That’s why her mom finally agreed to keep the fridge stocked with Sprite. She railed against the as-yet-undocumented detriments of carbonation, but she couldn’t argue with the 140 calories per can. That was 140 more than water. At least this way she knew Laurel was getting more calories in her system, even if they were “empty.”
Her mom hurried to the pantry to grab a jar of peaches, probably afraid Laurel would change her mind. The unfamiliar twisting in Laurel’s stomach had begun during Spanish class, twenty minutes before the last bell. It had faded a little on the walk home but hadn’t gone away.
“Here you go,” she said, setting a bowl in front of Laurel. Then she turned her back, giving Laurel a modicum of privacy. Laurel looked down at the dish. Her mom had played it safe—one peach half and about half a cup of juice.
She ate the peach in small bites, staring at her mother’s back, waiting for her to turn around and peek. But her mom busied herself with the dishes and didn’t look once. Still, Laurel felt like she’d lost some imaginary battle, so when she was finished, she slid her backpack from the counter and tiptoed out of the kitchen before her mom could turn around.
TWO
THE BELL SOUNDED IN BIOLOGY AND LAUREL HURRIED TO stow the evil bio book as deep into her backpack as possible.
“How was day two?”
Laurel looked up to see David sitting backward in the chair across her lab table. “It was okay.” At least she’d heard her name the first time for roll call in all of her classes so far.
“You ready?”
Laurel tried to smile, but her mouth didn’t obey. When she’d agreed to join David and his friends for lunch yesterday, it had seemed like a good idea. But the thought of meeting a whole group of complete strangers made her cringe. “Yeah,” she said, but she could tell her tone wasn’t convincing.
“Are you sure? Because you don’t have to.”
“No, I’m sure,” she said quickly. “Just let me get my stuff.” She packed her notebook and pens slowly. When she knocked one of her pens onto the floor, David retrieved it and handed it to her. She tugged on it, but he didn’t let go until she looked up at him. “They won’t bite,” he said seriously. “I promise.”
In the hallway David monopolized the conversation, rattling on until they entered the cafeteria. He waved to a group at the end of one of the long, thin tables. “Come on,” he said, putting a hand at the small of her back.
It felt a little weird to have someone touch her like that but strangely comforting too. He guided her through the crowded aisle, then dropped his hand as soon as they got to the correct table.
“Hey, guys, this is Laurel.”
David pointed to each person and said a name, but five seconds later, Laurel couldn’t have repeated any of them. She sat in an empty seat beside David and tried to catch bits and pieces of the conversation around her. Absently, she pulled out a can of soda, a strawberry-and-spinach salad, and a peach half in juice her mother had packed that morning.
“A salad? It’s lasagna day and you’re having a salad?”
Laurel looked over at a girl with curly brown hair who had a full tray of school lunch in front of her.
David spoke up quickly, cutting off any response Laurel might have attempted. “Laurel’s vegan—she’s very strict.”
The girl glanced down at the small peach half with one raised eyebrow. “Looks more than vegan to me. Don’t vegans eat, like, bread?”
Laurel’s smile was tight. “Some.”
David rolled his eyes. “This person interrogating you is Chelsea, by the way. Hi, Chelse.”
“You look like you’re on some kind of mega-diet,” Chelsea said, ignoring David’s greeting.
“Not really. This is just the kind of food I like.”
Laurel watched Chelsea’s eyes return to her salad and could sense more questions about to erupt. It was probably better to just spill than answer the twenty questions. “My digestive system doesn’t handle normal food very well,” she said. “Anything except plain fruits and vegetables makes me sick.”
“That’s weird. Who can live on just green stuff? Have you seen a doctor about this? Because—”
“Chelsea?” David’s voice was pointed but quiet. Laurel doubted anyone else at the table had even heard.
Chelsea’s gray eyes widened a little. “Oh, sorry.” She smiled, and when she did, it lit up her whole face. Laurel found herself smiling back. “It’s nice to meet you,” Chelsea said. Then she turned to her meal and didn’t even look at Laurel’s food again.
Lunch break was only twenty-eight minutes long—short by anyone’s standards—but today it seemed to drag on endlessly. The cafeteria was fairly small and voices bounced off the walls like Ping-Pong balls, assaulting her ears. She felt like everyone was shouting at her all at once. Several of David’s friends attempted to draw her into their conversations, but Laurel couldn’t concentrate when the temperature in the room seemed to be rising by the minute. She couldn’t understand why no one else noticed.
She’d chosen a full T-shirt that morning instead of a tank because she’d felt so out of place the day before. But now the neckline seemed to grow even higher until she felt like she was wearing a turtleneck. A tight turtleneck. When the bell finally rang, she smiled and said good-bye but hurried out the door before David could catch her.
She speed-walked to the bathroom, dropped her bag on the floor at the base of the windowsill, and pushed her face out into the open air. She breathed in the cool, salty air and fluttered the front of her shirt, trying to let the breeze touch as much of her body as possible. The faint nausea that had filled her stomach during lunch began to dissipate, and she left the bathroom with just enough time to run to her next class.
After school she walked home slowly. The sun and fresh air invigorated her and made the queasy feeling in her stomach disappear completely. Nonetheless, when she selected her clothing the next morning, she went back to a tank top.
At the beginning of bio, David sat down in the chair next to her. “Do you mind?” he asked.
Laurel shook her head. “The girl who usually sits here spends the whole class doodling hearts for someone named Steve. It’s a little distracting.”
David laughed. “Probably Steve Tanner. He’s super-popular.”
“Everyone goes for the obvious person, I guess.” She pulled out her textbook and found the page Mr. James had written on the whiteboard.
“Want to have lunch with me again today? And my friends,” he added hastily.
Laurel hesitated. She’d figured he would ask, but she still hadn’t thought of a way to answer him without hurting his feelings. She liked him a lot. And she’d liked his friends—the ones she’d been able to hear over the din. “I don’t think so,” she began. “I—”
“Is it Chelsea? She didn’t mean to make you self-conscious about your lunch; she’s just really honest all the time. It’s actually kind of refreshing once you get used to it.”
“No, it’s not her—your friends were all really nice. But I can’t…I can’t stand that cafeteria. If I have to be indoors all day, I need to spend lunch outside. I guess with all the freedom of homeschooling for ten years I’m having trouble relinquishing it so quickly.”
“Do you mind if we come eat outside with you, then?”
Laurel was quiet as she listened to the beginning of the lecture on phyla. “That would be nice,” she finally whispered back.
When the bell rang, David said, “I’ll meet you out there. I’ll just go tell the others so they can come if they want.”
By the time lunch was over, Laurel remembered at least half of the kids’ names and had managed to join in several of the conversations. Chelsea and David went with her to her next class and it felt natural to walk with them. When David made a joke about Mr. James, Laurel’s laugh echoed through the halls. After only three days, the school was beginning to be more familiar; she didn’t feel as lost, and even the crush of people that had been so overwhelming on Monday
wasn’t quite so bad today. For the first time since leaving Orick, Laurel felt like she belonged.
THREE
THE NEXT FEW WEEKS OF SCHOOL FLEW BY FASTER THAN Laurel would ever have imagined after those first awkward days. She felt lucky that she’d met David; they hung out often at school, and she shared a class with Chelsea too. She never ate lunch alone and felt like she had gotten to the point where she could call Chelsea and David her friends. And the classes were okay. It was different to be expected to learn at the same speed as everyone else, but Laurel was getting used to it.
She was also getting used to Crescent City. It was bigger than Orick, of course, but there was still plenty of open space and none of the buildings were more than about two stories high. Tall pine and broad-leafed trees grew everywhere, even in front of the grocery store. The grass on the lawns was thick and green, and flowers blossomed on the vines that crawled over most of the buildings.
One Friday in September, Laurel ran right into David as she ducked through the doorway of her Spanish class, her last class of the day.
“Sorry,” David apologized, steadying her with a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s okay. I wasn’t paying attention.”
Laurel met David’s eyes. She smiled shyly, until she realized she was standing in his way.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Laurel said, moving away from the doorway.
“Um, actually, I was…I was looking for you.”
He seemed nervous. “Okay. I just have to…” She held up her book. “I need to put this in my locker.”
They walked to Laurel’s locker, where she stowed her Spanish book, then she looked expectantly at David.
“I was just wondering if you wanted to, maybe, hang out with me this afternoon?”
Her smile remained on her face, but she felt nerves settle into her stomach. So far their friendship had been confined completely to school; Laurel suddenly realized she wasn’t entirely sure what David liked to do when he wasn’t eating lunch or taking notes. But the possibility of finding out held sudden appeal. “What are you doing?”
“There’re some woods behind my house—since you like to be outdoors, I thought we could go for a walk. There’s this really cool tree there that I thought you might like to see. Well, two trees, actually, but—you’ll understand when you see it. If you want to, I mean.”
“Okay.”
“Really?”
Laurel smiled. “Sure.”
“Great.” He looked down the hall toward the back doors. “It’s easier if we go out the back way.”
Laurel followed David through the crowded hallway and out into the brisk September air. The sun was struggling to break through the fog, and the air was chilly and heavy with humidity.
The wind blew in from the west, bringing the salty tang of the ocean with it, and Laurel breathed deeply, enjoying the fall air as they entered a quiet subdivision about half a mile south of Laurel’s house. “So you live with your mom?” she asked.
“Yep. My dad split when I was nine. So my mom finished up school and came here.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s a pharmacist down at the Medicine Shoppe.”
“Oh.” Laurel laughed. “That’s ironic.”
“Why?”
“My mom’s a master naturopath.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s someone who basically makes all their medicine out of herbs. She even grows a bunch of her own stuff. I’ve never had any drugs, not even Tylenol.”
David stared. “You’re kidding me!”
“Nope. My mom makes stuff that we use instead.”
“My mom would freak. She thinks there’s a pill for everything.”
“My mom thinks doctors are out to kill you.”
“I think both our moms could learn something from each other.”
Laurel laughed. “Probably.”
“So your mom never goes to the doctor?”
“Never.”
“So were you, like, born at home?”
“I was adopted.”
“Oh yeah?” He was quiet for a few moments. “Do you know who your real parents are?”
Laurel snorted. “Nope.”
“Why is that funny?”
Laurel bit her lip. “Promise not to laugh?”
David raised his hand in mock seriousness. “I swear.”
“Someone put me in a basket on my parents’ doorstep.”
“No way! You’re totally messing with me.”
Laurel raised an eyebrow at him.
David gaped. “Honest?”
Laurel nodded. “I was a basket child. I wasn’t really a baby, though. I was, like, three and my mom says I was kicking and trying to get out when they answered the door.”
“So you were a kid? Could you talk?”
“Yeah. Mom said I had this funny accent that stuck around for about a year.”
“Huh. Didn’t you know where you came from?”
“Mom says I knew my name but nothing else. I didn’t know where I was from or what happened or anything.”
“That is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It made for a huge legal mess. After my parents decided they wanted to adopt me, they had a private investigator looking for my birth mother and all sorts of stuff about temporary custody and whatever. Took over two years before everything was final.”
“Did you live in a foster home or something?”
“No. The judge my parents worked with was pretty cooperative, so I got to live with them through the whole process. A social worker came out to see us every week, though, and my parents weren’t allowed to take me out of the state till I was seven.”
“Weird. Do you ever wonder where you came from?”
“I used to. But there are no answers, so it gets frustrating to think about after a while.”
“If you could find out who your real mom is, would you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, pushing her hands into her pockets. “Probably. But I like my life. I’m not sorry I ended up with my mom and dad.”
“That’s so cool.” David gestured toward a driveway. “This way.” He glanced up at the sky. “It looks like it’ll rain soon. Let’s drop our bags and hopefully we’ll have time to see the tree.”
“Is this your house? It’s pretty.” They were passing in front of a small white house with a bright red door; multi-colored zinnias filled a long bed that ran along the front of the house.
“Should be,” David said, turning up the front walk. “I spent two weeks this summer painting it.”
They dropped off their bags by the front door and walked into a neat and simply decorated kitchen. “Can I get you something?” David asked, walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge. He pulled out a can of Mountain Dew and grabbed a box of Twinkies from the cupboard.
Laurel forced herself not to wrinkle her nose at the Twinkies and looked around the kitchen instead. Her eyes found a fruit bowl. “Can I have one of those?” she asked, pointing to a fresh green pear.
“Yeah. Grab it and bring it along.” He held up a water bottle. “Water?”
She grinned. “Sure.”
They pocketed their snacks and David pointed toward the back door. “This way.” They walked to the back of the house and he opened the sliding door.
Laurel stepped out into a well-kept, fenced backyard. “Looks like a dead end to me.”
David laughed. “To the untrained eye, perhaps.”
He approached the cinder-block fence, and with a quick, leaping bound, he pulled himself to the top and perched there.
“Come on,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ll help you.”
Laurel looked up at him skeptically but extended her hand. With surprisingly little effort, they hopped over the fence.
The tree line came right up to the fence, so with that one small jump they stood in a forest with damp, fallen leaves forming a thick carpet under their feet. The dense canopy hushed the sound of
cars in the distance, and Laurel looked around appreciatively. “This is nice.”
David looked up with his hands on his hips. “It is, I guess. I’ve never been a big outdoors person, but I do find a lot of different plants in here that I can look at under my microscope.”
Laurel squinted up at him. “You have a microscope?” She snickered. “You really are a science geek.”
David laughed. “Yeah, but everyone thought Clark Kent was a nerd too, and look how that turned out.”
“You telling me you’re Superman?” Laurel asked.
“You never know,” David said teasingly.
Laurel laughed and looked down, suddenly shy. When she looked up, David was staring at her. The glade seemed even quieter as their eyes met. She liked the way he looked at her, his eyes soft and probing. As if he could learn more about her just by studying her face.
After a long moment he smiled, a little embarrassed, and tilted his head toward a faint path. “The tree’s this way.”
He led her on a path that wound back and forth, seemingly without purpose. But after a few minutes, he pointed to a large tree just off the path.
“Wow,” Laurel said. “That is cool.” It was actually two trees, a fir and an alder that had sprouted close together. Their trunks had merged and twisted, resulting in what looked like a tree that grew pine needles on one side and broad leaves on the other.
“I discovered it when we moved here.”
“So…where’s your dad?” Laurel asked, sliding her back down a tree and settling into a soft pile of leaves. She pulled the pear out of her pocket.
David made a low laugh in his throat. “San Francisco. He’s a defense lawyer with a big firm.”
“Do you see him very often?” she asked.
David joined her on the ground, his knee resting gently against her thigh. She didn’t scoot away. “Every couple of months. He’s got a private jet and he flies into McNamara Field and takes me back with him for the weekend.”
“That’s cool.”