Текст книги "My Life Next Door"
Автор книги: Huntley Fitzpatrick
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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
“Does Tracy know?”
“She’ll be home tomorrow morning. I called her after I got home.” I try to picture Tracy’s reaction. My sister, the future lawyer. Horrified at Mom? Devastated at having her summer interrupted? Or something else entirely. Something I can’t even picture? Oh Trace. I’ve missed her so much.
“What did Mrs. Garrett say? What happens now?”
She takes another big sip of wine. Not reassuring.
“I don’t want to think about that,” she says. “We’ll know soon enough.” She straightens her legs, stands up. “It’s late. You should be in bed.”
Her motherly, admonishing tone. After all this, it seems ridiculous. But when I see the slump of her shoulders as she reaches for the doorknob, I can only tell her another truth, however inconvenient.
“I love you, Mom.”
She inclines her head, acknowledging, then ushers me into the chill of the central air. Turning to lock the door firmly behind her, she sighs, “I just knew it.”
“Knew what?” I ask, turning.
“Knew no good would come of getting to know those people next door.” Chapter Fifty-two
Contrary to Clay’s predictions, the Garretts don’t call a press conference the next day. Or go directly to the police. They do, after all, bring out the talking stick. There’s a family conference at the hospital, with all the children down to Duff. Alice and Joel want to report Mom immediately. Andy and Jase argue against it. Ultimately, Mr. and Mrs. Garrett decide to keep the matter private. Mom had offered to cover all the medical bills and the additional expenses of hiring someone to work at the store, Jase tells me, and his parents struggle with that. Mr. Garrett doesn’t want charity—or hush money.
For a week, they discuss it as a family. Mr. Garrett is moved from the ICU and Mom goes to visit.
Even Jase doesn’t know what passes between them, but the next day Mom resigns from the race.
Just as she said he would, Clay writes the speech for her. “Certain events in my family have convinced me that I must decline the honor of running for office once again in the hope of serving as your senator.
Public servants are also private individuals, and as such I must do the right thing for the people closest to home, before I try to serve the wider world.”
There’s a lot of lurid speculation in the press—I guess there always is, when a politician resigns unexpectedly—but it dies down after a few weeks.
I expect her to take a cruise, that trip to Virgin Gorda, escape, but instead she spends a lot of time at our house, fixing up the garden she used to care about before she got so busy in politics. She makes dinner for the Garretts, and hands it to me to bring over until Duff gets as sick of sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese, and puff pastry as he’d ever been of pizza. She asks me how Mr. Garrett is doing, averting her eyes. When Jase offers to mow our lawn, she tells me to thank him, but “we have a service.” You’d think, after all the years I’ve come to the B&T, all the Friday night hornpipe dinners, the holiday festivities, the hours logged in and by the pools, that I would have missed it more since I hung up my uniform and said good-bye to Mr. Lennox. But though Mom decides it’s the only possible place to go for a last family dinner before Tracy leaves for college, I don’t feel a rush of nostalgia as we open the heavy oak doors to the dining room, just surprise that it’s all exactly the same. The soft classical music played low enough to be nearly subliminal, the loud laughter from the bar, the chink of silverware. The smell of lemon oill and overstarched tablecloths and prime rib.
Tracy is leading the way, which is different. Mom follows. We get our usual maitre d’, but he doesn’t take us to the table that’s always been ours, below the sea of harpooned whales and unlucky sailors.
Instead he leads us to a smaller corner table.
“I’m very sorry,” he tells Mom. “You haven’t been here in a while, and we’ve become accustomed to giving this table to Mr. Lamont—he comes in every Friday.” Mom looks down at her hands, then abruptly back up at him. “Of course. Naturally. This is fine. Better.
More privacy.”
She sinks into the chair that doesn’t face the rest of the room, shaking out her napkin.
“We were very sorry to hear that you won’t be representing us again, Senator Reed,” he adds gently.
“Ah. Well. Time to move on.” Mom reaches for the bread basket, and butters a roll with enormous concentration. Then she eats it as though it’s her last meal. Tracy raises her eyebrows at me. We do a lot of that these days. Our house is a quiet minefield. Trace can’t wait to escape to Middlebury, and I can’t blame her.
“Speaking of which,” Tracy says, “I’m changing up some college plans.” Mom puts down the last bite of her roll. “No,” she says faintly.
Tracy just looks at her. Like Mom has lost her right to say no or yes to anything, which has pretty much been her stance since she returned from the Vineyard. And Mom looks away.
“Flip’s transferring up to Vermont. To be with me. He’s got a great job as a manny for some professors in the English department. We’re going to get an apartment together.” Mom doesn’t seem to know where to start with this. Finally, she says, “A manny?”
“That’s right, Mom.” Tracy closes her menu. “And an apartment together.” At first glance, you could mistake this for their old battle: Tracy reserving her right to rebel, and Mom refusing to let her. But these days my mother always blinks first. She looks down at the napkin in her lap now, takes a careful sip of water, then says, “Oh. Well. That is news.” Pause while the waiter takes our orders. We are still too well bred or well trained to show visible emotion in front of the waitstaff. When he departs, though, Mom reaches for the silk cardigan sweater she’s draped over the back of her seat, fumbling in the pocket.
“I guess, then, it’s a good time to show you this.” She carefully unfolds a sheet of paper, smoothes it with her hand, and positions it between Tracy and me.
“For sale. Your house of dreams. Nestled on a quiet cul-de-sac in one of Connecticut’s most exclusive towns, this jewel of a home features the best of everything—top-of-the-line amenities, prime location near the boardwalk and beach, hardwood floors, everything of the highest quality. For price, please inquire of Postscript Realty.”
I’m staring, not really getting it, but Tracy does, immediately.
“You’re selling our house? We’re moving?”
“Samantha and I will be moving. You will already be gone,” Mom says, with a ghost of her old sharp tone.
It’s only then that I actually recognize our house in the picture, caught from a slant, a view I rarely see anymore—the opposite side from the Garretts.
“It makes sense,” Mom says briskly as the waiter soundlessly slides her plate of field greens in front of her. “Too much house for two people. Too much…” Her voice fades and she stabs at a piece of dried cranberry. “They give it a month to sell, tops,” she says.
“A month!” Tracy explodes. “In Samantha’s last year of high school? Where are you going to go?” Mom finishes chewing her forkful of salad, dabs at her lips. “Oh, maybe those new condominiums over by the inlet. Just until we get our bearings. It won’t change anything for Samantha. She’ll still go to Hodges.”
“Right,” Tracy mutters. “God, Mom. Hasn’t enough changed for Samantha already?” I don’t say anything, but in a way Tracy’s right. Who was that girl who trailed in here at the beginning of the summer, with Nan, her best friend, fretting about Tim, baffled by Clay, keeping secret her crush?
But then, that’s exactly it, isn’t it? Everything big has already changed.
Our house was Mom’s work of art, her testament to the fact that she deserved the best of everything.
But what I loved was the view. And for so long, that was who I was. The girl who watched the Garretts.
My life next door.
But I’m not that watcher anymore. What Jase and I have is real and alive. It has nothing to do with how things look from far away and everything to do with how they are up close. That won’t change.
Chapter Fifty-three
Now it’s early dawn, Labor Day weekend. School starts tomorrow, with its cavalcade of homework and AP classes and expectations. When I open my eyes I can already feel the change, the lazy air deepened now, New England’s summer days yielding to the crispness of fall. I bike to the ocean for a predawn swim, focusing on my strokes, then floating in the waves, looking up at the stars fading in the sky. I will make swim team this fall.
I’m back home before the sun has fully risen and just out of the shower when I hear him.
“Samantha! Sam!” I rub my towel over my hair and walk to the window. It’s still dark but lightening up enough that I can see Jase standing below by the trellis, something in his hand.
“Step aside for a sec,” he calls up to me.
When I do, a newspaper swings up and in the window, in a perfect arc.
I pop my head back out. “What an arm! But I don’t subscribe to the Stony Bay Bugle.”
“Look inside.”
Snapping off the rubber band, I unroll the paper. Inside is a perfect puff of Queen Anne’s lace, fragile and blooming around a center as green as spring, with a note around the stem. Come next door. Your chariot awaits.
I climb down the trellis. There, in the Garretts’ driveway, is the Mustang, the shredded seats replaced by smooth brown leather, the front part painted a dazzling racing green.
“She’s beautiful,” I say.
“I wanted to wait till it was perfect, new paint job everywhere. Then I realized perfect could be too long.”
“No dancing hula girls yet,” I note.
“If you feel like dancing—or doing the hula—be my guest. Although the front seat is kinda cramped.
You might have to go for the hood.”
I laugh. “And scratch that paint job? No way.”
“Come on.” He opens the side door with a flourish, ushering me in, then jumps in himself, vaulting easily over the driver’s-side door.
“Suave,” I say, laughing.
“Right, huh? I practiced. Key to avoid landing on the stick shift.” I’m still laughing as he turns the key in the ignition and the car roars to life.
“She runs!”
“Of course,” Jase says smugly. “Buckle up. I’ve got something else to show you.” The town is still and quiet as we ride through the streets, too early for stores to open, too early for Breakfast Ahoy to unfurl its awning. But the paper boys have already done their job.
We drive down the long shore road and wind up in the beach parking lot, near the Clam Shack, where we had our first date.
“Come on, Sam.”
I take Jase’s hand and we walk on the beach. The sand is cool, firm, and damp from the receding tide, but there is that shimmer of heat in the air that tells you it’s going to be a scorching day.
We walk out on the rocky path to the lighthouse. It’s still fairly dark, and Jase holds a steadying hand to my waist as we clamber over the huge crooked stones. When we get to the lighthouse, he pulls me toward the black enameled pipes that form the ladder that takes you to the roof.
“You first,” he says. “I’m right behind you.”
At the top, we duck into the room where the huge light faces the ocean, then climb out on the gently slanted roof. Jase looks at his watch. “In ten, nine, eight…”
“Is something going to blow up?” I ask.
“Shh. Perks of being a paperboy. I know exactly when this happens. Shh, Samantha. Watch.” We lie back, hand in hand, look out over the ocean, and watch the sun rise over the roof of the world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Though I never thought writing was a solitary job involving the author and a drafty garret, I had no idea before this book just how many people I needed in order to translate the words I wrote into the book in your hands. I’ve been beyond lucky.
I’ll start with my amazing and infinitely supportive agent, Christina Hogrebe of the Jane Rotrosen Agency. She brilliantly balances knowing the marketplace with thoughtful story analysis and nervous-author support. She is absolutely magical.
Meg Ruley and Annelise Robey, also of Jane Rotrosen, who said those magic words—“you definitely have ‘it’”—that kept me writing. Carlie Webber brought her YA expertise and her savvy questions behind the scenes, helping more than I can say.
And then there is Jessica Garrison, my editor. It was one of the luckiest days of my life when she read My Life Next Door and put her talent and skill behind it. There isn’t a page of this book that hasn’t been improved by Jess’s eagle eye, attention to detail, and creative flair.
“Thank you” is insufficient for the whole team at Dial/Penguin Books for Young Readers. Regina Castillo’s supernatural memory for both grammar and plot points saved me from many a mistake. Kathy Dawson and Jackie Engel both believed in this book even during its awkward adolescence. Theresa Evangelista gave me an even better cover than I could have imagined, and Jasmin Rubero gave my words such a gorgeous look.
This story would never have made its way to the final chapter without the patience and honesty of my beloved FTHRWA critique group. They supplied everything from updated teen slang to unstinting hand-holding. Thank you Ginny Lester, Ana Morgan, Morgan (Carole) Wyatt, Amy Villalba, Jaclyn Di Bona, and Ushma Kothari. Plus my hometown friends, who handed on essential knowledge about the innards of cars, the workings of the teenaged mind, and the consequences of medical disasters.
And then there’s CTRWA. After the first meeting, I called my husband and said “I’ve found my people,” and you guys have been that and more. An extra shout-out to Jessica Anderson, who honed my pitch, to Toni Andrews, who put up with endless newbie questions.
Like her footwear, Kristan Higgins’s generosity toward new writers is rightfully the stuff of legend.
Kristan always went beyond the call of duty. I thank her and the talented clones she MUST have. Right?
Finally, Gay Thomas and Rhonda Pollero were utterly unswerving in their kindness all through my trip from their fortunate editor to fellow author. Like Charlotte the spider, they are both rock-solid friends, and amazing writers. I’m honored and lucky to know them.
As for my children—you give me endless laughs, every best moment, and constant reminders of what really counts. I love you more than anything.
My sister, deLancey, held my hand and looked out for me through this whole process. How lucky I am to have a sibling so fiercely protective, fearlessly honest, and fantastically funny. Who never dated blond tennis players. Of course not.
My father—who has always been my hero. And Georgia, my beloved stepmother.
And my husband, John, who took me at my word on our first date when I said “I am a writer” and never stopped pushing me to make that boast real. You are my most faithful fan, my biggest PR agent, and kindest critic.
Document Outline
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Acknowledgments
