FRIDAY AFTERNOON, AFTER REHEARSAL, DAD HAS a dinner meeting, so it’s just Mom and me. I didn’t run because of the new icy clip to the early-October air. There hasn’t been a frost yet, which has complicated the situation with the fireflies.
I close a window on the browser with my Common App. My entrance essay is almost done; I’ve got recommendations and a good SAT score. I hope it will get to the important part—an audition, a familiar voice whispers. I walk outside to the patio. The icy air hits me immediately. My peach-colored figures have tattooed me for so long, I forget they are there. But with the red-and-brown leaves and the twilight creeping across the sky, they stand out to me this evening.
I turn my arms so I can see the branches curling around them. I thought they would disappear, evaporate, or fade entirely like the doctors said, but like the fireflies, they have lingered long after their expiration date.
It’s supposed to snow tonight. Maybe the season for fireflies is ending.
They roam by the thousands, hanging on branches and coating walls of buildings, but I don’t want them to go. The forecast is calling for three to six inches of snow. It’s hard to imagine that, given how warm it’s been all fall, and the bright purple-and-blue flowers of Mom’s hydrangeas that are still in bloom.
Downstairs, Mom’s assistant from work is droning on and on about the infamous Cenberry wedding that Mom will plan for this upcoming spring. I need to eat something before I get ready to go to Tank’s party. As I head downstairs, my phone chimes for the nine millionth time.
MAY: Do I wear pants?
ME: Please. Always wear pants.
MAY: I hate you.
ME: Just wear something you like!
As I make it down to the kitchen I hear a high-pitched, nasally laugh. Oh god. I completely forgot how much I hate Laney’s voice.
“Penny?” Mom calls. “Is that you?”
She is way too happy that I am downstairs. It’s never a good sign when she’s cheery like that.
“Hi, Penny!” Laney’s voice echoes from the living room.
“Hi!” I call back as sweetly as I can. Mom comes into the kitchen and she looks great. She’s blown out her hair and is wearing a bright blue sweater. It’s the same style as the one she wore the day I woke up in the hospital, but a different color.
I do a quick sweep for wine bottles, but don’t see any.
Laney busts into the kitchen—all fake boobs and frosted hair.
“Your mom told me you got a role in the play. Alice Berne is back and so is her famous daughter? What is the wonder drug this family is taking and where can I get it?” She pretends to look through my pockets.
How do people even talk like this? Laney grabs a chilled bottle of white wine from the fridge, untwists the top, and fills a glass for herself. Why would Laney drink around Mom? She knows Mom went to rehab.
Mom pours herself a glass. “One won’t hurt,” she says. But we both know she’s never been able to stop at just one.
“Well, Penny didn’t tell me anything about the role or that she even tried out,” Mom says. As she places the wine bottle on the counter, I see that it is the same brand from my memory.
“So, what’s the play about?” Laney asks me. I blink away my fragmented memory.
“It’s Shakespeare,” I finally say, through all my confused thoughts. “Hey, Mom?” I work up the courage to say. “Do you really think you should be drinking?”
“I’m in my own house. I can do whatever I want,” she says. Laney looks back and forth between Mom and me. I see her in my mind, lying in the grass, and remember the humiliation that poured over me again and again.
“You know I’m feeling good, I can control myself,” Mom justifies to Laney, but I notice that within moments of Mom’s excuses Laney is placing her wallet and tablet back into her purse. I’m already embarrassed for Mom.
Mom downs the glass and I realize, when she sways a little on her way to pour another, this is the second bottle. There is a smaller half bottle on its side in the sink that I didn’t notice at first. She’s a little woozy, but not toasted completely.
“Mom. You’ve had too much,” I say.
Laney now has her purse over her shoulder and is getting ready to leave. As usual, I’m going to be left to pick up the pieces.
“You’re the child. I’m the mother,” Mom yells, pointing her finger at me. Laney moves to the door.
“Let’s touch base about the seating chart in the morning. How does that sound?” Laney chirps.
“You have to go?” Mom says in a sweet tone. Laney hugs Mom and then me, but I want to strangle this woman for breaking out the wine when there is so much at stake.
Once Laney leaves, I snatch the bottle from the table in the living room and place it on the kitchen counter. Mom follows behind and grabs it.
“Why are you doing this again?” she says.
“Again?”
She holds on to the bottle tight.
“It’s too much!” I cry. “Dad already took you to rehab once.”
Mom bangs the bottle on the table and I’m surprised it doesn’t crack.
“It’s always like this with you, Penny.”
“Like what?” I say, and reach a trembling hand up to the wall, but for the first time in so long, I feel a sharp squeeze in the center of my palm, threating to draw my fingers together the way it used to. I stretch my fingers wide, so wide it makes the webbing pinch.
She gets up from the table and her hard footsteps land on the floor. Where is Dad? I check the clock—he should be home by eight or so but it’s just four thirty. Some wine falls onto the carpet as Mom stomps away from me and up the stairs toward her bedroom. I follow.
“Mom, stop it. We have to talk about this!”
She tries to slam the bedroom door closed on me, but I catch it in time and kick it open so it bangs against the wall behind it. I take the glass out of her hand and she tries to grab it, scratching at the air. “Mom! You can’t drink! What about your job? Or rehab? It isn’t good for you!”
“It’s your fault I went to rehab!”
I put the glass down on the dresser, hard. I want to shove all the jewelry off the table. I want to smack the papers so they scatter away.
“Stop saying that!” I cry, and I sound so foolish but I can’t find the words. “You drink too much!” Her drunken, slackened mouth disgusts me.
She gets up, moving across the room to get the glass. I should know better. I know better than to follow her and continue this argument. But she needs to hear me. I am going to make her hear me, finally. I won’t keep it bottled up inside anymore.
“Listen to me!” I cry. “Do you hear me? You almost lost your business!”
Mom spins and points her finger at me. “Oh no you don’t!” she yells. “Don’t blame this on me!”
Her face is scrunched up and it’s too familiar. I am tight all over, waiting for what could come next, afraid that for the first time in weeks I’m going to have a spasm in my hand.
“You have to stop!” I cry. “For me!”
“I haven’t had that much to drink. I don’t have to take this from you,” she says. Her voice rises to a shriek. “I’m the mother!”
“Just because you gave birth to me doesn’t mean I can’t tell you how I feel,” I scream back.
“I will not let you do this,” she says. “You always have to make everything about you. Why do you think I deal with this the way I do? It just never stops!”
I snatch the glass and throw it to the ground so it cracks in half against the hardwood floor. Wine spills across the floorboards.
“Look what you did!” she cries. “You selfish little shit. This is all your fault!”
Memories that were fragmented like kaleidoscopes burst into thousands of colors, smells, washing out the room and making it explode.
I am the shards of glass. I am the fractals of frost peppering the window. I am firewood split through the center. I back away from Mom.
She runs to get more wine downstairs. I sink down to the floor, next to the shards of broken glass.
I can’t catch my breath. My ears are ringing. I am in the center of that room in my mind, the shades are up and the light pours in, and the fireflies are nowhere to be seen.
I close my eyes as the memory of that night finally comes, unbidden and unwanted. I know why I quit the play. I know why I pushed my friends away. I know why Kylie saved me.
I remember.
I can’t stop shaking. In my bedroom, I sit on the floor, reach under the bed, and slide out Wes’s planetarium. A year ago, I slid it under the bed so I wouldn’t have to see it every day—so I wouldn’t have to be reminded of Wes’s unrelenting kindness. So I wouldn’t know what I was missing.
I want to be in the pitch dark for this, but the icy air and fireflies outside cast my room in a hazy light.
With a click, I turn it on and the constellations align on my ceiling. I feel my memory settling in the center of my brain and I see the last year so clearly in my mind, like a movie. I watch myself with Kylie and May . . . and Wes. The stars move slowly about the room and my mind churns with all the history I had forgotten.
Mom blames me for everything. Her depression, her drinking—all of it.
There was a time in my life when I guess I let that control me. When I became who Mom wanted me to be. But I’m not that girl anymore.
My cell chimes.
MAY: I’ll be there in 10!
I swallow hard, running through the events of the night I quit the play. Mom and I had a fight, I quit, and Dad took her to rehab. Something happened in between. But what? Even though I have remembered so much—there is one small piece missing. One small moment. I knew it.
There is a chime on my cell.
I open my eyes.
MAY: What are you wearing?
I turn off the planetarium so the room goes back to normal. I get off the floor and paint my face with makeup and find my old armor—the designer jeans, the leather bomber. I check my reflection. I look strong. I look like Kylie.
I get it now.
Mom is in her room sleeping it off when I leave.
“What’s up?” May asks as I slide into the passenger seat of her car.
“Nothing,” I say with a smile. “Excited.”
The memory from the night of that party with May taunts me:
“Some people weren’t invited!” Kylie cackles and the music changes to a dance song. I take Kylie’s hand in mine. We dance our way to the middle of the room. I make a spectacle just to show May how much I have changed—that I am not going back to theater.
May and I pull into the party and park next to Panda’s car. May is going on and on about the size of the house and I loop my arm through hers because now that I remember, now that I know how much I hurt her, I have no idea how to make it up to her. In the reflection of Tank’s door, the blue asterisk pin catches my eye. I need to tell May.
“Don’t say anything when we get inside. I need some time. But . . .”
May drops her hand from the doorknob. “What?” she asks.
She waits, letting me find the words.
“I got most of my memory back tonight,” I confess.
“Oh my god!” She jumps up and down and I want her to think I’m happy too so I hug her first so I don’t have to look her in the eye.
“Please don’t say anything yet. I’ll fill everyone in over the next few days,” I say once I pull away.
“Totally,” she says, and pretends to zip her lips. She squeezes me as we walk inside.
“If you say you’re proud of me for being up-front, I’ll stab you with my asterisk pin.”
She laughs as the crowd and the music of the party overwhelm the room. I have to be cool and pretend that I don’t know that Alex James showed me his junk on the tennis courts, but is now making out with Eve on the couch. Lila dances with Panda and Richard in the center of the room and I don’t want to let them know yet that I am sorry for all of the times I kept the conversation superficial and missed out on their friendship. Panda, Richard, even Lila.
This is all your fault.
In some ways, Mom is right. I can leave a damaging wake. Look how much sadness I caused to all of my friends.
“Is Wes here?” May asks. I check my cell to see if he’s responded to a text I sent him this afternoon.
ME: You are coming to Tank’s party right?
“I don’t know. He hasn’t written me back yet.”
I look at the little time stamp on the text. At 3:15, I didn’t remember anything about the last year and then at 4:12, I was sitting on the floor with the planetarium swirling around my room.
“Penny!” Tank cries. He comes out from the kitchen with Kylie riding on his back. She jumps down and hugs me. I inhale her familiar rose perfume and when I pull away I use my hand and pretend it’s a microphone. I hold it up to Tank’s mouth for an “interview.”
“Tell me, Tank. How does it feel to have the key cast members from this year’s Midsummer Night’s Dream here at your party.”
Kylie smiles bigger than I’ve seen her smile in weeks.
I hold the microphone under his mouth. “Well, Richard Lewis has made me feel like a tool because I’ve realized I can’t dance.”
“No, you can’t!” Richard cries from the kitchen where he and Panda are reenacting a scene from the play for some of the people in there. I can tell it’s from a scene where Bottom has been changed into a donkey. Tank lifts me up and hugs me and when he puts me down says, “It’s good to have you back, Berne.”
I glance back at my friends in the kitchen. May has joined Richard and Panda. I check my cell once more for Wes, but there’s nothing. Over their heads, I see a glass door looking out to the patio and backyard. I want to go down to the pool. I can’t even explain why, but I want to go to the site where I nearly lost my life.
“I’m just gonna go down to the pool a second,” I say, and rezip my leather bomber jacket.
“The scene of the crime,” Tank says. “Don’t get struck by lightning,” he calls when I’m by the door.
May gestures silently, asking me if I want company outside. I shake my head. “I need a second,” I say. She nods and I walk down the stairs to the pool. I check for the snow but it hasn’t started yet. Instead, the fireflies in the trees light my way.
When I get to the edge of the pool, it’s covered up in a blue tarp for the season. I close my eyes and let the tips of my sneakers hang over the edge. The wind throws my hair around. I push my sleeves up because I want the vines exposed.
Someone call an ambulance!
If I let my mind go, I can replay much of the strike.
But someone squeezes my right hand gently.
Kylie’s expression is warm. I can tell from the glint in her eye that she absolutely knows. She lifts one eyebrow, waiting for me to tell her the truth.
“Since earlier tonight,” I say without her needing to ask. “How did you know?”
“Oh come on. Holding a microphone up to Tank. Asking how he feels about the Midsummer cast being at his party? Classic Penny Berne. You’re back, babe.” She laughs. “My number one bitch.”
I laugh. “I missed you, Ky.”
“I missed you too!”
We watch the hovering fireflies a moment and when I look up to find the stars, it’s cloudy up in the sky. “Why so glum?” Kylie asks. “Didn’t you get everything you wanted?”
“Not quite. There’s still something I feel like I’m missing.”
Kylie thinks it over and digs her hands deeper into her parka. I like the fur trim of the hood and think that it would be fun to go shopping together. Maybe she can help me figure out a look that’s all mine—not just copying hers. I think I’ll always find Kylie the most fashionable girl I know.
She keeps thinking over what I’ve said.
“What?” I say.
“Well, something must have happened, right? Something must have triggered it. You didn’t get your memory back when you were just eating a bowl of cereal or something.”
Why must you make my life so difficult! You wonder why I need to cope this way! Who can live like this?
“Well, my mom and I had a really big fight and she said something super fucked-up—shocker—and then I remembered.” There’s a beat of silence and I add, “I think she needs rehab again.”
“What did she say?” Kylie asks. “What was the fucked-up thing?”
“That I’m the reason she drinks. That I make her depressed.”
“God, what is wrong with people!” Kylie cries. She’s about to go off on one of her rants. “It’s like when people said, ‘Penny is so different now that she hangs out with you, Kylie. You make her act like a different person.’ You can’t make anyone do anything. You wanted to change.” She pulls back, reading something from my expression. “You believe her? I can see it in your face.”
I’m too ashamed to admit it.
“Did you pour the liquid down her throat? Did you force her to drink? Did you demand it?”
“No.”
“Did you go into her brain and change her serotonin levels?”
“Um, no.”
“You can’t make anyone do anything. It’s not your fault.”
A surge of love for Kylie shoots through me and I grab her hand again and hold on tight. She’s right. I never thought about it like that—never thought about what kind of control I actually had. Mom chose to drink. Mom chose to blame me instead of blame herself. Kylie and I stay at the edge of the pool like that for a minute or two and she turns to me and says, “I’ll miss the fireflies, won’t you?”
I nod and say, “Yeah, but they’re done here. They’ve moved on to someone else.”
She smirks at me and says, “Yes, they have, because you’re all lit up inside.”
I shove her and laugh. There’s a flicker of lightning deep in the clouds. It’s not dangerous, but it’s high up, near the atmosphere. We both point to the sky at the exact moment. I love that we’re both still wearing our matching rings.
There’s a crackle of thunder in the air, and a few snowflakes begin to fall softly around us. “Cool! Thunder snow!” Kylie says just as a crash of thunder booms in the sky. I step back, a white bursting light explodes in my eyes, as blue and hot as the day I was struck.
I grip onto Kylie’s shoulder as she lifts up her palm to catch the first flakes lightly floating down from the sky. My whole body shakes.
One last memory falls into place. The one I’ve been hoping for.
Wes and I are at the marina, at our dock.
“I haven’t wanted to be friends for a long time,” he says. And suddenly, I know what I want. And I know who I am.
“Kylie. I gotta go. Tell May.”
“Go? Go where?”
I smile big and turn to run around the side of Tank’s massive house.
“Go get him!” Kylie calls.
But I barely hear her—I’m already taking off.