“I like your hair,” Mel’s mom said, reaching out and feeling Avery’s bobbed locks. “You’ve colored it. It looks good darker.”
“Thanks.” Avery nodded, not looking thrilled at being petted. She hunched up her shoulders.
Avery was just trying to make it a little more bearable for Mel by coming along for dinner at her mom’s house, but Mel could see that she was already regretting her decision.
Mel was five when her mom met Jim Podd. Apparently her parents had been growing apart for some time, and this was the final push her mom needed to make the move out of the house. Jim already had two boys, so it was decided that Mel should remain with her father.
The oldest Podd, Brendan, was now about to start his freshman year at Cornell. He was also a known hacker and software pirate and had a padlock on his room. Richie, his brother, was a fifteen-year-old skater—friendly enough, but erratic and uncontrollable. Things tended to get broken around Richie. Lastly there was Lyla, the one child Mel’s mom and Jim had on their own. The only thing Mel had ever seen Lyla do was watch television. She had a TiVo in her room. She would only eat plain white rice, chicken nuggets, or hot dogs (boiled—not grilled), so she always had a special plate made up for her.
The Podds lived in one of the developments around Saratoga Lake, in a clump of absolutely identical houses bunched close together along the lakeside. Their house was much more expensive than the one Mel and her father lived in, as was everything in it. Whenever Mel got there, either Jim or her mom pointed out some new thing they’d just gotten, never once realizing that Mel not might want to know how much better they were doing.
“We drove Brendan out to Ithaca on Wednesday for move-in,” Jim said, coming out of the kitchen with a plate of seafood and fennel sausage. “Freshmen aren’t supposed to have cars, but he found someone to rent him a parking space at their house. For all I know, he won’t even be in school that long. A lot of these companies, they hire people like Brendan. They show them the flaws in their systems. He’ll probably get a great job out of it.”
There was a thunk as Richie jumped down the stairs and leapt into the room.
“Hey, Mel. Hey, Avery,” he yelped while stepping onto the recliner. “Guess what? I’m going sandboarding later this year. When are we eating?”
This last remark was yelled out to Jim.
“Soon.”
“I’ll be back,” Richie said, springing off the chair and out of the room.
Avery silently mouthed the word Ritalin to Mel.
About ten minutes later Jim had arranged all of his platters on the table. Richie had been recalled, and Lyla had been coaxed downstairs with the promise of a boiled hot dog. Jim encouraged everyone to dig in. Dinners at the Podd house were always like something out of a magazine spread. Along with the seafood sausage, there was citrus shrimp, broccoli rabe with grilled cipollini onions, heirloom tomato salad, and some kind of purple Thai slaw. Mel and her dad tended to eat things like rotisserie chicken from the Price Chopper and hamburger mixed with mac and cheese, so even the Podd food was a little disturbing.
“So,” Jim asked, “any summer love stories, Mel?”
Avery sighed. “She’s got loads. Like, hordes of them.”
Mel froze. Avery was staring at her from across the table with a “dare me?” smile twisting her lips. Mel rounded her eyes and tried to send Avery a telepathic message to cease and desist whatever it was she was planning.
“Really?” her mom said, not picking up on this battle of the Jedi mind tricks.
“Yeah.” Avery nodded, spearing another piece of sausage. “It’s weird. Guys seem to follow Mel wherever she goes. I try for her leftovers.”
“So,” Mel’s mom said, leaning in eagerly. “Come on. Details.”
“God,” Avery answered, “there’s been like, what, three or four? You know Mel, she’s playing them off one another.”
Mel’s mother looked at her with an admiration Mel had never seen before. Dating was very critical to her mom. She really seemed to measure a person’s entire worth in the world by whom they’d dated and what they’d gotten from that person. Mel’s father, though handsome, was a contractor who didn’t make nearly as much as Jim Podd. Mel hated seeing the big diamond that always flashed around on her mother’s finger. She always had to make an effort not even to look at her mother’s left hand.
“The last guy,” Avery went on, now caught up in her own elaborate story, “was an actor who came up from New York to do one of the shows at the arts center. He was way too old. I think he thought Mel was in college or something. How old was he, Mel?”
“Um … I don’t know.” Mel stared down at her plate and twirled her fork on one prong, choreographing a delicate little ballet around the sausage. Sausage Lake.
“I think he was twenty-three,” Avery said, nodding to herself. “Anyway, once he found out we were in high school, he was nice about it and backed off. But you could tell he was so into Mel.”
As Mel sent her fork ballerina into a heroic leap over the pile of onions, she wondered what would happen if she slipped in a casual, “Actually, Avery’s my girlfriend. She’s incredibly hot, and I love her.”
Avery just kept on going. “Then there was Patrick, this guy who kept coming into the restaurant to see Mel. He’s a sophomore at Yale. I think he majors in microchemistry. So hot, but he just wasn’t Mel’s type.”
Patrick was a mildly retarded dishwasher who spent his breaks playing games on an old PalmPilot. Even as she told this ridiculous lie, Avery’s foot found Mel’s under the table.
“Can I go to my room?” Lyla asked.
“Finish your hot dog, sweetie,” her father admonished.
“I’m full.”
“And what about you, Avery?” Mel’s mom said. “Still playing piano?”
“Still playing piano,” Avery replied.
“What are your plans for after graduation?”
“I’m thinking about applying to music school.”
Mel raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t known that.
“That’s wonderful!” Mel’s mother said. “What would you do with that?” Jim asked in a clear “What? Don’t you like money?” voice.
“I could play professionally,” Avery said. “Or I could just become my parents’ worst nightmare and live at home until I’m thirty-five.”
Mel found this funny, but it ground conversation to a halt for a good minute or two.
“That’s a new ring, Mel,” her mother said, pointing to the silver band.
“Oh.” Mel looked down at her index finger. A bolt of panic shot through her. “It’s just from one of those people who sell stuff in the park in the summer. We just bought some when we were walking through.”
Why was she explaining so much? All she had to do was say “yes.” Instead she was giving the whole history of the ring. And why did she say “we?”
“I finished my hot dog,” Lyla cut in, even though a good third of it was still on her plate.
“Why don’t you try this seafood sausage that Dad made?” her mom offered. “It’s like hot dog but seafood.”
Lyla’s expression indicated that this was not going to happen.
“Lyla’s not a big seafood fan,” Mel’s mom explained to Avery.
“I guessed that,” Avery said. Mel finally found the courage to glance over, just as Avery was sliding her hand under the table, where her ring couldn’t be seen.
“I am so going to kill you,” Mel said when they were safely out of the development and driving up the road.
“What?” Avery said, feigning offense.
“You gave me two boyfriends.”
“Potential interests. Not boyfriends. I just gave you the greatest cover story in the history of the world.”
“Maybe I don’t want a cover story,” Mel said. She smiled, trying to make the remark seem lighthearted, but she studied Avery’s expression carefully. It didn’t change at all.
“So, listen,” Avery said. “Tomorrow …”
“Right.” Mel nodded, moving back into her seat. “Tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. When Nina returned.
“We have to decide, Mel,” Avery said. “I don’t think it’s time to tell her.”
“When will it be time?”
“Not when she steps off a plane. We haven’t seen her since June.”
“So why don’t we get it out of the way?” Mel asked. “We can’t lie to her.”
“How do you think she’s going to feel?”
“Fine,” Mel said defensively. “Nina doesn’t have a problem with this stuff.”
“Nina doesn’t have a problem hypothetically. Nina doesn’t have a problem with other people.”
Mel bit down on her thumb for a minute.
They drove past school. The entire tudents part was gone and was replaced with a few hand-painted letters. It now read, WELCOME BACK ROBOTS.
“I have no idea who does that,” Avery said. “But whoever it is is my hero.”
Mel was still deep in thought. Avery glanced between her and the road.
“Mel?”
When she didn’t answer, Avery turned the car unexpectedly and drove down to the wooded entrance to the Yaddo Gardens. Yaddo was a writers’ colony—a big mansion surrounded by lots of ground that no one was allowed to go near unless they were invited. They let people come into a small part of the woods, though. It was a deeply secluded spot (when it wasn’t loaded with amateur artists) with a creek and a tiny waterfall. Since it was early evening, the sun was deeply golden and rich, and it filtered through the trees and bounced off the surface of the water. No one was around.
Avery pulled off to the side of the thin gravel road. She got out, walked around to Mel’s side, and opened Mel’s door. She reached in and took Mel’s legs, swinging them out, then sat on the ground. She put Mel’s feet on her lap and kissed both of Mel’s bare knees, going back and forth between them.
“It’s not about us,” Avery said. “It’s completely about her. I mean, she has to leave this guy Steve, and then she’ll have all the council stuff to deal with. I just think it’s too much.”
Mel was in a haze from the knee thing and could barely concentrate on what they were even talking about. It left her mind almost completely when Avery got on her knees and came right up to her face, pressing her forehead against Mel’s.
“It’ll be better this way. Trust me.”
“I trust you.”
Avery’s lips were always slightly smoky, as was the upholstery of her car. It was a smell Mel reveled in as Avery leaned her back and they both stretched out across the front seat, their feet hanging free out of the open door. Somewhere in Mel’s head, she knew these were the last moments of having Avery completely to herself. Even though she wanted Nina back, she was going to miss this time when it was just the two of them. This day, with the sound of the water and the sunlight and the breeze blowing gently into the car—this wasn’t going to happen again. She knew she’d remember how Avery was laughing as she repeatedly bumped her head into the steering wheel (but she still stayed on that side to keep Mel from hitting her head—Avery was that kind of good girlfriend).
Tomorrow was still a long way away.