Heart Thaw (15 page)

“Oh, that kid will be a Toriello through and through,” Trent says with a grin. “
He or she
will speak smartass as a first language, probably right out of the womb. You’ll never escape us, Mrs. J.”

Georgia is leaping over Ella’s head to hug and kiss her brother. “I love you, you big-mouthed smartass. Merry Christmas, little brother.”

Trent pulls her close and closes his eyes when he hugs her. “I love you, even if you are incredibly irritating in every way. Merry Christmas, George.”

Ella smiles at me, winks, and rips the wrapping off her gift. “

Mom!” She gets up and dances around. “A Bettie Page suicide knob!”

She holds it against her cheek and gives her biggest, cheesiest smile, just like she used to when we posed for pictures with our gifts as kids.

“It’s just for decoration. I expect you to drive like the smart girl you are. And please do
not
call it that,” Mom clucks, shuddering.

“Necker knob?” Ella tries with a smile that proves she knows she’s making Mom crazy and doesn’t care at all.

“Just call it a spinner knob and stop giving your mother a heart attack.” Trent laughs when Ella squinches her nose up at him, and I feel that irrational jealousy again.

Not only do I
not
make him laugh, I make him seriously pissed.

“You just wish they made necker knobs for motorcycles,” Ella teases, holding out what looks like a small doorknob with a picture of Betty Page in a skimpy red bikini on it. She looks right at me as she says the next words. “There would be plenty of ladies in the area who’d be super happy if that
was
possible, too. Like that professor you brought to Reggie’s Halloween party.” Ella whistles low and long. “If she wasn’t your girl, I’d totally see if she might like to be recruited by the Lipstick Mafia.”

This time Trent’s the only one who doesn’t laugh. He rakes his fingers through his dark hair and does not look at me. Not even a side-eye glance.

“She was just a co-worker.”

“A professor co-worker?” I ask, and Ella rolls her eyes.

“I love you, Sade, but you need to come out of your tower once in a while and catch up on everyone else’s life.” She points to Trent. “He’s a TA.”

Trent holds up a hand.

“It’s not
actually
a TA position. I’m almost done with my associate’s, and I took an internship. I get a small stipend, and I work at the college. Not the same as an official TA, but I’m doing similar work.”

He turns his head in my direction, but doesn’t raise his eyes.

“That’s amazing.”

I stare at him and wonder what else I don’t know. What else I never bothered to ask.

“Mom would be super proud of you, Trent,” Georgia says, her voice low.

Trent puts his arm around her. “And she’d be over the fucking moon about this baby.”

He and I both know Georgia having a baby is a crazy idea, but their mom really was baby crazy. She would have been happy.

She would have been
happier
if Georgia were with someone who could help and support her and the baby.

But Georgia has us, and Eileen would have realized that.

“Open your present, Trent,” Georgia says as tears roll down her face. “Or I’m going to rip it out of your hands and open it like a maniac for you.”

Trent loosens the paper from his gift and smiles wide at my mother.

“This is some expensive graphite. And this paper? Holy shit. I know how much this costs, Mrs. J. I’m not good enough to waste this expensive stuff on. Not by a long shot. You could have bought the cheap kind.”

Mom shakes her head and blows him a kiss. “Never. Someday something you sketch with those expensive ass pieces of chalk on that crazy priced paper will wind up in a museum, and I’m gonna get my hair done and put on my highest heels and get my picture taken next to it.”

Trent stands up and the paper slides off his lap. He pulls Mom into his arms and lifts her off her glimmering slippers.

“You’re my favorite.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Mom whispers, choked up to hear Eileen’s go-to superlative coming from Trent’s mouth.

“Ma, open yours,” Ella says pointing to the package Trent is crushing between their bodies.

“Let me see.” Mom holds it up to her ear and shakes it. “What could this be?” She opens the box and gasps. “Holy shit! Girls! How much did you pay for these?”

“Money is no object when it comes to you,” Ella says, wrapping her arms around Mom, who’s kicking off her slippers so she can slide her feet into a pair of leopard print pony hair Jimmy Choo pumps that make her at least four inches taller. “Do you like them?”

Mom chokes back a sob, pressing her knuckles her to her lips.

“Girls, I can’t. I know how much these cost, and it’s
obscene
for a pair of shoes. I’d be just as happy with knockoffs.”

“But knockoffs give you blisters. Plus I know a very cute girl who works at a high end shoe store in New York City. I set her up with Monty’s son, and they’re madly, crazily in love.” She clasps her hands under her chin and flutters her eyelashes. “With all that dopamine flying around, she practically begged me to use her employee discount.”

“Mrs. J, you’re gonna be smokin when you wear those to stand next to my sketch in the museum,” Trent points out with a grin.

I feel like an enormous fool because I didn’t have any idea how hard Ella worked to make this happen, and all I did was send a check. Now Mom is hugging us both so hard, her necklaces are digging into my neck, and my nose is crushed against Ella’s temple.

“I love you girls so much,” she warbles, and when Ella points out she also got a spa day package, Mom actually cries for a few noisy minutes.

There are so many hormones flying around, I barely notice that I’m still holding my gift from Mom in my hand. Everyone chants for me to open it, and I do, feeling a cinching low in my gut as I tear the tissue paper away.

“Mom.” I turn it over in my hands. “It’s...it’s so beautiful.” It’s a simple cross pendant on a thin gold chain.

“It was your Aunt Hilary’s.” Mom’s smile wobbles.

There are too many ghosts in this living room this morning.

“You should keep it. She was your sister, Mom,” I say, handing it back.

Mom clucks her tongue and rolls her eyes.

“Do you think I would have given it to you if I wanted it for myself?” She winks at me. “Now, if it was studded with rubies, maybe. But it’s more your taste than mine. Plus that Aunt Hilary was the one who sent you that enormous dictionary for your birthday when you were nine. That’s when you made up your mind to compete in that spelling bee, and then you won, and you just kept going full steam ahead. Hilary always wanted to go to college, but girls just didn’t back then. She’d be proud of you sweetie.”

“Nerd,” Ella coughs into her hand.

“And you!” Mom catches her around the waist and spanks her like she used to when Ella was just a young wild thing instead of an almost grown wild thing. “You got your Aunt Hilary’s rebellious spirit and that’s it. Well,
maybe
that’s it. I think she actually had a thing for the ladies too. We never knew for sure.”

Ella laughs and nuzzles Mom’s neck.

“No Bettie Page necker knob for Aunt Hilary?”

Mom sighs and shakes her head.

“You girls don’t know how lucky you are, able to do what you want how you want. You can live your life exactly how you want to. The world is your damn oyster.”

“And I plan on shucking it!” Ella squeals, raising her eyebrows.

Everyone laughs and Mom distributes kisses, picks up shed tissue paper, and switches on the TV so we can all watch
A Christmas Story
and yell our favorite lines out in unison.

The whole thing would be like a limping but jolly version of Christmases past—Christmases with Eileen—if it wasn’t for Trent’s smoldering gazes and barely concealed fury directed my way.

I try to ignore him, but the house is small and Christmas is the time of year that makes everyone feel like piling on top of each other like puppies. Ella is snuggled between Georgia and Mom, and Trent and I somehow get the loveseat again. We’re sitting stiff-backed, overly careful not to touch. Just when I think I’m going to have to bed a masseuse in exchange for a massage to unknot my shoulders, Mom asks if I can help her in the kitchen.

I’m so relieved to get out of that stuffy living room, I don’t bother asking why she didn’t haul Ella in too. I realize it’s a ruse when she pops open the side kitchen door, fishes a pack of cigarettes out of an empty Christmas tree shaped sugar bowl, and lights up.

“I thought you quit,” I say quietly.

Watching Eileen die was hard on everyone. Though it wasn’t lung cancer, the doctors said her smoking made everything weaker and her last days harder. Mom hadn’t touched a cigarette since. At least that I know of.

But she’s puffing away now, fluffing her hair and looking at me with narrowed eyes.

“You, missy, can mind your damn business,” she says coolly, taking a slow drag. I almost expect her to blow the smoke in my face, but she’s not a monster. Just a highly irritated mother. Who goes directly for the jugular. “What the hell is going on between you and Trent?”

I’ve never told a soul. Never even hinted at it. Trent Toriello has been my carefully guarded dirty little secret.

I should have known better than to think I could hide what we’re doing from Mom. She’s like a freaky oracle.

I open my mouth and close it with a quick snap. I don’t know if I should just stick with honesty or try to backtrack or just blatantly lie...I cling to my aunt’s cross, smooth and cool in my fingers.

“Holy fucking hell, Sadie,” Mom sighs. “That bad, huh?” She shakes her head and peeks over my shoulder to make sure everyone is still laughing along as Ralphie pummels the crap out of Scut Farkus. She leans close and looks frighteningly mean—I definitely did
not
inherit my mother’s ability to intimidate. She could be an interrogator with the FBI, she’s so stone cold. “You listen to me, you hear?”

My mother jabs a festive finger in my face, and, instead of replying with words, I swallow so hard, it’s audible.

“I don’t want to know any details, and I don’t want any trouble from you. Trent Toriello is a good boy. A nice boy. He’s hurting badly right now, and he’s taking comfort in that fact that you’re
finally
noticing the puppy love crush he’s been nursing for a decade. But you and Trent are on different paths right now. I love both of you dearly, but I’m not about to watch you bed hop for a few weeks, then rip this family apart with hurt feelings. I know you, Sadie Sebastiana Jellico. And I know damn well that this is all fun and games for you. It’s
not
for him. And that’s a recipe for disaster and heartbreak. Heartbreak for that boy, and I won’t see it. Not on my watch.” She takes another long drag and shakes her head, her lip just barely curled back. “You end it.
Now
.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I stutter, my face on fire.

And just like that, the decision is made. Problem solved. Case closed. Heart locked tight.

Or panties locked tight, anyway.

She stubs her cigarette out and wraps her arms around me.

“Don’t look at me like I’m the wicked bitch of the east, babe. I just know how sex can seem like it’s a no strings deal. Let me tell you what: it only very rarely is, and that’s usually because the other half took off, so there’s no chance to rope ‘im in. Be careful with all our hearts. Use that big brain of yours.”

Mom smacks a sticky kiss on my forehead and saunters back into the living room.

In her new Jimmy Choos.

Damn she’s badass.

I take a minute in the kitchen to collect my thoughts and decide to tell Trent tonight that we can’t keep doing what we’re doing. That this morning—hot as it was—was a one time deal.

A two time deal, I guess, technically.

But a
last
time deal, definitely.

I need to end it.

Because my mom told me to.

Ugh.

Chapter Nine

“Where are they?” I ask Georgia when I come out to a deserted living room.

Mom has already moved back to the dining room, where she’s gathering up dishes to bring to the kitchen. The movie is still on, but Georgia’s put the volume down.

“Snowball fight,” she says, staring out the window and nodding toward where my sister and her brother are pelting each other with powdery snow balls.

“It’s not good snow for a snowball fight.”

I come to stand next to Georgia and lean my head on her shoulder. She reaches a hand up and smooths my hair down.

“But it’s amazing snow for sledding. Remember when we coasted down Dickerson onto the main highway? We almost got run over by a truck.”

We laugh, even though it was scary as hell and we got crazy spanked by our moms when we got back in.

“Remember how your mother used to make us wear Trent’s old socks as mittens when we lost ours ice skating?”

I look at her and she wrinkles her nose.

“It was like she knew the perfect way to keep us from ever losing our mittens again. Ever.” She laughs softly, and I know that she’s picturing her mother the same way I am, hands on her hips, shaking her curly hair, mouth in a frown, but eyes dancing so you knew she was holding back a laugh. “I miss her so damn much, Sade.”

I pull her closer, breathe the sweet smell of her skin, and kick back the lump that’s scratching at my throat. This is
not
my moment to cry. No matter how much I loved Eileen, no matter how much I miss her, my mother is here. Georgia’s mother is gone forever.

No tears for me.

“I miss her every day, George. And I feel sad she won’t be here when the baby is born. God, she loved babies.”

I laugh, and Georgia joins in, though hers is wet with tears.

“Remember that day she picked that baby up out of the stroller when he was crying?” She shakes her head. “The mom was all freaking out until my mother showed her how to rock him so his colic wouldn't flare up. I think the lady was ready to make Mom his godmother by the end of it.”

“She would have been the most amazing grandma.”

I stop because there’s a really thin line between reminiscing and dredging up painful shit.

Georgia moves closer to the window and leans her forehead on the cold glass, breathing on it until she makes a ring of condensation like her brother did in my car. Instead of a star, she traces a tiny heart in the circle of fog. There’s a metaphor linked up in that, but my head is spinning too fast for me to connect the dots.

I step up to the window and watch Ella do two cartwheels in the snow. Trent winds up and pitches a snowball that looks like it’s going to smack her upside the head, but misses by a quarter inch. I can tell by the way he rocks back on his feet and smiles that he meant for it to miss.

I love that about him. How he plays to play, not to win. Another thing that makes him so different from my previous boyfriends.

I shake my head. I need to stop thinking like that.

Like he’s a current boyfriend. Or a future one.

He’s neither, no questions.

Even my mother, who loves us both, said it would be a stupid idea.

Because it
is
a stupid idea. No matter how damn good he feels in my arms.

“My baby won’t have all this.” Georgia nods out the window, her lips pressed together in a tight line.

“This?” I laugh. “Are you moving to the tropics? Because this is pretty much the land of eternal snow, George. I don’t think your baby will miss out on snowball fi—”

“Not snow,” Georgia interrupts. “Friends so close they’re family.”

“Your baby might make other friends,” I say gently, because she’s damn right. There’s no way I’m getting pregnant anytime soon, and I don’t think Ella or Trent—

Huh. Actually I really don’t know about the two of them. It’s scary how grown up we all are, and how I feel like it’s happening without my really being around for it. I feel constantly surprised and out of the loop. And it sucks.

“Not like this,” Georgia insists. “Not people she’s wrapped around completely. That
I’m
wrapped around completely. We won’t have that.” She snaps her head toward me, her eyes startled wide. “No offense, Sadie. I mean, I have you. I just...you and I won’t be...you know.” She twists her small hands together. “You and I have been growing apart since high school graduation. And now I’ll be knee deep in diapers and pacifiers and Duplo blocks. And you’ll be at college.”

“You guys keep saying that like being in college is living in another country,” I grit out.

“Maybe it just feels that way.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re far away even when you’re here.”

Her words have that soft edge I hate. It makes me feel like she’s trying to protect me, and that’s the last thing I need.

“That makes no sense at all.”

“If you say so.”

Georgia crosses her arms, and I’m left gaping at her. Is she serious? Is this what she thinks?

“I think you’re exaggerating,” I say, my voice cracked. “I could meet a guy at any time. In a month. Next week. Tomorrow. Move back. Settle down.”

“Settle down?
Here
?” She laughs.

“Why is that so damn funny?”

“I wasn’t laughing because it’s funny.” Her voice is tired. “I’m laughing because, at this point, I’m just tired of crying.” She looks at me, blinking back tears. “I miss you, Sadie. And I don’t want you back. It’s the weirdest feeling.”

“You’re being melodramatic,” I accuse, my heart thumping over my words.

“I want you to live the big, amazing life you’ve always dreamed of. Me and Trent and Ella are happy here. But you never were.”

She puts a hand on my shoulder, almost patting me.

Like we’re acquaintances.

Like we never dyed each other’s hair blue in eighth grade.

Like I never dumped a milk carton on Richie Anderson’s head when he called Georgia a slut in ninth.

Like we never shared roller skates, sleeping bags, ice pops, secrets, giggles made extra delirious because they broke out of our mouths at four in the morning after we snuck out Georgia’s bedroom window just to look at the moon and back in just because we wanted to stare at her twinkle lights—our own personal stars.

“Everyone has been so damn weird since I came home. I don’t like it,” I bite out.

“We love you, Sadie. We just know we have to let you go.”

Her eyes are big and shiny. Earnest.

Ugh.

“Stop. Stop it. Did you get that line off the latest
Lifetime
movie? Because it sucks.”

I start for the door, but Georgia grabs me by the elbow.

“Please. Don’t be mad. We love you.
I
love you. But I can’t get too attached again. You’re going to get into a PhD program soon, and it will probably be farther than Kensington, which is too far for me already. I have to make peace with us choosing really different paths. I’m okay with it, I really am. But it fucking hurts.” 

This time she pulls me to her like the best friend she is and always will be.

Always.

“What if I want to stay here?” I challenge.

She cocks one eyebrow. “There’s nothing here for you.”

“I haven’t exactly been fulfilled in college, Georgia.” I look out the window at Trent sliding across the snow. I can’t hear him, but I can tell he’s laughing hard from the way his mouth is so wide open. “Coming home...it made me realize how much I’ve been missing it. Missing everyone. Maybe—maybe I was too quick to run out on all this.”

“Run out?” Georgia laughs again, and this time I can hear for myself that it’s not a happy sound. “You went to college, Sadie. A great college. On a great scholarship. What have the rest of us done that can compare with that?”

I don’t say anything because I really don’t know, and that breaks my heart. I cling to what I do know, the miracle that’s right in front of me—the miracle that’s growing inside her.

“You’re starting a family. How is that any less relevant than a fucking art history degree?” I ask.

“I’m starting a pathetic, lopsided family with a man I don’t love who won’t acknowledge me or this child.” She hugs her arms close to her body. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do or how. I’m happy, I really am. But this is not at all how I planned things. I wanted us to have babies at the same time. I wanted to have what our mothers had.”

“If Ella was straight, she would have probably gotten knocked up by now,” I muse, then clap a hand over my mouth. Damn it! This is George, and I tell her every freaking thing, but I don’t like to talk shit about my sister to anyone. “Sorry. That was shitty. I don’t know—”

“Sadie, are you serious?” Georgia’s laugh almost keeps her from getting the next words out. “Our siblings are, like, one step up from juvenile delinquents, seriously. I know my brother pretended to clean up his act, but c’mon. We know Trent. I wouldn’t be surprised if he already has a baby somewhere he doesn’t know about yet.”

I feel my throat close up.

“You think that?” I squeak out.

“He dated some pretty shady girls when he was a senior. There was that one who bragged about poking holes in condoms. And the one who got caught with the technology teacher after Trent broke up with her.” Georgia shudders. “Mom looked the other way, but his bedroom was pretty much a harem.” She shrugs, and when I don’t answer—because I physically cannot form a single word—she keeps going. “I wonder about the professor Ella mentioned. He’s doing really well in his classes. That would be so awesome. If he got respectable enough to shack up with a quality girl, but stayed Trent enough to have a young, wild family.” She bites her lip to stop a laugh. “Sorry. The pregnancy hormones have definitely shattered the last remnants of any filter between my brain and my mouth.”

“It’s fine,” I say, my heart racing. “So, about Trent—”

“I worry about him,” Georgia interrupts in a whisper. “I know I joke about his delinquency, but he’s soft, Sadie. You know that. And he was always such a mama’s boy. I think he’s taken it harder than me, even. And he just seems...lost. You know? Drifting.”

“Right.” I nod, the acids in my stomach sloshing. “He’ll be okay, George. He’s stronger than we think. Smarter too. I think...I think we might still be seeing him as the teenager he used to be. He’s more responsible than we give him credit for.”

The second I say this, Trent drops his pants and moons my sister. I gasp and turn away as Georgia doubles over, clutching at her stomach and laughing so hard it winds her.

“Oh my God. His ass is as white as the snow,” she chokes out. “What is it you were saying? About how smart and responsible my little pants-dropping brother is? Save your breath, Sadie. I know he’s a complete knuckle head.” She smiles softly. “I love that dope anyway.”

I bite my tongue before I say,
Me too.

I need to change the subject
right freaking now.

“Are you getting a nursery ready or anything? I’ll be around for a while. At least til someone can get me back to campus to pick up my car.”

I’m partially desperate to hide how flustered Trent Toriello’s bare ass made me. But I’m also partially intent on proving that I
am
a good person, not some snob who disappeared to college and doesn’t care about her friends and family anymore.

Georgia looks at me and smiles that same smile she used to flash me before she suggested we raid her mom’s box o’wine or sneak into the boys’ locker room.

“Stay.”

“Stay?” I repeat dumbly.

“Yeah. Stay. Here. Most college kids do for winter break, you know.”

She looks down at her slippers, and I realize that my mother probably got them for her. They’re covered in sequins, which is so my mom’s style.

“I guess I could get someone to sub for me at work. It’s pretty slow on campus this time of year anyway.” I chew my lip. It would be a month. A full month. Not just the week I planned on. “It’s a long time.”

“The community college is running some winter break classes for itchy people like you,” Georgia singsongs. “Stay. If you’re serious about the fact that you might want to actually put down roots here—which I think is crazy and a completely stupid idea—you should see if you can even manage to stay for one tiny month.” She purses her lips. “I have a few bottles of really good wine I obviously can’t drink now. I’ll donate them to your ‘stay home without murdering anyone for a month’ fund.”

“Are you seriously trying to seduce me with wine, woman?” I ask and love the laugh that bursts out of her. This laugh is happy, no question.

“I am. Stay and hang. Go to some classes. Be with all your annoying family and friends. I still think you’re going to leave, and I’m
glad
. I mean that. I love you, Sadie, and you don’t belong in this falling down town. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to hold on to you for as long as humanly possible.” She bats her lashes at me.

And I would have stayed for Georgia anyway. As an apology for not being there when she needed me to go with her to her doctor appointments. As an olive branch for all the things I said about Danny, even if she forgave me. Because she needs all of us now that Eileen isn’t here, and maybe she needs her best friend most of all.