Infinite in Between (7 page)

JAKE JIGGLED ONE
leg over the other. Christmas Eve mass was taking a million years. His family wasn't even really Catholic. His mom had grown up Jewish. His dad was Dominican and called himself a Christmas-and-Easter Catholic because those were the only times he dragged them to church.

Finally,
finally
, it was over and they got into the car. As his mom pulled out of the parking lot, Violet moaned that her tights were itchy. His little sister was always freaking out about tags and seams and elastic that was too tight.

“I want to take them off,” she cried.

“Just wait until we're home,” his dad called from the front.

“No!” Violet wriggled onto her side and began stripping in her seat.

Jake shifted around the backseat. He couldn't sit still either. Deciding to tell his parents had taken a year. Now he just wanted it over with.

Christmas Eve took another million years. His family had all these quirky holiday traditions like making homemade waffles and saying
what they were grateful for and dancing to the Chipmunks as they hung their stockings on the mantel.

Jake used to be embarrassed by his parents, but not anymore. The way he saw it, his family was weird in a cool way. His mom wrote books about mythological creatures, and his dad illustrated them. People couldn't believe that was what they did for their actual jobs. Jake's little sister was eight. She was a chess genius and probably a regular genius too. Jake had always been the normal one in the family, with his friends and his football and his all-American blond hair.

But then things changed last spring, and Jake didn't feel so normal anymore. That was what he was sick of keeping inside.

“I don't get it,” Jake said to his mom when his dad finally brought Violet up to bed. They were sitting at the kitchen table, wrapping stocking stuffers. “Everyone says she's brilliant, but she still believes in Santa Claus?”

Jake's mom rolled green tissue paper around a tube of peppermint ChapStick. “You believed in Santa for a long time too.”

“No, I didn't.” Jake began wrapping a purple pencil sharpener. “You and Santa had the same handwriting.”

She laughed. “Guilty as charged.”

“Who's guilty?” Jake's dad pulled a beer out of the fridge and joined them at the table.

Jake's mind went blank. After hours of waiting, there was nothing stopping him now.

“What would you think—?” he said really fast. He couldn't figure out how to finish that sentence.

Jake's dad tilted the beer into his mouth. His mom ran her finger
along a strip of tape. They had no clue what he was about to say.

“What would you think if I told you something about me?” Jake asked.

His mom shot a look at his dad, who set his beer on the table. Then, after a second, he passed the beer to Jake. Jake shook his head. He was too nervous to swallow.

“The thing is . . .” Jake rapped his knuckles on the wooden table. “I might like boys instead of girls.”

There it was. Jake's heart was pounding. His underarms were moist.

“We'd say”—Jake's mom took his hands—“that we're glad you feel comfortable telling us.”

“Enough bullshit!” Jake's dad pounded his fist on the table so hard, the bottle rattled. “We'd say it's about time you figured that out. Now maybe you can look happy again.”

He wrapped Jake in a hug, squeezing him tight. Jake's mom put her arms around both of them.

The next morning, after Jake had opened his sketchpad and oil paints and a navy blue hoodie, and Violet was building her new Lego set, Jake's mom handed him a large gift that had been sitting in his dad's lap. It was wrapped in green tissue paper.

Jake ripped it open. Inside was a stash of YA novels. He skimmed the titles, pausing to read the inside flaps.
Boy Meets Boy
.
Geography Club
.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
.

“You've given me gay lit,” he said quietly.

Jake's parents were smiling and wiping back tears.

Jake was confused. “But I just told you last night.”

“We've had the books since last year,” Jake's mom said. “We've read them all.”

“We were waiting to give them to you until you told us,” his dad said.

“Modeh ani,”
Jake said to his parents. That was a Hebrew expression of gratitude.
“Gracias
.”

“De nada,”
Jake's dad said.

“You're welcome,” Jake's mom said.

ON NEW YEAR'S
Eve, Gregor and his parents and sister were at Nana Margaret's house. They went every year and ate pound cake and put on a cello-violin duet. Tonight they were also planning to watch
One Precious
because it had the most classic New Year's scene ever.

Just as they were getting ready to start the movie, the doorbell rang. It was Erica's lame boyfriend. According to Erica, Russell was taking her out for pancakes. Gregor's dad went to the door. Her mom was in the kitchen with Nana Margaret.

Gregor curled his fingers into quote signs. “I wonder what ‘pancakes' actually means.”

“What do you know?” Erica huffed, shoving her violin into its case. She looked into the oak-framed mirror in the living room, adjusting her reddish-brown hair behind her ear. In Gregor's opinion, she had way too much makeup on.

The front door opened. They could hear Gregor's dad say, “I hear you're taking Erica for pancakes.”

Gregor snorted. He couldn't help it. Russell was a dick. Someone had to give Erica a hard time about it.

“Screw you,” Erica said. She slid on even more lipstick and skipped out to the foyer.

Gregor meandered after her.

“Yes, sir,” Russell was saying. He was wearing dark jeans and a black leather jacket, his hair slicked back with gel. “I'll have Erica home right after midnight.”

“Be home at twelve fifteen,” Gregor's dad said. “The clock strikes, and you get into the car. I hope you're not planning to drink because—”

“God,”
Erica said, wriggling into her coat and slipping past their dad. “We're not stupid.”

“And you'll remember to drive safely, Russ? You know that this is the worst night to be on the road.”

“Russ
ell
,” Erica said.

“Yes, sir,” Russell said again. When he smiled, his teeth were clenched and a muscle in his jaw was twitching.

This was awesome. Gregor was loving it.

“When's the last time you had your truck serviced?” Gregor's dad asked Russell.

“Dad!” Erica cried. The tip of her nose was getting red, which was what happened before she lost her temper.

“Charlie?” Gregor's mom said, coming into the foyer and touching his arm. “Don't you think we should let them go?”

With that, Erica and Russell took off down the driveway.

“Doesn't Julia Roberts' daughter go to your school now?” Nana Margaret asked, steadying herself on the edge of the couch. They'd just paused
One Precious
so she could use the bathroom.

“That's not Julia Roberts in this movie, Mom,” his dad said. “It's Sierra Laybourne.”

“And yeah,” Gregor said. He felt around in his pocket for the tiny scrap of paper he'd tucked in there, touching it with his fingers. “Her daughter goes to my school. Her name is Zoe.”

“Have you asked her out yet?” Nana Margaret walked slowly toward the bathroom, holding the wall to support herself. “I'm sure Julia Roberts has a beautiful daughter.”

Gregor saw his dad glance at his mom. Recently they'd all been noticing that Nana Margaret was forgetting things and mixing up words.

Gregor slipped into Nana Margaret's room. It smelled like baby powder, and she had faded floral sheets with ruffles on the pillowcases. When Gregor and Erica were younger, they would sleep over here. The three of them would pile into her bed and watch romantic comedies until midnight. As always, there was a landline on Nana Margaret's nightstand. Gregor pulled the paper out of his pocket. It was Whitney Montaine's home phone number, listed under
Clark Montaine
. He'd found it in an old phone book in Nana Margaret's pantry, when she'd sent him searching for canned cherries for the pound cake.

He sat on the edge of the bed and dialed the number.

After several rings, a girl asked, “Hello?”

Gregor's mouth went dry as he thought of all the things he'd like to say to Whitney.

Instead he hung up.

Maybe next year.

“HELLO?” WHITNEY SAID
into the phone for a second time.

She'd been stepping into the car when they heard the phone ring. Her dad was driving her and Kyra and Laurel over to her mom's house. That was where they were sleeping for New Year's Eve. Her dad had sent her inside to answer the phone because he said no one called the landline anymore, so maybe it was an emergency.

It sounded like the person on the other line had hung up. Whitney set the phone down and walked out to the car.

“Wrong number,” she told her dad as she opened the passenger door.

Just at that second there was a loud crash at the end of the driveway, metal on metal, glass shattering. Whitney and her friends screamed.

“Stay here,” Whitney's dad said. He grabbed his phone from the drink console and ran out into the dark.

“Do you think he's calling 911?” Laurel asked.

“I guess,” Whitney said, hugging her knees in the front seat. She hadn't even closed her door yet. It was freezing out, but she was too scared to move.

“Do you realize,” Kyra whispered, “that if you hadn't gone inside to get that phone call
we
could have been hit?”

Whitney gasped. “Oh my god. That wrong number person saved our lives.”

“That's so true,” Laurel said.

“We could have died,” Kyra said.

There was shouting down in the street. Whitney could hear her dad's voice, but she couldn't tell what he was saying. She was trembling all over.

A minute later sirens wailed in the distance. Whitney pulled her door shut and then turned and took her friends' hands. They sat in the dark holding hands as the sirens got closer and closer.

ZOE STARTED TO
dial 911 but then hung up. Even though Max hadn't specifically mentioned it, she guessed that calling 911 on her mom was off-limits. She tried Max again. He hadn't picked up the other four times she'd called tonight.

“Please answer,” she whispered into the phone. “Please, please, please.”

The call went straight to voice mail. Zoe's lungs felt icy. It was almost midnight on New Year's Eve, and her mom might be dying. Or maybe she wasn't, but how was Zoe supposed to figure that out?

Her mom had been in her room since eight. At first Zoe thought she was resting, but when she didn't come downstairs for the movie they were supposed to watch, Zoe went to wake her up. She found her mom passed out on her bed with drool trickling out of her mouth. Her blond hair was tangled, and it looked like she was barely breathing.

This had happened once before, back when Zoe was in seventh grade. Actually, Zoe wasn't sure exactly
what
had happened that time because when she'd gotten home from school, her mom was
already at Cedars-Sinai. Later she'd overheard a doctor say it had been a combination of alcohol and sleeping pills. Her mom went into rehab a few days after getting out of the hospital.

Ever since Zoe returned to California last week, her mom seemed a little sad. She'd been talking a lot about how they didn't have family to share the holidays with. This afternoon, Zoe found her crying by the pool. Sierra said she'd been thinking about her parents and missing them.

Zoe scrolled through her phone. These were the moments when she wished she had a father, someone she could always turn to and count on. She saw
Jane Morrison
in her contacts. It was three in the morning on the East Coast, but she called anyway.

“Zoe?” Jane's voice was groggy. “What's wrong, honey? Is everything okay?”

“I think my mom's been drinking,” Zoe said quietly. “I'm not sure if she's even conscious. She may have taken pills, too. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. I shouldn't even be telling anyone this.”

“I'm not anyone,” her aunt said. “Do you know what she took? Or how much? Has this happened before?”

Zoe's hands were shaking as she told her about seventh grade and the private room at the hospital and then rehab.

“I need you to call 911. Tell them exactly what you told me.” Jane was speaking slowly, but her voice was high.

Zoe felt like there was a noose around her neck pulling tighter and tighter.

“Zoe . . . can you do that right now?”

“
Can
I?” Zoe asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Isn't it too public? Wouldn't Max—”

“Call 911,” Jane said. “In the meantime, I'll be on the next plane to LA.”

AFTER WEEKS OF
pleading, Mia finally got her mom to book her an appointment with a dermatologist. Her mom totally didn't believe she had skin cancer on her elbow, but it's not like
she
was the one touching the blackish mole on a daily basis. It had appeared suddenly over Christmas break, and Mia was convinced it was melanoma.

Mia's mom picked her up from school early on the big day. Her beige Volvo still had a brand-new smell that made Mia queasy. As her mom drove, she chewed four pieces of green-tea gum in fifteen minutes, spitting them into a tissue one by one. Mia's mom was a sales director at a pharmaceutical company, and she lived to work. On the drive to the Kirkland Medical Complex, she checked her phone at every light. Mia bit down on the insides of her cheeks, wondering how long it would take to die from skin cancer.

The dermatologist's name was Dean Kimball. It said so in gold letters on the glass door. Mia imagined that he'd look like a Ken doll, muscular and tan with a Trident white smile. His office was full of fliers about laser hair removal. Mia's mom slipped a few pamphlets into her bag just as her phone rang.

“I have to take this call,” she said. “It'll be a while.”

“Aren't you coming in with me?” Mia asked.

Her mom handed her the health insurance card and hurried back out the glass doors.

The woman at the front desk gave Mia a clipboard. There was a form about her skin history that had two outlines of a body, one labeled
front
and the other
back
. The instructions said to put an
X
over areas of concern. Mia considered
X
-ing out the entire picture of the body, front and back. That was how she felt most days, like her body was full of uncertainty. Her boobs had finally started growing, except that the left was coming in bigger than the right. She had some hair under her arms but none down
there
yet.

Mia handed the paperwork to the receptionist and picked up
People
. The cover story was “Sierra Laybourne in Distress.” There was a grainy image of Sierra Laybourne being rushed into the emergency room on New Year's Eve. The article was about how the official cause was dehydration, but anonymous sources said it was an overdose, that she may have spent last fall in a secluded rehab.

Mia had read this online already. People at school were saying that was why Zoe had returned to Hankinson after Christmas break when she'd told people she was moving back to California. Mia wished she could tell Zoe that she hoped everything was okay with her mom, but she was still too intimidated to talk to her.

“Mia Flint?” a woman in pink scrubs asked.

Mia's heart was beating fast as she followed the woman into an examination room.

“Change into this gown, open to the back,” she said to Mia. “Panties on and bra off.”

No one had said anything about stripping down. The mole was on her
elbow
. She wished her mom were here to tell this woman she could stay dressed.

“Any questions?”

“I really have to take my clothes off?” Mia asked quietly.

“How else is the doctor going to examine your skin?”

When the woman walked out, Mia slowly pulled off her jeans and shirt and wrapped herself in the thin green robe. Her boobs looked lopsided, and her legs were dry and stubbly. She wanted to curl into a knot on the paper-covered table and disappear.

A moment later the door opened. The woman was back and this time the doctor was with her.

“I'm Doctor Kimball,” he said, extending his hand. He was short and potbellied with nest of gray hair. At least he wasn't a Ken doll.

Even so, Mia stared at her hands, lacing them tightly in her lap.

“So . . . Mia,” he said, glancing at the computer on his desk. “What brings you here?”

“A mole on my elbow,” Mia whispered. “I want to make sure it's not cancer.”

“Have you been reading books about kids with cancer?”

Mia shrugged. She actually
had
, but what did that have to do with anything?

The doctor laughed. “I'm just playing with you. Have you ever had a dermatological exam before?”

Mia flushed as she shook her head. The woman was reading a chart and didn't even look up.

“Do you have a parent here with you?”

“My mom's on a call,” she said.

“Well, let's have a look.”

Dr. Kimball's hands were cold and smooth as they raced over Mia's back and front, legs and arms. He paused for an extra second at Mia's elbow, shining a bright light on the mole. Mia squeezed her eyes shut. Her stomach felt as sour as curdled milk.

“So,” he said, switching off the light, “everything looks good. That mole isn't going to kill you. You won't end up like a character in a book. You'll get your happily-ever-after, or whatever it is you kids want.”

As he turned to his computer he and the woman laughed like it was a big joke. Like Mia's entire
life
was a big joke.