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Authors: Elizabeth Bass

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The first notes startled her. They sounded like the Indian instrument called a sitar. Expecting easy listening, she’d set the volume too high. But this was not Barry Manilow.
A pause followed, and then a bashing drum jolted her for a few bars. Her eyes opened as Mick Jagger’s voice started singing “Paint It, Black.” She knew that’s what it was as soon as she heard his voice—the song that had led to all the problems. Granny Kate must have confiscated the player last summer.
The odd thing was, she liked the song, with that raw voice singing the strange angry-sad lyrics to a persistent, melancholy, thumping beat.
When it ended, she played it again three times in a row.
Had Jordan lain in this same twin bed last summer, staring at the ceiling and hearing those words? She must have. She would have done all the things Lily had—walked the same streets, gone to the pool, felt restless. It had just been a few months after their mom and Nina had died. Lily listened to the song once more, imagining for once how it must have been to be Jordan last summer. Feeling not only sad, but guilty. Feeling as if no one wanted to look at her.
She decided she wouldn’t have wanted to be Jordan. Not for anything.
That afternoon, Granny Kate brought a box up to her. “UPS just delivered this,” she said, depositing the box on the bed. The return address was Grace’s. Lily ripped into it eagerly and extracted the contents—the CD and two books. One was the Trollope novel, but the other was a red cloth-bound blank book, its cover faded. Grace had included a note.
Dear Lily,
Here is the book Dad wanted you to have. And the CD I told you about. I’m also including an extra—a blank book. It’s one that Dad gave me years and years ago, when I was uprooted. You’ll notice that it’s as blank as the day I received it. I’ve never been much of a writer, but I think you are. Don’t let anyone stop you.
Love,
Grace
How could anyone have had a blank book all these years and not have written in it? Lily flipped through the thick, yellowed pages until she caught a flash of spidery script. Grace was wrong. Something had been written in it—on the inside cover.
Where we love is home.
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
“Do you want to come down and watch television?”
Lily jumped. She had forgotten Granny Kate standing in the doorway. “No, thanks.” She was eager to start reading. Or writing. Or to listen to that song again.
“I talked to your father today,” her grandmother said. “I felt I should tell him about your sunburn calamity. Just to keep him posted.”
Lily pushed herself up straighter. “What did he say?”
“Nothing much, except that your sister’s back. Apparently her hair is orange now.”
Lily frowned. “Orange? Like Bozo?”
“I have no idea,” Granny Kate said. “It wouldn’t surprise me. I think your father should have left her in San Francisco. That’s probably the kind of place where a girl like her is going to end up anyway.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“No—oh, yes. Dominic had to have a cavity filled.”
“I mean about Jordan.”
“I didn’t ask for details about Jordan.”
Lily considered her grandmother’s perspective for a moment. “I guess it’s hard to forgive Jordan for all the trouble she put you through. And the money it took to repaint.” Those three coats.
“Well, I’ll give your sister her due. She sent us the money for that. God only knows where she got it—I didn’t ask.”
Lily frowned, and then wished she hadn’t. Her forehead felt like parched earth—a stretch of dried riverbed on her head. “She sold her furniture,” she said, understanding now. “She sold almost everything she owned. Her stuff and Nina’s.”
Granny Kate let out a humorless chuckle. “That sounds typical. She never cared about possessions. She never wanted to belong to anything, either. She never seemed to care about being part of her family, or being on a team, or school spirit. It was always Jordan for Jordan.”
“She really loved Nina.” Lily heard the words come out of her mouth and wondered if she was possessed.
Why am I defending her?
But somewhere in the back of her mind, she could hear Grace’s voice telling her to find that one good thing about Jordan. Maybe this was it. “She loves Dominic, too.”
“Well. That may be,” Granny Kate replied. “I don’t mean to say anything against her. She’s a character, I’ll grant you that.”
She left Lily alone again. What had seemed natural and right to Lily before—people complaining about Jordan—now made her uncomfortable. Weren’t grandparents supposed to like their grandkids just a little? Unconditional love was sort of the point of grandparents, wasn’t it?
She fell asleep and woke up about a half hour later, roused by an uncomfortable feeling that had nothing to do with her sunburn. It was that niggling itch at the back of her mind again. She’d missed a connection somewhere. She leaned over to the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out the picture she’d stolen from Granny Kate’s closet. The one of her and Nina.
She studied the girl standing off to the side—the half a person in a soccer uniform. “
She never seemed to care about being part of her family, or being on a team,”
Granny Kate had said. It was true. Their mother was always signing Jordan up for arts camp, or theater programs. Never sports. Nina was the one who had played soccer.
“Oh, no,” she whispered, staring at the picture in a whole new way.
Here came that tug again, that unsettled feeling deep inside her. Only this time, instead of a tug, it was a painful wrench. Days ago she thought she would have given anything to be with the sister in that picture again. But now . . .
Now all she had to do was leave the place where she fit in and go back to the place she’d felt like a natural-born outcast. Put aside her swan plumes and go back to ugly-ducklingville. The place her feet had left, but not her heart. It was so unfair! It was unfair that there was actually a voice in her head telling her to do it. In fact, it was telling her that she might regret it forever if she didn’t.
36
W
HAT
Y
OU
D
ON’T
K
NOW
C
AN
H
URT
Y
OU
J
ordan intended to float through the year, serving out the last of her childhood sentence in Austin by dreaming of the future and talking to all her new friends on Skype. Then, in just one short year—so soon she could almost taste it—she was going to art school.
There was just one hitch. The schools she and her friends from San Francisco talked about applying to wanted you to have decent grades; some even required three years of math. What math had to do with being an artist was a puzzle. But the upshot was, she had about four months to show college admissions offices that she wasn’t a complete academic write-off. She was going to have to study very hard . . . and take Algebra II all over again. The worst part was, because she had screwed up last year, now her algebra class had Lily in it.
As she trudged home from school, she came to the painful conclusion that Lily might be her last best hope. It hurt, but she was going to have to suck it up and ask for help. Throw herself on her little sister’s mercy.
“Hi!”
Jordan looked up and immediately wished she’d had her iPod so she could have pretended not to hear. Grace was waving at her, although God only knew why. The woman was juggling about twenty little bubble-wrapped mailers, carrying them to her car.
“Oh. Hey.” Jordan inflected her voice with as little enthusiasm as humanly possible.
Grace dumped the mailers on the hood of her car. One dropped to the ground and she rolled her eyes before stooping to pick it up. “I should really have stuck these in a bag.”
“Yeah.” Duh.
“I think I have one in my car,” Grace continued, as if she thought Jordan might actually want to have a conversation. “That’s the worst part about what I do—I live at the post office.”
Jordan frowned. “What do you do?”
Grace looked surprised that she didn’t know. “I sell CDs online.
Rigolettosmusic.com
.”
“Oh.” Maybe Dominic had mentioned that before. She hadn’t really paid attention.
“Classical mostly.”
It figured.
Except . . .
One of her teachers from the summer had told them about
Einstein on the Beach.
“I’ve been listening to Philip Glass,” Jordan said. It wasn’t a total lie. She’d been thinking about listening to him, at least. “He’s very intense.”
Grace laughed. “Intensely headache inducing.”
Every molecule in Jordan’s body seized up. What a ’rhoid. “Yeah, well, I just happen to think Philip Glass is a genius, but then, I’m not an expert or anything,” she said in disgust. “I don’t run an
online music store
.”
“I didn’t mean to—” Grace shook her head as if it wasn’t even worth her time to argue with Jordan. “How was your summer?”
She had a lot of crust asking. The last words Jordan remembered Grace saying were
She doesn’t deserve . . .
As in,
Jordan doesn’t deserve to go to California this summer.
“It was great. No thanks to you.”
She turned sharply and walked away, enjoying her last glimpse of the woman’s stupefied expression.
When she opened the door to the house, she heard the unmistakable rattle and clatter of dice being thrown against cardboard and peeked into the dining room to investigate. Lily and Dominic were playing Yahtzee.
“Afterschool family fun time?” Jordan asked, wandering over.
Lily glanced up. Sometimes Jordan couldn’t believe she was looking at her little sister. She’d never imagined summer in Little Salty could be a transformative experience for the better, but here was living proof. Lily had ditched the glasses and the ponytails and now looked less like Poindexter girl.
She’d expected her sister to say something snarky to her, but instead Lily turned her attention back to the board and advised Dominic, “I’d take my twos if I were you.”
Elbows on the table and his chin propped on his fists, Dominic muttered, “I
really
need a full house,” before relenting.
During the next play, Jordan drifted closer to the table and finally slipped into a seat. “Who’s winning?”
“Guess,” Dominic grumbled.
“You can still catch up,” Lily said. “It’s just luck.” She rolled. “Oh, excellent! Four of a kind—with sixes!”
Dominic moaned.
“Hey Lils . . . are you going to do your homework tonight?” Jordan asked.
“I always do my homework.”
Jordan watched them play another turn and then cleared her throat. “I was wondering if I could study with you.”
“Tonight?” Lily asked.
“Every night, actually.”
Lily’s eyes widened. “You must be
really
desperate to get a good grade!”
“I am,” Jordan said. “That is . . . well, you know. I have to get into a decent college. It might already be too late, but if I at least show I’m trying . . . and write a really good essay . . . maybe . . .”
Lily deliberated for a moment. “Okay.”
A few seconds passed before Jordan would allow herself to believe her ears. Lily had agreed? Just like that? No arguing, no negotiating?
Apparently so.
She exhaled in relief. “Good. With you helping, I at least have a prayer.”
“You’d have a prayer anyway, if you would just concentrate.”
“But that’s it—it’s hard to concentrate on numbers and symbols. They don’t seem real.”
“Not
real?”
Lily looked almost offended. “What’s more real than numbers?”
“Speaking of real numbers,” Dominic said, butting in, “will you roll already?”
Lily picked up the dice and rolled, but she was still shaking her head.
“Why does everybody get all snarky whenever I express an opinion?” Jordan asked.
“I didn’t
get all snarky,
” Lily said.
“Who else got all snarky?” Dominic asked at the same time.
“That woman next door.”
“Her name is
Grace,”
Lily said irritably.
Jordan rolled her eyes. “She’s such a know-it-all. She had to make a snide remark about Philip Glass.”
Dominic’s brow puckered. “Who?”
“He’s a composer,” Lily explained to him.
It irked Jordan that her sister knew that. How did Lily manage to absorb everything?
“He’s really cool,” Jordan said. “But of course that woman Grace doesn’t like him. She’s so bourgeois and judgmental.”
“You don’t even know her,” Lily said.
“Oh, please. I know her enough to see she’s always had it in for me.”
Dominic stood up suddenly. “You’re crazy! You owe Grace
everything.
”
Jordan laughed. “Oh, right. Sure.”
“You do,” Dominic insisted. “
She
was the one who talked Dad into letting you go this summer.”
“What?”
Lily looked as stunned as Jordan felt.
“I don’t believe it,” Jordan said.
Dominic nodded. “After the party last spring, Dad was ready to—I don’t know—lock you up in your room all summer or something. He was
really mad.
It was Grace who talked him out of it.”
“How do you know this?” Jordan demanded.
“They were in Dad’s study.” He shrugged sheepishly. “I happened to overhear. And there was other stuff, too.”
“Like what?” Lily asked.
Dominic looked reluctant to divulge any more, but Lily kept at him. “Okay,” he said. “Dad said something like ‘It was a mistake for me to kiss you.’ ”
“What?”
Lily and Jordan said the word in unison. Yelled it, practically.
“I’m only telling you what I heard. I felt sort of bad for her. He made it sound like he blamed Grace for the whole thing.”
Jordan frowned. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that Grace had told her father to let her go to California. “What whole thing?”
“The party—you know.” Dominic lifted his shoulders. “The way it all turned out—even some incident about a Chinese restaurant Grace hadn’t told him about.”
Heat crept into Jordan’s cheeks, especially when Lily shot her a sharp look.
“I didn’t know,” Jordan said.
Her brother and sister just stared at her until she slank away. Her feet felt like lead weights as she climbed the stairs.
Grace.
She’d always disliked her so much just on superficial grounds, and because Lily and Dominic thought she was so great. She’d never guessed she’d had a secret advocate living right next door.

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