My Life Next Door (29 page)

“I don’t know, kid. He sure loves this stuff, though. The other
day this commercial ran for some race in Rhode Island, and Clay’s all over it, calling the office up there to tell them what’s wrong with their message. Maybe it’s his idea of a vacation helping out your ma.” He shoots a look at me, then smirks. “A vacation with a few extra benefits.”

“Would those be from my mom? Or that brunette you talked about?”

Tim folds himself into the driver’s seat, turning the ignition and punching in the lighter simultaneously. “I don’t know what’s up with that. He’s flirty with her, but those Southern guys are like that. He certainly
is
all over your ma.”

Ick. I know this, but don’t want to think about it.

“But luckily it’s not my problem anymore.”

“It doesn’t go away because it’s not your problem.”

“Yes, Mother. Listen, Clay cuts corners and is all about politics. That’s working out just fine for him, Samantha. Why should he change? No incentive. No payback. In my brief shining moments as a political animal, that’s one thing I’ve learned. It’s all about incentive, payback, and how it all looks. Being a politician is a lot like being an alcoholic in denial.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

The day of the practice SATs, Nan and I bike to Stony Bay High to take the test. It’s August, with heat shimmering off the sidewalks and the lazy
whirrrr
of cicadas. But once we walk into the school, it’s as though a switch has been flipped. The room is airless and smells like pencil shavings and industrial strength disinfectant, all overlaid with too-fruity perfume and sports deodorant, too many bodies.

Stony Bay High is one of those low, endless, cookie-cutter brick schools, with ugly green shaded windows, peeling gray paint on the doors, and curling red linoleum on the floors. It’s a far cry from Hodges, which is built like a fortress, with battlements, stained-glass windows, and portcullises. It even has a drawbridge, because you never know when your prep school might be attacked by the Saxons.

Public or private, there’s that same school smell, so out of context today as I shift in my sticky seat, listening to the lazy roar of a lawnmower outside.

“Remind me why I’m doing this again?” I ask Nan as she takes her place in the row in front of me, positioning her backpack at her feet.

“Because practice makes perfect. Or at least close enough to
get in the low two thousands, which will give us a shot at the college of our dreams. And because you’re my best friend.” She reaches into the pocket of her backpack and pulls out some ChapStick, applying it to her slightly sunburned lips. As she does this, I can’t help but notice that she’s not only wearing her prized blue-and-white Columbia T-shirt, but also the cross she got for her Communion and a charm bracelet her Irish grandmother gave her which has green-and-white enamel four-leaf clovers hanging from it.

“Where’s Buddha?” I ask. “Won’t he feel left out? What about Zeus? A rabbit’s foot?”

She pretends to glare at me, lining up her seven number 2 pencils in a precise row along the edge of her desk. “This is important. They say SATs aren’t as big as they used to be, but you
know
that’s not true. Can’t be too careful. I’d burn sage, embrace Scientology, and wear one of those Kabbalah bracelets if I thought it would do me any good. I’ve got to get out of this town.”

No matter how often Nan says this, it never fails to give me a prickle of hurt. Ridiculous. It’s not about me. The Mason house is nobody’s idea of a refuge.

Confirming this, she continues, “It’s even worse now that Tim’s only working at Garrett’s. Mommy starts all her conversations with him like, ‘Well, since you’ve made up your mind to be a loser all your life,’ and then just ends up shaking her head and leaving the room.”

I sigh. “How’s Tim dealing?”

“I think he’s up to three packs a day,” Nan says. “Cigarettes
and
Pixy Stix. But no sign of anything else…yet.” Her voice
is resigned, clearly expecting to find evidence of worse at any moment. “He—” she starts, then falls silent as the side door of the classroom opens and a small beige woman and a tall sandy-haired man come in, introducing themselves as our proctors for this practice SAT. The woman runs through the procedures in a monotone, while the man wanders through the room, checking our IDs and handing out blue notebooks.

The air-conditioning blasts to a higher level, nearly drowning out the beige woman’s monotonous voice. Nan pulls a cardigan out of her backpack and scrabbles around to position a hoodie at the top, just in case. She sits back up, puts her elbows on the desk, leans her chin on her folded hands, and sighs. “I hate writing,” she says. “I hate everything about it. Grammar, usage…blech.” Despite the light tan she always acquires in the late summer, she looks pale under her freckles, only her sunburned nose betraying the season.

“You’re the big writing star,” I remind her. “You’ll coast through this. Lazlo Literary Anthology, remember? The SATs are the minor leagues for you.”

The tall blond man points extravagantly at the clock and the beige woman says “Shhh” and begins the countdown as solemnly as if we are blasting off at Cape Canaveral, rather than taking a practice test. “In ten, nine, eight…” I glance around the room. Everyone, evidently as driven as Nan, has their blue books and their pencils lined up in perfect symmetry. I look over again at Nan, to see her adjust the sleeve of her sweatshirt in her backpack again, allowing me, from my vantage point to the left and back to see the corner of her electronic dictionary peeking out from the light blue edge of her sweatshirt.

She’s
staring at the clock, her mouth a grim line, her pencil so tightly held in her fingers it’s a wonder it doesn’t snap in half. Nan’s left-handed. Her right hand rests on her thigh, in quick-draw reach of her backpack.

Suddenly, I get these pictures in my head of the way Nan’s sat in test after test I’ve taken alongside her, always with her backpack leaned to the side, her hoodie or sweater or whatever draping out. Memories click into place, like frames of a film slowly forwarding one after another, and I realize this is no isolated incident. Nanny, my always-head-of-the-class best friend, Nan the star student, has been cheating for years.

Good thing for me it’s a practice test, because I can barely focus. All I can think about is what I saw, what I know for sure now. Nan doesn’t need to cheat. I mean, nobody needs to cheat, but Nan’s only ensuring a sure thing anyway. I mean, look at her essays.

Her essays.

Those files on Tim’s computer that I looked at, that I…

That I blamed Tim for stealing. The realization freezes me in place. Minutes tick by before I finally pick up my pencil and try to concentrate on the exam.

During break, I splash water on my face in the ugly aqua-tiled bathroom and try to figure out what to do. Tell the proctors? Out of the question. She’s my best friend. But…

As I’m standing there, staring into my own eyes, Nan comes up next to me, squirting antibacterial lotion on her hands and rubbing it up her arms as though scrubbing up for surgery.

“I don’t think it washes off,” I say, before I can think.

“What?”

“Guilt. Didn’t work for Lady Macbeth, did it?”

She turns white, then flushes, freckled translucent skin so quick to show both shades. She glances quickly around the bathroom, making sure we’re alone. “I’m thinking about the future,” she hisses. “
My
future. You may be happy hanging out at the garage with your handyman, eating Kraft macaroni and cheese, but I’m going to Columbia, Samantha. I’m going to get away from—” Her face crumples. “All of this.” She waves her hand. “Everything.”

“Nan.” I move toward her, arms outstretched.

“You too. You’re part of it all.” Turning, she stalks out of the bathroom, stopping only to scoop up her backpack, from which the sweatshirt sleeve dangles uselessly.

Did that really just happen? I feel sick.
What just went wrong here? When did I become just another thing Nan wanted to escape?

Chapter Thirty-eight

The hotel ballroom’s stifling and overheated, like someone forgot to flip on the air-conditioning. It would probably make me drowsy even if I hadn’t gotten up at five this morning, restless, thinking about Nan, and gone to the ocean to swim. Not to mention that we’re in Westfield, the other end of the state, a long, long drive from home, and I’m constricted in my formal blue linen dress. There’s a big fountain in the middle of the room, and tables of finger sandwiches and buffet food set up around that. Out-of-season Christmas lights twinkle around statue reproductions of Venus rising from the waves and Michelangelo’s David, looking as sulky and out of place as I feel at this fund-raising rally. Mom makes her speech at the podium, flanked by Clay, and I struggle to stay conscious.

“You must be so proud of your mother,” people keep telling me, sloshing their fruity champagne cocktails over tiny plastic cups, and I repeat over and over again: “Oh, yes, I am. I am, yes.” My seat’s next to the podium and as Mom’s introduced, I can’t help tipping my head against it, until she gives me a sharp jab with her foot and I jerk back upright, willing my eyes open.

Finally she gives some sort of good-night summary speech
and there’s lots of cheering and “Go Reed!” Clay rests his hand in the small of her back, propelling her, as we edge out into the night, which isn’t even really dark, kind of tea-colored, since we’re in the city. “You’re a wonder, Gracie. A twelve-hour day and still looking so fine.”

Mom gives a pleased laugh, then toys with her earring. “Honey?” She hesitates, then: “I just don’t understand why that Marcie woman has to be at just about every event of mine.”

“Was she there tonight?” Clay asks. “I didn’t notice. And I’ve told you—they send her the same way we had Tim out counting the cars at Christopher’s rallies, or Dorothy checking on his press conferences.”

I know this is the brunette woman. But Clay doesn’t sound like he’s trying to pull one over on Mom. He sounds like he genuinely didn’t realize “Marcie” was there.

“Ya gotta ashess”—he pauses, laughs, then repeats carefully—“
assess
your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.”

Clay trips a little on the pavement and Mom gives a low laugh. “Easy, honey.”

“Sorry—those stones kinda got away from me there.” They halt, leaning together in the darkness, swaying slightly. “You’d better drive.”

“Of course,” Mom says. “Just give me those keys.”

Much chuckling while she searches for them in his jacket pockets—oh erk—and I just want to be home.

Mom starts the car with a roar,
VROOM,
and then giggles in surprise as though cars never make that sound.

“Actually, sugar, better give me the keys,” Clay tells her.

“I’ve got it,” Mom says. “You had four glasses to my three.”

“Maybe,” Clay says. “I might could have done.”

“I just love your Southern phrases,” Mom murmurs.

Time hazes. I slide down in my seat, stretching my legs out over an uncomfortable pile of Grace Reed signs and boxes of campaign flyers, tilting my eyes against the hard leather padding under the window. I watch the highway lights, my eyelids sinking, then the dimmer streetlights as the roads get smaller and smaller, closer to home.

“Take Shore Road,” Clay tells her softly. “Less traffic. Nearly there now, Gracie.”

The window glass is chilly against my cheek, the only cool thing in the warm car. Other headlights flash by for a while, then fade away. Finally, I see by the glint of the moon on the open water that we’re passing McGuire Park. I remember being there with Jase, lying on the sun-warmed rock in the river, then my lids slowly close, the hum of the engine like Mom’s vacuum cleaner, a familiar lullaby.

BLAM.

My nose smacks the seat in front of me, so hard that stars dazzle against my eyes, and my ears ring.

“Oh my God!” Mom says in a high panicky voice scarier than the sudden jolt. She slams on the brakes.

“Back up, Grace.” Clay’s voice is level and firm.

“Mom? Mom! What happened?”

“Oh my God,” Mom repeats. She always freaks out about dings in her paint job. There’s a sudden whoosh of cool night
air as Clay opens the passenger-side door, climbs out. A second later, he’s back.

“Grace. Reverse. Now. Nothing happened, Samantha. Go back to sleep.”

I catch a flash of his profile, arm around Mom’s neck, fingers in her hair, prodding her. “Reverse and pull away now,” he repeats.

The car jolts backward, jerks to a halt.

“Grace. Pull it together.” The car revs forward and to the left. “Just get us back home.”

“Mom?”

“It’s nothing, sweetheart. Go to sleep. Hit a little bump in the road. Go back to sleep,” Mom calls, her voice sharp.

And I do. She might still be talking, but I’m just so tired. When Tracy and I were younger, Mom sometimes used to drive us down to Florida for winter vacation, instead of flying. She liked to stop in Manhattan, in Washington, in Atlanta, stay in bed-and-breakfasts, poke around antiques stores along the way. I was always so impatient to get to the sand and the dolphins that I tried to sleep every single hour we were in the car. I feel like that now. I sink into soft blackness so absolute, I can barely drag myself out when Mom says, “Samantha. We’re home. Go on to bed.” She jiggles my arm, roughly enough that it hurts, and I drag myself upstairs, collapse on my mattress, too weary to take off my dress or dive under the covers. I just embrace nothingness.

My cell buzzes insistently. I shoved it under my pillow as usual. Now I hunt for it, half-asleep, my fingers clutching and
closing on bunches of the sheets while the buzzing goes on and on and on, relentless. Finally I locate it.

“Sam?” Jase’s voice, hoarse, almost unrecognizable. “Sam!”

“Hmm?”

“Samantha!”

His voice is loud, jarring. I jerk the cell away from my ear.

“What? Jase?”

“Sam. We, uh, we need you. Can you come over?”

I crawl across the bed, blearily check my digital clock.