A Season for Fireflies

  “What’s wrong?” Kylie asks. “Spill it.”

  “Bombed a quiz in pre-calc today. I didn’t even study,” I lie; I aced that test.

  “You think I don’t know when something is wrong,” Kylie says, and a buzz of familiar anxiety whooshes through me at those words.

  “What?” I laugh but it flutters. “Nothing is wrong.”

  “Uh-huh.” But I know her tone. “It’s annoying,” she adds.

  “Oh come on, Miss Ignorance Is Bliss,” I counter. “I had to basically force you to tell me you had a crush on Tank.”

  “True, but I’m turning over a new leaf!” she says with a jump. “From now on I’m an open book.”

  Doubtful. Kylie’s nearly as guarded as me—maybe even more so. She’s the queen of deflecting.

  “Oh shit, there’s Lila!” she cries, and pulls us into the next hallway, out of eyeshot.

  “What’s the deal?” I ask, glancing back at Lila Suffolk and Eve Dennings. They are supposed to be our friends, but lately Kylie’s been blowing them off whenever we have plans.

  “Ugh. I’m so tired of Lila’s copycat shit. And I told Eve about Tank asking me out last week and she proceeded to broadcast it to the whole world during lunch. You know how I am. I like my privacy.”

  We start walking again. I’ve seen Kylie do this before. She ices people out when they piss her off. Luckily, I get it. We’re the same like that. Maybe it’s why we became best friends so quickly.

  But I can’t help the little voice in my head. Usually Kylie doesn’t pry but lately she’s been asking me why Mom sleeps so much.

  We pass a poster for the school play. It wasn’t up earlier today so when we turn into the hallway toward English class, I make a point to see which play Ms. Taft has chosen. There’s a huge photograph of a massive weeping willow tree. A full moon hangs over the tops of the fluffy branches. The words And All Things Shall Be Peace are scrawled in cursive at the bottom of the page.

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream! Auditions September 28th!

  Every single high school does Midsummer. Classic Taft. Shakespeare every two years—like clockwork. As we walk, even more people file in the hallway toward class. Kylie and I head away from the chaos of the main hallway and down another, which leads to the auditorium stage entrance. The drama club usually hangs out there, and I automatically look around for May, but I don’t see her. I can’t help but feel a little sad, thinking about the conversations May and I could have had about the wordplay and themes in Midsummer or the possible approaches that Taft could do. But I push that feeling away.

  When I get to class, Ms. Reley is setting up a slide show with her computer. The only available seats are across the room from each other. Kylie, that loser, makes a beeline for the one near the window, knowing full well the other seat is next to Wes. I told her that Wes and I almost got together. She’s kept a super fun tally of how many times he has said a full sentence to me since she and I became friends a year ago. We’re up to nine.

  When I glance at Kylie, she raises an eyebrow and opens up her notebook.

  Wes is bent over his sketchbook. My first instinct is to ask him questions about Midsummer. Will it be a traditional performance? Modern day? Who designed the poster? He’s hunched over his sketchbook, so I can’t help but notice that his back and arms are more sculpted than they have ever been. I wonder if he’ll try out for the part of one of the nobles or King Theseus. The old me would be trying out for Hermia or Helena, without a doubt.

  Maybe I really could audition. Mom barely leaves her room these days, so I don’t have to worry about her showing up. Since rehab, she doesn’t drink anymore, but she’s depressed all the time. Dad’s been working on a piece for a carburetor in his basement shop for weeks. I’d just have to get past Taft’s icy hatred of me.

  I open my notebook and shake my head. I’m getting way ahead of myself. I left the acting life behind, and besides, I don’t think it would exactly welcome me back with open arms.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Wes’s sketch. I recognize the layout for the stage. When Ms. Reley pulls down the projector screen and dims the lights, I lean over and whisper to Wes, “Set design?”

  He keeps sketching and doesn’t acknowledge that I’ve said a word. Not a shock. I probably shouldn’t have said anything. I’m not even sure why I did.

  “At least Taft is predictable—senior year, Shakespeare,” I say, trying to fill his silence.

  He pauses sketching; his pen hovers over a bird’s-eye view of the auditorium and stage. “Yeah,” he whispers.

  He knows that I don’t want to be strangers.

  He glances up at the slide; it’s of a painted depiction of Beowulf.

  “I saw the meteor shower the other night,” I say. “The one they keep playing on the news?” I’ve kept Wes’s planetarium under my bed since last year, but I still like to look at the stars.

  “Penny.” He leans over to me. His warmth is familiar.

  “Yeah,” I say, waiting. My heart speeds up; he’s actually going to say something?

  “I’m not one of your dedicated followers,” he whispers. “So don’t bother.”

  The heat in my cheeks sears and I sit back in my chair.

  I should have known this was pointless.

  I spend the rest of class taking notes like a good English student. I don’t dare to look over at Wes again—no matter how badly I want to.

  “Freedom!” Kylie cries, and leaps from the double doors to the pavement. She’s wearing an EG Private baseball hat and her hair flies in long blond braids. I throw mine into a long plait down my back. We head toward my car out on the senior parking lot. The air is so hot, it crackles with the threat of heat lightning.

  Kylie is about to slide into the passenger seat when Tank’s arm scoops her from the car and throws her around. She cries out, laughing between screams. I lower all the windows to let out the hot air and crank the AC.

  “I’m not your rag doll!” she cries.

  “Last Chance party tonight,” Tank says once he places her down next to the passenger-side door.

  “You’ve told me like ten times,” Kylie says, and Tank nearly pushes Kylie in through the window, he’s leaning toward her so hard. They haven’t hooked up yet, but it’s bound to happen. I love that moment. I almost had it with Wes—right before you get together with a guy. If you are normal, like Ky, then you actually end up getting together. If you’re a moron, like me, you screw it up.

  My phone chimes with text messages.

  EVE: Homecoming nods are in.

  LILA: You & Ky are nominated!

  ME: I don’t want to be nominated.

  EVE: Too bad.

  LILA: Get on board!

  Homecoming nominations are kind of pointless. Anyone with a 3.1 GPA or higher can be nominated even if you only are nominated by one person. It’s only if you get in the homecoming court that you could actually be voted queen or king.

  As my phone continues to ding away, I glance up when Wes and May come out of school, followed by Panda and Richard. Panda lumbers in his familiar way, but I can’t see what today’s ironic T-shirt says. I could imagine Wes finding out about homecoming nominations. He would roll his eyes or grumble. But May . . . she might be different. I could see her being happy for me. She even talks to me sometimes in our US government class.

  Panda lifts his hands in the air and makes claws with his fingers. He lumbers around Richard, May, and Wes in a circle, imitating a monster. His face is all screwed up and he’s one of the funniest physical actors I know. He was Dogberry in Much Ado, one of my favorite characters. He launches himself on top of a car hood and I laugh, maybe too loud. May turns to me and my smile immediately falls. I lick my lips and frown at my lap as if she won’t know I was laughing with my old group of friends.

  I can’t be all dodgy. I smile at her, tight-lipped, so I don’t seem overeager. She returns it, which again, I suppose is a good thing, considering she ignored me this summer when she saw me at
the Coffee Stop. Panda grabs May’s attention when he does a dashing but oafish pirouette. May’s smile widens, and she laughs, throwing her hair back. Her smile for Panda is real, not like the way she smiled for me.

  “Ready, bitch?” Kylie says, and gets into the car.

  “Your mouth is all red,” I say about the apparently violent kissing that she engaged in with Tank. “Congratulations. Make-out session one accomplished.”

  “I’ll be ready for session two tonight,” she says with a whoop.

  I look in the rearview at my old friends as I begin to pull away from the parking lot. Panda and May flip through the scripts for Midsummer. The ones that Taft is going to use for auditions. I make a point to rev the engine and peel out of the parking lot. They turn and look and I couldn’t have timed it better—Kylie raises her arms in the air through the sunroof and with a high-pitched “whoo!” we descend down the long hill and away from school.

  When I get home after a long run at the track, a savory mushroom gravy smell permeates the kitchen. Bettie left a potpie warming in the oven. She leaves on Fridays at four and I stopped waiting for Mom and Dad to eat dinner with me years ago. I drop my school and gym bags at the base of the kitchen table. My tank top sticks to my back and I turn the oven off just as my cell chimes.

  KY: Pick me up at 9.

  I’m slipping my phone back in my pocket when I see what’s on the countertop next to the sink.

  Two bottles of white wine. One is empty, the other halfway.

  I draw a sharp breath and eye the Bellevue Rehab Facility magnet on our fridge. It’s not like it can help me, but it’s there and somehow that comforts me. Dad must know. Maybe he’s already called her doctor? Mom told us about the possibility of relapse, but she’s been okay for a while now. I thought I saw a bottle of wine in her bedroom the other day, but when I went back to check it was gone. There weren’t any in the sink.

  A crash of glass echoes from downstairs in the basement.

  “Damn it!” Dad bellows.

  I sniff the air for sulfuric acid or any kind of burning. Nothing. Just the pie. He must be setting up for the carburetor. I slip the potpie out of the oven just as a few soft raps hit on the window behind me. It’s too light to be a person knocking. Tiny bulbs of light pulse again and again—lightning bugs. Their tiny insect bodies tap, tap, tap as they fly into the glass. There’s way more than I’ve seen before. And why are they out when it’s still light out? Must be the humidity?

  I grab a glass of water and step down into the basement, stopping at the door of Dad’s shop. The main room is carpeted and still has my old toys in bins. A few couches sit before the TV. Dad’s created some small metal parts that have gotten patented and sold to companies like Johnson & Johnson and John Deere. How Dad invented a part for a tractor, when he is from Providence, is beyond me. The house smelled like burning wires for months. I knock three times, my signal to Dad that I want to come in and can he please put away any acid or dangerous scientific mechanisms.

  “Come in!” Dad calls.

  His bald head reflects the work lights above. He has a wrench clenched between his teeth. Clear, thick goggles cover his glasses. This place never changes. My third-grade art is on the walls. All different types of saws, tools, and various plastic parts hang on pegboards. In the far back are stacked cans of paint and our old suitcases. We haven’t gone on a family vacation in a long time. I motion to the various little pieces of metal organized in piles on the wooden worktable.

  “What’s this?” I ask. “For the carburetor?”

  Dad goes on and on about mixing gasoline and air and the necessary channels, whatever that means. He mentions a Swiss engineering company that is interested in the design. In a lull in the conversation, I say, “There’s wine at the sink.”

  He sighs and it’s the kind where I know he has seen the wine too.

  “Well, stay out of her way.” He frowns at a metal piece that looks like a chicken nugget coated in silver.

  “What are you going to do?” I ask.

  Dad compares wrenches. He’s never talked about what to do if Mom starts drinking the way she did before the rehab. I’m counting bottles again, which is never a good sign.

  “What are we gonna do?” I press.

  I wait for Dad to commiserate with me, but he focuses on finding the wrench for the chicken nugget thing. I’m not going to push it right now. No use going on about Mom until Dad actually wants to deal with it.

  I just wish I knew how to save her from herself.

  “So is that going to pay my college tuition?” I ask with a sigh.

  “We’ll see,” he says. He’s lost in thought.

  He grabs a file and a tool I can’t name but it looks like a handsaw. He sits down on the stool at the end of the table.

  “Oh!” he says, clearly remembering something, and jumps up again to dig around in one of his many double-sided red toolboxes on a nearby shelf.

  “I got nominated for homecoming queen,” I say.

  “That’s great, Pen!” Dad says absently, still absorbed in whatever he’s doing. Another few seconds go by, so I add, “College applications are coming up.” I barely even raise my voice over the clanging from Dad’s rummaging. He doesn’t reply. “I’ll probably go for small liberal arts, mostly. I have the Bates Common App pretty much ready to go. I’ll need a—”

  “There it is!” Dad cries. He pulls out what looks like a mini polisher.

  No matter what it is, I’ve lost him. Done. Cooked. Even if I talk now, he’s in the zone and won’t reply unless I push, which could completely derail him. I know he needs this to distract himself from Mom. Maybe we both need to avoid the reality for a little while.

  Within a few minutes, I’m back upstairs, my backpack is over my shoulder, and I have a plate filled with potpie.

  I walk to the stairs to the sound of a saw buzzing in the basement. It’s a purr when I get to the second floor. Mom is in her bedroom tinkering with her jewelry. The shades are drawn.

  “Hey,” I say, and place my food on the table outside her room.

  Sometimes, when I catch her in a good mood, I can tell her about my life. But I never know when that will be. Even when she’s sober, her depression makes it hard to talk to her sometimes. Mom’s delicate hands and the wisps of her black hair look so pretty by the soft light of the dresser lamp.

  “Wow. That’s pretty,” I say, and pick up a dainty ring with a small blue gem. “Where did you get it?” I imagine myself in the pink dress I already bought for homecoming. I already wear another ring on my thumb. Kylie and I have the same one. It’s silver with a blue circular stone. Mom’s ring would look—

  She snatches it from me. “You can’t have it,” she snaps. I back away and bring my hand to my stomach. It’s like a hot string is pulled through my belly button. I didn’t want the ring. I just wanted to talk.

  I say nothing in return and leave her to organize her gold and gems. My mouth tugs downward. I slide my food silently from the table, walk up the stairs to my room, and close the door. I text Kylie.

  ME: I’ll grab the vodka. You grab the OJ for tonight.

  FIVE

  “THIS BAND IS SO GOOD!” KYLIE SAYS AS WE PULL up toward Tank’s house. Rock music vibrates through my radio speakers. “I’m so obsessed!” Kylie cries, turning up the volume even more. Kylie has great taste in music. I have hundreds of songs and albums on my computer that I never would have heard in the first place if I hadn’t become friends with Kylie. I instinctively glance at my backseat, where Eve and Lila would be sitting if Kylie wasn’t “ghosting” them out of her life at present. They’ve been texting me instead, asking me what time we’re going to the party. “Don’t you just love this?” Kylie cries.

  She waits for agreement from me, but I keep seeing those two damn wine bottles on the counter.

  “What’s up with you?” Kylie says. “You’re being extra quiet.” She pouts in the passenger mirror and applies lipstick. She lights a cigarette and when she takes
a drag, the lipstick leaves a bright crimson ring around the end of her cigarette. I hate that she smokes in my car but I don’t tell her to stop. Ky slips her cigarettes and green lighter into the front pouch of my purse.

  “So, what did you say to Lila and Eve?” I say as we get out of the car. “So they wouldn’t drive with us.”

  “That we ate dinner with your parents first.”

  I scroll through the texts from them. “They’re obsessed with this homecoming nomination.”

  We get out of the car and when the music silences, I pretend to grab a microphone and interview Kylie. On cue, she jumps into Beauty Queen character. “Ms. Castelli,” I say, “what will you do with your crown now that you are homecoming queen?”

  “Well, first, I would make a point to change the . . .” She tries to search for what her duties as homecoming queen would be. “Shit,” she says. “I don’t want to have to do anything to be queen. I just want the pretty crown.”

  She smiles and we fall into laughter. I love Kylie’s honesty.

  “You totally get that interviewing thing from me,” Kylie says, throwing her arm over my shoulder. “I’m your biggest influence. Radio DJ and all.”

  “Did you ever tell Mr. Pierce about the internship?” I ask. Kylie unhooks from my shoulder and pulls her hair out from its ponytail, tossing it around.

  “I have an interview next month and Mr. Pierce is going insane that”—she makes air quotes—“one of his students will be working at a real radio station.” She drops her hands. “Also, if I had to hear from you one more time,” she says, and elbows me, “‘If you don’t try, Ky, you don’t get!’ I was going to wring your neck.”

  “It’s true!” I cry.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she says with a smile.

  Thick humidity has taken over the beginning of September. Even my rose perfume smells too sweet. Based on the number of cars in the driveway, it’s a typical Friday-night party, which means that the usual suspects will be in attendance.