The next day I stay in bed until two o’clock. Mom knocks on my door a few times, but I just groan and roll over. She seems to know to stay away. She leaves me a tray of food, but eating feels like a luxury. Something I don’t deserve. I sit by the window and watch the few leaves left on the trees as they spin and thrash in the wind and finally float down to the street below.
Just as the afternoon begins to turn blue, the phone rings, and Anne comes into my room.
“Guess who that was,” she says.
I don’t answer. I don’t want to know.
“Dana. She’s coming to pick you up.”
I groan. “I’m not going anywhere,” I say.
“I told her you hadn’t left your room all day. She said she’s coming to get you.” Anne looks amused. “I guess she thinks she can help.” She snorts.
“She’s not that bad, Anne.”
“Maybe not to you.”
“Oh, right,” I say. “What has she done to you?”
“Nothing much,” Anne says. “Just stole Dad away from this family.”
I stand and grab my jeans from the floor.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I say. “Dad didn’t leave just to get with Dana.”
“Oh no?” she says. Her voice is high pitched and ugly. Her face is red like it gets before she might cry. “Then why did he leave?”
“Unlike you,” I say, “he had enough of Mom.”
Anne walks away. She doesn’t want to go near this conversation with me again. The truth is, I don’t either. Dad didn’t handle himself any better than Mom. It’s just been my job to carry his weight since he left.
“You’re lucky Mom’s at the store,” Anne calls from the hallway.
“She’s got to face reality eventually,” I yell back. “Now’s as good a time as any.”
I change into jeans. I put my hair in a ponytail. Now I’m extra glad Dana’s coming to get me out of here. Thank you, Anne.
Dana doesn’t say much once I’m in her Jetta. She just smiles and drives.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
After a bit we park in front of an old warehouse. I follow her inside. People mill about with wine glasses. A table is set up with platters of cheeses and olives. On the walls, framed photos hang, each lit up by an individual light that fans down from the ceiling. Dana’s taken me to a gallery.
“My friend’s opening night,” Dana says, her arms spread wide, gesturing to the large industrial space. “She’s a photographer.”
“Oh,” I say. I’m genuinely surprised.
“Dana.” A woman Mom’s age approaches. “You came.”
She and Dana hug. “I wouldn’t have missed it,” Dana says. “And I brought a friend.”
She introduces us, never hinting I’m Dad’s daughter. Just her friend. Something about that feels nice.
“Jessica’s a photographer too,” she says.
“I’m just starting,” I say apologetically. “I’ve never had a show.”
“You might, though,” Dana says. “If you win the contest.”
Her friend encourages us to look at her work, and we do. I move from one to the next, taking them in. Her subject is paper. Crumpled paper, blank paper, paper written upon, torn paper, wet paper. Each one holds rich emotion: sadness, emptiness, hope, loss. Who knew so much lived inside something as mundane as paper? Artists can find meaning in the most unlikely places. I am very impressed.
Driving home, I realize my mood has lifted. In the time we were at the opening, I forgot how bad I was feeling. I turn to Dana.
“You don’t have to be nice to me to get me to like you,” I say.
Dana knits her brow. She glances at me. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“What are you doing, then?” I say.
“I took you to the opening because I thought you’d like it,” she says.
“I did,” I say. “A lot. It’s just …” I take a breath. “We both know I haven’t been the kindest person to you. To anyone, for that matter.”
“You mean the comment about the kind of girls your dad likes?” She laughs.
“Among other things,” I say.
“That didn’t bother me in the least.”
I watch out the window as we pass storefronts. The darkness zips past. “I wish I could just be like everybody else and accept the way things are.”
I can feel Dana look at me again. “You can’t,” she says. “You see things too clearly.”
I turn to look at her. Her profile is lovely. I can see more and more why Dad loves her. “I do?”
“It’s an artist’s curse,” she says. She smiles. I get it. She has it too.
“Nobody else can stand it,” I say quietly. I close my eyes, hoping she knows what I mean.
“Give it time,” she says. “People come around.”
The following week I come home to the familiar prattle from the living room. Mom’s book group. This time I slip up the stairs. I don’t want a repeat of last time.
The phone rings, and I pick it up.
“I have to be with you,” Ted says. I swallow something hard in my throat and close my door.
“I can’t,” I tell him. I sit on my bed. Laughter erupts from downstairs.
“Why not?” he asks. “We were good together.”
I rub at a hole in my jeans. “No,” I say. “We weren’t.” I can’t tell him the real reason. That I’m only fourteen, too young for what happened.
“You understood me,” he says. He sounds sad and defeated. An old balloon. I can’t even remember what I found attractive about him.
“There are plenty of girls out there,” I say.
“Not like you.”
I bite my lip.
“You can’t keep calling me,” I say. “Or coming around.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“It’s over,” I say.
“You’re breaking my heart,” he says. His voice cracks.
“You don’t even know me.” I wish I could tell him. Now would be the time. But I’m too scared of the consequences, of what he might say.
“Please,” he says.
“I have to go,” I say.
“Don’t,” he says, and I hang up.
I lie on my bed, looking up at the ceiling. His need hangs around me in the air like cobwebs. So does my lie, my frustration with myself for what I’ve done. If I could somehow capture it on camera, the desperation and longing, the regret and confusion, all the feelings strung together, I would have my photo for the contest.
When I come home from school the next day, Anne is watching TV in the family room.
“Didn’t you go to school?” I ask.
She doesn’t turn from the TV. It’s a soap opera. Anne never watches TV. She’s always reading.
“Who are you?” I say. “And what did you do with my sister?”
Anne just shrugs.
“Anne,” I say. “Answer me. What’s going on?”
“The answer is no,” she says. “I didn’t go to school.” She glances at me quickly, then back at the TV. “Are you happy now?”
“No,” I say. I stare at her, disbelieving.
“You seemed content before to make assumptions about how I was spending my time,” she says sharply.
She’s right. But this I didn’t see coming. Not from miles away. I have to laugh. “How could you not go to school? You, Miss Perfect Daughter?”
Anne smiles a little.
“Oh, my God,” I say. “You did something bad.”
She still says nothing.
“You’re killing me here,” I say. I throw my bag on the floor, plop down on the couch beside her, and grab her arm. “Speak!”
She looks at me, that little smile still there.
“I spent the day with a boy,” she says in a quiet voice.
“You?”
“Don’t look so surprised.”
“Who?”
“A boy in school. We’ve been talking for a few months, and we decided to go to the planetarium instead of going to school.” She giggles. I haven’t seen her giggle in ages. “It was fun. I’ve never cut school before.”
“Anne,” I say. I’m still grasping her arm. This is Anne, the queen of all that’s right and good. This is so unlike her. I don’t know what to say. All this time I’ve been telling her to get her own life.
“He’s really nice,” she says.
I sit there, dumbfounded.
“What does he look like?”
“I don’t know. He’s okay, I guess. I haven’t thought about it much. He’s nice to me, and he’s fun to be around. That’s what I care about.”
She nudges me, and says, “What?” She wants me to say something.
“Nothing,” I say. “I’m just happy for you.” Which is true. “What does Mom think?” I ask.
“I haven’t told her yet,” she says.
“Really?” Another surprise. I figured Mom was her best friend, like Elisabeth and Deb.
Anne shrugs again. “I wanted to keep this for myself,” she says. She looks at me. “You know what I mean?”
“I do,” I tell her, knowing exactly what she means. She looks back at the TV. I can’t help but sneak glances at her. A sinking feeling sits at the bottom of my belly. All this time Anne’s the one who figured out how to be loved. Dana was wrong about me. I don’t see things clearly at all. I see what I want to see.
• • •
Dana and Dad walk hand in hand through the empty house. A rectangle of sunshine slants through a floor-to-ceiling window onto polished wood floors.
“It’s perfect,” Dana whispers.
They have taken Anne and me to the house they are considering buying. We stand by the wall, feeling like third wheels. Mom once told us about when she and Dad bought their first house, just after they were married. They found it through Mom’s cousin, a realtor who had introduced Mom and Dad. He had gone to college with Dad. Mom said the house was small, but they called it their love shack. Anne was already forming inside Mom then, though they didn’t know it. Now here’s Dad with someone else. It’s a wonder he can do it again without being jaded.
“It’s a four-bedroom,” Dad says. “Are you sure it’s big enough?”
“The master, one for Anne, and one for Jessica.” Dana smiles at him. “And one for one more.”
Anne and I look at each other, surprised.
“A baby?” she whispers. We never even thought of that.
“I guess,” I whisper back. I imagine a new, perfect little person. Nothing weighing her down. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.”
Anne looks doubtful. “Mom would freak,” she says.
I sigh. She’s still so attached to Mom’s feelings, I don’t say anything, though. I look at her differently now that I know she has a boyfriend. My high horse has lowered considerably since I found out.
“Should we put a bid on it?” Dad asks.
Dana nods, the smile still on her face. She turns to look at Anne and me.
“I want to show you something,” she says, and motions for me to follow. We go past the kitchen and downstairs to the basement. It is concrete and damp, like any other basement. It smells like mold. I don’t understand why she’s so eager to show me this. Then she opens a sea green door. A small room the size of a walk-in closet is on the other side. Shelves line the wall.
“A pantry,” I say, confused.
“Now it’s a pantry,” Dana says. “I was thinking it could be a darkroom in a few months.”
I cover my mouth, then my eyes. I don’t want Dana to see me cry.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say once I’ve gathered myself.
“And you don’t have to keep telling me you don’t have to’ whenever I do things for you.”
I look around the room, imagining it red-lit and smelling of chemicals. I imagine myself in there, watching pictures take shape. Nobody’s ever done anything this nice for me.
Dad and Anne come down the stairs. Dad lowers his head to clear the ceiling over the stairs. He meets my eyes and grins.
“You found out Dana’s surprise?”
I nod, and Dana moves into Dad’s extended arm. For the first time I don’t feel uncomfortable as they kiss. Maybe it’s because Dana isn’t just the woman Dad left Mom for anymore. She’s not some dirty secret, which is what I used to think. As we climb the stairs, I feel hopeful, like I can leave behind the Jessica who did too much with boys. Start again in this new house. Funny how things change. Suddenly I’m the one with something shameful to hide.