My bag felt loaded down with bricks as I lugged it up the steps, trying to get inside the latticed porch before I was sandblasted again. Oak Creek High School was on the east side of town--my house was on the west, and my shoulders ached from the long walk from school in the hot sun. In a perfect world, Mama would be standing at the door with a smile on her face and a glass of sweet tea in her hand, but the dusty door was closed and the lights were dark. We lived in Mama's world.
I snarled at the oversize door with the rounded arch. It frowned at me every time I came home, mocking me. I pulled on the handle and dragged my bag inside. Even though I was angry and fed up, I was careful not to let the front door slam behind me.
The house was dusty, dark, and hot, but still better than outside with the cruel sun and the screaming cicadas.
Mama wasn't at the door holding an iced tea. She wasn't there at all. I stayed still, listening for who was.
Against Dad's wishes, Mama had used most of his life insurance money to transform our seven-bedroom house into a place where the road weary could rest for a night or the weekend. Just like Dad had predicted, we rarely saw a visit from someone new. And the regulars weren't enough. Even after we'd sold Mama's car, the bills were overdue. Even after the social security checks, if we rented every room every night for the rest of my high school career, everything would still get taken away. The house would get taken by the bank, I'd get taken by DHS, and Mama and the regulars would have to find a way to exist outside of the walls of the Juniper.
I choked on the stale, humid air, deciding to open a window. The summer had been miserably hot, even for Oklahoma, and autumn wasn't offering much relief. Even so, Mama didn't like to run the air conditioner unless we were expecting guests.
But we were. We were always expecting guests.
Footsteps scampered down the hall upstairs. The crystal chandelier rattled, and I smiled. Poppy was back.
I left my backpack at the door and climbed the wooden steps, two at a time. Poppy was at the end of the hall, standing by the window, looking down on the backyard.
"Do you want to go out and play?" I asked, reaching out to pet her hair.
She shook her head but didn't turn around.
"Uh-oh," I said. "Bad day?"
"Daddy won't let me go outside until he gets back," she whimpered. "He's been gone a long time."
"Have you had lunch?" I asked, holding out my hand. She shook her head. "I bet your dad will let you go outside with me if you eat a sandwich first. Peanut butter and jelly?"
Poppy grinned. She was practically a little sister. I'd been taking care of her since the first night she visited. She and her father were the first to come after Dad had died.
Poppy walked clumsily down the stairs, then watched as I rummaged through the cabinets for bread, a knife, jelly, and peanut butter. The corners of her dirty mouth turned up while she watched me slather together ingredients and then add a banana for good measure.
Mama use to sneak in something healthy when I was Poppy's age, and now, five months from my eighteenth birthday, I was the adult. It had been that way since Dad died. Mama never thanked me or acknowledged what I did for us, not that I expected her to. Our life now was about making it through the day. Anything more was too overwhelming for me, and I didn't have the luxury of quitting. At least one of us had to keep it together so we didn't fall apart.
"Did you eat breakfast?" I asked, trying to get a sense of when she'd checked in.
She nodded, stuffing the sandwich into her mouth. A ring of grape jelly added to the dirt and stickiness already spotting her face.
I fetched my backpack and brought it to the end of our long, rectangular table in the dining room, not far from where Poppy sat. While she chomped and wiped her sticky chin with the back of her hand, I finished my geometry. Poppy was happy but lonely like me. Mama didn't like for me to have friends over, except for the occasional visit from Tess, who mostly talked about her house down the street. She was homeschooled and a little weird, but she was someone to talk to, and she didn't care about the goings-on at the Juniper. It wasn't as if I had time for things like that anyway. We couldn't allow outsiders to see what was happening inside our walls.
Bass thumped outside, and I pulled aside the curtain to peek out the window. Presley's pearl-white convertible Mini Cooper was full of the clones, now seniors like me. The top was down, the clones laughing and bobbing their heads to the music as Presley slowed at the four-way stop in front of our house. Two years ago, jealousy or sadness might have seared through me, but the discomfort of numbness was the only thing I could feel. The part of me that wished for cars and dates and new clothes had died with Dad. Wanting something I couldn't have was too painful, so I chose not to.
Mama and I had bills to pay, and that meant keeping secrets for the people who walked the hallways. If our neighbors knew the truth, they wouldn't want us to stay. So we were loyal to her patrons, and we kept their secrets. I was willing to sacrifice the few friends I had to keep us all happy and lonely and together.
As soon as I opened the back door, Poppy bolted down the wooden steps to the yard below, planting her palms on the ground and kicking over in an awkward cartwheel. She giggled and covered her mouth, sitting on the crispy golden grass. My mouth felt dry just hearing it crunch beneath our feet. The summer had been one of the hottest I could remember. Even now, in late September, the trees were withered and the ground was made of dead grass, dust, and beetles. Rain was something the adults talked about like a fond memory.
"Daddy will be back soon," Poppy said, a tinge of nostalgia in her voice.
"I know."
"Tell me again. The story about when you were born. The story about your name."
I smiled, sitting down on the steps. "Again?"
"Again," Poppy said, absently pulling bleached blades from the ground.
"Mama wanted to be a princess her whole life," I said with reverence. It was the same tone Dad used when he recounted the story at bedtime. Every night until the day before he died, he told me the Story of Catherine. "When she was just ten, Mama dreamed about fluffy dresses and marble floors and golden teacups. She wished for it so hard she was sure it would come true. She just knew when she fell in love with Dad that he had to be a secret prince."
Poppy's eyebrows and shoulders lifted as she became lost in my words, and then her expression fell. "But he wasn't."
I shook my head. "He wasn't. But she loved him even more than she loved her dream."
"So they got married and had a baby."
I nodded. "She wanted to be royalty, and bestowing a name--a title--on another human being was the closest she would ever get. Catherine sounded like a princess to her."
"Catherine Elizabeth Calhoun," Poppy said, sitting tall.
"Regal, isn't it?"
Poppy's face scrunched. "What does regal mean?"
"Excuse me," a deep voice said from the corner of the yard.
Poppy stood, glaring at the intruder.
I stood next to her, raising my hand to shield my eyes from the sun. At first, all I could see was his silhouette, and then his face came into focus. I almost didn't recognize him, but the camera hanging from a strap around his neck gave him away.
Elliott was taller, his frame thicker with more muscle. His chiseled jaw made him look like a man instead of the boy I remembered. His hair was longer, now falling to the bottom of his shoulder blades. He hitched his elbows over the top of our peeling picket fence with a hopeful grin.
I glanced over my shoulder to Poppy. "Go inside," I said. She obeyed, quietly retreating to the house. I looked to Elliott and then turned.
"Catherine, wait," he pleaded.
"I have been," I snapped.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his khaki cargo shorts, making my heart ache. He looked so different from the last time I'd seen him, and yet the same. Far from the lanky, awkward teenager just two years earlier. His braces were gone, leaving a perfect smile behind his lying lips, brig
ht against his skin. The deepness of his complexion had faded, and so had the light in his eyes.
Elliott's Adam's apple bobbed when he swallowed. "I'm, um . . . I'm . . ."
A liar.
The camera swayed from the thick, black strap hanging from his neck as he fidgeted. He was nervous, and guilty, and beautiful.
He tried again. "I'm--"
"Not welcome," I said, slowly retreating up the steps.
"I just moved in," he called after me. "With my aunt? While my parents finalize the divorce. Dad is living with his girlfriend, and Mom stays in bed most of the day." He lifted his fist and gestured behind him with his thumb. "I'm just down the street? Do you remember where my aunt lives?"
I didn't like the way he ended his sentences with question marks. If I were to ever talk to a boy again with even a smidgen of interest, he would talk in periods, and only sometimes in exclamation points. Only when it was interesting, the way Dad use to talk.
"Go away," I said, glancing down at his camera.
He held up the boxy contraption with his long fingers, offering a small smile. Elliott's new camera was old and had probably seen more than he had. "Catherine, please. Let me explain?"
I didn't respond, instead reaching for the screen door. Elliott dropped his camera, holding out his hand. "I start school tomorrow. Transferring my senior year, can you believe it? It would . . . it would be nice to know at least one person?"
"School has already started," I snarled.
"I know. It took me refusing to go to school in Yukon for Mom to finally allow me to come."
The hint of desperation in his voice softened my resolve. Dad had always said I would have to put a lot of effort in to cover my soft center with a hard shell.
"You're right. That sucks," I said, unable to stop myself.
"Catherine," Elliott begged.
"You know what else sucks? Being your friend," I said, and turned to walk inside.
"Catherine." Mama balked as I walked face-first into her throat. "I've never seen you behave so rudely."
Mama was tall, but she had soft curves that I'd once loved to snuggle. There was a time after Dad died when she wasn't so soft or curvy, when her collarbones stuck out so far they created shadows, and being held by her was like being hugged by the lifeless branches of a dead tree. Now her cheeks were full and she was soft again, even if she didn't hold me as much. Now I held her.
"I'm sorry," I said. She was right. She had never witnessed me being rude. It was something I did when she wasn't around to keep persistent people away. Mama's profession was hospitality and rudeness upset her, but it was necessary to keep our secrets.
She touched my shoulder and winked. "Well, you're mine, aren't cha? I suppose I'm to blame."
"Hi, ma'am," he said. "I'm Elliott. Youngblood?"
"I'm Mavis," Mama said, pleasant and polite and light as if the humidity didn't choke her like it did the rest of us.
"I just moved in with my aunt Leigh down the street."
"Leigh Patterson Youngblood?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Oh my," Mama said. She blinked. "How do you get on with your aunt Leigh?"
"It's getting better," Elliott said with a smirk.
"Yes, well, bless her heart. I'm afraid she's a bit of a bitch. Has been since high school," Mama said.
Elliott laughed, and I realized how much I'd missed him. I cried on the inside like I'd been doing since he left.
"Goodness, where are our manners? Would you like to come in, Elliott? I believe I have some tea and fresh fruit and vegetables from the garden. Or what's left of it after this drought."
I turned to glower at Mama. "No. We have work to do. Poppy and her dad are here."
"Oh. Well," Mama said, touching her fingers to her chest. She was suddenly nervous. "I'm so sorry, Elliott."
"Another time," Elliott said, saying goodbye with a salute. "See you tomorrow, Princess Catherine."
I bristled. "Don't call me that. Ever."
I guided Mama inside, letting the screen door slam behind me. Mama wrung her hands on her apron, fidgeting. I took her upstairs, down the hall, and up another five steps to the upper master bedroom and gestured for her to sit down at the vanity. She hadn't been able to spend a night in her and Dad's room since he died, so we'd transformed the small attic storage area into a place of her own.
She fussed with her hair and took a tissue to remove the smudges from her face. "Lord, no wonder you didn't want him inside. I'm a fright."
"You've been working hard, Mama." I picked up her comb and pulled it through her hair.
She relaxed and smiled. "How was your day? How was school? Are you finished with your homework?"
No wonder she liked Elliott. She spoke in question marks, too. "All good, and yes. Just geometry."
She snorted. "Just geometry." She mimicked my flippant tone. "I could barely handle a simple algebra equation."
"That's not true," I said.
"Only because your daddy . . ." She froze, and I watched her eyes grow vacant.
I set down the comb and walked down the hall, down the steps, trying to find something to do. Mama was upset now and would make herself scarce for the rest of the evening. She spent her days pretending everything was fine, but once in a while, when Dad came up in conversation, it would hit her too hard, she would remember too much, and she would sneak away. I would stay--cleaning, cooking, speaking with the occasional guest. My time was spent updating the books and trying to keep the decrepit house in working order. Running the Juniper, even a tiny bed and breakfast with infrequent visitors like ours, created enough work to keep two full-time employees busy. On some nights, I was glad when she shut herself away from her memories, leaving me to do it all. Busy had become peaceful.
The door slammed, and Poppy cried my name from the top of the stairwell. "Catherine!"
I rushed up the steps, holding her while her sobs shook her body. "Daddy left again!"
"I'm sorry," I said, rocking her gently.
I was glad to deal with Poppy rather than her father. Duke was a loud, angry man, always yelling and busy (but not the peaceful kind), and not at all pleasant to accommodate. When Duke was around, Poppy was quiet. Mama was quiet. That left only me to deal with him.
"I'll stay with you until he gets back," I said.
She nodded and then buried her head in my chest. I sat with her on the worn, scratchy red runner that cascaded down the stairs until it was her bedtime, and then I tucked her in.
I wasn't sure if Poppy would still be here in the morning, but it wouldn't be hard to make sure she had something quick and sweet for breakfast or that Duke would have his oatmeal or Denver omelet. I descended the stairs to ready the kitchen for morning. If I prepped, Mama would cook while I got ready for school.
After cleaning and placing the freshly sliced tomatoes, onions, and mushrooms in the refrigerator, I trudged back up the stairs.
Mama had her good days and bad days. Today had fallen somewhere in the middle. We'd had worse. Running the Juniper was too much for Mama. I still wasn't sure how I kept it together, but when all that mattered was making it until tomorrow, age didn't matter, only what needed to be done.
I showered and pulled my pajama top over my head--it was too hot to wear anything else--and then crawled into bed.
In the stillness, Poppy's whimpers traveled down the hall. I froze, waiting to hear if she would fall back asleep or if she would get more upset. Nights at the Juniper were hard for her, and I wondered what it was like when she was away, if she was sad and scared and lonely, or if she tried to forget the part of her life that existed between her nights on Juniper Street. From the little she'd told me, I knew her mother was gone. Her father, Duke, was frightening. Poppy was trapped in a cycle of being stuck in a car with him while he traveled to different towns for sales jobs and being left alone for hours and sometimes days at a time while he worked. Her time at the bed and breakfast was her favorite, but it was just a small fraction of her life.
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Thoughts of school the next day interrupted my worries for Poppy. I would work hard to keep people away and even harder to keep Elliott away. We were the only two kids our age who lived on Juniper Street. Aside from Tess and a single preschooler, the neighborhood was full of empty nesters and grandparents whose kids and grandkids lived halfway across the country. Coming up with excuses to ignore or avoid Elliott wouldn't be easy.
Maybe he would get popular fast and no longer need to try to be my friend. Maybe he would call me weird and spit in my hair like some of the other kids. Maybe Elliott would make it easier to hate him. While I drifted off to sleep, I hoped that he would. Hate made loneliness easier.
Chapter Seven
Catherine
Small white strings tied to a metal vent on the ceiling swayed to a silent beat somewhere inside the ventilation system of the school. They were meant to show that the AC was working, and it was, just not very well.
Scotty Neal twisted himself to stretch, grabbing my desk until his back popped, and then heaved a dramatic sigh. He lifted the bottom of his T-shirt and used it to wipe the sweat from his red, blotchy face.
I twisted my hair, now several inches past my shoulders, into a high bun. The strands at the nape of my neck were damp and tickling my skin, so I smoothed them upward. The other students were fidgeting, too, overheating by the minute.
"Mr. Mason." Scotty groaned. "Can we get a fan? Water? Something?"
Mr. Mason dabbed his brow with a handkerchief and pushed his glasses up his slick nose for the dozenth time. "That's a good idea, Scotty. Water break. Use the fountain around the corner. There are classrooms in session between here and there. I want quiet, I want an efficient system, and I want you back here in five minutes."
Scotty nodded, and chairs scraped against the muted green tile as everyone stood and headed out the door, not at all quiet. Minka passed me, her hair frizzy and threatening to curl. She glared at me over her shoulder, still angry that I'd broken up with her and Owen two years before.
Mr. Mason rolled his eyes at the chatter and shook his head, and then he noticed me, the lone student still in the room.
"Catherine?"
I raised my eyebrows to acknowledge him.
"Aren't you thirsty?" He waved me away, already knowing the answer. "Oh, it's a circus out there. I get it. Make sure you go after everyone gets back in, okay?"