Lydia stood her ground, determined to hear all she could.
— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter Twenty
First thing tomorrow came earlier for me than anyone else in the house, based on the utter silence when I made stealth tracks downstairs at six a.m. Dad was good with threats, but his follow-through didn’t worry me. I’d already survived far worse than Dad in the last year, hadn’t I?
After grabbing a hard-boiled egg and a banana, I headed to the basement, closing the door at the top of the basement stairs with a soft click. Even if Dad carried out his vague threats, I could chill first by getting in some time on my guitar.
At six a.m.? I shook my head, wondering if I’d had a lobotomy but hadn’t happened to notice.
I ran through my usual warm-up drill of chords and notes before opening my rock-and- roll songbook. I still couldn’t nail my D chord to save my life, but I now had a dozen chords down cold, even my C chord. I also knew some notes, which were easier and didn’t kill my swollen fingertips so much. At this point, though, the callouses on my fingertips almost made me feel like I knew a thing or two about guitar.
Even if my teacher, Jazz, didn’t seem to agree.
“Lydia?”
When Dad suddenly materialized in front of me, I jumped so high, I almost dropped my guitar.
“Dad! Geez!”
He didn’t apologize—being not only a guy but my dad, the word “sorry” didn’t seem to be in his vocabulary—but he sat down on the beanbag chair near me, nodding his head as if I should keep playing.
Right. I hadn’t played my guitar in front of anyone except Jazz, and I didn’t feel like playing for a guy who was about to lower the boom on me. With my luck, he’d increase the punishment when he heard my D chord.
Wearing his rattiest yoga pants and a stained T-shirt, Dad crossed his legs in the beanbag chair, looking both like a yoga nut and way too comfortable for a guy on the run toward fifty. “You sounded pretty good when I was coming downstairs. Before I startled you into silence, apparently.”
I frowned. “You don’t have to act so shocked.”
“I’m not shocked, just observing.” Dad tilted his head, studying me. “Mary used to practice in the living room, so I was in the habit of hearing her. I haven’t heard you play.”
“She played in the living room?” Weird, even by Mary’s standards. “Not even in her bedroom?”
Dad nodded. “I always suspected it was her way of needling your mother on a daily basis that she’d given up piano for guitar.” He offered me a faint smile. “Since your mother started spending longer hours at her law office, the person most affected by it was me.”
Good.
Dad gave me this weird look, as if he could read my mind. If he could, he never would’ve sent me to reform school. He would’ve asked for my side of the story and maybe even given me a hug. I’d never needed one more than during those nightmarish days in Milwaukee.
I set my guitar back on its stand.
“You don’t want to play anymore? Didn’t you just start?”
I glanced up at him, then quickly back at my guitar when I felt a stupid teardrop threaten. Dad could punish me all he wanted, but he’d never see me cry. Not in this lifetime.
“You said you wanted to punish me first thing today.” My voice sounded a little funny, but I just talked faster. “I’m sure you don’t want to waste your day waiting.”
When Dad didn’t say anything, I finally looked at him.
“Lydia, it doesn’t have to be this way.” Dad leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.
I fiddled with my amp, even though I’d already turned it off. “But it is like this. You take everyone’s word over mine, and you get your kicks by punishing me. So bring it. I don’t give a flying fuck in space.”
“You shouldn’t—” Dad shook his head, but he had to realize it was too late to change my language. “I don’t get my kicks, as you say, from punishing you or any of your sisters.”
“Yeah? Could’ve fooled me.”
“Cat and I struggled through a few things last year.”
“Well, raise the flag.”
He kept going as if I hadn’t said a word. Or, as usual, he just didn’t listen to a word I said. “It’s normal. I struggled against my parents, too.”
I just stared at him. Dad thought any part of his life was comparable to mine? The thought was so ludicrous, the last trace of tears vanished in a heartbeat.
“No kidding. Did your dad ship you off to reform school without even asking for your side of the story? Must’ve been a major drag. I bet you’re still recovering, huh?”
Dad gave me one of his long-suffering looks. “It was the only choice I had.”
Right. “Is that what you told your shrink? Did your shrink believe it?”
He does actually go to a shrink. Mom likes to claim it’s part of his spiritual journey as a yoga master, but she might not want to think about the fact that he first saw the shrink after Mom went off her bipolar meds for a few days and played bumper cars in the parking ramp at the Mall of America.
Right now, he flinched as if I’d slugged him with a baseball bat—something I’d wanted to do since the day he told the judge in Milwaukee that, yes, he and Mom agreed that reform school was the best thing for me. He hadn’t even told Mom about Shangri-La; he lied to the judge. But adults lie all they want, no problem. Teenage girls who commit the heinous crime of trusting a guy get shipped to reform school. In my life, anyway.
He didn’t say anything, just stood up and walked to the stairs, head down, as if I’d totally slaughtered him.
Served him right.
So when I heard the door softly shutting at the top of the stairs, I don’t have a clue why I started to cry.
I didn’t touch my guitar again, but I stayed downstairs watching Animal House, so busy wondering when Dad would summon me upstairs for my punishment that even John Belushi couldn’t make me laugh.
At least, not much.
“Lydia?” Mom, not Dad. With any luck, coming to ask if I wanted to go shopping. “You hurt your father’s feelings, dear.”
“Yeah?” My gaze didn’t leave the TV screen, but it’s possible that I smiled. “He has feelings? Who knew?”
“I don’t understand this. You’ve always been such a good girl.”
Only in Mom’s opinion. Not even in mine. And definitely not in Dad’s.
“And you’re home now and, well, safe. Safe from all those nasty creatures they send to reform school.”
Blinking, I finally darted a glance at Mom. “Nasty? You mean, like me?”
She waved a hand, but she seemed more nervous than her meds usually allowed. “Of course I don’t mean you. That was a mistake. You never should’ve been sent there.”
I glanced back at the movie. “Have you mentioned that to Dad? He’s the one who sent me.”
“The judge insisted on it. Your father told me so.”
I snorted. “My father lied to you. I was right there in the courtroom, Mom. The judge gave Dad a few options. Dad picked the most convenient one. For him.”
“He did not— He wouldn’t.” Mom sputtered, but the wild look in her eyes had nothing to do with bipolar disorder and everything to do with finally realizing that Dad really was an asshole.
I nailed his coffin shut. “He totally did. He also told the judge not to mention the other options in his court order, since he figured you’d eventually see it.”
A few tears gathered in my eyes, but they were pure crocodile. I’d already cried enough real tears over what Dad had done to fill a bathtub.
But never in front of anyone.
“He didn’t.” The look in Mom’s eyes, almost deadly, was what made her a good courtroom lawyer. It terrified the crap out of me, even though Dad was the one who should start running. And packing his bags.
Without another word, Mom marched toward the stairs. As she hit the bottom step, she looked back at me.
“Don’t worry about being punished, dear, but I hope you’ll get out in the sun. It’s a nice day. At least, it was.”
When the shrieking started a minute later, I knew it wouldn’t be a nice day for Dad.
Excellent.
I hesitated as I passed my old bedroom on my way to my new one. Cat was flopped on her bed, The Catcher in the Rye in her hands, but it looked like she’d barely made a dent in it.
I shook my head.
“Like you’ve read it.”
“I have.” Twice, I could’ve said, but the dark circles under Cat’s eyes told me that more torture would just be overkill.
“Right. I heard what happened in English. Now you’ve got Skamser wrapped around your finger? How’d you do that?”
I rolled my eyes. “I slept with him. Satisfied?”
“Ew.” Cat looked like she wanted to puke. “Only you would do something like that.”
Unbelievable. I shot her a nasty look, then stomped down the hall to my room. Reaching the door to it, I whirled and headed back to Cat’s room. Crossing to her bed in three pissed strides, I grabbed The Catcher in the Rye out of her hands and flung it through the still-punched-out window screen.
Cat leaped to her feet, following me to the window. A squirrel was already rubbing its tiny paws over the book like it was an overgrown nut.
“Where the hell do you get off? You’re buying me a new one, and I’m telling Dad.”
“Dad won’t be much help to you.” I jabbed my thumb in the direction of the shrieks still coming from downstairs. Dad was toast. “But you didn’t used to be a squealer. Yet another ugly change you’ve made in the last year.”
“And you didn’t used to—” She broke off, glaring, as if she wished she had the guts to finish her sentence.
I crossed my arms. “I didn’t used to what?”
“You didn’t used to—” She took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring. “Sleep with every guy you met.”
My eyebrows went up, but my stomach lurched.
She made a face. “I mean, you always acted like it, but I thought you were just toying with people.”
“Yeah? The way you claim Tess toyed with you?”
Cat nodded, her lips quivering, even though it’d been six months since the band fiasco went down, and she’d wound up with the drummer in the band.
Oh, wait. Not lately.
“What is up with you and Jeremy? Did you guys really break up?”
As I asked the question, I knew she wouldn’t answer. Cat hated me now, even though I didn’t have a clue why.
Her lips were still quivering. “You know we did. And you know why.”
“Wrong on both counts.” I met her hostile gaze. “Unless I was right about the Heather scenario.”
“This has nothing to do with Heather!”
I held up a hand. “Whatever. It also has nothing to do with me. No matter what you say.”
“Kirk said—”
I frowned. “I thought you didn’t talk to Kirk. Or Amber or Tess or any of them.”
“I don’t unless I have to.” Unable to look at me, Cat glanced out the window, where a bunch of squirrels were having a raucous party on The Catcher in the Rye. Even if they didn’t eat the pages, at this point the only thing in that book’s future was a pair of rubber gloves and a one-way trip to the garbage can. “But Kirk still talks to me. At least, if it affects his stupid band.”
“Jeremy’s in that stupid band, you know.”
“No kidding.” Cat flicked a glance in my direction, but she seemed to be a million miles away. “Kirk told me Jeremy was quitting the band if you joined it. That’s when I told them you didn’t even play guitar.”
I sucked in a breath, unable to process it. Jeremy would quit if I joined the band? What would be so horrible about me joining the band? They put up with Mary! Worse, even though I knew Cat had been the one who ratted me out, hearing it directly from her quivering mouth still hit me between the eyes.
Which was exactly where I wanted to hit her.
Visualizing it, I punched my right fist into the palm of my left hand. “You little shit.”
“But you don’t play. I mean, you just started.”
“You squealed, Cat. You didn’t used to be the sort of little shit who squealed.”
Her shoulder lifted in the tiniest shrug imaginable.
I backed away from her. “And I didn’t do anything to make Jeremy dump you, but I can’t blame him.”
She looked up at me when I reached the door, but all of the accusation in her eyes a few minutes ago was gone. An apology was also missing in action.
I shook my head. “You suck.”
I pulled another afternoon of hard labor for Mr. Fogarty, grateful for the sunshine and the cash and not much else. Okay, being outside also gave me a reprieve from Mom’s tirade against Dad, which showed no signs of letting up by dinnertime. She served an amazingly decent burger to me and a veggie burger to Cat, then dropped a minuscule charred hockey puck on Dad’s plate.
He deserved it, and more, but I didn’t need to watch.
By Sunday, I was ready for anything that didn’t involve hedge clippers, paintbrushes, or Mom’s screaming, so I gave Drew a call. He said we were still friends, right?
Once he got past the stuttering, probably because Chelsea was three inches away from him and breathing fire, he admitted that the band was practicing at two o’clock at Michael’s house.
But he didn’t offer me a ride.
Fine by me. I was getting used to walking everywhere, and catching rides with Drew sometimes came with drawbacks. Like getting my hair yanked out by Chelsea.
I ran a hand through my hair as I hung up, wondering if it would ever grow out. Wondering if I wanted it to. No one in the world mistook me for Cat anymore, and seeing how she’d turned out made me grateful for that.
At two o’clock, I took off for Michael’s house in a miniskirt and without breathing a word to Cat. She hated the band, didn’t she? And hated me more? I didn’t even need to get to the fact that the drummer in the band had dumped her.
Reaching Michael’s house, I walked inside without bothering to ring the bell. Once again, his parents were nowhere in sight. I wish I could say the same for mine, who’d now been fighting at the top of Mom’s lungs for over twenty-four hours straight.
I went down to the basement, feeling almost unsure of myself. Definitely a new experience. Because of Kirk? I liked him, but I’d known him forever. Drew and Chelsea? No way. Drew finally knew the score—I’d flirted, maybe too much, but wasn’t interested—and Chelsea wasn’t worth my time. Jeremy? He hated me enough to threaten to leave the band, but he wasn’t the first person I’d ever met who hated me. Just the first guy.
Squaring my shoulders as I reached the bottom step, I strutted into the basement as if I owned it.
I blinked when the first person I saw was Cat.
Her jaw dropped when she saw me, but I don’t know why. I’d come to a couple of band practices, hadn’t I? Unlike her?
I glanced at the wraparound couch, which held Cat, Amber, Drew, Chelsea, and two other girls, leaving a space big enough for maybe half of me on the end closest to the band. Right next to Chelsea.
Swallowing my disappointment, I sashayed over to the couch and plunked down next to Chelsea, then wiggled my butt until she scooched a few inches closer to Drew.
Drew stared at my bare legs, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in time to the music, but that was Chelsea’s problem. If I exacerbated her problem by not tugging my skirt down, that was just a bonus.
The band finished a Green Day song I loved with an unexpected flourish by Heather on her guitar, something I couldn’t have pulled off if they paid me a million bucks. As I stared at her, envious, Kirk shaded his eyes against the glare of the band lights and called out to me through his mic—as if I weren’t sitting fifteen feet away from the guy.
“Lydia, is that you? Thanks for coming out.”
Chelsea snorted, but it only made her resemble a pig even more, and that worked for me.
I waved at Kirk. “Hey. You’re sounding good.”
He looked good, too, except for his stupid rock-star sunglasses. Tight jeans, a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and arms that were both tan and ripped. Okay, Kirk was hot. But his girlfriend, Amber, was five feet away from me, and Kirk hadn’t exactly called, let alone asked me out, and I didn’t feel like begging. I was as good as he was, and I was way better than Amber.
I just wish I could stop biting my lip.
The band started its next song, Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi,” with Heather singing in her soft, sweet soprano. The guys in the band watched her as she sang, all of them except Jeremy acting like they had a crush on her. Jeremy always looked like his eyes were closed when he played drums, and now his closed eyes seemed to be facing the wraparound couch—aimed at Cat—but still. Definitely no worship of Heather.
It was the only thing I liked about Jeremy.
An hour and a half later, when the band finished its last song, I wondered why I’d just wasted a gorgeous September afternoon in a dark basement, sitting with people I couldn’t stand, listening to a band that had replaced me. Easily.
And that was before Kirk walked right past me to Amber, pulled her to her feet, and wrapped her in the biggest hug I’d ever seen him give a girl.
As my shoulders slumped, Chelsea’s hips sent me flying off the end of the couch.
“Hey! You bitch.”
“Sorry.” Not according to her nasty grin. “I guess I forgot you were there. It’s just that you’re so—”
“Skinny? Unlike you?”
Her glare made her look even less attractive, if that was possible. “Easy to forget. You’re just so easy to forget.”
Next to her, Drew had gone rigid, but no one else seemed to notice. Kirk was whispering something to Amber, Jeremy and Cat eyed each other warily, and the two girls who’d been sitting next to Amber took off for the stairs.
I gave Chelsea an amused up-and-down. “Talk about easy to forget. You could’ve invented the concept of amnesia.”
I heard someone laugh—Cat, shocking me—a moment before someone else grabbed my arm. Zach. Shocking me even more.
“Need a ride? I was heading in that direction, if you’re ready to go now.”
I frowned at him. Zach? Who hated me the last time he gave me a ride and didn’t bother to hide it? Who probably did find me easy to forget?
“I don’t—”
“Great.” He didn’t let go of my arm, just tugged me to the stairs. Part of me was too surprised to fight him. Part of me—okay, my legs, from all that weeding yesterday—was grateful I wouldn’t have to walk.
As I followed him upstairs, I heard dead silence behind me. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one Zach had shocked, but I was the one leaving with him in a butt-ugly orange VW Beetle.
Why he’d asked, I had no idea.
“Good friends with Chelsea, huh?”
I blinked as I fastened my seatbelt, wondering if he was serious or actually had a sense of humor. Oh, wait. He must. He wore a Cat in the Hat tattoo and drove a bright-orange car just because his mom liked it. “She’s a real trip.”
Zach pulled out from the curb. “You don’t want to mess with her.”
I shrugged. “She shouldn’t mess with me, but she’s not my issue. I just feel sorry for Drew.”
“Yeah. Real sorry.”
He switched on the radio. Vomit-inducing classical music poured out, just like the last time. Unlike the last time, I didn’t try to change the station.
I was too busy being annoyed with Zach.
“Of course I feel sorry for Drew.” My jaw clenched, maybe because I didn’t feel a bit sorry. Drew was an idiot and a wimp. He deserved Chelsea. “He could’ve dated my—”
I broke off, not sure I should mention Drew’s past history with Cat, such as it was, since Cat was now with Jeremy—or at least had been, and might be again.
“Your what?” Zach flicked a glance at me before returning his gaze to the road. “He could’ve been lucky enough to date you?”
I bristled at the way he said it, as if I had a disease. Did every guy in the band hate me? Even the ones—like Zach—I didn’t know?
“Not that it’s any of your business, but he’s not my type. Like, at all.”
“So you were just giving him artificial resuscitation the last two times I saw you as a humanitarian gesture?”
“Ha ha ha.” Pissed, I crossed my arms and wondered if I should leap out of the car the next time he slowed for a corner. But I was still wearing the miniskirt—which he didn’t seem to notice, by the way—and something about his hostility made my lips twitch. I mean, seriously. The guy was too funny. I slid him a glance even though his own gaze was locked on the road. Mr. Driver’s Ed. “I guess we have that in common, huh?”
When he finally looked over at me, his light-brown hair—soft and shiny enough for me to covet—almost covered his eyes. Hazel eyes, I decided after a moment. Probably the first thought I’d had about Zach that didn’t involve his tattoo, his car, or his overprotective attitude.
I nodded in answer to the question in his stupid hazel eyes. “We’re both into humanitarian gestures. Me with Drew, you with me.”
Frowning, he glanced at my lips and—just for an instant—at the tops of my thighs. Maybe he wasn’t completely impervious to miniskirts or the terror known as Lydia Bennet.
His gaze went back to the road, but his knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and I don’t think it was because I’d pissed him off. At least, not today.
“I didn’t give you a ride to kiss you.”
Kiss me? He’d even thought about kissing me?
Grinning, I twisted in my seat, even though it made my miniskirt ride up a little. Or maybe because it did. He didn’t glance down at my legs again, though. His jaw clenched, and his knuckles were nearly popping through his skin, but he must’ve already looked at me as much as he could handle.
“So why did you give me a ride? I walked to Michael’s house, and I could’ve walked home. You really do get off on humanitarian gestures? Like a Boy Scout?”
The corner of his mouth twisted. “Only on Sundays.”
I laughed. He was funny when he relaxed around me, which wasn’t often. Leaning back against my headrest, I tugged my skirt down—another humanitarian gesture—and wished we could hang out together. But we were just a few blocks from my house, and Zach didn’t look like the kind of guy who did joyrides. It didn’t fit with the classical music.
We rode in silence until we reached the corner closest to my house, when he cleared his throat. “You’re okay, Lydia.”
I blinked. “Yeah?”
“I gave you a ride to get you away from Chelsea.”
“Thanks, but I can—”
“And Drew, who can’t handle you. And Kirk and Amber.”
It was too late to fling myself out of his car, unfortunately, but I contemplated slugging the guy. Hard.
“You forgot Cat and Jeremy. What’s the matter? You think they can somehow handle me?”
He tilted his head. “Doubtful. But whatever is going on with them isn’t about you. They might think so, but it isn’t.”
“And you know this because—?”
He pulled up in front of my house. Shocking the hell out of me, he turned off the engine and half turned toward me. “I hear everything, and I pay attention.”
I rolled my eyes. “You must’ve heard enough about me, then, to make you faint. No wonder you’re into humanitarian gestures. Maybe you think you can reform me?”
“I wouldn’t even try.” He glanced at my hair, but I couldn’t tell if he wanted to run his hands through it or shave it all off and ship me to a convent for wayward girls. “I hear everything, but I didn’t say I believed it all.”
“Imagine my relief.”
I grabbed the door handle and started to open it—jumping when he reached across to stop me.
I couldn’t help it. I slapped his hand. “Don’t do me any favors, okay? You gave me a ride I didn’t need and saved me from Chelsea, which I also didn’t need. You don’t need to believe me or not believe what other people say about me. So go bug someone else. Like maybe Heather.”
I turned to reach for the door handle again, partly because I wanted to get out of this stupid car and partly because I was two seconds from crying. I refused to cry in front of Zach any more than I would in front of my dad.
He didn’t stop me this time, but he spoke again, so softly I barely heard it. “You’re not as bad as you claim to be, Lydia. It’s just that you’re—”
“—not your type. Too wild. Too whatever.”
I couldn’t believe I’d filled in the blank for him, but I’d heard this speech too many times in my life.
Shoving the door open and climbing out, I didn’t even bother to yank my skirt down. Zach didn’t give a rat’s ass. He probably did like a goody-goody like Heather, just like the other guys. And I wasn’t into guys who played classical music and drove butt-ugly cars just to make their mom happy.
With any luck, I wouldn’t see Zach again. As I heard his car slowly pull away from the curb, I hoped I got my wish.