Chapter Ten
Hannah and I keep meeting under the stairs before school, but as the days pass we talk less and less. She always beats me there, even when I ask Dad to drop me off super early, and she always has a textbook in her lap and the timer on her phone ticking down. She waves to me when I come down the steps but she rarely looks up. “Chem,” she’ll say, or “History” or “Calc,” whatever assignment she’s hurrying to finish before the bell, and I’ll sit down and pull the tattered paperback from my bag and read another chapter, sometimes two. Today it’s four, as I race to finish the whole book. Marshall was right about Sybil; the story gets good when she dies. That’s when the portrait of Dorian starts changing. It’s never really clear how the canvas becomes a reflection of Dorian’s soul, it just sort of does – the painted version of him getting uglier and uglier while real life Dorian stays the exact same, until finally Dorian tries to destroy the painting and ends up killing himself instead.
I’m still thinking about that final scene as I stop by my locker before lunch. I’ve started bringing my history book with me to the bleachers so I can stay out there with Marshall until the warning bell rings, turning fifty-two minutes into fifty-four. Meeting outside is our unspoken arrangement now. Even when it snowed last Thursday, we both showed up. We spent the period under the bleachers instead of on them, with Marshall’s backpack laid sideways on the bench above us, a makeshift roof.
“Have you seen my brother?”
Hannah’s voice comes out of nowhere, makes me jump.
“You’re still here,” I say, swinging my locker shut. The bruise under her eye is the first thing I see. It looks more like a half moon now than a crescent. did it get bigger or was it always this shape?
Frustration pecks against my forehead, buh buh buh buh, incessant and ineffectual, a finger pounding a broken key.
“Only because Marshall freaking has the keys. Ugh. Have you seen him?”
“He’s probably outside already,” I say, forcing my eyes up to hers. “He usually beats me out there.”
“Out where?”
he hasn’t told her
why hasn’t he told her?
why haven’t i?
“Um. Down at the field. We’ve been eating out there the last few days.” More than a few, exactly nine, every day for almost two weeks.
Surprise, confusion, hurt, zing zing zing, like lightning flashes across her face.
“Oh,” she says finally, with a smile that’s definitely forced. “Cool.”
“It’s not, like, a thing or anything,” I say quickly. “We’re just out there at the same time. Sometimes we don’t even talk.” This is true, sometimes we don’t, like when I’m listening to a song on his playlist, absorbing lyrics he’ll then proceed to explain, or when he’s reading some passage from my book that I’ve underlined for him, bobbing his head the tiniest bit, a thing he does when ideas are sinking in. He does the head bobbing thing when I’m talking sometimes, as if what I’m saying is making him think. Sometimes we don’t talk. But most of the time we do. We talk more than I’ve ever talked to anyone, so much talking that by the time the bell rings, I’m completely spent. “Anyway. That’s probably where he is.”
Hannah’s already moving toward the door. “You coming?” she calls. She doesn’t wait.
Marshall has his headphones on, doesn’t hear us approach. Hannah climbs the back of the bleachers, whacks him with her hand. “You have the keys,” she says, impatient, when he pulls the headphones off. He turns, sees Hannah, then sees me.
“Hey,” he says to me.
“Hey.”
“The keys,” Hannah repeats, and holds out her hand. “I’m already late.” Her palm is hidden in the sleeve of her jacket, fingers wedged to the inside seam. She sees Marshall clock this, answers the question he hasn’t asked. “I haven’t been picking it,” she snaps. She shoves up her sleeve, turns over her wrist. The flesh is bumpy and pink, islands of eczema from wrist to elbow, but not a single scab. “Happy, Dad? Now can I please have the keys?”
Marshall digs them out of his pocket. “Don’t speed.”
Hannah grabs the keys and hops down. “Enjoy your lunch,” she says neutrally, and turns to go. Fear sparks in my chest. It feels like I am choosing him suddenly, her brother, the boy, over her.
“I’ll come with you,” I say suddenly.
She shakes her head. “You can’t.”
“I promise I won’t bother you,” I insist. “I won’t even talk. I want to hear how it’s coming, that’s all.”
“It’s not that,” she says. Her eyes flick to Marshall.
“What?” I ask.
“We’re not supposed to leave campus during the day,” Marshall answers when Hannah doesn’t.
“But she’s been going home every day at lunch for two weeks,” I point out.
“I’m allowed to,” Hannah says.
“It’s only the alternative school kids who can’t,” Marshall explains.
I don’t let this register. Don’t let myself think about the reasons behind this rule, how horrifying it is that this rule applies to me.
“Whatever,” I say lightly. “We’ll be back before fifth period, right? No one will even know.”
Hannah hesitates, debating. Then she shrugs.
“Yeah, okay,” she says finally. “But we have to go now.”
I look up at Marshall. “Thanks again for keeping me company,” I say in a weird, department store lady voice, why do i feel the need to do this, i can’t help it but i do.
“No problem,” he says, and slips his headphones back on.
Their house is a couple miles from school, which in L.A. would be a different zip code but in Boulder is a five minute drive. Hannah pulls their Camry into the driveway, flings the gear in park.
Their house is bigger than Dad’s but much older, more run down. Hannah’s already inside by the time I get to the front porch. Without a word she shrugs out of her jacket, drapes it across the kitchen counter, and gets situated at their piano, a baby grand just off the kitchen where a breakfast table would normally be.
I wander into the living room. Mismatched frames line the mantel over the fireplace, a catalog of family photos that go back to the twins’ birth. Marshall was the smaller baby, but in the pictures he doesn’t look sick. In one, his dad has Hannah on his shoulders, and his mom has Marshall on her back and they’re all making goofy faces from the top of a mountain peak. My throat tightens as I move down the mantel.
this is what a family looks like. these are the things that real families do
We had some of these moments, I remember them. My family at the beach, my family in the snow, my family at Benihana eating chicken-fried rice the night before my family fell apart. But without a mental image, these memories feel like fiction, a bedtime story I made up. once upon a time there was a mommy and a daddy and a little girl. and then the daddy left and the mommy got a new family and the little girl discovered there was no one she could trust, and they all lived unhappily ever after, the end.
In the other room, Hannah fumbles a transition. “Ugh!” she explodes, pounding the keys with her fists.
My heart keeps tempo with her banging, off kilter, too fast.
does she do this when she’s alone?
I peek my head in. “Hey,” I say softly, and she immediately stops banging, embarrassment flooding her face, and I have my answer. She’d forgotten I was here.
“Sorry,” she mumbles.
“Maybe you should eat something,” I suggest. “What do you normally do for lunch when you’re here?”
“I don’t,” she says.
“You’ve been skipping lunch every day?”
She doesn’t answer me.
“Hannah. You have to eat.”
“No,” she says, refusing to look at me. “I actually don’t. I don’t have to eat, and I don’t have to talk about why I don’t have time to do anything right now but practice this song.” Her voice rises. “My audition is in nine days, Jessa.”
“I get it,” I say, stung. But she doesn’t hear me. She’s already begun to play.
I let myself out the front door and walk to the driveway. The music is muted out here, muffled by wood and window glass. I sit down on the cold cement, that familiar whirl in my ribcage, Hannah’s words pounding against my forehead like her piano notes, buh buh buh buh buh, like a machine gun in my brain.
you don’t understand
leave me alone
Not the words she spoke, but what I heard. What she wanted me to hear.
And she’s right. I don’t understand. I don’t know what it’s like to be that good at something. “Such beautiful bone structure,” I overheard my dance teacher tell my mom when I was seven. “A little music box ballerina!” Except that music box ballerinas can pirouette without face-planting and don’t forget to point their toes. After ballet was soccer, then ceramics, then horseback riding, then singing lessons that lasted two weeks. Not her thing, the instructor would eventually say, and we’d stop going, and Mom would sign me up for something else. Then dad left, and the lessons stopped.
My breath is visible when I exhale, rising like steam. Inside, Hannah is banging again.
what am i doing here?
At this house, with this girl, in this city. It seems so strange, suddenly, that this is my life.
My eyes dance around the yard for a distraction, land on a patch of trees beside the driveway. They’re tall and thin and pencil straight, their pale trunks knotted in black. Knotted. There it is again, that phrase. Knot in wood. But knotted things are tied together; shoelaces, strands of twisted hair. These trees aren’t knotted, they’re broken off; dark spots where branches once were. Spots, not the right word, either. Curved lines and circles, lids and sockets, a trunk full of Aspen eyes.
Eye to eye, I stare at one. Pupil bulging under a heavy black lid. My dad told me about aspen trees the first time I came to visit him after he moved, when I was so mad at him for leaving that I could hardly breathe. “Aspen trees, they have deep roots, they are impervious to fire, like us, Jessa Bear, like you and me.” Except the earth between us was scorched already, no roots left, just desolate dirt. He kept repeating, over and over again, that what happened between him and Mom had nothing to do with me, it’s just between the grownups, sweetheart, you understand that, right? The answer was yes, I did understand that I was irrelevant. How kind of Wren to remind me four years later when I almost forgot.
My vision blurs and the eye loses its shape. Not just this eye, but all eyes, in trees, through needles, on faces. I blink and there it is again, vacant and staring, unmoved by my tears.
The banging inside has stopped. Through the bay window, Hannah is gathering her things. I rub my tears away with frozen fingers, pretend I can’t feel the raised skin on my cheek.
“I do get it,” I say when she appears at the door. “I mean, I’ve never been that good at anything, or wanted something as much as you want this scholarship. But I know what’s like to have other people act like they know what’s best for you when they have no freaking clue. And it sucks.”
Her brown eyes go glassy. She opens her mouth, but whatever she wants to say gets caught in her throat. She nods, a nod that says thank you, and me too, and we are the same.
Hannah drops me off in the teacher parking lot, behind the building, since it’s closer to my fifth period class and I can’t afford to be late.
“Thanks for coming with me,” she says as I climb out. “Sorry I was such a jerk.”
“No sorries,” I tell her, something Wren used to say, his way of skating over arguments, before things changed and he started picking fights. “Thanks for letting me come with.”
“This audition is really throwing me,” Hannah says quietly. Her hands tighten on the steering wheel. “I don’t know why. It wasn’t nearly this bad last year.”
“You got in, right?”
“Yeah, but getting in is only half of it. I need an Emerson.”
“That’s the scholarship?”
She nods. “My parents can’t swing the tuition without one. Loans aren’t an option because there’s already a second mortgage on our house because of Marshall’s medical bills. My dad lost his job when were in third grade so things were really tight for awhile.”
“Are there other music schools you could try out for?” I ask. “Just for back-up?”
“They’re all just as expensive,” she says dully. “And none of them are as good.” Her eyes flick to the clock on the dash. “You should go. The bell’s about to ring.”
I want to say something else, something that’ll take all the stress away, but I know there aren’t words that’ll do that. I know because I’ve heard them all.
“Hang in there,” I say instead.
As I weave through a maze of SUVs, I’m thinking about Hannah and her audition and not at all about the fact that I’m in the teacher’s parking lot without a pass. So when I see him, a man in jeans and a white lab smock it doesn’t dawn on me that I’m caught.
“The front door would’ve been a better option,” the man says when I step up onto the sidewalk, and it’s at that moment that it hits me, the delayed oh crap. “This door doesn’t go anywhere other than the teacher’s lot, so it’s harder to make up a good excuse for where you’ve been.” The man has a brown bag lunch beside him and a dog-eared library book in his lap.
“Oh,” I say, because there is nothing to say, nothing that will get me out of whatever punishment is coming, how big of a deal is this? Then I say it again, because it’s all I have. “Oh.”
“You’re Jessa, right? Started three weeks ago, moved here from L.A. Steadily ignoring every invitation to the school psychiatrist’s office that you’ve received?” His voice is friendly, no trace of accusation. I wonder for a half a second how he could possibly know all of this, and then, duh, it clicks. It’s not a lab smock he has on but a doctor’s coat, the kind a pretentious school psychiatrist would wear to make sure everyone remembers he has a medical degree.
dr. i.
“So how’s it been so far?” Dr. I asks when I don’t say anything. “Settling in alright?”
I shift my bag to my opposite arm, not sure what to make of this man, this school authority figure, this white-coat-wearing shrink. I can’t tell if this is a conversation or a trap.
bell ring why won’t the bell just ring
“It’s been good,” I say finally. “I like it. More than I thought I would, actually.”
“And your classes are going okay?”
I nod. “Yeah. Still getting caught up.”
“Good. I know it can be an adjustment, coming to a new place, starting over in the middle of a school year. If you ever feel underwater, don’t be afraid to speak up. I’m here to help.”
“Thanks,” I say, my throat going weirdly tight. I feel like I should say something else, apologize for ignoring the pink slips, explain where I’ve just been. But just then the bell rings and I have my escape. “Well. I guess I’ll see you later,” I say.
“I hope so,” he replies, and goes back to his book.
“You have to give me a ride,” I hear Marshall say. “Penance for bailing on lunch.” The final bell rang ten minutes ago and I am at my locker putting books in and taking them out again, stalling until the hallway clears. The sidewalk in front of the main office is crowded after school, freshmen standing in clusters waiting for their parents to pick them up. Dad comes twenty minutes after the bell, when the sidewalk is nearly empty and the gym coach in the orange vest has gone back inside, idling in the bank’s parking lot like a getaway car ready to flee. I come across the courtyard, bypassing the sidewalk all together, eyes pinned on the grass until I hit the street.
“I don’t have a car,” I tell Marshall.
“Neither do I,” he says.
“Where’s Hannah?”
“Left before sixth period.” He holds out his phone. There’s a text on the screen, going home. find a ride. “So can you?”
I hesitate. Not because I don’t want Marshall to meet my dad. But because I know my dad will make a big deal out of meeting him, when it isn’t a big deal, it’s just a ride home. Which is why I have to say yes, because if I say no, then I’m the one making more of it than it is.
“Sure,” I say finally. “My dad picks me up across the street.”
The Jeep is exactly where it always is, in the far corner spot, closest to school. Marshall doesn’t comment on how quickly I stride across the courtyard, though he has to half jog to keep up.
“Hey,” Dad says when I pull open the passenger door.
“This is Marshall,” I say as neutrally as I can, not wanting Dad to read anything into this, knowing he will anyway. “He needs a ride home.”
“Hi, Marshall,” my dad says. “I’m Eric, Jessa’s dad.”
“Nice to meet you,” Marshall says, sliding into the back seat.
“How was school?” Dad asks as he pulls out of the parking lot.
“Fine,” I say automatically.
“My day was sort of depressing,” Marshall pipes up. “The girl I was supposed to have lunch with bailed at the last minute.”
“That’s too bad,” my dad says.
“Maybe she got a better offer,” I say.
Dad flicks his eyes toward me, trying to figure out if I’m being funny or being mean, and sadness kicks me in the ribs. He doesn’t know me well enough to know.
“Either way, she’s definitely making it up to me,” Marshall says from the back seat. “I charge one nighttime outing for every missed lunch.”
My heart hiccups in my chest. Nighttime outing sounds a lot like a date.
no boyfriend
Another flick of Dad’s eyes, and this time I know he’s caught on. A smile tugs at the corners of his lips. More than tugs, actually. Blatantly yanks.
“A nighttime outing, huh?” I say lightly. “That doesn’t sound like a fair trade.”
Dad’s grin is out of control now. It’s embarrassing, for him and for me.
“Only because you don’t know how soul crushing it is to be stood up for lunch,” Marshall is saying.
“I didn’t stand you up! I thought Hannah needed the moral support.”
“Who’s Hannah?” my dad asks, his voice practically bubbling with the idea that I might have friends, plural, that there might be others beyond this boy in the backseat.
“His sister,” I say.
“So how’s tomorrow night?” Marshall asks. “Assuming it’s okay with you, Mr. Gray.”
The formality makes me squirm. “It’s fine,” I say shortly. My dad granting his permission will be even weirder than Marshall asking for it. “Turn left at the next intersection.”
I say it without thinking. Turn left, like I know the route. And when Dad flicks on his blinker and slows for the turn and Marshall doesn’t say anything, I know that I am right. “Take the next right,” I say, testing myself. Navigating the school hallways without a mind’s eye is one thing; finding my way to a house I’ve only been to once feels significant, like progress at least.
Dad glances over at me, understandably surprised, but for different reasons. I don’t drive, don’t leave the house on the weekends, and he drops me off and picks me up at school every day during the week.
“I was at their house earlier today,” I say, distracted by the next turn, is there another turn or is this their street? “With Hannah. She comes home to practice piano at lunch.” I try to envision the house, or their piano, or Hannah’s face, something, anything, but I am sucking air from a drained glass, scraping a spoon against the bottom of an empty bowl.
“It’s that one,” I hear Marshall say. Dad pulls into the driveway and puts the car in park. Now that we’re here, the house is familiar, stone and painted wood, aspen trees out front. I try again, looking down at my lap for sec, trying to hold the image of their house in my head.
nope
“Thanks for the ride, Mr. Gray,” Marshall says from behind me.
“I’m happy to offer my chauffeur services again tomorrow night,” Dad says jovially, winking at me. “I can dress in all black and speak only when spoken to.”
“That’s okay,” I say quickly. “Marshall has a car.”
“So that’s a yes, then,” Marshall says. I twist in my seat and he is grinning at me, the sun behind him like a back-light, casting his face in shadows, and I notice for the first time that his brows are the perfect shape. It seems impossible that I could’ve missed them, two effortless arches in the middle of his face, so maybe I saw them before but never made a point of remembering them, or maybe his eyes always distracted me, the way they’re doing now. All intensity and focus, burning everything else out.
I shrug, as casually as I can, but my heart is BAM BAM BAMing in my chest, my dad’s grin like a school yard taunt, you like him you like him. Wren used to give me butterflies, but this is more like a frog on speed, thumping in a jar. “Sure,” I say, almost add whatever but don’t, too much nonchalance and the edges start to show.
“You better be at the bleachers tomorrow,” Marshall says as he hops out of the car. “Or else you’re mine on Saturday, too.”