Now, that sounds more like the overly dramatic Laney I know.
I sigh and look down at her feet. She has on black sandals with a cork heel, and her toes are painted dark red—obviously she had them done recently. Her mom’s idea of mother-daughter bonding time is getting pedicures together; a conundrum for Laney, who loves pedicures, but hates spending more time with her mother than strictly necessary.
“I think,” Laney says, “we are at an impose.”
“You mean an impasse?”
“Right, that. If the universe wants us to go to California, things will work out on their own.”
“Don’t say that,” I snap. It always bothers me when Laney starts espousing this particular brand of fatalism. “This isn’t about leaving shit up to fate. This isn’t a game!”
“I wasn’t trying to say that,” she says, confused and a little hurt.
“I have to do this.” My voice rises, almost cracking. I have to make her understand. This isn’t just a joke or something I’m talking about for kicks. This has to happen. “I need your help. Please. I’m not just messing around here. I am so, completely dead serious, you don’t even know. I have to do this. For June. I have to, or—” Or I’ll never be able to live with myself. I can’t bring myself to actually say it. I don’t need to. Laney knows.
“Okay,” she soothes, “okay, we’ll find a way, okay? I promise. Just breathe.”
I look at her and nod. I believe her. Laney never makes promises she can’t keep.
Mrs. Sterling picks us up a few minutes later in her white SUV. During the drive back, she makes a lot of tsk-ing sounds with her tongue and keeps saying, “Laney, your father is not going to be happy about this,” like Laney’s to blame for her junky car breaking down. Her mouth looks weird, like she’s trying to frown, except the Botox makes it impossible, and from the backseat I catch her glancing in the rearview mirror to brush her peroxide-blond hair away from her alarmingly orange fake-baked face.
When she pulls into my driveway, she twists around in her seat, smiles tightly and asks if my mother enjoyed the quiche.
“It was great,” I lie, and open the door. “My mom says thanks.”
“I’ll call you,” Laney says as I climb out. I wave, and she blows a kiss through the window.
The house is empty again. I think about eating, but I’m not really hungry, and besides, after tossing out the gross foods we’d been given, the refrigerator is bare; there’s a bottle of wine on the bottom shelf, mostly empty. I dump what’s left into the sink and tuck the bottle under some trash in the bin.
Someone left the television on in the living room—an infomercial advertising weight supplements flickers on the screen. A now slim woman holds an old picture of herself, thick and round, and tearfully proclaims that the product transformed her life, that her husband now loves to touch her and her children are no longer ashamed to introduce her to their friends, her life is now pretty and shiny and perfect, blah blah blah. How can this woman stand to listen to herself?
I’m flipping through channels when Aunt Helen and my mother come in, carrying brown grocery bags. Mom’s hair is bushy and unbrushed, and she has on zero makeup. She’s like the opposite of Mrs. Sterling. Usually she’s the opposite of Mrs. Sterling in that she looks put-together without being overdone, classy without trying too hard, but now she just looks sad.
Mom withdraws an egg carton from the bag, sets it on the counter and just stares at it until Aunt Helen reaches over and puts it inside the refrigerator.
“Harper,” calls Aunt Helen, “would you come in here for a moment? I need to speak with you.”
This can only be bad. These types of “discussions” never seem to work out in my favor. I mute the television—I’ve landed on some documentary special about Area 51—and obediently trudge into the kitchen. Aunt Helen purses her thin lips as she leans against the refrigerator door, fingering the large bronze cross that always hangs around her neck.
“We’ve been discussing the … current situation,” she says. Current situation. What is with all of these euphemisms? Adjustments. Current situation. No one can just outright say the ugly truth: Your sister is dead, your mother is unraveling at the seams, your father is a regular Houdini who has once again pulled his well-honed disappearing act and you have the emotional capacity of a cinder block. “Your mother feels it would be best—and I agree—for me to come and stay with you both for a short while,” Aunt Helen continues. “Just to look after things.”
The idea of Aunt Helen living here is enough to make my skin crawl. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what she’s doing, especially for my mother, but I also know what I can and can’t handle. Aunt Helen around twenty-four seven, hovering over me, shoving her religious-guidance crap down my throat, falls distinctly into the latter category.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“Someone needs to be here for your mother, since you seem to be having no qualms about gallivanting around with your friends and leaving her to fend for herself,” she says reproachfully. “Do you really think that’s what your sister would have wanted?” Her accusatory tone cuts through me like a knife.
My eyes shift from her to my mother, shocked, but Mom won’t even look at me. I can’t believe I’m being ambushed. I mean, I know Aunt Helen’s never liked me. I get it. June was always the golden child while I’m the rotten egg. I never even had to do anything to make myself look bad except be average in comparison to her saintly self. This is nothing new.
June wouldn’t be so selfish. June wouldn’t be so cold. June wouldn’t abandon her daughterly duties. Except that she did, permanently, leaving me to take the reins of a role I cannot possibly fill. But no one wants to think about that.
My sister is dead and I’m still being measured up against her ghost. I’m not even surprised.
So why does it still hurt?
The hurt winds its way through me and curls my fists at my sides. My blood buzzes in my head so loud I can’t think. I’m pretty sure if she says another word I’m going to throw something, possibly at her. So instead of doing something I know I’ll regret, I storm out of the kitchen and don’t stop until I’m up the stairs and in my room. I take the disc out of my Discman and throw it at the wall as hard as I can. It doesn’t make much of a sound, just bounces off and rolls onto the floor, sitting there in one piece, mocking me. After some pacing back and forth, I put the disc back in the player and turn the volume up as loud as it will go.
For the rest of the night, no one comes to knock on my door and apologize, or see if I’m okay, or even to try and coax me down for dinner. It’s so stupid, because all I’ve wanted is space, and now that I have it, there’s this part of me that is just so achingly lonely I could die.
The idea of California tugs at me again. It’s not even a mere wish anymore, it’s just … necessary. I have to find a way to get there. Not just for June’s sake, but for mine. I have to get out of this place before I suffocate. A second after that thought crosses my mind, I’m struck with the realization that maybe this is exactly how June felt, too, all of that time.
I wish she was here so I could ask. I wish she was here at all, sitting on my bed, recounting some stupid argument she had with Tyler, or complaining about how I’ve used up the last of the hair conditioner or sitting out on the roof with me as I sneak one of Mom’s stolen cigarettes. We used to do that, sometimes. The first time June caught me smoking I thought for sure she’d rat me out, but she never did.
I wish she was here, but she isn’t, she never will be, and I have to get used to that.
I wait until I know Aunt Helen and Mom have both gone to bed before I creep into the kitchen,