says. “Right after…”
The Incident.
My blood starts pounding in my ears, and I have the sudden urge to sweep my arm across the table, sending every dish and tasty morsel flying.
Great. Good to know that, even though she and Dad sprang the whole surprise-you’re-moving-to-Texas thing on me totally last minute—as in barely a week before we left, hence the disastrously packed boxes—it wasn’t really quite the spontaneous decision they made it out to be at the time.
It also means that they kept it a secret from me all summer. What did they think I would do? Run away?
Maybe I would have. Maybe I should have.
“Nice.”
I push back from the table, leaving my pancakes mostly untouched. I wouldn’t want to heave apple-cinnamon chunks on our mother-daughter ritual. Coffee in hand, I head for the stairs.
“Sloane, wait,” Mom calls after me.
I don’t stop to hear what she has to say. She can’t possibly have anything to say that I want to hear. When I get to my room, I make sure to slam the door as hard as possible. Hopefully she gets the message.
Three seconds later, I know she didn’t.
My door flies open without a knock.
“Mom!”
“I’m sorry,” she says, “but you can’t just storm away from every situation that bothers you.”
Bothers is a huge understatement.
“It’s not the situation that bothers me,” I spit out.
&nb
sp; Mom crosses her arms over her chest. “Look, I know you don’t want to be in Austin. But we’re here, and you have to deal with it.”
Wrong thing to say.
“You know what?” I jam my fists onto my hips. “I really don’t. I’d rather be anywhere but here. I’d rather be living on the streets of Alphabet City than spend one more night in this house.”
I dig my suitcase out from under my bed—I didn’t want Mom to see I still hadn’t unpacked, but now I don’t give a care.
“What are you doing?” she shouts.
“Leaving!”
I toss my suitcase on the bed so I can stuff in what few personal things I’ve unpacked.
“No!” She places her hands on the lid so I can’t open it.
She is breathing hard. So am I. My blood is throbbing in my ears, pounding with adrenaline and anger. Betrayal.
“No, wait,” she says, her voice no longer a shout. “Sloane, please. I’m sorry. Let me explain.”
I don’t look at her, but I take my hands off the suitcase.
“I didn’t keep it from you because it was a secret.” She releases the suitcase and sits on the edge of the bed. “Making this move was complicated. There were a lot of pieces that had to fall into place. As soon as I knew for certain it was going to happen, that’s when I told you.”
I glare at her as I sit on the opposite side of the bed.
“This has been hard for me, too,” she says. When I open my mouth to argue, she holds up a hand. “Not in the same ways as it has for you, I know. But still hard. Your father and I—”
She shakes her head, looks like she wants to say more, but doesn’t.
Yeah, I know. She and Dad were afraid I’d end up in prison if I kept down the imaginary path they saw me traveling back in New York. They wouldn’t listen when I said it was a brief detour, not a delinquent direction.
“I don’t know what I can do besides say that I’m sorry,” she says softly.
When I don’t respond, she gets up and walks out of the room.
As she closes the door behind her, I whisper, “You could mean it.”
I toss my suitcase back onto the floor. I don’t care anymore if Mom sees that I haven’t unpacked. I want her to see it. I want her to know, every time she looks in my room, that I am ready to leave at any moment.
Ten Things Sloane Hates About Tru Page 9
