“Have you heard from him?” she asks constantly. My parents want to make sure I haven’t relapsed.
But I can say truthfully that I haven’t. Jared could have died for all I knew.
Then, six months later, rumors spread around my school that some guy from the public high school has befriended the lead guitarist of Purple Waters, the “it” band du jour. With some digging, I discover the guy in question is Jared. But I dismiss those rumors as wishful thinking until I hear about the tour invitation and the recording contract, and then I go online and discover it’s all true.
“I just want you to be happy,” my mom says as I wander around the house, dazed and glum over the news.
But how can I be happy when everyone is conspiring to make me miserable?
She has information about colleges spread across the table—Yale, Cornell, Vassar and small liberal arts schools I’ve never heard of. “We need to think about your future. You’re more like me than you think. I also had a thing for bad boys and was too prone to dream when I was your age.”
I think she’s wrong, but I don’t say it because I want her to believe I’m not so bad. But I’m furious at her. And my dad. Furious that they misjudged Jared’s talent yet were so right about him being bad for me. Furious that their dreams for me interfered with my dreams for myself.
Then even more furious at myself for being angry with them in the first place because being angry with my mom is the cruelest, most terrible thing I can be. More proof that I’m the bad daughter.
“Claire?” She reaches for my wrist, and her hand feels too light. Like paper. “What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing,” I tell her as I give her a hug. And I tell her nothing. Nothing about how strange it is that we’re talking about colleges and dream schools when my so-called loser ex-boyfriend achieved the dream they never thought he could.
I never tell. Never yell. Never cry in front of her or my dad because there are more important and stressful things for us to deal with. Instead, I hoard all those thoughts inside and let them eat away at my sanity like my own little emotional cancer.
Then, months later, my mom dies. And just when I could have used Jared the most, he’s singing to the world about how I’m a shallow bitch. My parents are vindicated, but my broken heart is scattered in a thousand little pieces, and I’m reduced to that girl in her red Miata, cranking Janis Joplin as she floors it down the highway, screaming at the alien gods to take it.
Take it all.
Chapter Three
The day after we arrive in New Hampshire, I grit my teeth and finish braiding my hair into two pigtails. The ends barely touch my shoulders so it’s not the easiest thing to do, but it makes the orange a little less obnoxious.
In retrospect, I should never have dyed my hair before leaving home, but ever since meeting that blue-haired music store clerk a couple years ago I’d been coveting something funkier than my boring brown. Something that makes me look like as big a misfit as I feel.
Unfortunately, my school had a strict appearance policy. So while some students burned their uniforms at post-graduation parties, Kristen and I picked out hair dye and planned piercings. Of course, that’s all well and good for her. She’s lazing about, enjoying her summer before college. I, on the other hand, now have to go job-hunting while looking like a punked-out Pippi Longstocking.
Brilliance, thy name is Claire.
Still, I’m not too shabby. Plain T-shirt, clean shorts, new zebra-print sneakers—I only have to look presentable enough to find work at a coffee shop or a music store. You know, some place that might appreciate my neon hair.
I survey myself one last time as April storms into the room. She pushes aside the old sheet that separates her half of the attic from mine.
“Have you seen what she’s wearing?”
April points to the far window, which provides a view of my aunt and uncle’s deck. I poke my head outside. Nikki Clay, my dad’s so-called secretary, is stretched out on a lawn chair, wearing the skimpiest bikini I’ve seen outside of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. She has a computer on her lap. My dad sits a couple feet away, rifling through papers and stealing glances at her.
“I still can’t believe he brought her with us,” April says, totally unconcerned with being overheard. “What’s can she possibly be doing for him now that the firm is finished?”
“Do you actually have to ask?”
My sister screams and flops on her cot.
There are few things April and I can bond over. Yet in the past few months, Nikki has brought us together the way no vacations, board games or other enforced family time ever could.
Nothing says sisterly love like trying to destroy a common enemy.
I twirl the gaudy tennis bracelet around my wrist, thinking how silly it looks to go begging for a job while wearing such a thing. “Like we discussed on the drive here, we will take Nikki down this summer, but we need time. So for now, ignore her. Go to the beach, or go exploring, or something. Don’t let Nikki ruin your summer vacation.”
“This is not vacation, no matter how Dad tries to spin it.”
“It’s the beach.”
She rolls onto her side, glaring at me. “Hannah says the ocean here is cold. And it’s not vacation. Vacations are fun. We’re crashing with family because we can’t afford to go somewhere more exciting. Stop pretending to be an optimist.”
I bite my tongue and ignore her. Seriously, what gives her the right to complain about something so trivial when I had to give up my spot in Brown’s freshman class because my college fund was empty and the deadline for financial aid had passed? If anyone has a right to wallow in misery, it’s me.
Trust me, I can wallow with the best of them, too. After I dumped Jared and he wouldn’t return my heartsick calls, I wallowed for three weeks straight. But my future is on the line now. I have no time for wallowing. Instead, I have a plan.
I stomp downstairs, repressing a bout of frustration. Much as I want to, I can’t blame my father—or Nikki—for this mess we’re in. Whatever caused the meltdown that resulted in my dad losing his job, and most of our family fortune with it, it doesn’t sound like it was his fault. The analysts on the boring financial programs he watches are blaming it on his bosses.
I wander into the kitchen and grab a bottle of water from the fridge. In the dining room, my cousins discuss their beach plans for the day. Slipping on my sunglasses, I head outside before they try to lure me into having fun with them.
It’s tempting to give up on job hunting before I begin, especially since I already have two strikes against me, not including the orange hair. One, it’s late in the summer so most openings are probably filled. And two, I’m only around for a month. I’m aware that my odds of finding something are slim, but I can’t stand the thought of sitting around on my butt. Someone has to be the responsible adult around here. While my father scrolls through his phone, hitting up his contacts for jobs and monitoring his remaining investments, one of us has to make some money. My dad won’t talk about the finances in front of me, but it’s clear that even having sold the house, the family bank account is skimpier than Nikki’s thong.
Besides, a job has an allure beyond the gas money my dad can no longer give me—it will get me away from everyone. Even though April and I finally have something in common, I can still only take her in small doses, and the sight of Nikki fills my veins with a murderous rage. She’s almost as maddening as hearing Jared on the radio.
But I did enough