Pretending to Dance (33 page)

“She's not so bad,” I said.

“Whatever.”

He rolled onto his side so he could reach into his jeans pocket, and he pulled out a crushed joint and a lighter. Lighting the joint, he inhaled, then passed it to me. I took a hit, held it in. He put his arm around me. I wanted to tell him I loved him, but I was nervous about saying those words. I didn't think I could handle it if he didn't say them back.

We smoked the entire joint, lying there. I heard music coming from somewhere in the house. Aerosmith. I felt deliciously spacy and calm. Chris's arms around me felt delicious, too. The darkness felt delicious. I must have drifted off because the next thing I knew, someone was ringing the doorbell. Pounding on the door. And after a moment, Stacy burst into our room.

“I think your mother's at the door!” she shouted. “Her car is in the driveway!”

 

40

 

“Oh my God!” I scrambled to find my shorts and top in the light spilling through the open door. The room spun and for a moment, I thought I was going to get sick, but fear seemed to sweep the nausea away.

“I'll answer the door,” Stacy said. “Bryan's in my room. Chris, you better stay in here.” She sounded calmer now as she planned how to deal with the mess we were in. I had the feeling Stacy had a lot of experience getting out of scrapes.

I was dressed except for my Doc Martens. I had no idea where they were. My body trembled as I started down the stairs in my bare feet, and I heard Stacy open the door.

“Nora!” she said, like she was totally surprised to see her there. “Hi!”

“Where is your mother?” my mother asked. I knew that voice—tight with anger.

“Mom?” I said as I walked into the room. She was inside the door, looking around the living room with her eagle eyes, her blond hair out of her ponytail and hanging loose around her face. “What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to sound casual, like it was any other night, but I felt as though what I'd been doing was written on my face and body. She could tell just by looking at me that I'd been touched all over by a boy.

“Where is your mother?” she repeated to Stacy. “And whose truck is that in the driveway?”

“It's my uncle's truck,” Stacy lied. “He stopped by and him and Mom just went out for a few minutes. She should be back any second. You want to wait for her?”

“A few minutes?” Mom said. “I don't think so! I've been calling and calling and no one's picked up. What's going on?”

I finally noticed that her eyes were red, and I suddenly got scared. Why had she been trying so hard to reach me? “Is something wrong?” I asked.

“
Yes,
something's wrong!” she shouted. “Two fourteen-year-old girls have been left home alone for … what? All night? And your mother lied to me about being here. I can't believe it!” She slammed her purse down on the table by the door.

“I told you, she just went out for a little bit,” Stacy said, cool as ice.

“Why were you calling?” I asked, still worried about her red-rimmed eyes.

“Just to say good night,” she said, “but when there was no answer, I got worried. Looks like I had a right to be.”

An unmistakable thud came from upstairs.

The three of us stared at each other. Stacy and I acted like we'd heard nothing.

“Who else is here?” my mother asked.

“Just my uncle,” Stacy said.

“You just said he went out with your mother.” My mother stared her down.

Neither of us said a word and after a moment's loaded silence, my mother marched past us, heading for the stairs. Stacy and I looked at each other in a panic, and Stacy darted after her.

“Nora!” she shouted. “Mrs. Arnette! What are you doing? That's so rude! You can't just barge into someone's house like that and go up their stairs!”

“Oh no?” my mother said without turning around. “Watch me!” This was a part of my mother I'd never seen before and it was terrifying. Stacy stopped following her midway up the stairs, while I couldn't seem to move from my spot near the front door. I had a crazy thought of running through that open door, escaping from the disaster I knew was ahead of me, but my body stood there frozen in place. I could hear my mother yanking doors open, slamming them against the wall.

“Which one of you is Chris!” I heard her shout. I guessed the boys were together in one room now, and she'd found them.

I heard a mumbled answer.

“She's fourteen!” my mother yelled. “Would you want your fourteen-year-old sister hanging out with someone like you? Get out!”

“This isn't your house!” I heard Bryan say, and I cringed. He would make things worse. “You can't order us around!” he added.

“Let's go,” Chris said in a quieter, saner voice. In a moment, I saw them walking down the stairs, my mother close behind them. They looked like they were heading to a firing squad and Bryan didn't even glance at Stacy as he passed her at the bottom of the stairs. I was shocked to see that Stacy was crying. For the first time since I'd known her, she looked like a little girl.

The boys headed straight for the front door. They wore smiles my mother couldn't see, and I had the feeling they'd be laughing at her once they were outside and away from the house. I stepped aside to let them pass. Chris looked directly at me as he walked past me and he mouthed the words
I love you
. Unmistakable.
I love you
. Even after the two of them had walked onto the porch and I'd shut the door behind them, and even as my mother rushed down the stairs toward me, I could see his face, his mouth forming those words.

“You should have called me!” my mother snapped at me. “As soon as you realized Stacy's mother wasn't here, you should have called. Get your things.” She turned to Stacy, who now sat pale and wide-eyed on the bottom step. “Stacy,” Mom said, “where
is
your mother? I need to talk to her. I can't leave you here alone.”

“At her boyfriend's,” Stacy said.

“Give me his number.”

“She'll be mad.”

“I don't care.” My mother marched through the living room and into the kitchen. I followed her into the room, hoping against hope that she didn't notice the beer bottles on the counter. I couldn't make eye contact with her, but she didn't seem to want to look at me, either.

She reached for the wall phone. “His number,” she said again to Stacy, who had walked slowly into the room as if she could somehow put off the inevitable.

“She's going to be so pissed,” she said, as she pointed to a list of phone numbers taped to the wall next to the phone. She read off one of the numbers and my mother dialed.

“May I speak to Mrs. Bateman?” my mother said into the phone. “This is Nora Arnette.”

Behind my mother's back, Stacy gave me a pleading look as though I could do something to change what was happening.

“I'm at your house where your daughter and my daughter were alone with two much older boys,” Mom said. “I don't appreciate being lied to about you being here.” She said nothing for a moment, listening. “Well, I don't believe that,” she said. “Not for a minute! I'm taking Molly home, but you need to come home now to be with Stacy. She can't stay here alone.”

“Oh God,” Stacy muttered as she dropped into one of the kitchen chairs. “She's going to kill me.”

“Mom,”
I pleaded. “You're getting her in trouble.”

My mother covered the receiver with her hand. “You'd better worry about your own skin,” she said, looking directly at me for the first time since she'd come downstairs, and I had to look away.

After another few minutes of conversation, she hung up the phone and turned to Stacy. “She says she's coming home,” she said. “I don't believe her, though. I'm sorry you can't trust your own mother.”

“I
do
trust her,” Stacy snapped. “She lied to
you.
She didn't lie to me.”

My mother stared at her, the skin on her pale cheeks blotched with red. “Get your things, Molly,” she said to me again.

I ran upstairs and shoved my makeup in my backpack. I found my Doc Martens and sat on Stacy's bed to put them on. I grabbed my glasses from the dresser and carried them downstairs with me, moving as quickly as I could, not wanting to leave Stacy stranded alone with my mother any longer than I had to.

“Lock this door behind us, all right?” my mother said to Stacy when I'd come downstairs again and was ready to go. “And make sure your back door is locked, too.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Stacy said.

“Let's go,” Mom said to me, opening the front door.

I looked at Stacy and mouthed the words
I'm sorry.
Yet I wasn't sure what I was sorry for. That my mother had totally blown our night with Chris and Bryan, or that Stacy had a mother who simply didn't care what she did.

 

41

 

We were both quiet in the car until we pulled onto the main road. When we drove under streetlights, I could see how tightly she held the steering wheel, her knuckles white.

“No more Chris,” she said. “We should have put an end to that before it even began, but your father didn't think it would go anywhere. And no more Stacy.”

“Mom!”

“She's not the sort of girl you should be spending your time with.”

“Well, first of all,” I argued, “she's the
only
girl around this summer, and second of all, I really like her. It's not her fault if her mother is … irresponsible.” I was talking about Stacy, but my mind was back on Chris. I would see him somehow. I was sure of that.

For a moment, she was quiet and I thought I'd won her over with that argument. Really, it wasn't Stacy's fault if her mother left her alone, was it? “What was she supposed to do?” I added. “Beg her mother to stay home with us?”

“I'm sure it wasn't your idea to invite those older boys over,” my mother said. “She's playing with fire and I'm worried you're the one who'll get burned.”

“That's, like, so overly dramatic!”

My mother groaned. “You're even starting to talk like her,” she said.

“Why don't you trust me?” I asked, but knew right away that was the wrong direction to take my argument. I'd proven myself completely untrustworthy in the last few hours.

“I'm not even going to honor that question with an answer,” she said, and I fell quiet.

She was crying, softly, maybe trying to keep me from noticing. I couldn't see her well and might have missed it in the darkness, but I could tell by her sniffling, by the liquid look of her eyes when we passed beneath a streetlight. My mother had been acting down and just plain weird since Daddy's fall from the pavilion, and I knew I'd made things a whole lot worse tonight.

I reached over to touch her hand on the steering wheel. “I'm sorry,” I said.

She turned her head away from me, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“I don't want to argue with you, Molly,” she said. “I only want you to be safe and healthy. You understand that, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“You may not realize that you're too young to make wise decisions, but you are. Daddy and I still have to make them for you.”

No you don't,
I thought, but I kept my mouth shut.

She let out a long sigh. “It's just been a difficult night,” she said, and I suddenly remembered the family meeting had been tonight.

“What did Uncle Trevor say about the land and the surveyors and everything?” I asked. He'd been so kind and apologetic when he talked to my father in his office the other day, I had the feeling he was ready to back down.

Mom waved a hand through the air. “Oh, who knows what's going to happen,” she said.

She was so upset, I decided it was best if I asked no more questions. For a few minutes, I wondered what my father would have to say to me in the morning after Mom told him what happened tonight, but my mind soon wandered back to Chris and how extraordinary it had felt to be with him. I wouldn't let my parents keep me from seeing him, but I had the feeling they might never let me out of the house again. I wondered if, somehow, some way, Chris could meet me at Morrison Ridge.

 

42

San Diego

“What a beautiful neighborhood!” Sienna's mother says when I open our front door. She and Sienna stand on our porch and Sienna holds a mixed bouquet of flowers in a vase. The sun is still blazing above the houses across the street and it lights her face with a peachy glow. She is beautiful.

“Thank you,” I say, stepping aside to let them into the house. “Please come in.” I reach for Sienna's mother's hand. She's my age at the very most, and I'm surprised. I'd expected her to be much older. “I'm Molly,” I say.

Sienna introduces her mother. “This is Ginger. And these are for you.” She hands me the vase.

“Thank you,” I say, setting the vase on the coffee table. “That's so sweet of you.” It feels strange to take anything from someone who will, if all goes according to plan, be giving us the greatest gift I can imagine.

Less than a week has passed since our lunch with Sienna, and I've spoken with her a couple of times on the phone since then. The first time was to invite her and her mother for dinner tonight. The second call was Sienna's doing, though, and she just wanted to talk. “The girls at school are giving me a hard time again,” she said. “I thought it would help if I could just hear your voice.” Her call both touched and unsettled me. She is counting on us as much as we're counting on her, I thought. I don't know if that is good or bad, but it is what it is.

“I love these older homes.” Ginger looks admiringly around our freshly vacuumed and dusted living room. The smell of lemony furniture polish is strong in this room and I wonder how obvious it is that Aidan and I spent the day scrubbing and polishing. The house hasn't had such an extreme cleaning since the day Perky Patti visited us for our home study. I've been cooking as well and the scent of eggplant parmesan mixes with the lemon. I wasn't sure if Sienna was a vegetarian after the quesadilla she'd ordered in Old Town, so I'd decided not to take any chances.