“Did anyone call for me?” Meg’s voice sounded like she had been chewing on sandpaper in her room.
“Call what?” my dad said.
I hadn’t heard Meg—or anyone—ask that question in . . . years. Wouldn’t someone have just called her cell phone?
Meg blinked and mumbled, “Never mind.”
“What are you girls up to today?” my dad asked between bites. Clearly neither he nor my mom were eager to get into whatever all the yelling had been about.
When Meg remained silent, I guessed she wasn’t going to answer, so I did. “I’m doing nothing. Some school stuff, laundry. That’s it, really.” I shrugged.
“That sounds like a blast, Beth.”
It was a comfort that my dad still had his sarcasm. His tone wasn’t as malicious or as callous as the comment would have sounded coming from say, Amy, and it came with a smile and knowing about his high school experience. He was a lot like me.
“Don’t you have any friends around here?” he asked.
“You gave me so many sisters, I don’t need friends.”
We both laughed. His laughter was a little lighter than usual, but it still sounded so good in that yellow-wallpapered kitchen.
“Touché.”
“Jo didn’t come back yet?” Meg asked. She hadn’t eaten much of the food in front of her. I thought about soaking the dishes before I made myself a plate, so the slimy gravy wouldn’t stick to the pan, but I was so hungry and the gravy looked so, so good.
My dad answered, “No. She’s still next door.”
As far as I knew, no one knew for sure that Jo was at Laurie’s, but then again, we all knew. That’s where she always was. Laurie’s, a shift at Pages, school, then back to Laurie’s.
“None of you were going to tell me that Shia came here that night?” Meg pointed to my mom.
My mom snapped her head up, but my sister kept going. “He told me you all knew. He showed up there, and I didn’t even know he was looking for me.”
“Well, Meg, what difference would it have made?” Mom said, then went back to eating. She didn’t seem to notice the stain of gravy oiling up her shirt.
Meg’s eyes bulged. She wiped her mouth with a napkin before she spoke. “He came looking for me and I didn’t even know!” It felt like her anger was going to make the house rattle. “I’ve been waiting for so long for him to do that, and you guys didn’t even tell me. He’s getting married—”
“Would that have changed? And John Brooke?” Mom pointed out.
Part of me wanted to step in, but another part of me didn’t know what kind of tornado I’d be walking into.
I would never find out what Meg was going to say because Amy came rushing through the back door with puffy, wet eyes.
“What’s wrong?” My dad asked, and I watched him struggle to get up like his legs forgot they couldn’t quite move yet. He sank back down in the chair.
“My life! Everything sucks!” She stormed past us and twirled around when no one tried to stop her. “Fuck everything!”
Her cussing had my mom on her feet. “Amy, watch your mouth.”
Amy huffed at our mom’s warning and started to cry again. “Jacob Weber told Casey Miller that I tried to kiss him—and now everyone hates me!”
She paced around the room in a fury. I didn’t know who either of those kids were, but I knew how rumors could eat at someone and ruin lives. I’d watched it happen with Meg in Texas.
“Why did he do that?” Meg asked Amy. My two sisters’ heart-shaped faces had never looked as similar as they did in that kitchen, all puffy-eyed and pink-lipped.
“Because he’s a dickhead!” Amy’s voice turned into a cry like a puppy’s when you step on its tail.
Mom didn’t correct her language this time.
“He was the one who tried to kiss me!”
Our dad didn’t say anything; he just looked at the women in the room as they started fluttering around Amy.
“Are you saying you didn’t want him to?” Mom asked, on her feet and sharp-eyed in seconds. It was like she’d just shed a thick, groggy layer of skin.
“Where were you?” Meg petted Amy’s hair like she forgot that she was midfight with Jo.
Amy leaned into her. “Ew! Of course I didn’t want him to. He’s kissed, like, every girl in my class.” Amy’s little nose turned up at the tip and always gave the illusion that she was younger than a preteen.
“Tell us what happened.” My mom slid her hand behind Amy’s back, but Amy pulled away.
“Meg,” Amy whined.
My sisters shared a look, and Meg told us that they were going to talk alone for a minute.
My mom, my dad, and I all had our heads tilted a little, and I guessed that my parents were wondering when Meg and Amy had gotten so close. But I often caught them whispering and knew how often Amy crawled in bed with Meg, so I wasn’t surprised by that. My head was tilted because Meg only cared about Amy right then, not herself.
39
jo
Laurie’s room was a mess. It always had some type of chaos sprinkled around—a T-shirt hanging over the side of the headboard, or a day-old decaf coffee sitting in a chipped mug on his desk. But today, it was an absolute mess. An old-food odor and a musty smell that I’d rather not think about describing dominated the space.
“What the hell happened in here?” I asked him, kicking my way through a pile of clothes.
He was pacing around the bedroom like a madman. His long hair was hanging down, curling at the ends the way I liked. He looked like someone out of a novel. The stereotypical New York writer, born in Boston, or somewhere big. Not quite as big as the juicy, red Big Apple, but bigger than this little bubble of a town. Laurie, with his long golden hair, dressed in an oversize sweatshirt with patches on the elbows. He looked so smart, like he would write essays about climate or gun control, but still take your virginity after driving for hours to bring you to a field of flowers you Tumblred a picture of once.
His forehead was creased with a deep crinkle that made him look a little like Old Mr. Laurence, and like his dad from the array of pictures hanging in this big house.
“Hey,” he said, not explaining the mess. “How’s it going?” He lifted up a stack of magazines and put them back down on the desk.
“Shitty, actually.”
He continued rummaging through his messy bedroom and moved toward the window, through which the sun poured, paling the walls and his skin. When I took off my cardigan and draped it over the back of his chair, he looked up at me.
“So, Meg is pissed off because I never told her that Shia came looking for her back when she was in New Orleans with John Brooke, months ago, the day my dad was hurt.”
Laurie was listening, I could tell, but he was still moving around the room. It was making me restless, so I kept talking.
“It’s just that when those assholes were talking about her yesterday, she’s blaming me because she won’t say shit to Shia or Bell.” I sat down on the bed.
Laurie sat down next to me. “And this is your fault, how?” He always took my side in everything. I liked that. He would debate me after if he didn’t agree, but his initial reaction was always to take my side.
“Exactly. She’s always the victim. I get that she’s pissed about what happened at the festival. I’m pissed, too!” I was mad—I didn’t want my sister to be harassed by a bunch of dicks who peaked in high school, but she was acting like it was my fault when I wasn’t the character assassin here.
I picked at the hole in the knee of my jeans. “It’s like she thinks Shia coming to the house would have changed things.”
“It would have, I think.” Laurie paused when I gave him a look. He lifted his hands up, covered by the long sleeves of his sweatshirt. “Hear me out. He came to the house, then went to the Quarter, right?”
I nodded.
“If Meg likes Shia the way Shia likes her, then it was probably pretty important for her to hear what he had to say.”
&nbs
p; “But they did talk, eventually.” I shook my head at Laurie. “Besides, he’s engaged.”
“You always see everything in black and white, Jo. Sometimes there’s some gray in there.”
I sighed. “Engaged isn’t really a gray area. Either you’re going to marry someone soon, or not.”
“Either you’re dating someone or you’re not.” Laurie looked directly into my eyes.
My chest tightened and I pulled at the strings of ripped denim. “Yes . . . and no. Sometimes it’s more complicated than that.”
“Like with us.”