Gemini (28 page)

“Oh.” She brightened. “Well, that's good. I wasn't sure if you would.” She hovered in our doorway. “You know, I was thinking, it's good that you're trying new things. And sometime soon we should start to talk about what it's going to be like next year, when you two start at Sutter. There are going to be a lot of new things to prepare for.”

My heartbeat quickened, and Clara sucked in her breath. I kind of wanted to not say anything. But we were going to have to tell her soon. It might as well be now.

“Um, Mom,” I said, “I think there's something you need to see.”

I held up my laptop, its screen facing her, and she came closer to look.

Her face went pale. “The Common Application?” she said. “Sutter doesn't use the Common Application.”

I crossed my legs, pulled my spine up straight, and looked right into Mom's eyes. “We're not going to Sutter.”

Her eyes widened, and her body pulled back, but Clara jumped in. “We want to see other places and meet new people, people who aren't from around here. We want to give them a chance. Give ourselves a chance. We think we can handle it.”

Mom shook her head, looking confused. “It's not like everyone at Sutter is from around here. People come from all over—even from other countries.”

“A few people,” I admitted. “Not many.”

“But also,” Clara said, “I never really wanted to study environmental science. And Sutter doesn't have physics or astronomy or anything like that. I want to go where I can study what I really care about. We both do.”

Mom kept shaking her head, like she couldn't control it. “Your father is a tenured professor. Do you know how hard it is to get a job like that? We can't just pick up and move wherever you—”

“We're not asking you to do that,” I said quickly, glad that I could at least reassure her about this one thing. “You guys can stay right where you are. We promise to visit.”

She opened and closed her hands. “You're talking about going without us?”

“Yeah. We are.” I forced a smile for her, but before I could say anything more, I felt my fake smile transforming into a real one. “We can take care of ourselves.”

Mom came and sat down at the foot of our bed. “I know it feels that way,” she said gently. “You two can do an amazing amount for yourselves. You're very independent. But at the same time, you don't necessarily notice all the things that your father and I do for you to smooth the way. Driving you around, tailoring your clothes, cooking your meals, arranging accommodations everywhere you go . . .”

“We can do all of that,” Clara said. “We'll learn what we need to. And the stuff that we can't do, like driving, we'll find a way around. Other people manage with bigger disabilities than ours. They manage to live on their own.”

“You'd need to get to physical therapy somehow,” Mom said. “And learn how to cook, which is going to present some logistical difficulties for you. You'll need to have everything arranged where you can reach it without a step stool and without having to bend down low, because that's so awkward for you. And what happens if you're alone and you get injured? There are so many things that could happen.”

“Mom,” Clara said, more gently now. “We're grateful for everything that you've done for us, including teaching us to be independent. And you can still help us, okay? You
can still fix our clothes and check in with us every day. You can teach us how to cook, and you can visit us and make sure everything's all right. There's a good chance we'll stay in California, so you can visit a lot. We're not trying to disappear.”

Mom's head kept shaking. Actually, the rest of her was shaking too. “But where—”

“We're going to apply to a bunch of places,” I told her, my voice sounding weirdly calm. “We'll see what happens.”

“Hailey. Clara. You're going to need to give your father and me some time to go over all the details of this before we can say yes or no. I can see right now that there are aspects of this that the two of you have not thought through. For instance, with two completely different majors, it will take you twice as long to finish. It's all right at Sutter, because they'll give you free tuition. And you can live at home.”

“We'll get financial aid at the other places too,” I said. “Mom, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to upset you, but Clara and I have made a decision about this. We're doing this. No matter what you feel about it, we're going to find a way to make this happen.”

She drew back. “It's not as simple as you seem to think. Don't you remember your friend Laura Saunders, last year? She got into six schools, and then she couldn't afford to go to any of them.”

Something cold trickled down my spine. “Yeah,” I said
slowly, “but that's because her parents were assholes who wouldn't cover their share.”

“Right,” Mom said, nodding thoughtfully. “The financial aid package takes your parents' income into account. It only works if your parents are willing to help. So they have to be behind you.”

“Mom,” Clara said sharply, “you can't be serious.”

“No,” said Dad from the doorway. We all looked up quickly. Where had he come from? “She's not serious,” he said.

How much of this had he been listening to?

Mom stood up and whirled toward him. “Don't you tell me I'm not serious. Don't you tell me what I mean.”

“You're going to control them with money, Liza? I know you can't be serious. Or you're not thinking straight.”

Mom turned back toward me, ignoring him. “I'm not saying no. But this is a decision that we're going to make together as a family. And if your father and I decide that we need to put our foot down to protect you, to keep you safe, then that's what we're going to do.”

Dad looked skeptical but said nothing. Falling back into place, I supposed, as part of her united front.

“We're just talking about going off to college,” I said. Though I thought I felt nothing but anger, my voice came out sounding sad and defeated. “What terrible thing do you think is going to happen to us there?”

“Well, for starters,” Mom said swiftly, as if she were glad to be asked, “don't you realize that everyone has a camera in their pocket? You don't notice it around here because it's a protected environment, and we can get that for you at Sutter, too, because it's small and because we've already discussed it with the administration. But out there in the world, there's nothing to stop people from taking pictures and video of you at any time, and doing anything they want with it. You might not even notice they were doing it. By the time you found out, it would be too late.”

I looked toward Clara. For the past few weeks people had been sending me videos of the two of us. As far as I could tell, Clara had never noticed that people were taking these videos. Half the time I hadn't noticed it either, even though I'd known about the project and had known that this could have been going on.

“You might think they were just texting their friends,” Clara said slowly, “when they're really taking videos of you.”

“Exactly!” Mom agreed. “And then anything could happen. They could send it to their friends, or a journalist. They could post it online.”

“Liza,” Dad said softly, leaning against our doorway. “Honestly.”

“It's true, though,” Clara said. “They could. And once that happened, it would be too late. You would never be able
to unring that bell. The videos would be out there, and then anyone could do anything with them. Keep reposting them in new places. Whatever.”

“Exactly,” Mom said, triumphant.

“And then when we walked down the street,” Clara went on, with just a slight tremor in her voice, “instead of people saying, ‘What's that thing?' they would say, ‘Oh, there are those girls we saw on YouTube.'”

Mom frowned.

“And then at that point,” Clara said, “there would be no reason for us to hide away anymore, because the whole world would already know all about us.”

Mom stared at Clara, her face awash with horror and confusion. She must have been trying to figure out the same thing that I was. Was Clara making an argument about how awful it would be to show up on YouTube? Or just the opposite?

And then, from the corner of my eye, I thought I glimpsed Clara's slow, tentative smile.

I looked up toward Dad, where he hovered in the doorway. Mom had her back turned toward him, so she couldn't see his face. She couldn't see what I could. Dad was smiling too.

Slowly, testing all of them, just to make sure that we were really thinking the same thing, I said, “There would be no reason for us not to go away for college.”

Clara kept smiling. And Dad did too.

I wouldn't have thought it was possible. But just hours ago, after all, Clara had agreed to leave our cocoon. And if she thought this would help her do it, who was I to argue?

Mom shook her head. “I don't think you're getting my point. We never raised you to be a circus act. We never raised you to be on a vaudeville stage, or on the modern equivalent of it either. That's no way to live your life.”

“But neither is this,” I said. And then, thinking over the options, I shrugged. “Actually, I guess that
is
one way to live your life, and so is staying here. There are lots of ways. They're all life. But the point is, it's up to us, which one we choose.”

Mom's lower lip trembled. Dad looked down at the floor, his expression once again unreadable.

Clara nudged me. “Is that video ready for posting yet?”

“What, mine?” I thought about it. “It's kind of lame right now. And we're not even in it that much.”

“I'm sure they sent you a bunch of stuff from last night's dance,” she said. “You could add that.”

“Yeah, yeah. I guess we could just tack that on. I don't know, though. If we're going to put something out there, I'd rather make it better than just a bunch of random candids. Like maybe more from our own perspective or something.”

Mom pressed herself against our bedroom wall. She glanced at Dad, but he wouldn't meet her eye.

“What are you talking about?” she said. “Do I need to confiscate your laptops? Do I need to turn off the Wi-Fi?”

I looked her right in the eye. I could see her fear and confusion—could see all the terrible things whirling through her brain that she felt she absolutely had to protect us from—but I felt detached from those feelings, like they couldn't touch me at all, and it was almost hard for me to care.

Care,
I told myself.
Try to care.

There had been so many times when I had cared. When I had felt for her fear, and for Clara's, too. But this was not the time. This was not that moment.

I took a deep breath and forced my voice to sound as patient as possible. “It won't make any difference. Everything's backed up to the cloud. We can access it from our friends' computers.”

“Not if I don't allow you to go to their houses,” Mom said, her voice faltering.

“Oh, Mom.” I shook my head, losing my grip on my last thread of sympathy. “How are you going to stop us?”

Clara started to giggle nervously, even as tears welled up in her eyes. She elbowed me. “Hailey,” she said, “I know what we can post.”

By the time the soccer field came into view, as we walked toward it along the cracked sidewalk and then up into the Bear Pass High School parking lot, it was already obvious that the place was packed. Not only was the parking lot full, but the street was lined with parked cars, trucks, and SUVs, many of which I recognized as belonging to my classmates.

Many, but not nearly all. Girls' soccer was big around here, and there would be lots of Los Pinos students and families too.

Los Pinos was about forty minutes from Bear Pass, a bigger town that we never visited, though Mom sometimes went there to shop and do errands.

My nerves jangled, and my mind raced. So many strangers. So many people who had never seen us.

It was noon, and we had spent most of the morning practicing with Bridget, Amber, and Kim, while Juanita had worked on setting up all the details and logistics, and making sure the soccer team and coach were on board. We'd
done all of this at Juanita's house, while our mother had presumably sat back at our house, crying or tearing out her hair or making frantic phone calls to family members, or whatever it was that she did when she was alone and worried sick. At least she hadn't tried to prevent us from leaving the house. And although she hadn't said that she would go along with our plan to leave for college, her look of despair as we'd left the house had given me a perverse ray of hope.

We'd been working hard at this, but I wasn't ready at all. I was never going to be ready. As we reached the edge of the field, I realized I was holding my breath. When I let it out, it made a little puff of cold mist, despite the bright sunny sky overhead.

We looked out across the field. Sure enough, our side of the field was packed—the bleachers full and surrounded by foldout chairs, with people huddled into jackets and sweatshirts and even a few blankets under the cool morning sun. Our classmates and their families, mostly. People we knew.

On the Los Pinos side there were almost as many people, all on foldout chairs. So far, none of those strangers seemed to have noticed us. At least, nobody was staring or pointing, as far as I could tell.

Instead all eyes were on the field, where the Bear Pass girls, in their red uniforms, played Los Pinos, in white and green. I didn't know much about soccer, but I could see
that Lindsey was dominating, weaving between defenders as she took the ball down the field with a speed and agility that were frankly beautiful to watch.

“I'll go talk to Amber,” Juanita said. “I want to make sure they've got everything they need.”