I nod down at the phone. You’re right as usual, O Wise BFF, I text back. I should call Dad, to finish our conversation, to get more answers. And maybe—I feel a tiny spark of hope—I can convince him to let me come.
Sifting through the detritus on my desk, I find the printout of Dad’s email with his phone numbers on it. Nervously, I dial his cell, only to get a hopeless beeping response. It seems my cell phone can receive international calls, but can’t make them.
I open my door and creep out into the carpeted hallway. Our house is one level; from down the hall, I can hear Mom and Aunt Lydia talking in the kitchen. Mom says something that sounds like “Don’t tell.” Aunt Lydia murmurs a response, and then I distinctly hear my aunt say, “Why not give it a chance? It’s been long enough!”
Why not give what a chance? What are they discussing? I strain to hear more but the water in the sink starts running. Oh, well. I’m just glad Mom is otherwise occupied. I turn and tiptoe into her sunny bedroom, where our landline phone sits on her nightstand.
My orange tabby cat, Ro, is curled up on Mom’s bed, and he mewls at me. I ignore him. Ro is technically my pet—a sympathy gift from Mom when she and Dad split up—but he seems to prefer Mom. She even named him; his full name is Schrödinger, after a famous physicist who I guess had some theory involving a cat. I’d wanted to name him Crookshanks, after the cat in Harry Potter, but Ro had hissed at me whenever I called him that, so I’d stopped.
I sit on the edge of Mom’s bed, a safe distance from Ro, and pick up the phone with sweaty palms. I dial Dad’s cell number again, and this time, the call goes straight to voice mail. The recording is Dad saying something unintelligible in French, which intimidates me, so I hang up. Then, with a shrug, I figure I’ll try his house. It could be he’s back from Berlin, and ready for me to come after all.
The house line rings once. Twice.
“Allô?”
A girl has answered, her voice light and melodic.
I clear my throat, nervous, trying to recall some scrap of French. “Um, bonjour. Parlez-vous, um, anglais?” I ask haltingly.
“Yes, I speak English,” the girl replies, with hardly any accent. She sounds a little out of breath, like she’s been rushing. “Who is calling?” she asks.
“Um, Summer,” I reply. “Summer Everett. Ned Everett’s daughter?” I bite my lip. “I was wondering if I could speak to my dad. I think this is his house?”
There’s silence on the other end, and I worry I’ve lost the connection.
“He is in Berlin,” the girl then says, her tone clipped.
“Oh. Still, huh?” I let out a sad laugh. The girl doesn’t respond. “Are you, like, his assistant?” I add. “I was supposed to be his sort-of assistant this summer, but … ”
“I am not,” the girl replies shortly. “I have to go; I am late to meet friends.”
I look at Mom’s clock, calculating the hour in France. Almost nine at night. I wonder who this girl is. One of those artist friends Dad mentioned? She sounds my age.
I start to ask her if I can leave a message when I hear the dial tone. She’s hung up.
Well, that was helpful. I roll my eyes and plunk the phone down. I gaze forlornly at the familiar framed poster on Mom’s wall, a typed quote on a plain white background: You cannot step into the same river twice. —Heraclitus. I know it means something philosophical, but I don’t quite know what.
Ro, perhaps sensing my glumness, pads across the bed toward me. I start to stroke his head but he arches his back, meows, and nips at my fingers. Rejected, again.
I get up and crumple Dad’s email in my hand. I almost toss it into Mom’s wastebasket but then decide not to. I pop back into my room and drop the useless piece of paper onto my desk. Then I shuffle along the hall into the kitchen.
Mom and Aunt Lydia are standing at the counter, their backs to me, still chattering away. Mom is slicing bananas and Aunt Lydia is pouring ice into our blender.
“What are you guys doing?” I demand, sounding even surlier than I’d intended.
Two identical faces turn in my direction. Actually, Mom and Aunt Lydia look very different to me: Mom wears glasses, Aunt Lydia doesn’t. Mom’s straight brown hair comes neatly to her chin, while Aunt Lydia’s is up in a crazy twist anchored by chopsticks. Mom has on a pink collared blouse, Aunt Lydia a vintage Bob Dylan T-shirt.
I’ve always thought it would be amazing to have a twin—a built-in best friend/sister/clone. Mom and Lydia even work together, at Hudsonville College. It’s funny to think of them there on campus, Mom teaching philosophy, Aunt Lydia photography. The two matching Professor Shapiros.
And they are pretty close. I remember how, after the divorce, Aunt Lydia came over almost every day, bringing bags of chips and her homemade guacamole (“healing food,” she called it) and staying up late with Mom, the two of them whispering in the living room while I tried to sleep down the hall. Lately, though, she and Mom do more of their own things: Mom’s idea of a good time is listening to classical music and reading a book on Plato, while Aunt Lydia takes impromptu road trips to see Arcade Fire and goes on dates with guys who have tattooed arms and hipster glasses. As a result, I don’t really see my aunt as much as I’d like.
Now she and Mom both smile at me.
“Morning, sleepyhead!” Mom singsongs, her brown eyes bright. “We’re making red, white, and blueberry smoothies, of course. I ran out of blueberries, so your aunt brought some over! Crisis averted.”
Oh. It’s the Fourth of July. I feel something—not happiness, but some form of non-sadness—stir in my chest. I love this holiday, the one that marks two weeks until my birthday, that tastes of Mom’s strawberry, banana, and blueberry smoothies, that smells like chargrilled hamburgers, that feels festive and hot and carefree. Maybe I should thank Dad for allowing me to spend Independence Day in America this summer.
“Yep, I’m a hero,” Aunt Lydia says, smirking at Mom and then at me.
I smirk back at my aunt. Mom gives a mock sniff and turns back to her bananas.
“So, kiddo,” Aunt Lydia adds, her tone light as she eyes me thoughtfully from across the kitchen. “I heard you had a change of summer plans.”
My heart squeezes. “You could say that,” I mutter. I glance at Mom. I consider telling her about my thwarted phone calls to Dad just now. But she would only get agitated, and she seems more cheerful than she has in months. Even our fight from yesterday appears to have been forgotten, forgiven. Maybe because, in a way, Mom won.
“Oh, I spoke to the airline!” Mom pipes up, all chipper, looking at me over her shoulder. “They said your suitcase should arrive here within three to five business days.”
“Great,” I reply, trudging over to the pantry. I grab a box of Cheerios and scoop out a handful to eat. Mom hates it when I don’t pour cereal into a bowl with milk like a civilized person (her words), but she doesn’t chide me today. “My suitcase has seen more of the world than I have,” I mumble, my mouth full.
I slump down at the linoleum table and stare out the window at the flat streets of our neighborhood: the other one-story houses with their squares of lawn and stuttering sprinklers. Later, I know, Ruby and I will go to Pine Park to see the fireworks. But what will I do the day after? I think of a line from the Shakespeare play we read in English class this year: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace—
“So, niece of mine,” Aunt Lydia speaks up, rinsing a container of strawberries in the sink, “I have a proposition for you.”
“Lydia,” Mom says, shaking her head.
“Lucy, stop,” Lydia tells Mom. “We discussed this.”
I sit up straighter, intrigue poking through my fog of self-pity. I recall the snippets of their mysterious conversation that I overheard before.
“What?” I ask.
Aunt Lydia turns around, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Did you know I’m teaching a photography course on campus this summer?” she asks me.
I nod. “Yea
h, like Mom.”
“Well,” Aunt Lydia says, adjusting a chopstick in her hair, “your mother’s hoity-toity philosophy course is only for college students. But anyone can take my class.” She waggles her eyebrows at me.
I look back at her, not getting it.
Aunt Lydia laughs and throws her hands in the air. “Come on, Summer! Do you want to take my class or not?”
“Wait. Me?” I blink at her, startled. She nods and laughs again while Mom noisily opens the refrigerator. “But—I don’t even know anything about photography,” I protest.
“That’s why it’s a class,” Aunt Lydia points out. “You learn. Besides,” she adds, her brown eyes sparkling, “don’t think I haven’t noticed that, your whole life, you’ve been taking pictures. You might know more than you realize.”
I feel my cheeks warm up and I shrug. “I take pictures like everyone else. Nothing artsy.” But it’s true that I was the first among my friends to join Instagram, and I’ve been known to spend whole days following Ro around with my phone to get shots of him napping. And I had been excited to use my new professional-y camera in France …
“You already have the camera for it,” Aunt Lydia adds, as if she’s read my mind. She plucks a perfectly ripe red strawberry from the container and holds it up to the light. “I lend those kinds of Nikons to my students, you know.”
“Really?” I say. I glance over at Mom, who’s rummaging around in the fridge. My intrigue is growing. Last summer, my friend Alice went to Vermont for a History of Music course, and it had sounded really cool.
“The class meets every day, in the morning,” Aunt Lydia continues, nibbling on the strawberry, “and three times a week, in the afternoon, there are labs—that’s where we do darkroom stuff, or Photoshop. We’ll probably also take a field trip or two.”
I watch as Mom starts silently spooning yogurt into the blender. “Mom, you’d let me do this?” I ask in surprise. Maybe it’s like my uncivilized cereal eating, I think; Mom will bend her rules this time, because she feels sorry for me.
Mom sighs and turns around, spoon in hand. “Look, if you really want to. But I’d prefer that you get a summer job—”
“Lucy,” Aunt Lydia cuts in, rolling her eyes. “I told you I’d waive the class fee.”
“It’s not about the money,” Mom snaps. “It’s about being responsible and … ”
As the two of them bicker, I drum my fingers on the table. I’m torn. Part of me agrees with Mom—a summer job is the responsible thing to do. It’s what I always do. I could even ask Ruby if there are openings at the coffee shop; it would be fun to work side by side, like we did two summers ago at the movie theater.
But a bigger part of me can’t shake the feeling that taking Aunt Lydia’s class would be refreshing and different. Something new.
And the biggest part of me still hopes—wishes—that maybe France isn’t totally out of the question.
Mom and Aunt Lydia continue to argue and I stand up abruptly, pushing the chair back. “I’m going to Ruby’s,” I announce. Ruby’s is my refuge, the place I want to be whenever I’m wrestling with a decision, which is almost always.
Mom glances away from Aunt Lydia and nods at me. “Okay,” she says mildly. “Have fun at Pine Park. I’ll put a leftover smoothie in the fridge for you.”
I realize that, for Mom, everything has gone happily back to status quo. It’s summer, I’m home, I’ll be hanging out with Ruby. Ideally getting a job. It’s as if the promise of visiting Dad was all a dream.
“Hey, kiddo, think about my offer,” Aunt Lydia tells me before I leave the kitchen. “But think fast. The first day of class is Monday.”
I ride my bike to Ruby’s, sweat making my T-shirt stick to my back. Although it’s humid, like yesterday, the sky is blue, shot through with wispy clouds. Did last night’s thunderstorm even happen? I wonder as I pedal up the incline of Deer Hill.
I know this route so well I could take it blindfolded. I pass by my high school, which looks as abandoned as a haunted house. The elementary school, on the next block, is equally, eerily empty, its playground swings creaking in the hot breeze. Ruby and I met on that playground when we were six.
As I reach the crest of the hill, I catch a glimpse of the Hudson River down below. Along the banks of the river sits our town: a strip consisting of one bank, one bookstore, one coffee shop, one restaurant, one pharmacy … For any real shopping, any real “excitement,” there’s the mall: Exit 2 off the highway.
I round the corner onto Ruby’s street, Briar Lane, and park in front of her small apartment building. I gather my hair off my sweaty neck and up into a ponytail, and I prop my sunglasses on top of my head. Then I walk up to the entrance, buzz Ruby’s apartment, and shout “Me!” into the intercom when Ruby’s mom asks who it is.
Ruby’s parents got divorced when she was nine, so when my parents followed suit two years later, Ruby was like my guide through Divorced Kid Land. In some ways, she had it worse than me, because she, her mother, and little brother had to move out of their big house into a cramped apartment. In other ways, she had it better, because her dad is only in Connecticut, instead of an ocean away, and he’s always giving her and her brother expensive electronics and taking them on vacations to the Caribbean.
“We both come from broken homes, Summer,” Ruby once told me during a sleepover at my house, her eyes wide and dramatic. “That’s why we’re so close.”
Though I’d liked the idea of Ruby and I being bonded by life’s difficulties, I didn’t like the notion of a “broken home.” Yes, Dad had left, but that didn’t mean my house was crumbling or cracked.
“ ‘A house divided cannot stand,’ ” I had quoted back to Ruby in the darkness; we’d just been studying Abraham Lincoln in school. She’d burst out laughing and thrown a pillow at my head, calling me a dork.
When I get off the elevator, Ruby’s mom is standing in the doorway to their apartment, taking me in with her big, Ruby-identical eyes.
“Precious!” Mrs. Singh exclaims in her lilting Indian accent, giving me a peck on the cheek. “Why are you here? Didn’t you leave yesterday?”
I feel a sting. I should prepare myself for people asking me this question this summer. Still, I imagined that Ruby would have looped in her mom by now.
“Ruby didn’t tell you?” I ask.
Mrs. Singh flaps a dismissive hand, her glass bangles clanking. “Ruby doesn’t tell me anything. She’s been holed up in her room with Alice all day, getting ready.”
I feel a funny twinge in my stomach. “Getting ready for what?” I blurt. And why would Ruby have Alice over without inviting me, too? Alice is our friend, but she and Ruby aren’t really close enough to warrant one-on-one time. Usually, when we hang out with Alice, it’s as a foursome: me, Ruby, Alice, and Alice’s best friend, Inez Herrara, who is away in California at dance camp this summer.
“Forgive me, dear, but I was on my way out,” Mrs. Singh is saying, stepping around me. She’s wearing her scrubs and sneakers, and holding her purse. Ruby’s mom is a nurse at the hospital, and is constantly working. “It’s bound to be a busy day of firecracker injuries.” She sighs, heading onto the elevator. “See you later?”
I wave distractedly and enter the apartment, kicking off my flip-flops in the foyer, per Singh house rules. I pass through the living room, where Ruby’s brother, Raj, is watching Oklahoma! on TV. Most eleven-year-old boys are addicted to their video games, but Raj is always glued to some musical. He’s kind of awesome.
I’m oddly nervous as I knock on Ruby’s bedroom door. Ordinarily, I’d just barge in, but something doesn’t feel ordinary at the moment.
“I thought you were leaving, Mom,” Ruby grumbles, tearing the door open. Then she blinks at me. “Summer!”
I blink back at her. She’s wearing a cute new striped tank dress, winged eyeliner, and her gold R pendant necklace. Over her shoulder, I see that her usually pin-neat room is a mess: Lipsticks, mascara tubes, earrings, and bracelets are sca
ttered across her dresser, and clothes are puddled on her purple rug. Alice is dancing on the rug, eyes closed, a Taylor Swift song floating out of the speakers on Ruby’s desk. A sense of anticipation hovers in the air, along with the scent of Ruby’s flowery perfume.
“Hi,” I say, giving Ruby a quick hug. “What’s going on?” Why is this weird?
“Have you talked to your dad yet?” Ruby asks, hugging me back.
“Summer?” Alice cries, her eyes popping open. She stops dancing and flits over to me. Alice reminds me of a wood sprite, tiny and delicate. She always wears her white-blond hair up, with little braids encircling the crown of her head. Today she has on a long-sleeved floral minidress, and her pale lashes are darkened with mascara. “Aren’t you supposed to be in France?” she breathes.
There’s that sting again. “Long story,” I reply. I glance at Ruby in confusion. “I guess you didn’t exactly broadcast my news, bestie?”
Ruby gives a short laugh, her cheeks looking pink. Or maybe she’s just wearing blush. “I assumed you’d already talked to your dad and fixed everything,” she explains, her tone a little defensive. “Have you?” she adds, raising her eyebrows.
I shake my head. “I tried. I couldn’t reach him. I spoke to some rude French girl who’s staying at the house. I don’t—I don’t know how great my chances are,” I admit. Saying this out loud, especially to Ruby, makes my throat tighten. She frowns at me.
“Well, you’re here now!” Alice bubbles, taking my wrist and tugging me into the room. “Which means you can come with us!”
“Come with you where?” I demand, looking at Ruby. A sensation like suspicion crawls up my spine.
Ruby walks over to her dresser and begins sorting through her jewelry. “So, I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t want to go, and you were headed to France, which is obviously more exciting … ” She’s talking fast, kind of like Dad did on the phone last night. My stomach turns cold. “But Skye is hosting this barbecue at her house; it starts pretty soon, and she has a great view from her yard to see the fireworks—”