Since You've Been Gone

I parked in my usual spot, trying to judge by my mother’s expression in the moonlight just how much trouble I was in. I got out of the car, grabbing the striped beach towel that was going to let me cross off number three on the list. It had belonged to Frank’s neighbor, but it had been forgotten on his deck post-fireworks, and with everyone cheering me on, at one a.m., I’d dashed across the sand to grab it. I knew I should probably feel bad about my first criminal act, but mostly I was just happy to get this one crossed off. It wasn’t Sloane’s sign, but it was something.

I took a big breath as I walked toward my mother, who smiled at me as I got closer, and braced myself for the worst.

“Late night?” she asked, taking a sip from her mug, and I could see how tired she looked.

“I guess,” I said, not wanting to pretend it was an anomaly, just in case she had noticed me gone this late other nights. “You too?”

She shrugged. “Well, you know how the second act goes. Plus, there’s a bit of a crisis with your brother.”

“With Beckett?” I took a step closer to her, hoping that he hadn’t finally fallen off something. “Is he okay?”

She nodded, but didn’t look certain about this. “It’s this camping trip. We’re right in the middle of the play, so your dad had to tell him they weren’t going to be able to go this summer.”

I glanced up at Beckett’s bedroom window, as though this would somehow give me some insight into how he was feeling. Of course, it showed me nothing, but I had a pretty good idea nevertheless. “How’d he take that?”

My mother bit her lip and looked down into her mug, cupping her hands around it. “Not well.  Your dad told him there will always be next summer, but . . .” Her voice trailed off and I felt an acute pang of sympathy for my brother. I knew all too well what it felt like to have the summer you’d looked forward to taken away just like that.  After a moment, my mom looked up at me and tapped the spot next to her on the porch. “Want to sit for a minute?”

Knowing this wasn’t really a question I could say no to, I settled in next to my mother, setting my ill-gotten towel down next to me. She squinted at it. “Is that one of ours?”

“Kind of,” I said, pushing it off to the side. “I got it at Frank’s.”  This was, at least, slightly close to the truth.

“Ah,” my mother said with a smile. “Frank. I like him.”

I sighed. I’d gone through this with my mother the morning after Living Room Theater, but she still didn’t seem to grasp it. “He has a girlfriend, Mom.”

“I just said that I liked him,” my mother said mildly, raising her eyebrows at me. “I think he’s nice.  And I’m glad you’ve been able to make some new friends this summer.”

“Yeah,” I said as I ran my hand along the wood of the porch, which had gotten so smooth over the years, you never had to worry about splinters. “Me too.” My mother smiled at me and ran her hand over my head, smoothing my new bangs down. I saw that FARRELLY was written across the top of my new towel in big block letters, and I quickly folded the top of the towel over. “So what’s the second act issue?” I asked, hoping my mother hadn’t seen anything.

“Oh,” my mother said, taking a long sip of what I could now smell was peppermint tea. “Your father and I have just come to a difference of opinion. He wants to focus on the rivalry aspect. But the fact is, Tesla and Edison were friends. That changed, of course, but they both got something from each other. And I don’t think we should discount that.”

I nodded, like I understood what she was saying. But mostly, I was thrilled that this conversation hadn’t involved any lectures. “Well, I’m going to bed,” I said, pushing myself to my feet, making sure the FARRELLY was hidden.

My mother smiled at me and waited until I was almost to the door before she added, “And, Em? Don’t come in again at three a.m. and not expect any consequences.”

“Right,” I said with a sinking feeling, realizing I should have known this was probably too good to be true. “Um, got it. Night, Mom.”

“Night, hon,” my mom said. She stayed where she was, and for just a second, I thought about joining her. But I realized she had things to sort through—Edison and Tesla and friendships and rivalries. So I just looked at her for one more moment before turning and heading inside to bed.

“Wasn’t that awesome, Em?” Beckett grinned at me from across the diner booth and I tried to smile back. My brother had been staying on the ground and barely speaking since he’d found out about the camping trip, so I’d taken him to the one place I was pretty sure would cheer him up. We’d met up with Dawn and gone to IndoorXtreme late, getting there just as they were closing, so Beckett could have the run of the place. He’d scaled the climbing wall with Collins, having races to see who could get down to the ground faster. Dawn and Frank had had an epic paintball fight, and I had somehow gotten stuck with Doug at the front counter, who had presented me with the first book in the series he was obsessed with, and then proceeded to tell me how it fit into the pop culture canon at large.

“And some people think,” he’d said, as he flipped pages, and I looked longingly in the direction of the paintball area, where I could see Dawn slinking behind a hay bale, spy-style, “that Tamsin and the Elder are just rip-offs, so I don’t want that to turn you off from the book.”

“It won’t,” I assured him, hoping that this might wrap things up.

“Because that’s a stupid argument,” Doug said, clearly just warming to his theme. “Because that relationship exists everywhere. Look at Obi-Wan and Luke. Look at Dumbledore and Harry. Look at Gandalf and Frodo. They all have these people. They have to learn from them. But then they have to find their own strength and go it alone. So it’s not derivative. Don’t listen to the message boards.” I had assured him that there would be very little chance of that, but by the time he’d started going into character backstory for me, Frank and Dawn, both paint-flecked, had called a truce, and Beckett was declared the victor, having beaten Collins in their last three races.

But despite the fact I hadn’t had any fun, it was clear my brother had, and that was what I’d been aiming for, after all. I smiled back at him and then pulled out the laminated menu, wondering why diners always had the world’s largest menus, and also if anyone had ever ordered the five-dollar lobster. We were all grabbing dinner before Dawn had to take over the evening delivery shift, and hoping nobody would want to know why one side of her hair was orange.