Two

I’M OUTSIDE AND Ma’s in. From where I sit on the back stoop with A Clockwork Orange, I hear canned TV laughter, then silence; a song and a half from the radio before she shuts it off, too keyed up about her first day on the job to settle. Probably ironing her uniform shirt, one pink curler rolled into her bangs, reaching for a cup of coffee on the end table each time she checks out the window for Dad’s old Suburban pulling into the lot. He’s late, and she won’t leave until he’s here. She worries about me being alone in a new place.

Ma’s ringtone sounds. A minute later, the screen door creaks open on its metal arm. “He’s on his way.” Another creak as she shifts her weight, gauging me. “Think you can handle taking the meat loaf out when the timer goes off?”

“I’ll give it my all.”

Her foot meets the top of my butt, bump. “Miserable brat.” She wedges in beside me, smelling like that vanilla perfume she asks me to get her for her birthday every year because it’s cheap and easy to find. “School so bad you can’t talk about it?”

I glance over; she hasn’t asked all afternoon, not even when we ate microwave popcorn and watched the end of a cooking show together. On the other side of the Terraces, a kid screams in play. I swear I’ve been here before. Not Birchwood Terraces, exactly, but other developments like it, named after the trees cut down to build the place: Oakfield, Elm Park, Spruce Way. We’ve moved three times in four years, and twice when I was in elementary school, following Dad’s construction work, but somehow, we always end up right here.

“Figured I’d let you bring it up.” She waits. “Let me guess. Waterboarding. The rack.”

I shrug. “Your words, not mine.”

She studies me, then A Clockwork Orange, and exhales. “Try, Clara. That’s all a smart girl like you has to do. If I’d brought home grades like yours, think I’d be hanging around here? Hell no. I’d be in Paris or someplace, getting waited on.” Paris is the dream, so far away and impossible that she can imagine anything there, any kind of life. She gives my hair the side-eye, maybe waiting for it to leap like a tarantula. It was supposed to be a pastel rainbow: the picture on the dye kit showed a sexy, up-for-anything girl with a sleek bob of teal, pink, and baby blue. I wanted to be that girl. Self-reinvention in six easy steps. I bought it on the sly with the birthday money my grandma mailed me, lightened and dyed on the second-to-last day before we left our old apartment. If Ma’s hurt that I did it while she was at work, fumbling with instructions and bottles and alligator clips, she hasn’t let on. “How’d your new look go over?”

“Does Christmas Barf mean anything to you?” She snorts, ducks her head to her knees, and laughs down at her toes. I can’t help laughing, too, even though it won’t be funny the next time I run into the hoodies. “Right. Mock me. Maybe tomorrow you can come to school and pants me in the cafeteria.”

Dad’s coming up the walk from the parking lot to the back stoop now, carrying his lunch cooler. His boots are heavy, steel-toed, his jeans coated in pale dust, the powdered remains of walls and foundations. Maybe asbestos. You never know what’s lurking inside these paper mills that have been standing for fifty, sixty years. It’s a long day, driving a forklift, shifting scrap. He shoots a finger-gun at me, and I flop against the railing, hand to my shoulder, a game so old I could play my part in my sleep. He blows invisible smoke from his fingertip. “Deadeye.”

“Just a flesh wound.”

Ma smiles as he kisses her head. Then he flips the curler, saying, “This is nice.”

“Oh God.” She pulls it out, hurriedly fluffing her bangs. Ma’s got great hair, thick, black, and shiny, her Italian heritage showing through; if I took after her, I’d never even look at a box of dye. Pre−Christmas Barf, mine was a dead-mouse shade of brown, same as Dad’s, which is probably why he keeps it buzzed short. So, this is me—pale-ish, medium-ish, a face that never launched any ships. But I’m good at bullshitting an English theme. And I make a bitchin’ ham and cheese on moldy rye.

Ma runs inside, comes out heaving her big purse over her shoulder, every zipper jangling with rings and pulls. “Wish me luck.”

“Luck,” Dad and I say in a monotone. Ma’s new job is cashiering at a truck stop out by the interstate in Brewer. She’ll hate it in a week. Who wouldn’t?

Dad showers, dresses in his around-the-house sweats and Dropkick Murphys tee, joins me at the table. We eat the meat loaf; smothered in ketchup, it’s not too bad. “Should probably keep unpacking,” he says around a sip of Shipyard.

“Probably.” We glance at the stacks of beat-up cardboard boxes in the living room—the U-Haul box guarantee says they’ll survive four moves, and it looks like only just—then we each go for another slice of loaf.

Packing sucks, but unpacking is the worst. It’s basically life’s way of saying, hey, in case you were hoping for a fresh start, here are your scratchy bath towels and the lamp nobody likes, to remind you how impossible that is. Unless you’ve got a million dollars. And a Milton Bradley Facial Reconstruction Kit for Beginners.

After clearing the table, I return to the stoop with my book. I’m a big reader, total escape artist, but this time, it’s a prop; I haven’t cracked the cover yet. I’m waiting for somebody, testing a theory. If Bree and Sage watched us unload the Penske truck, one of them must live close, with a view of the paved walkway and parking lot. From what I’ve seen, nobody uses their street entrances here. The real living’s done out back, where the woods wait beyond the neighbors’ charcoal grills and plastic playhouses. Dense woods, mostly pitch pines, those trees that don’t seem to be able to sustain their own limbs, multiple amputees with black, scabrous bark.

Ten minutes later, Bree proves me right, walking between our house and the one next door. From this angle, she looks spare, straight up and down, a raw frame bulked with loose clothing. She senses me and stops dead, glancing over. I’d been mentally rehearsing what I would say, but now I just stare back at her, gripping my book.

She comes over to the edge of our unit’s walkway. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I haven’t been able to get the sight of her and Sage escaping into the woods out of my head. That was almost five hours ago. Wonder what that’s like, having a partner in crime. Mine’s been mostly a solo act so far. Not by choice. It’s just tough to commit while wondering if you’ll even be around long enough for these people to sign your yearbook. I never quite fit in our last town, Astley, over in Western Maine; I tried the no-friends thing there, and I’m here to tell you, it sucks. The label of Desperate Loner Chick holds zero mystique. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Matter-of-factly. A pause. “What’d you think of school?”

I copy her deadpan expression. “Nonstop thrill ride.” She laughs; it’s a good laugh, unexpected, a little harsh. “I didn’t see you.” Such a liar.

“Then it’s working. I strive for invisibility.” She glances at our door. “Are you locked out?”

“No. My dad’s in there.”

Bree steps back. Silence. “Well. Come over, if you want. My mom isn’t home.”

She says it like, we have cookies. This is what I wanted—I think. To know more. To make it here. My stomach knots up anyway as I rap on our door, calling, “Be right back,” to Dad, who’s probably already dozing off on the futon—we do that, buy a Walmart futon when we move in, dumpster it when we move out—his feet propped on a box, TV whispering like the ocean in a conch shell.

Bree lives right next door, 8A, which has a window facing the side of our building, a perfect clone of hers—single-story, a back stoop for each of the three apartments it contains. She pulls a key from the little hip pocket of her jeans and lets us in.

Every light is on. Techno’s pumping. Somebody’s left their hot-pink Asics on the welcome mat and Bree sideswipes them without even looking. The kitchen’s identical to ours—bottom-of-the-line appliances, patterned linoleum, frosted ceiling fixture—but the surfaces are stacked with catalogs and unopened bills, the fridge collaged with alphabet magnets and school photos. Lots of life accumulated here. In the living room, a girl in yoga pants does the stanky leg, her back to us, following some dance routine on TV, so deafened by the music that she doesn’t hear us come in. As we head down the hallway, she pops, locks, drops it, and says, “Ow.”

Bree’s bedroom is the same one I chose, end of the hall, left of the master; her window is the one that looks out on our stoop. I’m caught off guard by her slate-blue walls. Dad says you’re not supposed to paint a rental. Compared to the rest of the place, her room is a tidy, muted oasis: ecru curtains and bedspread, blue throw pillows, a shag rug tossed down over the ugly high-traffic carpeting, stack of novels on the nightstand. She perches on the bed, shows a flicker of impatience when I don’t sit right away, and pats the spot beside her. I sit, feeling stupid. “Saw you reading the book for Hyde’s class,” she says. “What’s it about?”

“You’re in that class?”

“Occasionally.” Bree reaches into her bedside table drawer, pulls out a gallon ziplock bag of candy, and drops it between us. “Hope you’re not diabetic.”

“Whoa.” It’s Halloween candy: mini boxes of Nerds, Mary Janes, those little fruit-flavored Tootsies. I choose a chocolate tombstone. “When the zombie apocalypse comes, I know where I’m holing up.”

She cuts her eyes at me, checking my expression, and a thin smile crosses her lips, which look kind of chapped, like she bites them. “What do you know about Halloween here?”

She says it the way she says everything, making it impossible to read her meaning.

“Um . . . nothing. Why?”

She completes her smile, untwisting a Jolly Rancher wrapper. “You better be ready. We got over two hundred trick-or-treaters last year. And everyone called it a bust Halloween.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope.” The Rancher clicks in her teeth. “It’s a Pender thing. Everybody decorates, the businesses get into it. People bring their kids from hick towns like Derby to take them door-to-door, because we have, like, sidewalks. You’ll see.” She lifts a shoulder. “But I don’t know, maybe not so much this year. With the mill closed and everything, lots of people have moved away.”

I take another piece of candy and concentrate on gluing my jaws together. My dad worked the paper mill demolition in Astley, too, and it felt just like this: like we were scavengers, coming to clean up after a town died. Bree’s watching, and it’s like she’s in my head with me, because she says, “How come you started school so late?”

“It took us a while to find a place to live here. Everything was either way too expensive or too long a commute for my dad. Then this place opened up.”

“Will you move again when they’re finished tearing the mill down?”

I shrug. “Depends. My dad works for Cuso Construction—they won the bid for the demolition and everything. They’ve got jobs going all over New England. I mean, he’ll try to get something close to here so we don’t have to leave so soon, but sometimes”—just talking about moving brings discomfort back, the thought of packing up, cleaning up, that last swift walk out the front door with the keys left behind for the landlord—“there just isn’t anything.” I stuff the wrapper into my pocket. “Anyway. Nobody ever trick-or-treated at our old apartments. Guess they were too sketchy-looking. Everybody’s mom probably thought we’d give their precious pumpkin a razor blade in a Mr. Goodbar or something.”

I earn another rough laugh. Feels like such a win—you can tell she doesn’t give them out much. Bree checks the time on her phone. Maybe hinting for me to go. But then she says, without lifting her gaze, “Can I ask you something?” I say yes. “Do you want your hair like that?”

I brace up, like maybe she lured me here just to give me shit. “Obviously.”

Footsteps stop outside the doorway, and the girl from the living room peeks in. Bree’s little sister: same eyes and hair, except mini-Bree wears hers longer, and her style is totally girly. A glitter appliqué on her tank top, pink polish on her toenails. She’s maybe twelve.

“Yes?” Bree bites off the s.

“Heard you talking.” Mini-Bree looks at me curiously. “I thought it was Sage.”

“Well, it’s not. It’s Clara. Bye.”

I wave. She keeps looking.

Bree sighs. “God, Hazel, it’s customary to say hello. Is there a reason you came down here?”

“Mom’s going to be late. They’re slammed tonight, and then she’s going out for drinks after.” She traces her toe over the carpet. “Thought you’d want to know.”

Bree glances at me, nods.

Hazel tugs the drawstrings of her pants, taking a few steps into the room, her attention on me again. Upon closer inspection, her eyes are nothing like Bree’s; they’re dove gray, not a hint of steel about them. “Have you ever heard of FreshStepz?” I don’t have a chance to say no. “It’s this dance troupe I’m in.”

Bree looks at her from beneath her brows. “It’s a class at the rec department.”

“So? Same thing.” Hazel stops at the foot of the bed, blows her bangs off her forehead. “We have a show next month. I’m practicing really hard.”

“Cool,” I say.

She drops onto the mattress beside me, pulling one knee up. “Your mom lets you wear fishnets? You are so lucky. Where’d you get your shoes? I had some like that once, only they had silver sequins on them and they—” Bree clears her throat, makes walking legs with her fingers. Hazel rolls her eyes. “Fine. Forget it. See ya.”

Once I hear her bedroom door bang shut across the hall, I stand to go, but Bree catches me with “The reason I asked about your hair?” I half turn, gaze trained on a framed poster print of swirling blues and yellows, some surreal starry night, ready to take it on the chin. “I think it’s cool. I mean . . . that you weren’t afraid to show up at school like that.”

Fearless. That sounds way better than too broke to buy another box of dye, and too stubborn to ask Mom to bail me out. “Um. Thanks, I guess.”

A pause. “Look, if you’re ever bored or whatever . . . sometimes Sage and I hang out at the skate park.” She fidgets with her phone. “Boys go there.”

Full turn. Her face is guarded, like I’m the one who could do the hurting. “Boys are good.”