“Yeah? And?”
“No, it was nothing. Just a football game.”
“You like this guy?” It was the same question Billy had asked. Why was everyone so nosy?
“He seems nice enough.” She shrugged, busying herself with wiping a drip on the side of her yogurt container. “First date, hard to tell.”
“Sometimes,” he said. “Other times you click from the start. But you’re right, it’s good to keep the jury out for a while, see how it goes.”
She checked her watch. “It’s almost one,” she said, thankful for an excuse to stop talking about her tenuous love life. “I’d better get out there.”
Dana was staring at a package of boneless chicken breasts, their damp pinkness lying exposed in the shallow Styrofoam tray. She was trying to decide whether to grill them or bake them when the phone rang. “Hello,” she said, frowning at the chicken.
“It’s me. And I’m about done with your little suburban exchange program.”
Dana smiled. There was something strangely comforting about the dependability of her sister’s sharp edges. She hazarded a playful rebuttal: “But she’s just getting the hang of the language—she’s almost fluent in entitled whining.”
“Oh, I’ll
bet.
”
“Don’t worry,” Dana said, bringing the phone into the mudroom for privacy. “I haven’t taken her to the mall even once. She’s still yours.”
“So what the hell is she
doing
there! It’s been four fucking weeks!”
“Jeez, it has, hasn’t it?” said Dana. It was the end of September when Alder had come slamming into her mailbox, and now it was almost November. “You must really miss her.”
“
Yes,
I miss her—she’s my goddamned
kid
! Like
you
wouldn’t miss
your
kids. You’d be having a nervous breakdown after twenty minutes.”
“My kids go to their father every other weekend, Connie,” Dana said matter-of-factly, “so I’m a little more used to it than you give me credit for.”
“Oh, all right—you’re a separation all-star.” Connie had a way of conceding a point while simultaneously implying there really was no point to begin with. “Either way, you still have my kid.”
“Safe and sound. Actually, she stayed after school for help with a science lab, but want me to have her call you?”
Connie was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. “She’s pissed at me.”
“About not fixing her car?”
“Well, yeah,
that,
” as if it were too obvious to bother mentioning. “But there’s something else, and I don’t know what. It’s bugging the shit out of me.”
“When did it start?”
“Hell if I know. Two, three months ago, maybe? At first I thought she was blocked and taking it out on me. She’s got about six half-finished canvases lying at the bottom of the basement stairs where she threw them.” Another aggravated sigh. “But then she never . . . you know . . . surfaced. She’s not a moody kid, Dana. She gets pissy sometimes, but she always snaps out of it.”
Dana sat down on the tile floor. The two sisters were quiet for a moment, silently contemplating their favorite sixteen-year-old. Dana considered whether to tell Connie about Alder’s getting high but decided against it; Alder had promised it wouldn’t happen again, and Dana trusted her. Best to focus on the more pressing matter. “You know about Ethan, right?” she said.
Connie knew that Ethan had stopped showing up sometime during the summer and then had left for college in Vermont. Dana told her about his phone calls and Alder’s raging response.
“He called here, and I gave him your number. Miserable little prick,” muttered Connie. “She
adored
that kid—they were best friends. He must have done something completely heinous for her to act like that.”
“She won’t tell me.”
“
Make
her tell you.”
“And how am I supposed to do that, Connie? Bribe her with Gummi Bears?”
“Like you always
used
to? Don’t think I didn’t know about that, by the way.”
“I didn’t bribe her. I gave them to her.”
“So you could get her addicted to sugar and chemicals, like
you
are?”
“No, Connie. Just because she liked them.”
Connie gave a little snort, her signal that the subject matter was no longer worthy of her attention. “You really should have called me, Dana.”
“I know.” Dana bit the tip of her thumb. “It just seemed like she might be getting a break from it here. I was afraid you might make her go home.”
“Now
you’re
the one not giving
me
any credit!”
“I’m really sorry.” They agreed to keep in better touch, and Dana was just saying, “Bye Connie,” when Alder came in the door. She gave Dana a worried look, then wrapped her arms around Dana’s waist. “I can still stay, right?” she whispered.
“Of course, sweetie.” Dana hugged her back. “As long as you need.”
CHAPTER
21
M
ORGAN HAD GONE TO KIMMI’S HOUSE AFTER school and stayed for dinner. Dana now traveled through the twilit town to retrieve her. The cul-de-sac seemed strangely quiet, denuded of the late-model cars that had populated it during the party only a few nights ago. Dana walked up the winding driveway, car keys jangling against one another as the ring swung from her tensed finger.
Pressing the doorbell, she ran a hand through her hair, fingers snagging on the tiny knots that had spun themselves over the course of the day. The brush in her car had disappeared again, likely ending up in Morgan’s backpack. She wished she had one brush that was always there for emergencies such as this, but did mothers have anything that belonged only to them? Dana certainly didn’t.
There’s no such thing as “mine,”
she thought, standing there waiting to be granted entrance.
Everything I own is up for grabs.
Nora opened the door, her glance gliding over Dana like water over smooth rocks in a streambed. “You look nice—some sort of appointment?”
“Oh, thanks. No, I started a new job today and haven’t had a chance to change.”
“New job!” Nora ushered Dana into the pomegranate-colored foyer. “Good for you! Where?”
“Oh, no.” Dana waved away Nora’s excitement. “It’s nothing. I picked up a few hours at my dentist’s office. His receptionist needed a sudden leave of absence, and he was desperate.” This was not a lie, Dana told herself; it was just an incomplete list of who was in need of what.
“Oh.” Nora’s smile remained bright while her enthusiasm receded. “Well, aren’t you a team player, jumping in like that! He’s lucky to have a patient with time on her hands.”
Dana quickly moved the conversation away from her omission. “The tough thing is,” she confided, “all my work clothes are so out of date. I feel like a throwback to the last century.”
“Well, you told the right person.” Nora gave her a playful little poke. “We have to go shopping at my store! I would
love
to help you pick out some things.”
“Oh, my gosh, that is so nice,” said Dana, hoping her horror didn’t show. Even a few items at such an expensive store would decimate her budget. “But I don’t want to bother you.”
“Please?” begged Nora. “I love to dress people. Kimmi’s like my own personal Barbie doll!”
To Dana’s relief the girls chose this moment to come racing down the stairs, giggling, bumping shoulders. Morgan caught sight of her mother, and her face fell. “Mom, we’re not finished!”
“Hello to you, too,” said Dana. “Finished with what?”
Kimmi cut in. “We got this amazing recipe off Epicurious for these super-gooey bars with, like, chocolate and marshmallows and junk!” she gushed. “They’re almost cooked!”
“I didn’t know you two were making sweets again,” said Nora, her polite-for-company smile tightening. “That sounds like a lot of calories.”
Kimmi rolled her eyes. “We’re only having one. I’ll give Dad the rest to take into the office.”
“Well, Dad can take them
all
into the office, because Morgan has to go home now. Besides, I don’t want sweets sitting in your stomach all night.” Nora turned to Dana with a commiserating smile. “They just don’t understand how fast that stuff goes to the thighs, like we do.”
Dana understood all too well, her own thighs hosting plenty of morsels she shouldn’t have eaten. But she didn’t like Nora talking to the girls this way. Morgan’s list of worries was far too long already. “Morgan, can you go round up your things?” she said.
“You know,” said Nora when the girls were out of earshot, “we don’t have to shop. We should just go out for a glass of wine some night.” Her face fell into a strange blankness that, for the briefest moment, reminded Dana of her father. “I feel like I don’t really
know
anyone in this town,” said Nora. “All we do is breeze by each other at parties or dropping our kids off at ballet or whatever.” She gave an uncertain smile. “You want to?” she asked. “Go out some night?”
This unexpected sadness from Nora felt so familiar to Dana. “I’d love to,” she said.
“I knew you would.” Nora sighed. “You get it. Polly always says that about you.”
On the ride home, Morgan gave the play-by-play of her day. She’d sat with Kimmi at lunch, of course, and Darby tried to sit between them, but Kimmi hung her arm around Morgan’s neck and the two of them almost fell off the bench. “We laughed so hard our stomach muscles went all spastic!” She warmed her hands against the vent on the dashboard. “Then Toby came over to talk to me
alone.
” Toby wanted her to ask Kimmi if Jason asked her out, would she say yes. Morgan immediately relayed this to Kimmi, who mouthed,
Oh, my GOD,
and said, “Tell him I’ll get back to him.” Then they ran to the girls’ room, and Kimmi kept pinching herself because she couldn’t believe the hottest kid in the grade liked her. They still hadn’t come up with an answer yet.
In science class Darby wanted to be Morgan’s partner for quizzing each other on the constellations, but Devynne asked her first, and even though Morgan was a little scared of Devynne (“She can be wicked mean”), Morgan decided to give her a chance, because she’s really good friends with Kimmi. Devynne invited Morgan to the party she was having on Friday for Halloween. “But she told me not to tell anyone, because it’s totally NL.” Morgan leaned back in the car seat, toed off her boots, and put her sock-clad feet up to the heating vent.
“What’s NL?” asked Dana.
“No losers.”
The next morning Dana glanced into Grady’s room on her way to the shower. He was sitting on the floor amid a thin layer of boy mulch: Matchbox cars, their paint chipped from multiple crashes; empty cereal boxes cut open and taped together to make a hangar for his small fleet of planes; clothes he’d stripped off and left where he’d been standing, like puddles of fabric.
“How’d you sleep, sweetie?” Dana asked as he rebuilt a dismembered Lego spaceship.
He slid the spaceship into the cereal-box aircraft hangar and looked up at her. “Can I have pancakes this morning? Like, a lot of them? I need to build up my muscles.”
“Oh, sweetie, I think we might be a little late for that. I can make them tomorrow morning—on Wednesdays I don’t have to go in to work so early.”
“But I need them today!”
Dana glanced up at the
Star Wars
clock, where Yoda’s misshapen green arms told her it was seven-fifteen. “Oh my gosh—the bus will be here in twenty minutes! Get dressed and eat breakfast, quick as you can!” And she raced toward the shower.
Once she was dressed, Dana hurried downstairs, her little zippered bag of cosmetics in hand. There were three stoplights between her house and Cotters Rock Dental, and she planned to apply her makeup at each of them. In the kitchen Alder was spreading pumpkin butter on toast and Grady was eating Rice Krispies, the milk a mysterious tan color.
“What’s in your cereal?” Dana reached into the refrigerator for the container of yogurt.
“She-up,” he answered around a large mouthful.
“Syrup,” translated Alder. “My idea.”
“What in the world for?”
“He was bugged because he couldn’t have pancakes, but really he only wants the syrup, so . . .” She pinched her fingers and twisted her wrist, a pantomime of pouring. “Just a little,” she added.
Morgan blew into the kitchen at a sprint, reached past her mother, and grabbed three plums from the vegetable drawer. “Can Kimmi come over?” She said it so quickly it sounded like one long word. Dana was still attempting to decode it when Morgan bolted for the mudroom. “Bye!” she yelled. Seconds later the front door slammed.
“I’ll come home right after school,” said Alder, who seemed to be pondering something that didn’t suit her. “I’m pretty much caught up.”
“Is everything okay?” Dana asked. “You look worried about something.”
Alder shrugged. “There’s always something to worry about if you look hard enough.”
At lunch Tony told her about his older daughter’s first cadaver in medical school. She’d named him Smitty, after a boy who had teased her throughout high school for being klutzy. “Spazimoto,” he’d dubbed her, and he always seemed to be there to clap and congratulate her when she dropped her lunch tray or tripped over the edge of a carpet runner.
“My gentle little Abby sliced that boy six ways to Sunday!” Tony laughed, and Dana had giggled along with him, savoring the idea of the girl’s symbolic retribution.
But the concerned look on Alder’s face that morning felt strangely ominous to Dana, and she couldn’t quite settle in. When her cell phone vibrated in her pocket at a quarter to three, she wrestled it out of her pocket, certain it was bad news. “Hello?” she said anxiously.
“Hey there, beautiful.”
Dana exhaled. “Jack.”
“Expecting someone else?” he joked. “If you’re waiting for a better offer, I can get off the line.”