Meg followed Lucy as she stepped gingerly off the escalator and into the gilded gold galleria. A swarm of shoppers surrounded them. As Meg watched, two elegant women whipped off their designer sunglasses and adjusted the straps of their enormous handbags before traipsing off into one of the expensive boutiques. The shoppers were all different races and ages, but they all seemed so cheerful and carefree, probably because they could afford to be carefree. Copley Mall was the swankiest mall in Boston. You needed a six-figure income and a perfect credit score to shop there. Meg felt terribly out of place just walking inside of it.
“Yes! She’s buying the jumbo ones. With whipped cream. And chocolate. Your mom is awesome.”
“It’s just coffee,” Meg grumbled, looking over to where her mother stood. She was chatting with the person in line behind her and gesturing enthusiastically. “Actually, it’s mostly ice and cream.”
Lucy slipped out of her shoes. “My parents won’t let me drink coffee,” she said and winced as she rubbed the ball of her foot against her jeans. “They say it will stunt my growth.”
“It will,” Meg answered, turning away from the embarrassing sight of her mother flirting with the young barista.
“It hasn’t done you much harm,” Lucy grumbled, her eyes sweeping over the strained buttons of Meg’s blouse.
“Gee thanks,” Meg stopped people-watching and folded her arms across her chest. She looked back at her mother and noticed she had three straws in her hand. “She’s buying me one too. I specifically told her not to. Why won’t she listen to me? You know how many calories are in one of those? It’s almost entirely sugar.”
“C’mon, stop being such a grouch. You know I’m insanely jealous of your rack. And now I’m jealous of your mom too.”
Meg looked at her mother and tried to imagine seeing her through Lucy’s eyes. The unruly curly hair, floating around her shoulders, was the same mousy brown Meg’s used to be before she dyed it. It resembled a wild bird’s nest. Tucked behind a tendril might be a cache of eggs or a frazzled woodland creature. She was wearing an old worn sweatshirt, and without a bra, since she didn’t need one. Genetics had cruelly saddled Meg with similar hair while robbing her of that svelte physique.
She walked toward them, balancing the tray of drinks. She was teetering on her wedge boots and looked like she may topple over at any minute into the arms into one of the burly construction workers lounging nearby. They looked up from their lunches as she passed them, and Meg caught them nudging each other. She could only imagine what they were saying. Her mother looked like a nubile art student, a bit older than usual but still young enough to carry off that eccentric look. She didn’t look anything like a proper mother.
Meg had carefully coordinated her schedule so that her friends and her mother would never run into one another. Meg had been juggling both of them, managing to sneak Lucy in while her mother was asleep or still at work and hurrying her mother out in the morning while Lucy was upstairs sleeping it off in her room. There was no need for such subterfuge. She could invite the entire Harlem Globetrotters team over for tea, and her mother would just shrug and remind them to put the seat down.
“My mother is…difficult.”
Lucy snorted. “I think I’m the expert when it comes to difficult parents. She doesn’t seem like that type to me.” She cocked her head and looked at Meg. “In fact, I don’t think she would mind you dating an older guy. I think she’d probably congratulate you for it.”
Meg shifted in her seat.
“That guy from Jefferson, what was his name again?”
“Danny,” Meg said, wishing, for the millionth time, that she’d never given her fictitious boyfriend Danny’s name. Why couldn’t she have named him something generic like Joe or Michael? Or have had the imagination to make up something completely off the wall and untraceable?
“She never even met him, did she?”
“Not exactly,” Meg began. What would happen, if Lucy knew the truth? The entire truth? She didn’t think Lucy would be upset by the lie, but she’d pity her. She’d find Meg pathetic. And that would be worse.
“I know what happened,” Lucy said, and Meg clutched at the fabric of her pants, waiting for the inevitable. Someone from Jefferson had filled her in. Flynn? Maybe it was Johanne, desperate to get back in Lucy’s good graces. “I know why you came to Rose. It’s so obvious, now that I think about it.”
“It is?”
“It’s not academics,” Lucy said with a wry smile. “Let’s face it, you’re not the best student, and you have absolutely no interest in college. And there’s no way that that woman,” she pointed to Meg’s mother, who had paused to giggle with the construction workers, “would ever flip out at you dating Danny. He broke your heart.”
“Danny?”
“Yes, Danny. He did, didn’t he? Was he messing around? Did he start seeing some skank on the side?”
Five skanks. With fists like ham hocks and a fondness for pointy weaponry.
“Something like that.”
“He broke up with you, so you came to Rose to get away,” Lucy said, proud of her investigative skills. “It all makes sense.”
“It does?”
“Of course. You have all this internal angst. You’re so bottled up. You’re just going to explode one of these days.”
Meg thought about exploding, imagining herself as a giant balloon that kept getting crammed full of air. She saw her sides stretching so thin they became see-through, strained, and trembling. She thought of how satisfying the pop would be when it finally came, with shriveled little pieces of her flying everywhere, but there would be no coming back from such wanton self-destruction, no matter how cathartic it might feel.
“You need to forget that idiot ever existed.”
“What idiot?” Her mother came up to them, balancing the three frozen drinks in her arms. The whipped cream was melting all over the lid. Meg scooted away, afraid some of it was going to drip on her shoe.
“Meg’s old boyfriend.” Lucy took her cup eagerly. “He broke her heart,” she said after taking a long sip.
“So that explains the mood swings.”
“You’re one to talk about mood swings,” Meg muttered.
“Are you going to drink that or just glare at it?”
“I don’t want it. It’s way too fattening.”
“You’re allowed a treat on your birthday,” her mother said, nestling in between them.
“It will take me two weeks to burn this off,” Meg said.
Lucy had sucked down most of her coffee, and when she paused to deal with the inevitable brain freeze, she leaned toward Meg. “Wait, today is your birthday?”
“You didn’t know?” Her mother asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Lucy’s angry voice drew the attention of several passing shoppers.
“I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it,” Meg said. “We just celebrated Zach’s birthday.” She smiled, remembering it. They’d stayed at the beach all day, and had assembled a small, illegal bonfire when the sun went down. They didn’t have marshmallows or hot dogs to roast, but they had all taken turns coming up with bawdy campfire songs. Scott, when he eventually showed up, participated as well, surprising them all with some ancient sea shanty he’d learned at school. Meg had never had so much fun. Even Flynn, backlit by the flickering flames, seemed less annoying. Almost tolerable.
Ian had charmed them all-except for Lucy, of course.
“What’s up with Puck, king of the woodland faeries?” Lucy had muttered to Meg on their second excursion with Ian-a spontaneous trip to the animal shelter. The two of them sat in a corner, surrounded by mewling kittens, and watched as Ian, Flynn, and Elena wrestled with two pit bull puppies. “I can’t figure him out.”
“He’s fun.” Meg nestled a kitten in the folds of her uniform skirt.
Lucy just grunted and continued to stare at Ian. As if sensing he was being watched, Ian looked up, locked eyes with Lucy and grinned.
“Lucy, I’ve found your spirit animal. “
He walked across the room and paused at a cage. A small chihuahua scuttled up the bars and started yapping at him. Ian placed his hand inside the bars. Meg winced, sure he was going to get bit, but the dog stopped barking, stretched out and sniffed his hand before flicking it with his tongue.
“All bark. No bite.”
The entire room grew quiet. Even the cats stopped purring. Lucy's face was stony as she pushed two kittens off her legs and jumped up from the ground.
“I’ve had my share of fleabags for the day. Elena. Meg? Let’s go.”
Since then she refused to join in on whatever activity Ian suggested. Though he was there at the bus stop most afternoons, she refused to speak with him or even look at him. Ian didn’t seem the least bit bothered by her cold shoulder. He still said hello to her, as he did to all of them, but he seemed content to just hang out with his friend Flynn.
“Your birthday is a big deal,” Lucy was insisting. “We could have had a party. At Scott’s!”
“Who’s Scott?” Meg’s mother asked.
“My boyfriend,” Lucy said. “Oh God,” she said before reaching out to grasp her arm. “Don’t ever tell my parents,” she pleaded, panic-stricken.
“Why on earth would I tell your parents?”
“What if they call you to check up on me?”
“They would do that?”
Meg and Lucy exchanged looks. Lucy’s parents had called to check up on her lots of times, and it was always Meg who reassured them, in perfect mimicry of her mother’s Irish brogue.
“I’d never do that.” Her mother shook her head. “That’s awful. Don’t they trust you at all?”
Lucy snorted and shook her head.
“You’re sixteen years old. You’re nearly an adult, for Christ’s sake,” her mother said. “It’s not like your still in nappies, bumping into the coffee table.”
“If they had their way, I still would be.” Lucy was glum.
“Ridiculous,” Meg’s mother muttered as she chewed on the end of her straw. “They sound a bit like my parents.”
“How did you deal with it?” Lucy asked.
“I ran away,” she answered simply. “I ran as far away as I could.”
She smiled, and Meg pictured a long-legged girl leaping from a second story window, with her belongings all bundled up in a rag and tied around her shoulder. Lucy must have been imagining something equally romantic because she sighed as she stirred the ice in her cup.
“I wish I could do that. Were your parents strict? Were you…” Lucy looked down at her shoe. “Were you, like, abused or something?”
“I wasn’t abused, or neglected. I was very loved. Quite spoilt actually. I had beautiful clothes. A beautiful room. Horses. Cars. Loads of friends. I was in the best school in the country.”
“Then why’d you leave?”
“I had nice things, but no choices. My father was insisting I study medicine, just like he did. I hated school. Hated it with a passion, and he wanted me to suffer for years and years of it? So that I could get a license to stick shots in people’s bums? What kind of life is that?”
Meg was tempted to point out that her mother’s current job involved her wiping up people’s bums, vastly inferior, but still similar, to the career her father wanted for her. Instead, she stood up and stretched, and while the others were looking away, tossed the untouched coffee into a nearby trashcan.
“You’ve never gone back?” Lucy asked.
“I’m going back next week,” she said, grimacing. “Just for a short visit. Meg doesn’t want to come, and I can’t blame her.”
Meg had been to Ireland plenty of times, but the only parts she’d seen had been the airport, the highway, and the visiting room of a depressing nursing home, where she’d have to sit for hours and listen to her mother arguing with her mother. Every time they visited, there was a promise to visit other relatives, explore other parts of the country, but those plans vanished when the money ran out, and they’d be back on the plane before Meg had time to adjust to the time change.
“You’re leaving her alone, all winter vacation?” Lucy’s eyes were massive. She was bouncing with excitement.
“Meg’s a responsible girl. And she won’t be alone. I’m fairly sure you’ll be staying over most nights, Lucy.”
Lucy grinned. Meg could nearly see the plans, all the scenes of debauchery, playing behind her eyelids.
“And I’m sure my stick-in-the-mud daughter won’t throw any wild parties. Right, Meg?”
Meg didn’t want a horde of strangers trampling all over her floors, and spilling beer on her furniture. Not to mention, all the drunk dudes with bad aim using her bathroom.
“Right. Well, thanks for the drinks, Mom, but we’ve got to go.”
“So soon?” Her mother looked disappointed as she stirred her coffee like she had been expecting the three of them to hang out all day. Her mother probably wished Meg was more like Lucy. If parental exchanges were possible, Meg would change places in a heartbeat. Let Lucy deal with her madcap mother, the alternating periods of neglect and interest. She’d move in with Lucy’s family. She’d pack a bag and never look back.