Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend (10 page)

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I decided that something had to be done.

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It was something that, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t

even have been able to imagine. But these weren’t normal cir-

cumstances. Was I supposed to just sit by and watch Karen wreck

any chance of my family staying together?

I wouldn’t be able to do it. But someone who was the mean

version of me— like in old TV shows, when someone’s evil twin

showed up, usually wearing a goatee and an eye patch— could. So

I started to think like a person who was the opposite of me, some-

one who wouldn’t have a problem being mean on purpose.

I knew fi rsthand from a summer of hanging out with Hallie

how close she and her mom were. I had a pretty strong feeling

that if Hallie was miserable, Karen would leave and take Hallie

with her, and my dad could forget all about Karen and come back

home.

Since I wasn’t sleeping anyway, I turned on my light, pulled

out my green notebook, and started to write down plans.

I was going to make Hallie miserable.

The fi rst idea I had involved Cooper, her crush. All the things

Hallie had told me suddenly seemed less like friends sharing se-

crets and more like ammunition that she’d easily handed me, never

thinking I might use it against her.

I knew that Cooper was obsessed with gummy candy— and with

motorcycle stunts, though I couldn’t think how that would help

me, so I stayed focused on the candy. I didn’t think that Cooper

would be able to recognize Hallie’s handwriting, but just in case,

a few days before I put this plan into action, I told her about

handwriting analysis. For a while there, Bruce had been develop-

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ing a movie called
Love/Letters,
about calligraphers in love. The

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movie had fallen apart (even at eleven, this hadn’t surprised me)

but there was all kinds of research still in Bruce’s offi ce. And one

of them was a handwriting analysis that could predict character

traits. I told Hallie about it, trying to make it sound enticing and

really fun, and since she was game for almost anything, she agreed.

We both wrote out
Amazingly few discotheques provide juke-

boxes,
which was a sentence that contained every letter in the

alphabet, and then examined our handwriting samples, compar-

ing them to the charts in the book. I barely listened as Hallie

read out what was predicted for both of us— she was logical and

practical, I acted impulsively with little follow- through, we both

were curious and open to the world around us— because I was

mostly concerned with making sure I got ahold of Hallie’s paper

when the analysis was done. And when she wandered off to the

kitchen for a snack, I saw my opportunity, folded up her paper,

and tucked it into my pocket.

That night, I carefully traced Hallie’s letters onto a note.

Cooper . . . meet me to night at sunset

for a sweet treat!

Then I let out a long breath. I was really going to do this.

O O O

“What’s this?” Cooper asked me when he’d read the note. I’d

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told Hallie that I was going to video chat with my mom,

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and

couldn’t hang out with her that morning. She had been

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understanding— ever since she’d inadvertently dropped the dat-

ing bombshell she’d been extra- nice to me. I had tracked Cooper

down in the spot where I’d seen him riding— but mostly falling

off— his skateboard.

“It’s from Hallie,” I said, trying to sound casual about it. “She

just got this huge bag of gummy candy and wanted to give it to

you.”

Cooper’s eyes lit up. “Really?” he asked. “That’s awesome.” Then

he paused and frowned at me. “So why didn’t she just tell me?”

“She’s running errands with her mom today, and wanted to

make sure you found out as soon as possible. You know it’s better

when it’s fresh.” I tried to sound blithe as I lied over and over

again, glad that I’d practiced what I would say to these questions

on the bike ride over.

Cooper nodded thoughtfully. “That is true,” he said. “Okay. Cool.”

“Write her back and tell her,” I said, thrusting a piece of paper

and a pen— both of which I had ready— at him. “So she knows I

passed on the message.”

Cooper raised an eyebrow. “She won’t believe you?”

I shrugged, trying not to look like my brain was whirring fu-

riously. “I, um, always forget,” I ad- libbed quickly. “So she doesn’t

trust me anymore.”

“Okay,” Cooper said with a shrug. He took the pen and paper,

then paused. “Wait, where are we meeting?”

“You should put that in the note,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound

like I’d planned this. “Just write
Meet at sunset at the bike rack
.

And sign your name.” The bike rack near Hallie and Cooper’s

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houses had become the de facto meeting place of the summer.

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Cooper wrote quickly on the paper, then handed it back to me.

“Done,” he said. He looked at me hopefully. “Is it a lot of candy?”

I smiled at him. “It’s defi nitely worth the wait.”

O O O

Hallie read the note, then looked up at me, her cheeks already

going pink. “He really gave this to you to give to me?”

I made myself smile at Hallie as I sat next to her on her beach

towel. I’d told her that I’d run into Cooper on my way to the beach

and he’d trusted me to give her the note. “Not only that,” I said,

leaning forward conspiratorially. “I think he’s going to kiss you,”

He asked me if I thought sunset was a
romantic
time.”

“Oh my god,” Hallie said, her voice high and excited. “Gemma,

can you believe this?” She pulled me into a tight hug, and I had to

swallow hard.

Was I really ready to do this? Was I really going to be able to

deliberately hurt someone I liked and thought of as a friend? Some-

one who trusted me?

But then a moment later, I remembered seeing my dad kiss-

ing Karen’s hand, the way he held doors open and chairs out for

her. The time I’d overheard him on the phone, telling Stu, his

agent, that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this

happy.

This was all the push I needed. I hugged her back.

Four hours later, Hallie and I were walking to the bike rack,

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Hallie ner vous ly smoothing down her hair. We had spent the rest

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of the afternoon getting her ready. Now her blond curls had been

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coaxed into a fi shtail braid, and she was wearing a light applica-

tion of Cruel Summer— one of my favorite lip glosses, which I’d

given her for the occasion.

“Oh my god,” she said, twisting her hands together. “Do I look

okay?”

“You look great,” I said honestly.

“Thanks,” she said. She bit her lip and looked to the bike rack.

Cooper wasn’t there yet, and I just hoped he’d show up and things

would go as planned— otherwise, I would have some explaining

to do.

“Look,” I said, pointing in the opposite direction, where Coo-

per was making his way toward us. “Call me later,” I said quickly,

backing away, out of sight. “Tell me everything!”

“Will do,” Hallie said, giving me a ner vous, excited smile. I

waved and jogged away like I was heading home, but then dou-

bled back and, crouching low, hid behind a nearby parked car,

where I could see and hear everything that happened.

“Hi, Cooper,” Hallie said, and I could hear her trying to sound

like she was playing things cool, but not really succeeding.

“Hey,” Cooper said. He crossed his arms over his chest. He looked

at Hallie, who smiled back at him. After a moment, he cleared

his throat and asked, “So are we going to do this or what?”

“Um,” Hallie said, and I could see her smile falter a little. “I

guess. I just thought . . .”

“What?” Cooper asked, sounding genuinely perplexed. “I mean,

are you going to give me the sugar?”

I saw Hallie take a step back, her cheeks fl ushing bright red.

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“That’s not exactly the way to ask,” she said, her voice getting frosty.

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“Sorry,” Cooper muttered, looking taken aback. “I didn’t think

it was such a big deal, you know?”

“Well, it is to me, okay?” Hallie asked. But I could see she was

calming down a little. She gave Cooper a smile and took a small

step toward him, then another one. Cooper frowned, looking

alarmed. Hallie had just closed her eyes and tilted her head to

the side when he jumped back, causing Hallie to lose her balance

and stumble forward.

“What are you doing?” Cooper asked, blushing bright red. “You’re

such a freak, Bridges. I don’t want your sugar anymore!”

He turned and ran away, shaking his head as he went. I watched

Hallie pick herself up and brush the dirt off her hands, biting

her lip hard, the way she did when she was trying not to cry.

I turned away and, still ducking low, ran home as fast as I

could, not wanting to see any more.

O O O

Hallie called me, crying, just after I made it back inside. She

told me the whole story, and I tried to sound suffi ciently sur-

prised and outraged. When she’d fi nished, I told her that maybe

Cooper really
did
like her, but he had just lost his nerve at the last

moment.

“Maybe,” Hallie conceded, her voice still hoarse.

“So,” I said, trying hard to sound casual, “you’re probably going

to want to leave now, right? I mean, it’d be too awkward to see

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Cooper all the time, right?”

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There was a pause on the other end, and when Hallie spoke

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again, her voice was clearer, and she sounded less on the verge of

tears. “I’m not going to leave,” she said. “I can’t let him
win
.”

As she said this, I suddenly remembered something I’d no-

ticed when Hallie and I played board games: she was ruthless

when it came to winning, especially when she felt she’d been

wronged, like when my dad had taken Park Place without her

noticing.

“But . . .” I started, about to say something about how if she

left,
she
would be winning. Somehow. I hadn’t worked out all the

logic yet. But Hallie interrupted me, shaking her head.

“I’m just never going to talk to him again, ever. And you can’t

either, okay? Promise?”

I promised, but as I hung up the phone, I couldn’t help feeling

that my plan had fallen short. Hallie was upset, but not enough

to make her want to leave and take her mother with her.

So I just decided that I would do something else. Something

bigger. Something that would work, and make Karen and Hallie

leave for good.

I began writing down ideas and plans in the green notebook

from Southampton Stationery. I detailed the fi rst attempt with

Cooper, and tried to sort out why it hadn’t worked, and jotted down

ideas for future sabotage.

But it wasn’t like I was doing this free from remorse. Some-

times I would look up from my notebook, with its detailed plots

and counterplots, realize what I was doing— coldly planning to

hurt someone— and suddenly feel my guilty conscience rise up

and threaten to clobber me. But then a moment later, I would

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picture my mother and me, sitting alone at our kitchen table,

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and the Christmas card that my dad and Karen would send out,

with a picture of the two of them and Josh and Hallie, with me

nowhere in sight. And this was enough to bring the evil- twin

side of me back and strengthen my resolve to do what needed to

be done.

So I let the air out of the tires on Hallie’s bike. I sprinkled

sand in her ice cream and made sure to put onions, which she

was allergic to, on her hamburger. I left Karen’s prized (and very

old and therefore very valuable) copy of
The Count of Monte Cristo

out in the rain, in Hallie’s beach bag, so it would look like she’d