Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue.
— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter Fourteen
I walked home after school, enjoying the sunshine, fresh air, and even the exercise more than I’d ever admit to Cat, who thought she was winning some stupid battle with me every time I refused to catch a ride with her in the Jeep.
When I reached our block, I saw old Mr. Fogarty across the street, mowing his lawn for the fourteenth time this week. I rolled my eyes. The guy had to be ninety, minimum, and his scrawny back was stooped more than Quasimodo’s, but he spent every waking moment in his yard. In the winter, he shoveled his driveway and sidewalk every day, whether or not it snowed.
I guess that’s what happens when you live alone and all of your friends are gone. Great. Something for me to look forward to.
I waved at him. “Hey, Mr. Fogarty.”
He glanced up, staring a moment before offering me a hesitant smile. He probably still hadn’t forgotten the time I blew up his mailbox with firecrackers. And, okay, I nailed it with the Jeep two weeks ago. But that was an accident!
Head down, I kicked a stone with the toe of my shoe. No one ever forgot a thing you did wrong, let alone forgave you.
No one I knew, at least.
“Lydia?” Mr. Fogarty’s voice had gotten a lot more feeble in the year I’d been gone. “Is that you?”
“Yeah. Nice to see you.”
He turned off the lawnmower and waved me over to his yard. After a moment’s hesitation, I crossed the street. Mr. Fogarty couldn’t punish me more than my family or friends already had, and God knows I didn’t have anything better to do.
As I approached, Mr. Fogarty pulled a handkerchief out of the back pocket of his baggy old khakis and wiped it across his brow. I wondered if he should be out here in the yard all day, working like a dog. His wife had died years ago, but didn’t he have any kids or grandkids to take care of his yard? And why didn’t I know if he did?
“Hey.” I waved, trying to be friendly. “You wanted to see me?”
He took his sweet time folding his handkerchief into a perfect square and tucking it back in his pocket. Finally, he looked at me—and his smile reached all the way up to his crinkly blue eyes.
“It’s nice to have you home again. We missed you.”
Was he mistaking me for Cat? Sure, I had been gone, but Liz and Jane and now Mary were basically gone, too. Had he forgotten all the pranks I’d pulled over the years? Were we talking Alzheimer’s or dementia?
“I—” I had no idea what to say. At a minimum, he’d lost his memory, but he couldn’t help that. “Thanks. That’s very nice.”
“Were they good to you at that school?”
I blinked. “Which school?”
The old guy actually snorted. It sounded a bit like the Jeep when it started up on a cold morning. “Reform school. Howard never did say where you were, but I’ve always made it a point to keep tabs on you girls. Almost like you were my own daughters.”
More like granddaughters, but I tended to leave the finer details to people like Liz or Mary. “You did? Then I guess you probably did, uh, know about—”
“The firecrackers?” He barked a laugh that sounded like it kicked up more than a little phlegm. “Used to do that myself. Besides, your parents bought me a new mailbox.”
And again two weeks ago. “Sorry about that.”
A few years too late on the firecrackers, but at least I’d squeezed in my apology before Mr. Fogarty bit the dust. From the looks of his way-too-flushed cheeks, I might’ve made it just in time.
“The hose in the window well took longer to clean up.” He coughed, and I didn’t know whether to slap him on the back or call 9-1-1. “But girls will be girls.”
My eyebrows shot skyward. “They will?”
He nodded. “Liz was quite a bit like you when she was younger, before she channeled all that energy into sports. You just needed a place to channel it, I always told Howard.”
Howard—a/k/a Dad—had never mentioned it to me. In fact, I’d always avoided Mr. Fogarty after Dad put the fear of God in me about Mr. Fogarty and his temper. Had he mellowed with old age, or had Dad been pulling one over on me?
I wasn’t putting my money with Dad.
“The important thing is that you’re home now. Howard says you need a job? Something to occupy you?”
“He said that?” I tried not to glare, since this wasn’t Mr. Fogarty’s fault. I knew exactly whose it was. “I mean, yeah, maybe he said it, but he and I don’t agree on much.”
The crinkly blue eyes looked amused. “You’re a teenager. Of course you don’t. Even Liz had her battles with Howard. You two have quite a bit in common.”
“Liz and me?” He couldn’t be more wrong. Right now, the only person in my family with whom I had anything in common these days was Mom, and that was mostly limited to shopping. “You must have me confused with—” I broke off, horrified when I realized I’d admitted out loud that Mr. Fogarty must’ve lost a few bricks from the patio of his brain. “What I mean is—”
Chuckling, he waved a hand. “Forgive the ramblings of an old man. I always forget that you girls don’t like to be compared. Not even Jane and Liz, who’ve always been so close, or you and your twin.”
“We’re not identical twins. Not even close.”
He smiled. “Right again. Well. If Howard is wrong about you wanting a job, forgive me. I was hoping to talk you into mowing my lawn. And perhaps doing other jobs around this run-down old place.”
He frowned up at his house as he said it, even though he’d never allow a single inch of it to be less than perfect. My family’s house didn’t look half as good. But, then, Dad got his kicks on a yoga mat, not working in the yard like Mr. Fogarty, and Mom couldn’t be trusted with power tools. Even when she was on her meds.
“Isn’t there someone else . . .” I trailed off, not wanting to mention his kids or grandkids, partly because I didn’t know if they existed and partly because I was afraid they did. If they did, they were total losers.
“You’re just the girl to do it.” He started to smile just as a wracking cough shook his body.
Suddenly, every excuse in my arsenal for why I couldn’t do it went up in smoke. Not because I needed the money, even if I did, but because Mr. Fogarty needed me. Or at least he thought so. And because he smiled at me.
Other than Mr. Skamser today, and the guys my age who wanted something, no one had smiled at me in too long.
If that made me desperate, too damn bad.
Two hours later, I walked in the front door of our house, dripping sweat all over the ripped T-shirt and hot-pink gym shorts I’d found in a skanky pile of Liz’s workout clothes. Dying of thirst. Every muscle in my body screaming at me.
“Nice work on Mr. Fogarty’s lawn. Are you finally paying him back for all the crap you’ve pulled on him over the years? Or is this some community service thing for ex-cons?”
I barely glanced at Cat, curled up on one end of the ratty old couch at the far end of the living room, as I shot past her on my way to the kitchen. Two tall glasses of water later, I ignored her when I went back through the living room, headed for a long, hot shower.
“I said, you’re finally paying him back? Or—”
I stopped in the front hall but kept my back to her. I didn’t have to look at Cat to know she’d have a smug, snotty look on her face. It was the only look I’d seen on her since the moment I got home from Shangri-La.
But had I been paying Mr. Fogarty back? If so, why was he paying me? Should I pay him? And was I certifiably crazy even for considering paying him?
I’d pondered a million questions like that the whole time I’d trudged up, down, and across Mr. Fogarty’s lawn, then clipped and weeded and stood there while Mr. Fogarty rattled off a long list of back-breaking projects. But I refused to discuss my questions or pangs of guilt with Cat. It’d be like talking to Chelsea or Amber.
“He paid me.” I gritted my teeth, but Cat didn’t have to see that. “I guess he was relieved to find out that someone in this family was capable of hard work.”
When Cat cursed, I tore up the stairs, my quads and hamstrings screaming in agonizing harmony.
Half an hour later, still aching but showered and dressed for something more fun than lawn work, I headed downstairs. Cat and the Jeep were nowhere in sight, and Mom and Dad weren’t home from work yet, but Liz and Jane were holed up at the kitchen table, their heads bent together.
Not needing more crap from any of my sisters, I tiptoed through the back hallway on my way to the basement.
“Hey.” Liz, of course, never missed anything. “Looks like you’re going out?”
Only if my luck changed. I hadn’t heard about any parties tonight, let alone been invited to one. Not that I planned to share that with Liz or Jane.
If I added Cat to the list, and I did, it meant I didn’t have a single person to share anything with.
I poked my head into the kitchen. “No plans.”
The moment the words came out of my mouth, I wanted to erase them—or run screaming from the house. But Cat had obviously commandeered the Jeep for the evening, and the muscles in my legs were fried beyond recognition.
Hmm. Maybe Dad had actually plotted with Mr. Fogarty to destroy my escape options. Yep, I was definitely keeping all the dough he paid me.
“Wanna hang with us?” Liz glanced at Jane, not me, as she said it, as if she had to get permission from Jane to wreck their plans for the evening.
Thinking I heard a noise, I glanced sideways but didn’t see anyone at the front door.
“What? You’re trying to check out your options? Cat—”
“—is long gone.” I shrugged. “Yeah, I noticed.”
Jane shook her head. “She’s picking up takeout Chinese. We didn’t know what you were doing tonight, but I told her to add seafood delight to the list, just in case.”
My eyebrows went up. “Why?”
“Because I remember that it’s your favorite, silly.”
Liz snorted. “The fact that it’s one of Jane’s favorites had nothing to do with it, I’m sure.”
Jane whapped Liz in the arm, and they both laughed.
I sighed. I hadn’t had seafood delight—a medley of shrimp, crab, and scallops that taught me everything I needed to know about the quality of Mom’s putrid fish sticks at a young age—in a year and a half, minimum.
“I guess I don’t have much going on.” Seeing Jane’s hopeful smile, I tossed in an escape hatch. “Right now, I mean. I might be headed to a party later.”
“Really?” Liz gave me a lazy glance, like a leopard before it pounces on its prey. “Cat didn’t know about any parties tonight.”
“Yeah, well, Cat doesn’t know much. Period.”
“You’re wrong about—”
Jane put a hand on Liz’s forearm, stopping her. “What Liz means to say is that you’ve been gone a year. Cat is different now. You’re different. Everyone’s different.”
Liz shook off Jane’s hand with a flick of her wrist. “I meant she was wrong about Cat. Just like you and I were wrong, in case you forgot.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not wrong, and you two haven’t changed a bit. Except Liz maybe dresses a little better.”
“And you still say whatever you think.” Instead of jumping to her feet and clobbering me, though, Liz grinned. “But you’re around more often to say it.”
“Lucky me.”
Leaving them, I headed to the basement. Maybe I could catch a movie by myself on the big-screen TV downstairs. Maybe my sisters would deliver my seafood delight on a silver platter. Maybe pigs would fly.
“Don’t go too far, babe.” Liz’s voice reached me before I could slam the door to the basement behind me. “We’re looking forward to a wild evening of sisterly love.”
I did slam the basement door. Hard.
I’d barely managed to pick out a movie—Animal House, which reminded me of my own home, only without the great parties—when Liz yelled downstairs that the Chinese food had arrived and was waiting for me.
In the kitchen.
So much for praying for deliverance from my sisters, not to mention the whole silver-platter scenario.
After a last look at the TV, I clicked it off and headed for the stairs. Seafood delight had better be worth it.
“She joined us. Will wonders never cease?” Cat flicked a glance over me, head to toe, as if there was something wrong with me. I’d showered, hadn’t I? And I hadn’t even stolen a single item of my outfit from her or anyone else.
I gave Cat a snotty look right back. “Hey, the bigger shock is that you broke loose from Jeremy long enough to go slumming with your sisters. Or did he wise up and find someone else?”
“Like you don’t know.”
Jane paused in the middle of a bite of seafood delight. “That’s enough. What happened? I know you’ve been gone a while, Lydia, but you guys were always so close. Just like—”
She broke off, as if she didn’t want to brag about how tight she and Liz had always been, leaving Cat and me to compete with them, and leaving Mary shut out.
Nowadays, I was the one shut out.
Liz poked Jane. “Did you mean like us? That’s why we’re living together? I knew there had to be a reason.”
I rolled my eyes. “You guys even had to pick boyfriends who are best friends. How convenient.”
“What can I say?” Liz grinned at Jane, who looked like she wished she’d never brought up the subject. “The Book ordained it.”
“Pride and Prejudice didn’t ordain a single thing.” Cat smirked at me. “After all, Lydia just went to reform school. She didn’t marry Justin or anything.”
“You little bitch.”
Leaping to my feet, I picked up my plate of seafood delight and sent the contents flying at Cat’s face.
“Lydia!” Jane frowned at me as she leaped to her feet to help Cat, who was lucky I’d just sent the food flying, not the plate with it. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Liz didn’t move an inch. In fact, she kept chewing on kung pao chicken while Jane hurried to the sink for paper towels to help wipe off Cat, but then she grinned. “No kidding. Not only did you throw away your favorite food, but you forgot that Cat is vegetarian. Seafood delight is totally wasted on her.”
Jane threw a wet paper towel at Liz. “Can’t you ever be serious?”
Liz calmly plucked the paper towel off her shoulder and zinged it back at Jane. “If the situation calls for it. But I think Lydia responds better to humor.”
“She should. She’s a total joke. Just ask anyone.”
Everyone whirled in Cat’s direction. She was covered in seafood and sticky rice and halfway soaked from the wet paper towels Jane kept dabbing on her. Grabbing the latest one out of Jane’s hand, she flung it across the kitchen. It clung to the fridge for a moment before dropping to the floor.
Jane shook a finger at Cat and me. “I don’t understand what’s up with you two.”
I held up a hand. “Don’t ask me. Cat turned into this totally different person while I was gone. Maybe it’s because she has a boyfriend.” I sneered in her direction, happy to see her flinch. “But boyfriends don’t seem to have changed either of you guys.”
“Thanks to you, I don’t have a—”
Breaking off, Cat clapped a hand over her mouth. Jane and Liz looked as shocked as I was, and I couldn’t even come up with something sarcastic to say.
But Cat and Jeremy couldn’t have broken up. Kirk and Amber were still together, and even Drew and Chelsea, and both of those couples made even less sense than Jeremy and Cat. Besides, despite my threats, I hadn’t even made a fake play for Jeremy. Who could he have dumped Cat for?
Uh, oh. Heather? She had just joined the band.
I felt the tiniest flicker of pity for Cat. She didn’t deserve my pity, but she was way more cool than a goody two-shoes like Heather. Even if she’d been a total jerk lately.
I shook my head, almost sorry I’d thrown the seafood delight at her. And not just because my stomach was rumbling. “I can’t believe he’d pick someone like Heather over you.”
Jane frowned. “Who’s Heather?”
Cat frowned, too, but she looked confused. “Heather?”
She didn’t even know. The situation was worse than I thought.
I shrugged. “Anyway. I’m sorry.”
“You should be. You were the one—”
“Stop.” I might harbor the slightest scrap of pity for Cat, but I wasn’t taking the fall. “Before you make me stop you.”
I’d already taken way too much crap in my life, and even spent a year locked up in Shangri-La, for things that weren’t my fault. But enough about Justin.
Cat was glaring at me, though, as if the problems in her love life were my fault. I glanced at Liz and Jane, who both seemed to be stunned into silence. For Liz, at least, it had to be a first.
Finally, Jane looked sideways at Cat, who clenched her fists so tightly, she had to be hurting.
“Cat? You and Jeremy broke up?”
She kept glaring at me. “Because of her.”
Her finger shook as it pointed at me, but I just rolled my eyes. “Right. Blame it on me when the guy probably just got disgusted when you told the whole school that I didn’t know how to play guitar. Or maybe he found someone else. Like Heather. Who just joined the band.”
“He’s not with Heather.”
“The ex-girlfriend is always the last to know.”
“Actually, she’s often the first to know.” Liz held up her hands when everyone stared at her. “I’m not saying that Jeremy has a new girlfriend.” She offered Cat a less-than-confident smile. “I’m sure he doesn’t. This is probably just a timeout, right? Like, maybe you guys had a fight, and he’ll be back. Every couple has fights, right?”
Her fork halfway to her mouth, Jane blushed.
“Fine. Everyone except Jane and Charlie. But it’s not like Alex and I never fight.”
I snorted. “Probably over which one of you gets to drive his Lamborghini.”
Grinning, Liz slapped a hand on the table. “Perfectly good example of something worth fighting over.”
Only in Liz’s opinion. I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think Cat will ever fight Jeremy for that broken-down piece of scrap metal he drives.”
“See?” Cat jabbed a finger at me. “She knows what Jeremy drives. She’s been in his car.”
When Jane and Liz looked at me, a question in their eyes, I pushed back from the table. “Hey, it’s been great. No, really. But we seem to be out of seafood delight.” I smirked at the globs of rice still clinging to Cat’s shirt. “And now all three of you seem to be cruising down that slippery slope into dementia, so I’m outta here.”
I made it three feet before a hand clamped down on my shoulder, holding me in place.
Liz’s, of course. “What’s going on with you and Jeremy?”
“Other than the fact that I’ve apparently stolen him from Cat and get a charge out of cruising around town with him in a butt-ugly, beat-up brown Hyundai?”
“He drives a Toyota. A Toyota Corolla.”
“So I was right on butt-ugly, beat-up, and brown?”
Liz didn’t say anything, but her lips twitched.
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve never been in his car. I have better taste in both cars and guys.”
When a chair slammed against the floor, I glanced past Liz to see Cat rounding the end of the kitchen table, headed for me, murder in her eyes.
“You little—”
Liz whirled in Cat’s direction, her hands releasing my shoulders in time to give me a quick escape. I didn’t hesitate. Flying out of the kitchen in the direction of the front door, I grabbed the keys to the Jeep. A minute later, the Jeep rumbled to life, and I was gone.
But where I was headed, I didn’t have a clue.
When I slipped back in the front door, four hours and one-and-a-half movies later, every light in the house was blazing, along with Dad’s eyes.
Mom, next to Dad at the front door, didn’t look pissed. I could deal with, or even ignore, pissed. She looked hurt, which was somehow worse.
“You took the Jeep.”
What was his first clue?
Dad crossed his arms. “And you threw an entire plate of food at Cat.”
“That wasn’t smart, Lydia.” Mom shook her head. “Seafood delight is the most expensive item on the menu.”
Dad rolled his eyes. “What Lydia did wasn’t nice. We don’t need to discuss whether it was smart.”
“But it wasn’t, Howard, and Lydia has always been very smart about money.”
My money, sure. Someone else’s money? Not so much.
“Not that you guys would believe me, but Cat started it. Then she came after me like some wild-ass thug, and I barely had time to run out the door before she ripped me to shreds.”
Not that I seriously thought Cat could rip me to shreds. She’d never worked out, and going out with Jeremy hadn’t helped her muscle tone. I could take her in a heartbeat.
But I’d rather take the Jeep. Even if it meant driving aimlessly around Woodbury until finally heading to the theater in Oakdale, where I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew.
I glanced from Dad to Mom, not eager to meet Dad’s livid gaze for more than a split second.
“Cat? Rip you to shreds?” Dad made a tsking sound, as if he expected more of me even in my fibs. “Are you sure you’re not mistaking her for Liz?”
“No mistake. Liz and Jane were there, and they saw the whole thing.”
“They did see it, and neither one seemed to think you were in great danger of being ripped to shreds.”
“Of course not. Liz knew she could handle Cat, and Jane can’t believe poor Cat would ever do anything wrong. She doesn’t know Cat the way I do.”
Mom nodded until Dad shook his head at her. But I had Mom on my side, or at least willing to listen to my side, and I counted on it.
Dad pointed to the chair next to his in the living room, as if he actually expected me to listen to a stupid lecture after already having an incredibly sucky Friday night.
I yawned. “Hey, I had a long day, and I’m tired, and you can ask Liz if you don’t believe me.” I took a step toward the stairs. “Jane has a sweet but skewed perception of reality, and Cat is just plain delusional.”
“She’s not delusional, dear.”
Dad looked at Mom and groaned. “Let’s focus on Lydia, shall we?” He turned to me. “Your own perception of reality might require some adjustment. We’ll work on that first thing tomorrow.”
“Bring it. I can hardly wait.”