I woke with a start, glanced at my clock, and sat up in a panic—nine o’clock. Morning, or still night? Please, I silently begged. Please still be night.
But Jonathan hadn’t left until nine the night before, and I could see through the window that the sky was bright and sunny, one of those beautiful fall days that draws the entire world outside. I was tangled up in my covers, still fully dressed. I groaned and then looked hopefully at the booby traps in front of my bedroom door. My room was a complete disaster—stuff scattered everywhere. It had never been such a mess. Clearly Jonathan’s trap hadn’t kept me from leaving in the night. I crawled out of bed and set to work picking everything up and stacking it in piles, while thinking the same thing over and over: It happened again.
I felt for my moonstone and found it was still tucked securely in my pocket. When I rubbed it, a stream of images came flooding into my mind: the blurry streak of streetlights and car headlights, my sister at the wheel, Velvet’s face up close. The moonstone had to be involved in all of this. To deny it was foolish. I’d been a fool about too many things for far too long.
As soon as I was dressed, I went out into the hall and stood outside my sister’s door. Romy was organizing her closet. Ever since Mom left—and abandoned her lawyer’s salary—things had been tighter than usual on the cash front. The divorce had forced us all to get creative, and I was endlessly fascinated by Romy’s ability to keep herself looking good without the no-limit credit cards that so many other kids in our school seemed to have access to.
I stood in the door and watched her for a few minutes. When she finally noticed me, she looked up and smiled. “Hey,” she said, not unfriendly. “Still glad you went?” I nodded vaguely, hoping she’d keep talking and give me a clue about what had happened in the night. Romy twisted her hair into a deliberately messy heap that looked like a giant cinnamon bun atop her head. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Do you have a crush on Will? Is that why you went over there? I saw the fall-out between you and Velvet when you got back from Sweden. Did something happen because he’s hanging out with Velvet now?”
“No,” I said honestly. “Will and I are just friends. That’s all.” Are friends . . . or were? I wasn’t really certain where things stood.
“You sure?”
“That I don’t have a crush on Will? I’m sure.” I picked at my thumbnail. My eyes bugged out when I saw that my nails were polished a deep, lustrous purple. I held up the other hand and noticed that those nails were unpainted. “Romy?” I said timidly. “If I tell you something crazy, do you promise not to laugh?”
* * *
An hour later I had told Romy everything. It felt so good to get it off my chest again. I made her promise not to tell Dad—yet. She agreed, but only if I promised to talk to Suze as soon as I could. “As much as I think Mom and her friends are full of crap, you have to talk to an adult. This is weird, Lulu. Scary.”
“I know,” I said, thinking that what was happening was much more than just weird and scary. It was also thrilling. “I will talk to Suze. And Anji’s going to sleep over tonight to keep an eye on me.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll help too, if you need me. I was supposed to go over to Alaina’s tonight, but I can stay home if you want.” Romy pulled me into a hug. “You’re going to be okay.” I buried my nose in her shoulder, breathing in her soothing lavender body spray and thinking about how she used to take care of me when I’d skinned my knee or someone had said something mean to me. She murmured into my hair, “We’re gonna be okay. Right?”
I wasn’t sure if she was reassuring me, or if she was looking for me to reassure her. Either way, I nodded. It felt good to have my sister back.
Feeling a little lighter and a lot hungrier, I went downstairs to grab some breakfast. When I asked my dad about having a sleepover with Anji, he was totally on board. In fact, he got all quiet and said, “Maybe I should see if Greg can come over for a few beers? You and Romy are putting me to shame with your exciting social lives.”
“Romy puts us all to shame,” I said, laughing. “But yeah, I think you should definitely call Greg. Anji and I will stay out of your way. We won’t butt in on man time.”
He rubbed his unshaven face, then looked down at his sweats and pit-stained T-shirt. “Maybe change?”
I laughed. “That might be a good idea too.”
His face brightened. “You know what? I’m going to check with David and Jeff, too. Get the poker gang back together.”
“Poker gang?”
“We played a little back in the day. I took more money from those guys than I ought to admit.” He chuckled. “Your mom was never a poker fan. Always said gambling encouraged too much competition among friends.” He put his hands on his hips and jutted out his chin. “But your mom isn’t here, so I guess it doesn’t really matter what she thinks of poker anymore, does it?”
“Whoa,” I said, laughing. “Who took my dad and replaced him with a rebel?”
“And you know what? I’m not shaving. I’m growing this beard until it dangles in my coffee. She doesn’t own my hair anymore, either.”
“Mom never owned your hair.” Gently I added, “You just let her tell you what you could and couldn’t do. Time to stop now, right?”
“As long as I’m on a roll, I think I’ll get Mickey D’s for lunch. A Big Mac and fries. So there.”
My dad, Romy, and I had more fun that day than we’d had in months. We ate lunch at McDonald’s, went for ice cream, then stopped to toss a Frisbee back and forth at the park. We didn’t talk about Mom, and it felt good to see my dad look truly happy again for the first time in months.
I told Dad I was sort of considering auditioning for the school musical, and he confessed that he was thinking of looking for a new job. He had grown bored of spreadsheets and a boss who made him feel awful every day. Romy actually looked interested in the conversation throughout most of the afternoon, which was really saying something. It was one of the best Saturdays I’d had in a long time, and I had a good feeling that things were shifting for all of us.
When Anji got to my house that night, she and I hid out in my room while Dad and his friends laughed over their game of poker in the kitchen. All night long I kept thinking about how different it was hanging out with Anji than it ever had been with Velvet. I felt like I could act more like my real self with her, that I could be a little like the Lucia I’d always been around Will. I didn’t have to worry about whether I sounded too babyish or worry that she would yell at me for not getting it. I’d never understood what it was, but Velvet had often rolled her eyes and said I didn’t “get it” when she was telling me stories. The two of them seemed so similar in so many ways—outgoing and showy, fearless leaders of their pack—but they were total opposites where it mattered most.
Over the past few months I’d come to realize that with Velvet, everything had always been about her. She’d always taken control of the conversation. Now that I could see how it was supposed to work with a girlfriend, I realized Velvet probably knew very little about me. She had always spent so much time complaining about her parents, or worrying about how to get back at somebody who had said something wrong to her, or planning what we were going to do next, that she’d never asked me much of anything. I’d never really considered talking about myself when we were together. Her life had always seemed so much more interesting. It frustrated me to think that my so-called best friend had made me feel like I was worthless.
With Anji, things were more even. We snuck down to the kitchen to get some snacks, and after, Anji told me about her grandparents in India who were coming to visit for a month. Their visits always made Anji’s mom cry because she missed her extended family. I told her a little bit about Johanna and my mom and what it had been like visiting them in Sweden this summer. After everything Jonathan had told me about his dad the night before, it wasn’t as scary letting her in, somehow.
Giggling, Anji confessed that she had the tiniest crush on Daunte Adams, and I finally told her about that awful kiss with Will and what had happened with Velvet when I came home from my summer away. She squealed when she realized that meant I’d actually kissed someone, and then she tried to get me to answer a million questions. I told her I couldn’t even talk about it, since the whole thing had been so wrong. “Will’s just a friend,” I said with certainty. “It was a dumb thing to do, since we’ll never be anything more than that. That’s why it’s so weird that Velvet hates when he talks to me. I have no interest in stealing him as a boyfriend.”
“Oh my gosh!” Anji said, bouncing up and down on my bed. “She’s jealous. That’s why she wants to set you up with Jeremy Hiller, and why she’s been acting mean to you. She thinks Will is going to ditch her for you—she’s threatened! She probably knows he likes you better than he’ll ever like her, and that’s killing her.”
“Really?” I asked. “You think Velvet is jealous of me?”
Anji nodded. “Totally. She probably thinks Will is going to pick you over her, and she’s trying to make sure Will picks her. I bet she figured if you and Will were still friends, she’d have to share him with you.”
“Velvet doesn’t share,” I said.
“Exactly.” Anji paused, chewing at her lower lip. Her smile faltered. “I don’t want to be anything like Velvet Mills, obviously, but sometimes I worry we’re sort of alike.”
“You are not alike,” I insisted. “Not in any of the ways it matters, anyway.”
“I’m not popular, or super rich, or mean to people just for fun—but in the same way Velvet worries about Will ditching her for you, I definitely get nervous you’ll realize you made a mistake when you picked me as a friend.” She hugged her knees to her chest.
“That would never happen,” I assured her.
She grinned. “I hope not.”
A bubble of guilt boiled in my stomach when I thought about what it seemed had happened the night before. First thing this morning Anji had texted to ask me if anything weird had happened in the night. I don’t know what made me lie, but I said no. I knew I should tell her about where I’d gone and not keep any more secrets from her. But I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. If she knew I’d gone to Velvet’s movie night, it would make her worry even more. It was easier to lie.
After a long pause Anji surprised me by saying, “You’re different from me and Velvet, Lucia. You have this quiet confidence. I don’t think you realize it. But you do.”
“Quiet confidence?” I giggled.
“Your life seems all planned out, and you have these . . . convictions,” Anji said. “Like you just know who you are.”
My eyes widened. “That is so not true. I told you about how I’d made wishes on the night of the eclipse, right?” Anji nodded and I went on. “So there are a ton of things I wish I could change about myself, and those are the things I wished for that night. I mean, I wish I could fix everything with Will, obviously.”
“It seems like you’re kind of doing that,” Anji said. “Since Velvet’s party, things have been more normal between you two again, right?”
“Maybe. But only because it seems like I’ve been doing or saying stuff when I think I’m asleep,” I pointed out. “I also wished I had the guts to let my mom and Velvet know how much they’ve both hurt me. The way Velvet just dropped me last summer—it was awful. And my mom leaving really killed me. I feel like she sort of sprung it on us and didn’t even think about how her sudden move halfway across the world was going to affect the rest of us. And it seems like she’s fitting into her new life so perfectly. I wish I could tell her how much I hate that she ruined our lives to make her own life better. I know that’s not fair, but it’s true.”
“You should tell her that,” Anji said. “Seriously. She’s your mom. You can’t bottle that stuff up. You need her.”
“I know.” I sighed. It felt so good to speak my feelings aloud for once, and I realized maybe Anji was right. Maybe it was time for me to stop acting like everything was just fine. I missed the relationship I used to have with my mom. I longed for her to apologize, to explain. But she didn’t even know I was waiting for that. And no one ever tried to figure out how to fix something they didn’t know was broken. “It just seems like sometimes it’s easier not to say anything, you know?”
Anji shook her head. “No. I don’t know. I usually just say what I’m thinking, then regret it later.”
“That’s another thing I wished for,” I said. “That I had your confidence to be truthful, and speak my mind when I’m mad about something. Like the bus guy and his gross grooming habits.”
“You must have said something to him during one of your sleeping thingies,” Anji said excitedly. “Maybe that’s why he brought you a new travel mug the other day!”
“Who knows.” I flopped back onto my bed and groaned.
“It sounds to me like something or someone is trying to help make your wishes come true. Any other wishes? You got greedy, girl! What are we on, three already?”
“It was my birthday eclipse.” I laughed. “I decided I deserved a few extras.” I thought back to my last wish—bravery, just like the Cowardly Lion. “I’ve always been the kind of person who hides from the spotlight. But sometimes I envy people like you and Velvet. So my other wish was for bravery . . . that I could muster up the nerve to do things like try out for the play, speak up more often, just get out of my own shadow and let people know I exist, you know?”
“Another wish that’s coming true,” Anji mused. “Lucia, I think you have a fairy godmother or something. Someone or something wants to see your wishes granted.”
“Mother Moon,” I said.
“Maybe so.” Anji laughed.
“I’m like a combo of all the characters in The Wizard of Oz. The Tin Man wants a heart, the Cowardly Lion wants courage, the Scarecrow wants a brain . . . I want all those things and more. I basically wished that I could change my life and become someone I’m not.”
“You’re not trying to be someone else,” Anji said quietly. “With those wishes, you’re just trying to become a different version of yourself. By wishing it, you’re taking the first step to making it happen.”
I thought about that for a minute. She was right. I’d often wished I could live my life a little differently. I just hadn’t ever had the guts.
By eleven o’clock I was so sleepy I could hardly put together a full sentence. Anji forced me to try to fall asleep, promising she would stay awake to keep an eye on me. She sat at my desk and watched funny animal videos on YouTube to keep herself from nodding off.
Maybe it was the creep factor (having someone turn around to check on you every few minutes while you try to drift off is seriously weird), but it took me forever to fall asleep. Though I was exhausted from a week of too little sleep, I was so nervous about what might happen while Anji was on lookout that I just kept tossing and turning.
A little after midnight Anji set to work stacking up the same kind of elaborate booby traps Jonathan had put in front of the door the night before. Not long after, my bedroom door was totally blocked with noisy stuff that would clatter and smash if I tried to go anywhere. She was much better at building booby traps than Jonathan was. I smiled sleepily. “Thanks.”
“Anything for you,” she promised in a whisper. She settled into her sleeping bag on the floor and then reached over to take my hand in her tiny one. For the first time in months, the first time since that afternoon in the tree house with Will, I felt like someone really had my back.
I closed my eyes again. My head throbbed from the marathon of thoughts running through my mind: a great day with Dad, my improving relationship with Will, all my forgotten moments, Velvet, the upcoming auditions. So much had happened in the past week. It was as though life had flipped me upside down and inside out under a wave, and I couldn’t swim fast enough to keep my head above water. I was drowning in a riptide of thoughts and emotions. Before I knew it, my exhaustion dragged me under, and I slipped into a sleep so deep and divine that nothing could wake me.