The Spring Girls

Mom kept going. “He came tonight to get her after a little email mess. Would you happen to know anything about that?”

Shia’s dark eyebrows pulled together. He shook his head. “What email mess?”

I didn’t know Shia well enough to know when he was lying, but in general I was pretty good at telling stuff like that, and he seemed honestly confused. Jo said this trait would get me far in a journalism career, but in reality, it hadn’t even helped me make it out the front door.

“Someone sent Meg an email that they shouldn’t have sent, pretending to be someone they weren’t, and caused her unnecessary pain. Since she doesn’t have a big group of friends here, I’m sure it will be easy to narrow down the already small list of suspects and figure it out. Who else would want to hurt her for no apparent reason?”

“Not me.” Shia lifted his hands to his chest and touched his fingers to his worn T-shirt. “What kind of emails?”

My mom shook her head. “I’m not going to share her business with you. What are you doing here? What did you come to talk about?”

Shia looked at me. I looked away. He seemed to be struggling with what to say to her. I didn’t blame him.

“Well?” she pushed.

The normally outspoken Shia hesitated to take my mom’s bait; he seemed to know better than to be too vocal to my mom when she was like this.

“I just wanted to talk to her. I don’t know if she would want me to—”

“She’s my daughter and you’ve hurt her. You’re either going to tell me what you wanted to talk to her about, and I’ll tell you where she is, or you’re going to get in your fancy little car over there and drive on back across town and try again next time.”

Shia was a few inches taller than my mom, but right then he looked so much smaller.

He sighed and turned his body toward the Laurence house. I wondered if Jo and Laurie would hear the drama outside and come out. I didn’t know if Shia would live to see his wedding if Jo came out and found Meredith like this and Shia backing away with that guilty look painted on his face; she would rip him from the ground. Meg never wanted anyone to know about her and Shia’s meet-ups, and I was sworn to secrecy. I was really, really good at keeping secrets, except from Ophelia.

My mom stepped to one side and leaned against my dad’s Jeep.

Shia dipped his chin and pulled his head back. “Mrs. Spring, you know I have always liked you”—his pink tongue darted over his lips—“and I would never disrespect you, but I have no flipping idea what you’re talking about.”

The front door opened behind me and a light danced across the grass. “Who’s here?” Amy asked from behind my back. I felt her hands touch my back as she passed me.

“Hey, Amy. How’s it going?” Shia said. He seemed so uncomfortable, but was trying to be polite.

“Go inside, Amy,” Meredith warned.

“Mom . . .”

When Mom snapped her eyes back at Amy, my little sister wrapped her arm around mine.

“Let’s go inside, Amy. Mom and Shia are talking,” I nudged. I had a feeling she would put up a fight.

But my sister had, like, this flare in her eyes . . .

I didn’t know what was coming, but as I turned to pull her inside she wouldn’t budge.

Shia looked from my mom, to me, to Amy. “Look, Mrs. Spring, I was only trying to find Meg and talk to her—”

My mom got so close to him that I wasn’t sure if she was going to kiss him or push him. “Talk about what? The emails you sent to her to try to ruin her relationship with John?”

Shia shook his head. “I would never do whatever you’re talking about, Mrs. Spring. I wouldn’t hurt Meg.”

Amy sank back a little, and her face was flushed.

“You’ve already hurt her! You think you’re soooo much better than us, don’t you, Shia King?” Meredith taunted him. I wondered how much liquor my mom had snuck into her mug tonight.

“What?” He rubbed his shaved head. “No. I—”

“Just leave, Shia! Get the hell away from us and go back to your fancy mansion in—”

“Mom!” I finally stepped in to stop her rant. She liked Shia; she was just taking her anger out on him because he frightened her.

She glared at me, and I shook my head. Her eyes were murderous, and for a second I didn’t recognize her.

Without a word to Shia, or to me or Amy, my mom stalked inside the house and slammed the front door.

“Sorry about that. She’s—”

“It’s fine. I get it.” Shia’s voice was sad.

“Let’s go.” I tugged at Amy to follow me into the house.

Just before we got inside, she turned back to Shia and yelled, “She’s at the Ritz in the Quarter with John Brooke!”

When we got inside, and Shia’s fancy foreign-styled headlights shone through the window before disappearing down the street, my mom asked, “Why did you do that, Beth?”

Her voice wasn’t loud, but that was the worst part for me. She was mad, but she was never the type of mom to yell at us all the time. Ophelia’s mom was like that. Ophelia would run down to my house when her dad came home with whiskey on his breath.

“You were yelling at him, Mom. He didn’t do anything wrong that we know of,” I said, explaining myself.

My mom sighed and rested her arms on the back of the recliner. “Well, at least he doesn’t know where she is.”

I looked at Amy and then at my mom.

Amy sauntered past both of us. “I told him. I’m sorry, but neither of you were going to help him.”

“He didn’t need to know where she was. Your sister is fine without him, and she’s with John.”

I didn’t agree that Meg was fine without Shia, but I still had to scold Amy for her loud mouth. “It wasn’t your place, Amy.”

“I just think he loves her,” my little sister said.

Mom laughed. It wasn’t real. “What makes you think that?”

Mom sat down in Dad’s recliner, and Amy sat down on the red beanbag chair, swishing as she sank into it.

“Because he’s here,” Amy said, like Mom knew less than Amy did at twelve.

I sat on the couch and put my feet up. The blankets on the back of the couch always smelled like our house in Texas. My mom used even more scented wax-cube things then, and the smell would never leave the fabric. I grabbed Dad’s eagle blanket, the one that smelled like cinnamon toast, and pulled it over my legs.

“And that means love, how?” Mom asked. She seemed to be less angry now. More of the mother I knew and loved, and less like Aunt Hannah when she drank too much and got angry over the smallest things.

“He lives far! And he’s engaged to Bell Gardiner! But he still came all this way. Of course he loves Meg.”

I laughed at Amy’s seventh-grade explanation of love.

Mom did, too. “It doesn’t work like that, darling. If boys like you, or love you, they will show it. You will know. If we have to debate it or question it, he doesn’t love you—and even if he did, if he doesn’t show it in any way beside showing up to your house at ten at night while engaged, he isn’t worth your love anyway.”

I wondered if the same rules applied with girls, too.

“Not anymore. Maybe when you were young.”

Meredith scoffed and looked at Amy with a soft disbelief. “Shia King hurt your sister, and after everything that she’s been through, she doesn’t need any more of that. No emails, no rich kids who think they’re too good for my daughter.” Mom turned back to me. “You both should know better. I’ve told you what to put up with, and what not to. Meg doesn’t need to be putting up with Shia’s bullcrap, and, Amy”—Mom looked right at her—“you don’t need to be helping Shia mess with your sister’s life. She’s happy with John Brooke.”

“What did Shia even do to Meg? Why don’t we like him again? Because I’m pretty sure he’s the richest, hottest guy around here. His jawline—”

Amy was practically salivating when Mom interrupted her. “Amy, is that what you want to do in life? To be loved by cute rich boys?”

“Yes!” Amy squeaked. “Yes, of course it is!”

“And then what? What happens when you’re in your thirties and your cute rich boy grows into a not-so-handsome, rich, spoiled man and, God forbid, something happens and you’re left alone to raise children alone, with no job experience at all.”

Amy sighed. “Mom, seriously. That isn’t going to happen. I’ll make sure my husband will always be hot.” Amy giggled.

Mom’s face was hard. “I’m serious, Amy. You need to make sure you have a job and your own skill set. And you can’t go around judging boys only by the way they look. It’s not fair when boys do that to girls, so we shouldn’t do it either.”

“I’m going to marry someone like Dad, and he’ll stay around forever and help me raise my daughters.” We knew this tactic of Amy’s—to say something you couldn’t disagree or argue with and thereby hopefully end your absurd argument with her.

It made Mom smile despite herself. “I hope you do. And I hope you have three or four daughters just like you. You know what they say?”

I did, because Mom had said the same thing to Meg so many times. Meg talked about having kids more than any sane nineteen-year-old. I was sure she would be a good mom someday, but I thought she could listen to Jo and wait until she was older to worry about such things.