I space out through most of the morning, thinking about it. Mrs. Lam pauses next to my chair during French class and pointedly says, “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Soleil,” tapping a perfectly manicured fingernail on my desk. Still, I manage to concentrate long enough to get a B on the pop quiz. By the time I get to lunch, though, my brain is fried.
“You’ve got the burnout look going. Very hipster,” Mi-kaela says when I drop my brown bag on the table and collapse onto the bench.
“You’re just jealous.” I elbow her lightly and start picking at my carrot sticks.
“Ha ha.” She takes a bite of cafeteria pizza, then says casually, “So how was your practice session?”
“It went well,” I say. I glance around. Cody’s still not here yet, and Becca’s trapped David and Andy with an excited monologue about the latest in her string of girlfriends. I lower my voice a little. “I think I’m starting to get the hang of it. Doing it on purpose, I mean.”
Mikaela is quiet for a minute. “That’s good,” she finally says. “Right?”
I look up at her. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“It’s just that … ” I lean toward her. “It’s exhausting.” And scary, and confusing. “I just have to get used to it, probably, but … ” I’m not sure what else to tell her. I cut my eyes in the direction of the rest of the group.
“Gotcha,” she says, following my gaze. “Later. But I ex-pect a full report on the amazing and mind-bending talents of Cody the Wanna-Be Warlock.” She says this last part in a fake-spooky voice, grabbing a stick from the ground and swirling it around like a magic wand.
“Wanna-Be Warlock?”
“Yeah, get this.” Mikaela puts down her stick-wand and turns to face me, straddling the picnic bench. “Saturday night after he left your house, he’s driving around with that stupid coven chick from the Wiccan thing, and I guess he’s trying to impress her with his dad’s Lexus, and he rear-ends this guy who’s stopped at a red light.”
“No way!” I almost choke on a carrot. “So is he okay?”
“Oh, totally,” Mikaela says. “The air bags went off and the witch-bitch got some kind of chemical burn from the powder in the air bags, but Cody’s fine. Physically, anyway.”
“Physically?” I’m confused. “So he’s, like, suffering from PTSD?”
“Yeah, right. No, he’s in major trouble at home. His dad was pissed off. I mean majorly. No car for the next three months, no going anywhere at all besides school for the next two weeks … poor baby.” Mikaela has a tiny smirk. “And he has to actually get a job to pay for the repairs to the Lexus.”
“Oooh, a job,” I say. “But apparently he can still make calls to the outside world. He called you, right?”
“On a five-minute restriction, yeah.”
“Jeez.” I roll up my reusable lunch bag and stuff it into my backpack. “You know what, though? He gets away with everything.”
“Yeah,” Mikaela says, “but he’s in for it now. His parents have been pretty easy on him, just cutting off his phone privileges and stuff like that, but now they’re doing a 180.” She tosses a few crumbs from her pizza crust out into the grass, where some birds are pecking around. She looks sad for a minute, but then her expression hardens. “He might be a jackass, but they’re kind of being tyrants, you know?”
I don’t really know, don’t know at all, but I nod. Then Uncle Randall comes to mind, and I feel bad for Cody. If his dad is anything like that … if it were me, I’d feel like I was walking on a knife edge, just trying not to fall off.
twenty-one
Cody is absent on Tuesday but shows up on Wednesday, glowering so fiercely that lunch is nearly silent. The atmosphere is brittle, and even Becca doesn’t say much. I’m edgy, afraid that my mind will drift and I’ll underhear one of them, so I picture the top of my head as solid and impenetrable, the opposite of those dotted lines in the drawing Cody printed out. It seems to help, and I’m relieved that I don’t have to hear Cody’s fury or Becca’s uncharacteristic listlessness.
It’s enough just to see it, and know.
Thursday after school, Mikaela and I go to a used-CD store with Becca, who acts like such a spaz that it’s impossible to worry about, or even concentrate on, anything else. She darts around the store, chattering about this girl she met who’s a guitarist for some goth band, flirting with all of the store employees and leaving a black lipstick kiss mark on the credit card receipt she hands back to the cashier.
We all leave the store laughing, but when Becca drops me off at home, I notice Auntie Mina sitting on the front porch bench, alone. I wave, let myself in through the garage door, and put down my backpack. Mom and Dad aren’t home yet and the house is quiet. I could have some time to myself.
My conscience nags at me. I open the front door and lean out.
“Hi, Sunny,” Auntie Mina says, turning to face me with a wan smile.
“Is everything okay?”
She sets down a stack of papers on the bench next to her. “Yes … no. Well, I’m not sure. I’m trying to figure some things out. Come on—have a seat.” She pats the bench.
Reluctantly, I sit next to her. I catch a glimpse of the papers on her other side: computer printouts. The top page says, “Trial Separation or Legal Separation?” in big black letters. I feel a wave of relief.
“Are you … ” I gesture toward the stack of printouts, not sure what I really want to ask. Nothing’s happened yet. Has it?
“Oh, sweetheart,” Auntie Mina says, sighing. “I’ll be honest with you. This is really tough. I didn’t know it would be this hard.”
I’m not sure if she’s talking about the paperwork or the idea of leaving Uncle Randall, but I say, “He hurts you. You have to leave.” My voice sounds small and I can’t bring myself to look at her, so I stare out at the road. Mrs. Abronzino drives by in her silver station wagon and waves at us.
“The thing is, he really does care, in his own way. This is hard for him, too. Shiri is … ” She pauses, then continues. “Shiri was his daughter. Our daughter. He’s looking out for the family. That’s how he sees it, anyway. It’s all falling apart for him, and he’s trying his best to keep it together.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I insist. I struggle to articulate my thoughts. “The why doesn’t matter. If the way he deals with it is to hurt you, then you can’t stay with him.”
Auntie Mina puts her arm around my shoulders. “It’s okay,” she says soothingly. “For now, I’m here. I don’t know what’s going to happen, not yet, but I’m here, okay?”
I can’t help noticing: she hasn’t said she’ll never go back to him. Still, I lean into her and drop the subject.
We stay on the porch for a few more minutes, not talking. I close my eyes and drift a little. I don’t even consciously realize that I’m reaching gently for Auntie Mina’s thoughts until, softly, almost like a whisper, I hear her:
—reminds me so much of Shiri, miss her so much—
—if I can just get Randall to listen, if I can
convince—maybe he’ll be different
maybe all we need is a break—