UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Peter waits downstairs while I shower and change.
My whole body feels different under the water. Everything is sharper, more sensitive and alive. It almost hurts, but in a good way—a why-haven’t-I-showered-in-four-days way.
I pull on jeans and a top with long sleeves, and I put on my gloves—one scary step at a time, please.
Peter’s in the den, checking out Jordan’s costume—a mask that fills up with blood when he presses a pump. Next year, Jordan might be too old for trick-or-treating. It almost makes me sad, but I check myself. He has horror movie marathons, visits to haunted houses, and parties, so many parties, in his future. Not every change is sad.
“All better?” Jordan asks me.
“Working on it.”
“I thought maybe you caught some kind of sleeping sickness, like from a mosquito.”
“No such luck,” I say.
“I’m not kidding. I was worried about you.” Jordan looks a little offended.
“I’m sorry I made you worry.”
“You ready to get out of here?” Peter asks.
“Yeah, I guess I’m feeling brave.”
I can’t fix everything all at once, but there’s one important thing I need to fix as soon as possible, maybe even tonight. As Peter pulls out of the driveway, I confess, “I think I’ve been a bad friend to Mandy.”
“She’ll forgive you,” he says, “once she understands.”
But how to make her understand? Peter seems to accept my fear without needing to ask a lot of questions, but Mandy will want to know a clear reason why. I remember how she talked about Peter’s “nuttiness” after I first met him. I can’t bring that up to Peter, obviously, but it makes me worry that Mandy might shun me now that I’ve let my crazy show.
Peter parks at the top of Mandy’s drive, and we walk in and out of the cones of harsh area light that surround Mandy’s house. At the pool, we find Mandy and Drew on lounge chairs.
Mandy’s up like a shot with her arms spread dramatically as if to block me from leaping in. “Step away from the pool,” she says like an agent in a cop show. “Swimming season is over.”
“I’m done swimming,” I say.
She relaxes her arms, takes a drag on her cigarette, and considers me. She doesn’t look angry but poised—at any moment she could shift into attack mode. She turns to Peter and says, “This is my surprise?” He responds by walking around to take Mandy’s seat next to Drew.
“Can we talk?” I ask, and Mandy shifts her pursed lips to the side. She’s not going to make this easy.
“You want something to drink? Non-alcoholic.”
“No, thanks. I’m good.” She leads the way to the upper lawn, removed enough from the pool that Peter and Drew won’t be able to hear us.
I perch on the edge of the trampoline, but Mandy chooses the grass.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Mandy nods.
My words spill out in a rush, things I’ve waited too long to say. “I’m sorry I freaked out. I’m sorry I haven’t been a good friend. I’ve been keeping things from you, and I haven’t been able to talk about why, and that sucks. And I’m sorry I missed rehearsal and messed up your scene. I’m sorry I’m interrupting your . . . date, or whatever, right now.”
She nods again. “Okay. Apologies accepted.”
But she doesn’t look at me.
“Are we still friends?” I ask, and waiting for her to answer is as scary as holding my hand still for Peter. She doesn’t respond for a long time.
“I think you and I will always be friends, in a way,” she says. In a way. “We have a history together. That’s important.”
I nod, but my mind’s racing, thinking how to make it up to her.
“I don’t know, Caddie,” she says, and she ashes onto the grass. “We don’t even know that much about each other—not recent stuff anyway.”
“I want to know,” I say. “I want to talk about it.”
“About what?”
“About . . . you and Drew. About my weirdness. About the state of affairs in the Middle East. About how to get Livia to give up on Hank. Whatever you want.”
Mandy’s quiet for a long time, staring out toward the ridge. Bats dip and play, and at first it takes me by surprise to see them there. In my mind, they came out special for the party—atmosphere for Peter and me. But here they are, a week later, not caring about me and my little drama, just doing their own batty thing.
“She’s really making an ass out of herself,” Mandy says.
It takes me a second to register that she’s talking about Livia.
“I don’t know if I’d go that far.”
“No, it got worse after you left. Hank knows that she likes him; she knows that he knows; he and Oscar make faces about it as soon as her back’s turned. Maybe . . .”
“What?”
“Maybe we could get Livia to go for Oscar.”
“Oh, I do not see that happening.”
“No? Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Not everybody has to be coupled up.”
Mandy’s turned back toward the pool, where her eyes follow Drew as he paces beside Peter’s chair. Peter’s laughing; Drew isn’t, emphatic about whatever position he’s taken, per usual.
“I think I’m afraid of being alone,” she says, and she looks to me, eyes full and dark. I used to think of Mandy as never being afraid of anything.
She breaks away from watching Drew and lies back, looking up to the sky. I slip from the trampoline and lie down beside her, leaving maybe half a foot between us. “You’re thinking about breaking up with him?”
She takes a long drag, lets it out. “I love Drew, but we aren’t always nice to each other. We’re too much alike. But the thought of letting him go . . . it makes me want to jump out of my skin.”
Crickets sing, and I don’t have to say anything. Just listen.
“Did you ever think about how brave your parents were,” Mandy asks, “to split up?”
“Maybe there’s something to that.”
She says, “You’re looking very couply with Peter.”
“Am not.”
“Are so.”
We both laugh. I haven’t felt this much myself since Dad left, nothing forced or performed. Mandy rolls onto her side, propping up on one elbow to face me.
“So, you and Peter? How’s that going to work, if you can’t . . .” She holds a finger in the air between us, and I raise one gloved finger to meet it.
“. . . touch anyone? Yeah, it’s a problem. For the play, too. I was hoping you might help me work on that.”