Chapter 4
Font Size:
AA+A++
“I have to get away, ry,” Jocelyn said, the corners
of her mouth trembling. “I need the peace, the quiet,
to paint. And money is tight right now—”
“So sell some more of Dad’s stocks,” ry said
angrily. “That’s what you usually do, isn’t it?”
Jocelyn recoiled. “That’s hardly fair.”
“Look, go if you want to go. I don’t care. I’ll stay here
without you. I can work; I can get a job at Starbucks or
something. Simon said they’re always hiring. I’m old
enough to take care of myself—”
“No!” The sharpness in Jocelyn’s voice made ry
jump. “I’ll pay you back for the art sses, ry. But
you areing with us. It isn’t optional. You’re too
young to stay here on your own. Something could
happen.”
“Like what? What could happen?” ry demanded.
There was a crash. She turned in surprise to find that
Luke had knocked over one of the framed pictures
leaning against the wall. Looking distinctly upset, he
set it back. When he straightened, his mouth was set
in a grim line. “I’m leaving.”
Jocelyn bit her lip. “Wait.” She hurried after him into
the entryway, catching up just as he seized the
doorknob. Twisting around on the sofa, ry could
just overhear her mother’s urgent whisper. “…Bane,”
Jocelyn was saying. “I’ve been calling him and calling
him for the past three weeks. His voice mail says he’s
in Tanzania. What am I supposed to do?”
“Jocelyn.” Luke shook his head. “You can’t keep going
to him forever.”
“But ry—”
“Isn’t Jonathan,” Luke hissed. “You’ve never been the
same since it happened, but ry isn’t Jonathan.”
What does my father have to do with this? ry
thought, bewildered.
“I can’t just keep her at home, not let her go out. She
won’t put up with it.”
“Of course she won’t!” Luke sounded really angry.
“She’s not a pet, she’s a teenager. Almost an adult.”
“If we were out of the city …”
“Talk to her, Jocelyn.” Luke’s voice was firm. “I mean
it.” He reached for the doorknob.
The door flew open. Jocelyn gave a little scream.
“Jesus!” Luke eximed.
“Actually, it’s just me,” said Simon. “Although I’ve been
told the resemnce is startling.” He waved at ry
from the doorway. “You ready?”
Jocelyn took her hand away from her mouth. “Simon,
were you eavesdropping?”
Simon blinked. “No, I just got here.” He looked from
Jocelyn’s pale face to Luke’s grim one. “Is something
wrong? Should I go?”
“Don’t bother,” Luke said. “I think we’re done here.”
He pushed past Simon, thudding down the stairs at a
rapid pace. Downstairs, the front door mmed shut.
Simon hovered in the doorway, looking uncertain. “I
cane backter,” he said. “Really. It wouldn’t be a
problem.”
“That might—” Jocelyn began, but ry was already
on her feet.
“Forget it, Simon. We’re leaving,” she said, grabbing
her messenger bag from a hook near the door. She
slung it over her shoulder, ring at her mother. “See
youter, Mom.”
Jocelyn bit her lip. “ry, don’t you think we should
talk about this?”
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk while we’re on
‘vacation,’” ry said venomously, and had the
satisfaction of seeing her mother flinch. “Don’t wait
up,” she added, and, grabbing Simon’s arm, she half-
dragged him out the front door.
He dug his heels in, looking apologetically over his
shoulder at ry’s mother, who stood small and
forlorn in the entryway, her hands knitted tightly
together. “Bye, Mrs. Fray!” he called. “Have a nice
evening!”
“Oh, shut up, Simon,” ry snapped, and mmed
the door behind them, cutting off her mother’s reply.
“Jesus, woman, don’t rip my arm off,” Simon protested
as ry hauled him downstairs after her, her green
Skechers pping against the wooden stairs with
every angry step. She nced up, half-expecting to
see her mother ring down from thending, but the
apartment door stayed shut.
“Sorry,” ry muttered, letting go of his wrist. She
paused at the foot of the stairs, her messenger bag
banging against her hip.
ry’s brownstone, like most in Park Slope, had once
been the single residence of a wealthy family. Shades
of its former grandeur were still evident in the curving
staircase, the chipped marble entryway floor, and the
wide single-paned skylight overhead. Now the house
was split into separate apartments, and ry and her
mother shared the three-floor building with a
downstairs tenant, an elderly woman who ran a
psychic’s shop out of her apartment. She hardly ever
came out of it, though customer visits were infrequent.
A gold que fixed to the door proimed her to be
MADAME DOROTHEA, SEERESS AND
PROPHETESS.
The thick sweet scent of incense spilled from the half-
open door into the foyer. ry could hear a low
murmur of voices.
“Nice to see she’s doing a booming business,” Simon
said. “It’s hard to get steady prophet work these
days.”
Belonging to N?velDrama.Org.
“Do you have to be sarcastic about everything?” ry
snapped.
Simon blinked, clearly taken aback. “I thought you
liked it when I was witty and ironic.”
ry was about to reply when the door to Madame
Dorothea’s swung fully open and a man stepped out.
He was tall, with maple-syrup-colored skin, gold-green
eyes like a cat’s, and tangled ck hair. He grinned at
her blindingly, showing sharp white teeth.
A wave of dizziness came over her, the strong
sensation that she was going to faint.
Simon nced at her uneasily. “Are you all right? You
look like you’re going to pass out.”
She blinked at him. “What? No, I’m fine.”
He didn’t seem to want to let it drop. “You look like you
just saw a ghost.”
She shook her head. The memory of having seen
something teased her, but when she tried to
concentrate, it slid away like water. “Nothing. I thought
I saw Dorothea’s cat, but I guess it was just a trick of
the light.” Simon stared at her. “I haven’t eaten
anything since yesterday,” she added defensively. “I
guess I’m a little out of it.”
He slid aforting arm around her shoulders.
“Come on, I’ll buy you some food.”
“I just can’t believe she’s being like this,” ry said for
the fourth time, chasing a stray bit of guacamole
around her te with the tip of a nacho. They were at
a neighborhood Mexican joint, a hole in the wall called
Nacho Mama. “Like grounding me every other week
wasn’t bad enough. Now I’m going to be exiled for the
rest of the summer.”
“Well, you know, your mom gets like this sometimes,”
Simon said. “Like when she breathes in or out.” He
grinned at her around his veggie burrito.
“Oh, sure, act like it’s funny,” she said. “You’re not the
one getting dragged off to the middle of nowhere for
God knows how long—”
“ry.” Simon interrupted her tirade. “I’m not the one
you’re mad at. Besides, it isn’t going to be
permanent.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well, because I know your mom,” Simon said, after a
pause. “I mean, you and I have been friends for what,
ten years now? I know she gets like this sometimes.
She’ll think better of it.”
ry picked a hot pepper off her te and nibbled
the edge meditatively. “Do you, though?” she said.
“Know her, I mean? I sometimes wonder if anyone
does.”
Simon blinked at her. “You lost me there.”
ry sucked in air to cool her burning mouth. “I
mean, she never talks about herself. I don’t know
anything about her early life, or her family, or much
about how she met my dad. She doesn’t even have
wedding photos. It’s like her life started when she had
me. That’s what she always says when I ask her
about it.”
“Aw.” Simon made a face at her. “That’s sweet.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s weird. It’s weird that I don’t know
anything about my grandparents. I mean, I know my
dad’s parents weren’t very nice to her, but could they
have been that bad? What kind of people don’t want
to even meet their granddaughter?”
“Maybe she hates them. Maybe they were abusive or
something,” Simon suggested. “She does have those
scars.”
ry stared at him. “She has what?”
He swallowed a mouthful of burrito. “Those little thin
scars. All over her back and her arms. I have seen
your mother in a bathing suit, you know.”
“I never noticed any scars,” ry said decidedly. “I
think you’re imagining things.”
He stared at her, and seemed about to say something
when her cell phone, buried in her messenger bag,
began an insistent ring. ry fished it out, gazed
at the numbers blinking on the screen, and scowled.
“It’s my mom.”
“I could tell from the look on your face. You going to
talk to her?”
“Not right now,” ry said, feeling the familiar bite of
guilt in her stomach as the phone stopped ringing and
voice mail picked up. “I don’t want to fight with her.”
“You can always stay at my house,” Simon said. “For
as long as you want.”
“Well, we’ll see if she calms down first.” ry
punched the voice mail button on her phone. Her
mother’s voice sounded tense, but she was clearly
trying for lightness. “Baby, I’m sorry if I sprang the
vacation n on you. Come on home and we’ll talk.”
ry hung the phone up before the message ended,
feeling even guiltier and still angry at the same time.
“She wants to talk about it.”
“Do you want to talk to her?”
“I don’t know.” ry rubbed the back of her hand
across her eyes. “Are you still going to the poetry
reading?”
“I promised I would.”
ry stood up, pushing her chair back. “Then I’ll go
with you. I’ll call her when it’s over.” The strap of her
messenger bag slid down her arm. Simon pushed it
back up absently, his fingers lingering at the bare skin
of her shoulder.
The air outside was spongy with moisture, the
humidity frizzing ry’s hair and sticking Simon’s blue
T-shirt to his back. “So, what’s up with the band?” she
asked. “Anything new? There was a lot of yelling in
the background when I talked to you earlier.”
Simon’s face lit up. “Things are great,” he said. “Matt
says he knows someone who could get us a gig at the
Scrap Bar. We’re talking about names again too.”
“Oh, yeah?” ry hid a smile. Simon’s band never
actually produced any music. Mostly they sat around
in Simon’s living room, fighting about potential names
and band logos. She sometimes wondered if any of
them could actually y an instrument. “What’s on the
table?”
“We’re choosing between Sea Vegetable Conspiracy
and Rock Solid Panda.”
ry shook her head. “Those are both terrible.”
“Eric suggested Lawn Chair Crisis.”
“Maybe Eric should stick to gaming.”
“But then we’d have to find a new drummer.”
“Oh, is that what Eric does? I thought he just
mooched money off you and went around telling girls
at school that he was in a band in order to impress
them.”
“Not at all,” Simon said breezily. “Eric has turned over
a new leaf. He has a girlfriend. They’ve been going
out for three months.”
“Practically married,” ry said, stepping around a
couple pushing a toddler in a stroller: a little girl with
yellow stic clips in her hair who was clutching a
pixie doll with gold-streaked sapphire wings. Out of
the corner of her eye ry thought she saw the wings
flutter. She turned her head hastily.
“Which means,” Simon continued, “that I am thest
member of the band not to have a girlfriend. Which,
you know, is the whole point of being in a band. To get
girls.”
“I thought it was all about the music.” A man with a
cane cut across her path, heading for Berkeley Street.
She nced away, afraid that if she looked at anyone
for too long they would sprout wings, extra arms, or
long forked tongues like snakes. “Who cares if you
have a girlfriend, anyway?”
“I care,” Simon said gloomily. “Pretty soon the only
people left without a girlfriend will be me and Wendell
the school janitor. And he smells like Windex.”
“At least you know he’s still avable.”
Simon red. “Not funny, Fray.”
“There’s always She ‘The Thong’ Barbarino,” ry
suggested. ry had sat behind her in math ss in
ninth grade. Every time She had dropped her pencil
—which had been often—ry had been treated to
the sight of She’s underwear riding up above the
waistband of her super-low-rise jeans.
“That is who Eric’s been dating for the past three
months,” Simon said. “His advice, meanwhile, was
that I ought to just decide which girl in school had the
most rockin’ bod and ask her out on the first day of
sses.”
“Eric is a sexist pig,” ry said, suddenly not wanting
to know which girl in school Simon thought had the
most rockin’ bod. “Maybe you should call the band the
Sexist Pigs.”
“It has a ring to it.” Simon seemed unfazed. ry
made a face at him, her messenger bag vibrating as
her phone red. She fished it out of the zip pocket.
“Is it your mom again?” he asked.
ry nodded. She could see her mother in her mind’s
eye, small and alone in the doorway of their
apartment. Guilt unfurled in her chest.
Source:
by
by
by
by
by
by
by
by
by
by
by
by
by
by
by
by
Articles you may like
Ads by