The Key to the Golden Firebird (14 page)

She exhaled deeply and turned to look at him. She noticed that his nose was just slightly crooked. It had been broken
twice when he was younger—once when he'd played Superman and tried to fly down the steps and again when he'd ridden a shopping cart through the grocery store parking lot like a skateboard. He had a personal understanding of stupid behavior and its consequences.

“I'm fine with it,” she continued. “It sounds really sad now, I know, but I have a plan. College. I can do fun stuff in college, when I don't live here. I just have to get in and get a scholarship.”

“So you can't have fun now?” he asked.

“I have fun,” May clarified. “I just don't have as much fun as some other people, like Brooks. And Palm's happy as long as she's playing softball. She doesn't even notice anything else.”

“I don't know,” he said. “Palm always noticed things. She's really aware of stuff—what people are doing.”

“Well, yeah. She listens in on conversations when you don't want her to. But she's still a lot like Brooks. She's clueless. Like she'll spill her soda everywhere and just stare at it. It doesn't occur to her to wipe it up. Things don't
occur
to my sisters because it was always different with them. My dad would yell at me for taking too long in the bathroom, but if Brooks burned the house down, that would be okay. He'd probably get some marshmallows or something. Everything she did was great as far as he was concerned. Brooks was like the son he never had.”

As she was speaking, May felt herself getting angrier and angrier. The Firebird's absence was starting to give her an actual ache. She pulled her knees tight into her chest. It was a minute or two before she noticed that Pete was holding her hand. It wasn't a dramatic gesture. He was sitting cross-
legged, leaning forward on his elbows, looking at her. It took her another minute still to realize that she didn't mind and that it actually made her feel a bit better. She didn't, however, want to call attention to the fact, so she just went on as if she was unaware of it.

“Anyway,” she said, “I just wanted you to know that I'm consciously pathetic. It's all part of my plan. My escape-to-college plan.”

“You're not pathetic,” Pete said, somewhat unexpectedly. May didn't know what to say to that. A silence settled over them for a few minutes.

“I'm sorry you had to be here for this,” she said. “Sorry for the drama.”

She felt his grip on her hand tighten slightly.

“What is this
processing
?” she said. “‘She's been
processed
.' I guess that's police-speak, but what the hell does it mean? She's not cheese.”

May heard a car spinning around the corner. They both looked up and saw the minivan racing toward them. She casually took her hand from Pete's, as if sitting in the driveway holding hands was something she did every day, then rubbed her face and got up.

“Here we go,” she said.

“I guess I should leave.”

Before Pete could make his getaway, however, the minivan screeched to a stop in front of the house. May's mom, clad in pink scrubs, raced across the lawn. She went right to the opening of the empty garage, looking as confused as May had been. Pete froze in his tracks, looking unsure about his next move.

“We can get the car in the morning, Mom,” May said quietly. “And she's been processed or whatever.”

Her mother didn't answer—not in English, anyway. Whenever May's mom got really mad, she started speaking in rapid-fire Dutch to herself. She never told anyone what she was saying, but May was pretty sure that it was some seriously unrepeatable, melt-the-paint-off-the-walls swearing. The Dutch was flying freely now, all
j
's and hocking sounds.

Pete backed up a few feet and gave May an I'm-going-to-go nod.

“Pete.” May's mom finally noticed that Pete had been there the whole time. “This is…”

She shook her head and paced in the driveway.

“What happened?” May asked cautiously. “What was she arrested for?”

Before she could answer, Palmer came down and joined the group.

“Brooks is in her room,” she reported. “I think she's still pretty drunk.”

With the Dutch still trailing from her lips, their mother headed inside with a determined stride.

“You're still here,” Palmer said, staring at Pete.

“I was leaving.” He walked around to the driver's side of his car. He gave May another nod, and she acknowledged this with a nod of her own. Palmer observed this silent exchange, then watched as Pete drove away.

“What were you guys doing?” Palmer asked, cocking her head like a little kid.

“Talking.”

“About what?”

“What do
you
think?”

“You guys were holding hands.”

May felt her face flush.

“God, Palm,” she said, heading for the door. “What's
with
you?”

“Well, you were,” Palmer replied to her sister's retreating figure.

When May had gone inside, Palmer stood for a minute on the lawn and looked up at the house, wondering why all activity always seemed to stop whenever she came near.

Brooks's sentencing took place late on Tuesday afternoon, in the middle of a torrential downpour. She sat in the court, carefully dressed in a turtleneck (May's) and a pair of khakis. The room, to her surprise, was just a small, plain space in the middle of a huge office building. It had no windows, and everything—the walls, the judge's bench, the seats—was made of the same dark wood. No imposing columns or marble, no paintings. Her mother sat next to her, stony faced.

The memory from the bedroom still stung her, even now, as she faced the bench. She could still see their reflection in the dark television—the three of them. Dave rolling over so easily, Jamie so willingly. The last two days at school Dave had been amazingly evasive. He didn't even show up to study hall. Every time Brooks saw Jamie, she had somewhere to be, immediately. She'd never had much to say to Fred, and the rest of Dave's friends were strangers to her. So she was alone.

A bailiff came in and ordered them all to rise.

The judge walked into the room, and then they all sat down. She took a few moments to shuffle through some papers in front of her.

“Brooke…,” the judge read. “No. Brooks? Is it Brooks, with an
s
on the end? Is this right?”

The stenographer paused. Brooks and her mother nodded.

“
Brooks
Gold,” she repeated.

Brooks steeled herself, then walked to the small podium that the bailiff pointed her to.

The process took little time. Charges were read. When asked, she pled guilty to underage drinking and driving under the influence, as the family attorney had advised her to do. She hadn't thought you were just supposed to plead guilty. On television everyone always fought or entered some crazy reason that all the evidence has to be thrown out. But Brooks had nothing to say in her own defense. She'd been speeding. They'd done a Breathalyzer. She was underage. End of story.

The judge was not going to care that she'd just seen her boyfriend cheat on her from two feet away—with her best friend. It didn't matter that she hadn't hurt anyone or that she'd just wanted to take the Firebird to get something to drink. That it had been hard to take the Firebird, but she'd done it. She'd liberated it. Now anyone could drive it. May had even taken it for a test run to the store with her mom.

Nope. The state of Pennsylvania did not care about any of that.

Her license was immediately revoked for the year. She was remanded to a counselor who would evaluate her substance abuse. She would be referred for treatment. She was fined three hundred dollars. She was directed to check in with the court clerk on her way out.

Brooks had known this was coming; the lawyer had advised her that this was the likely sentence. It meant no driving until November, so the summer was shot. All the money she'd earn
at the pool would pay for the fine and the treatment. She could deal with that, but Dave and Jamie…

The judge banged her gavel. At least that seemed authentic and final.

 

May watched the rain that flooded the parking lot outside of Presto.

“So I was on top of him, right, and then we heard the door open….” Nell paused. “Do you know how Pete's house is laid out?”

May nodded, defeated.

“Okay, so we hear his parents, and they're coming up the stairs. Then we remembered that I'd hung my shirt on the doorknob before we shut the door, so my shirt is like hanging in the hallway, like a flag….”

For the last half hour Nell had been pouring out every clinical detail of the events of the previous night. Apparently quite a bit had happened since the conversation she'd had with Pete on Saturday, during which he hadn't even seemed sure that he'd see Nell again. Whatever pet theories Linda had had about Pete holding out for his one true love…they were out the window. Pete was waiting for nothing.

May didn't particularly need this news right now. For three days she'd been listening to the wailing and crying and slamming doors that had echoed through the house since Brooks's arrest. In the last two days she'd been dragged through her German, history, and trig finals and had finished her English paper on three female British novelists. She still had to finish getting ready for the most terrifying exam of all: the biology
exam, which she would be taking in the morning. She'd barely gotten any sleep. And now she knew the unabridged biblical truth about Nell and Pete's relationship.

In short, she was in hell.

“So Pete completely freaks out. He jumps out of bed and puts his boxers on….”

Sheets of rain battered the windows. May wanted to run out into the storm, swinging something large and metallic over her head until the lightning got her and frizzled up her brain, wiping all of this information away forever.

“…and jumps for the door and just manages to grab the shirt. It was hilarious. Can you imagine his mom catching us like that?”

“No,” May answered honestly.

“It's good that you're so cool about this,” Nell said. “I mean, it bothers some people to hear about their friends dating. Some people get so weirded out.”

“It's fine,” May said as she watched the pansies in the flower box outside getting crushed by the torrent. “Why would it bother me?”

 

Later that night May bunched herself into a corner of her bed and tried to imprint the following sentence into her head:
The Krebs cycle, also known as the citric acid or the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, is the second of three steps involved in carbohydrate catabolism.

“He said he'd call when he could, but it's been three days…,” Brooks was saying.

For the past year Brooks had more or less shut May out of
her personal business. She had chosen this moment to break her silence, as her exams weren't for another week—not that May was expecting her to do much studying then, either. She had stationed herself at the foot of May's bed and had been talking nonstop for the last fifteen minutes.

The Krebs cycle, also known as the Dave-has-not-called cycle, is the second of three steps involved in my going insane if she doesn't shut up. Oh my God…

“Three days,” Brooks went on, rocking back and forth slightly. “What does that mean? Three days? What do you think I should do?”

“I don't know,” May said, keeping her eyes trained on the page. “Call him, I guess.”

“You think I should?”

“Um, yeah. Sure.”

“It's that thing with Jamie,” Brooks mumbled, chomping at her nails.

“What?” May asked.

“I didn't tell you about that.”

May gripped the edge of her book. One more tangent and she would definitely go down a full grade.

“Brooks,” she said with a sigh, “I do care. I really do. But do you see this?” She held up the book. “I am going to be up all night. I have an exam at nine in the morning. Could we maybe talk tomorrow?”

Brooks looked shocked, as if she'd just been slapped.

“God, you're so selfish.”

“
I'm
selfish?” May shook her head. “You didn't just say that.”

Brooks slid off the bed without comment and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

 

When May emerged from her room two hours later, she saw Brooks sitting on her bed, listening to her CD player and staring at the wall. (Brooks had blue-and-white-striped wallpaper, which, though much cooler than May's pink ponyland paper, gave her walls the unfortunate appearance of bars on a jail cell.) Brooks looked up as she passed, and May felt obligated to stick her head in.

“Did you call him?” May asked after Brooks slipped off her headphones.

Brooks didn't reply.

“Are you okay?” May asked. “What happened?”

“I called Jamie,” Brooks said, her voice raspy.

“What did she say?”

“They're dating now.”

“Dave and Jamie?”

Brooks nodded and pushed the advance button on her CD player a few times.

“I'm sorry,” May said, running her finger along the edge of the door frame. “What happened?”

“Jamie says that he and I were never dating,” Brooks said. “Not officially.”

“Not officially? What does that mean?”

“We never said it.
He
never said it.” Brooks smirked. “It wasn't official. So it was okay for him to sleep with Jamie.”

“Dave slept with Jamie?”

“That's what he said.”

The logical side of May's brain was sending her urgent
messages, telling her that she didn't have time to stop and talk to Brooks right now, that it was partially Brooks's fault that she was so behind. But the sight of her sister slumped up against her headboard, her hair hanging limply over her shoulders, looking as defeated as May had ever seen her—it seemed bad enough to merit taking a few minutes away. May came over and sat at the foot of Brooks's bed.

“Do you want anything?” May asked quietly.

“No.”

May heard a gentle plunking sound. She glanced over to see water dripping down into a trash can in the corner of the room.

“Your ceiling's leaking again,” she said, looking at the yellowing spot that the water was coming from.

“Why do you think I put that there?”

She was cranky as ever, but May could see tears welling up in Brooks's eyes. She got up and moved to where Brooks was sitting. Aside from the funeral and when they were small, May had never seen Brooks cry. It was a little bizarre. May reached out to put a hand on her sister's shoulder, but Brooks turned to her with a decidedly unfriendly expression.

“Just go, okay?” she said.

“I was just—”

“Go.”

“Fine,” May said. She felt a little stung. Only Brooks could make her feel bad for something like that.

Brooks put her headphones back on and May got up and left. Back in her room, the television roared up from below. May rubbed her eyes and kept reading.

 

May took a minute to buy herself a soft pretzel and a soda for breakfast from a cart on the corner of Thirty-fourth and Chestnut, right around the corner from school. It was a sharp, crisp morning with a bright blue sky. Because she had only slept for a couple hours the night before, she was overtaken by that strange trembling and hyperawareness that comes from pulling an all-nighter.

She saw Linda coming down the street from the direction of the subway. She looked just as exhausted as May. She had on her thin, rimless glasses instead of her contacts, and she walked quickly, pulling her sweater tight against her chest.

“You sleep?” Linda asked as she approached May.

“An hour and a half.”

“I think I slept two,” Linda said, accepting a piece of May's pretzel.

“Brooks was having a crisis,” May explained as they walked down Walnut through the throngs of Penn students hurrying to their morning classes.

“About her court thing?”

“No. About her boyfriend. That guy Dave.”

“What's going on with him?”

“He dumped her,” May said. “And she has to go for counseling, starting tonight.”

“Not a good time to be Brooks,” Linda said, reaching for May's soda and taking a long sip. “You're still coming over to my place afterward, right?”

“I'm thinking about moving in.”

“Fine by me,” Linda said. “I could get rid of Frank that way.”

 

The biology exam was twenty-two pages long and included five diagrams and three essay questions. May worked until the very last minute, furiously scribbling out her final sentences. It was an extensive, somewhat painful test, but May had known all of the material. The only problem was time. If she'd had four or five hours to finish it, she would have been a lot more content.

Linda stumbled up to May's seat.

“I think I just got my Ph.D.,” she said.

Dazed, they headed out of the building, toward the subway.

Linda's house, one of the only ones on the block built after 1776, was in a small gated area called Independence Mews. Each floor had only one or two rooms. The kitchen and laundry room took up the whole basement level. The living room (with the wood-burning stove that May loved) was on the first floor. The bedrooms were on the next two floors. Everything was cozy and compact.

Since they were both completely exhausted, they headed right up to the third floor, where Frank and Linda's rooms were.

“Is Frank here?” May said quietly as they passed his door. She had never actually seen Frank—he was kind of like the Easter Bunny to her.

“No,” Linda said, pushing open her door. “He's doing some kind of big experiment with gasoline today. Maybe he'll blow himself up.”

Though it was extremely tiny, Linda's room always awed May. One of her walls was a bright violet, and the other three were cream. Her slender window was guarded by purple blinds,
and a large round paper shade covered the overhead light. The bed was in a metal frame and covered in a thick cream-colored duvet. Aside from her desk chair, the only place to sit was in a pile of multicolored cushions in the corner. Linda set herself down in these.

“I'm seriously going to die,” Linda said. “You can take the bed. I'll be fine here. I sleep here all the time.”

Linda leaned back on the cushions. May kicked off her shoes and climbed up the metal rungs. Linda's cream-colored duvet was very thick and soft, and May sank into it appreciatively.

“So,” Linda said, “it's over.”

This should have filled May with elation, but for some reason, it didn't. School gave her life some structure. She didn't want to think about another long summer stretching out in front of her.

“Have you seen Pete?” Linda asked.

“Not since Saturday,” May said, burrowing into the thick folds. “But I've heard about him. Ask me how much I've heard.”

“You sound bitter,” Linda said, propping herself up. “You got details, didn't you?”