Other Echoes

  *****

  That night, Charlotte and Emi settled down on the living room sofa to do their homework. At her old school, Charlotte hadn’t bothered much with homework, because nobody else had cared. Some of her teachers hadn’t even known her name, so she never felt too much shame about ditching their classes. But at Staley, homework was a way of life. Aunt Sheena was constantly on her case about. “Did you finish your homework?” “How did you do on that history quiz?” “I spoke with your teacher this morning, and he said…”

  Letting homework slide was really not an option in this household.

  “What does this mean, ‘all angles are congruent’?” Charlotte asked.

  “It means they’re all the same measure in degrees. In this case, 90.” Emi pointed her pencil to the diagram in Charlotte’s math textbook. “It’s a rectangle.”

  Charlotte blew through her mouth in frustration, her breath fluttering her hair. “Why ‘congruent’? Why not ‘the same’?”

  “Don’t overthink it,” Emi said, returning to her laptop.

  Emi was supposed to be working on a paper for her AP Psychology class, but Charlotte noticed that the screen was definitely not open to a word processor. She was on the internet browsing through photographs.

  “What’s that site?” Charlotte asked.

  “Natalie’s Facebook.” Emi turned the screen so Charlotte could see. “She posts a billion pictures of herself every day.”

  Charlotte had never met Natalie. Now that she saw the photos, she didn’t think she ever wanted to. The girl was self-obsessed.

  “Why are you looking at that?” Charlotte asked.

  “Because she posts stuff about Kainoa. See? Here he is playing with her puppy. And eating shrimp. And hanging out in ballet class. And…”

  “It sounds like you’re torturing yourself,” Charlotte interrupted.

  Emi continued clicking through the pictures. “This is what the internet was invented for,” she said knowledgably. “Stalking ex-boyfriends.”

  “Whatever happened to what’s-his-name? The guy you showed me in the yearbook?” Charlotte asked.

  “Oh,” Emi said. “You’re asking about The Plan.”

  “You call it The Plan?”

  ‘”Yes. The Plan to make Kainoa jealous,” Emi said. “It’s still underway. I went to Josh Stokowski’s house on Saturday.”

  “Oh?”

  Emi shut her laptop. “Yeah. It was kind of strange, actually. I always thought he was this total jerk-face. But now I’m not so sure. I think he might have other things going on in his life that make him seem disengaged.”

  Charlotte nodded reflectively. “I guess most people have other things going on in their lives, stuff we don’t notice at first.”

  “That’s deep.”

  “I know. I’m a genius.” Charlotte tossed aside her textbook. “I’m going to raid the refrigerator. You want anything?”

  Emi slumped further down into the sofa cushions grumpily. “Just a boyfriend and a life.”

  Charlotte stood and untangled the strap on her arm sling. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Walking down the hall to the kitchen, she had to pass Uncle Eddie’s studio. Most evenings, he was done with his day’s work by dinnertime and left the door ajar, but today it was only open a crack. She could hear voices.

  “…Charlotte’s demonstrated considerable…”

  She stopped short.

  Was that her name? That was definitely her name.

  She doubled back and stepped closer to the door. It was dark inside, except for a soft amber glow from a lamp. From this angle, she could only see the shadow of someone sitting.

  “We are a little concerned.” A different voice this time. Uncle Eddie’s.

  “Have you tried contacting her parents?”

  Wait, that was Mr. Kerrigan’s voice! He was here, in the house, discussing her.

  “Charlotte’s father was never in picture,” Uncle Eddie said. “And her mother hasn’t contacted us in weeks.”

  “You tried calling?”

  “Her phone’s been disconnected.”

  Charlotte guessed that her mother had stopped paying the phone bill. That had happened several times in the past.

  “I really don’t mean to intrude in the matter.”

  “It’s not an intrusion, Will. I’m grateful you brought this up. In fact, I was telling Sheena…”

  A chair creaked and the shadows in the room shifted. Charlotte sensed the approach of Uncle Eddie and drew quickly back.

  The door to his studio shut fully with a click.

  She returned to her original post before his office and pressed her ear to the door. The voices were too muffled to make out now.

  What had Mr. Kerrigan come here to ask? What were they saying about her?

  She stayed for a while longer, hoping for anything, even a word or two. But the voices were indecipherable. She would hear nothing more that night.