“You are?” Natalia says.
“I am. For how she’s been treating you.”
“Ohhhh.” Natalia’s features shift, and a less trusting person might describe her expression as cagey. But Yasaman, who always tries to think the best of people, decides surely she’s mistaken.
“All I wanted—all I ever wanted—wath to help with the Thnack Attack,” Natalia says.
“I know,” Yasaman says.
“But Katie-Rothe jutht doethn’t like me. I don’t know why. And thometimeth? Honethtly? I think she might be clinically inthane, or why elthe would she thay the thingth she doeth?”
Yasaman grows wary. Yes, she thinks Katie-Rose was wrong to yell “boobies from outer space” at Natalia, but Katie-Rose is still her BFF, and she doesn’t want to say anything that could be misinterpreted. Plus, there’s Violet’s mom to think about. Katie-Rose isn’t clinically insane, and Natalia knows it. But some people really are, so to say that as an insult is wrong. Like using the r-word to describe someone who does something dumb.
Natalia builds up steam. “Do you know how long I thpent on thothe buttonth? I’m not complaining, but jutht coming up with the thlogan took forever.”
Why Snackrifice? Yasaman thinks, envisioning the shiny white buttons. “It’s a really good slogan,” she says truthfully.
“You mean it? Becauth I worked my butt off to come up with it. Wath it hard? Abtholutely. But I jutht kept trying, and if that meant thtaying up late and getting a migraine, too bad.”
“You got a migraine?”
“Of courth it had to be the blinding kind. Have you ever had one?”
Yasaman fidgets. She looks over her shoulder to see where her ana is in the pickup line.
“But I wath like, mind over matter. I refuthed to give up, not till I conthidered every option and drained every thingle brain thell to come up with the perfect one.”
“Oh,” Yasaman says. “Um, wow.”
Natalia works her jaw to adjust her headgear. Her chin juts out, then comes back in. She smiles. “Anyway, I’m glad you like it.”
“I do.”
“Katie-Rothe doethn’t, though. She hateth it.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’m sure she doesn’t hate it.”
Natalia gives Yasaman a long look. “Well, maybe she jutht hateth me.”
“No, Natalia, she doesn’t,” Yasaman protests.
“She thaid she did. She told me herthelf.”
Yasaman flounders. Yes, Katie-Rose told Yasaman she hated Natalia . . . but would she really tell Natalia that? To her face?
“I try not to let it get to me,” Natalia says. Her voice trembles. “I mean, she’th inthecure, obviouthly. She’d have to be to order me not to talk to you, right?”
“That was wrong of her,” Yasaman says. She’s upset with Katie-Rose all over again for putting her in this position. “And she’s not my boss, obviously, because here I am talking to you.”
“And later, when you weren’t there . . .” Natalia doesn’t finish. She glances about nervously and says, “Never mind.”
Yasaman’s stomach hurts. “Well. Okay. So I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“She thaid I’m not good enough to be your friend,” Natalia says in a rush. “That you agree, only you’re too nithe to thay tho.”
Yasaman breaks out in a cold sweat. This is her first ever time to experience such a thing, but here it is: cold sweat on her spine, at her hairline, under her arms.
“Natalia, I never said that. I promise.”
Natalia tilts her head as if she’s trying to decide if she can believe her. “But if you didn’t . . . why would Katie-Rothe thay you did?”
“I don’t know,” Yasaman says. Her heart is pounding.
Miraculously, Natalia lets her off the hook. “Well, I’m jutht glad it ithn’t true. I didn’t think it wath, becauth it jutht doethn’t thound like you, you know?” She frowns. “I don’t think Katie-Rothe should lie, though.”
Yasaman shakes her head. “No, no one should.” She gets an idea. “What if it was a mistake? I bet it was! I’ll call her and ask her, as soon as I get home.”
“You’re thweet,” Natalia says. “But it’th not the firtht time Katie-Rothe hath been hateful.” She smiles bravely. “I’ll thurvive, jutht ath long ath she doethn’t turn you againtht me.”
“But I’m sure it was a misunderstanding,” Yasaman says. “I’ll talk to her.”
She turns to leave, but Natalia grabs her forearm. Yasaman looks down at Natalia’s pale fingers. She lifts her head, confused.
“Really, you don’t need to worry about me,” Natalia says. There’s something glittery in her eyes, and her expression has taken on a new intensity. “The perthon you need to worry about ith Milla.”
Yasaman furrows her brow. “Milla?”
“That’th what I thtarted to tell you. About the pen? And how Ava thaid I wath lying about it being mine, even though I never lie?”
“What does the pen have to do with Milla?” Yasaman asks. She pulls her arm from Natalia’s grasp. “Never mind. I have to go, or my mom’s going to be mad.”
“No, you need to hear thith,” Natalia says. “I knew Ava wath wrong, but jutht in cathe I dethided to give it to Pam to put in the lotht-and-found. And while I wath at the offithe, do you know who I thaw?”
“Yasaman!” calls Ms. Perez, poking her head into the commons. “Your mom’s here, cutie!”
“Um, okay!” Yasaman says. “Be right there!” She turns back to Natalia. “Speak. Now. And use fast words, please.”
“It wath Max. Hith mom brought him in late.” Natalia watches Yasaman’s face, and Yasaman gets a bad feeling. “And after he went to clath, do you want to know what hith mom told Pam?”
“Yes,” Yasaman says. “Just tell me!”
“His hamthter died.”
“Stewy?”
“Ith Thtewy the hamthter’s name?”
“Yes, his name’s Stewy. He died?”
Natalia nods gravely. So gravely, in fact, that it seems wrong. As if her graveness is covering up something exciting, or something not exciting that Natalia finds exciting anyway.
She drops her voice. “Milla killed him. She thtepped on him. She thtepped right on him, and . . .” She widens her eyes. “Thquish.”
Oh no, Yasaman thinks. She presses her hand over her mouth.
“And now he’th dead, and that’th why Max wath late, becauth he wath grieving. That’th what hith mom thaid. And that’th why Milla didn’t come to thchool at all, I bet.”
“But . . . she’s sick,” Yasaman says, feeling far away in her head. “She was absent because she’s sick.”
“I don’t think tho,” Natalia says.
Ms. Perez pops into the building again. “Yasaman, come on. Your mom’s waiting.”
Yasaman tries her best to pull herself back to the moment. “Natalia, how many people know about this?”
“Jutht you,” Natalia says.
“Oh, thank goodness.”
“I’m not a gothip-thpreader,” Natalia says piously.
“I know, I know.” Yasaman chews her bottom lip. “I think we should promise not to tell anyone else, okay?”
“Not even Katie-Rothe and Violet?”
“Well, yes them, because they’re Milla’s best friends. But no one else.”
“Jutht you and me and Violet and Katie-Rothe,” Natalia says.
“Right.”
“Jutht uth five.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Yasaman agrees impatiently. She needs to go to Milla, and she needs to go now. Only—ag. She can’t. She has to help her ana make the katmer, and her ana isn’t the type of mother to understand why a dead hamster is more important.
Please-oh-please let Violet or Katie-Rose still be here, she prays as she rushes out of the building. She hopes Allah is listening.
to put things in perspective, Violet thinks. Yasaman caught her right as she was climbing into her dad’s car and told her the whole gruesome
tale. Violet feels sick with it, and worried for Milla, but she can’t cancel on her mom again, even though this excuse is by far the most legitimate of all that have come before.
So she uses her dad’s cell phone to call Katie-Rose. She gets Katie-Rose’s answering machine, and she tells her about Stewy and Max and that that’s why Milla was absent. She ends with, “You have to go see her, Katie-Rose. You’re her only hope. And tell her we all love her, okay?”
Her dad arches his eyebrows as she hands him back his phone.
“Want to talk about it?” he asks.
She shakes her head. Then, worried she may have hurt his feelings, she says, “No offense. I just . . .” I just can’t handle any more drama, and if I talk about it, I might cry. “I just need to chill out a little.”
Her dad puts his hand on her leg and squeezes. She looks at his profile and thinks what a strong, handsome father she has. She’s very lucky, and all the bad stuff that’s going on doesn’t take that away. Oddly, it makes her even more aware of her good fortune. She puts her hand on top of her dad’s and squeezes back.
For the rest of the drive, they’re quiet. Her dad’s iPod is hooked up to the car stereo, and a mellow, raspy song plays through the speakers. Violet lets the music carry her away, though she never strays very far. Mom. Cyril. Milla. Mom. Cyril. Milla.
If Katie-Rose checks for phone messages right away, she could already be on her way to Milla’s house. Tonight, Violet will call and check in on Milla herself. She knows Yasaman will, too.
Violet leans her forehead against the cool glass of the window. It’s beautiful outside, though not as beautiful as Atlanta. In Atlanta, the leaves would be changing color: The forests would hum with russets and golds and deep dark purples. But here in Thousand Oaks, land of perpetual summer, the thousands of oak leaves are as green and vibrant as ever.
What about her mom? Has she changed here in California, in this special California hospital? And if so . . . how?
Violet’s dad pulls into the gated driveway of the Mental Marriott. Violet’s heart pounds, and her accelerating pulse kicks her thoughts into high gear, too:
Mom . . . Cyril . . . Milla . . .
and Stewy, dead forever . . .
Some things can be changed, but some things can’t . . .
like death . . .
like Mr. Emerson’s arm . . .
but an arm isn’t a leaf isn’t a mother isn’t a hamster—
“We’re here, Boo,” Violet’s dad says.
Violet reaches across her seat and grabs her dad’s hand. His fingers close around hers.
“It’s going to be okay,” he tells her.
Violet nods. The back of her neck tingles.
“She’s still your mom. She’ll always be your mom.” He squeezes her hand, and his love for her says, And I will always be your dad.
Climbing out of the car isn’t easy, but she does it. Her heart goes bum bum bum as she walks through the hospital’s front doors, but she doesn’t faint or die or anything.
Her dad talks to an old man sitting behind the information desk. The old man is wearing a name tag that says HOSPITALITY VOLUNTEER. He gives Violet’s dad two badges, and Violet’s dad thanks him and leads Violet to the elevators. There are three of them. He pushes the “up” arrow, then points at the middle elevator and says, “I’m betting on that one.”
Violet tries to smile. It’s an old game Violet’s family plays, though they haven’t in a long time.
“Um, I guess I’ll take that one,” Violet says, indicating the elevator on the far left.
Violet wins.
Is it a sign?
They get off on the fifth floor. Violet’s dad checks in at the nurses’ station, and a grumpy-looking woman comes around the desk and escorts them to a heavy-duty door with a small glass pane at the top, crosshatched with faint lines.
Breathe, Violet tells herself as the woman inserts a key card into a slot. You are the cosmos, and the cosmos is you.
She is surprised by that last thought, as she doesn’t know where it came from. She laughs nervously.
“Sweetie?” her dad says. “You all right?” He has stepped through the door without her, and now it’s Violet’s turn to cross the threshold between “unlocked” and “locked.” Because yes, her mother lives in a locked ward. That is the awful truth of it. Not because she’s dangerous or anything—Violet imagines a knife-wielding psycho, and immediately banishes the image—but because that’s just the rule. All the psychiatric patients are in the locked ward. It’s for their own safety, her dad has explained. And any patients who might physically harm someone in a knife-wielding way are kept somewhere else, anyway.
She joins her dad. He takes her hand.
The nurse in charge of the key card says, “Forty minutes,” and then she leaves, pulling the door shut behind her. Violet is now locked in.
But as her eyes flit about, she is surprised by how cheerful the ward is.
It’s not so bad here, she thinks. The walls are a pale orange—Yasaman’s favorite color—and broad windows provide lots of natural light. Not far from the door is a second nurses’ station, and past that is a sitting area with a flat-screen TV and comfy-looking sofas and chairs.
Violet spots a young woman sitting on one of the sofas, her knees pulled to her chest. She’s wearing a nightgown. She’s rocking and murmuring, despite the fact that there’s no one beside her.
But there are no rats. There are no roaches. The nurse who let them in was crabby, but the nurse in here is young and pretty and says, “Hi, Theo.” She smiles at Violet. “And you must be Violet. I’m Faye. Nice to meet you.”
“Um, hi,” Violet says.
“Your mom can’t wait to see you.” She gestures at a hall that connects to the sitting room. “She’s in her room.”
Violet looks at her dad. He squeezes her hand and leads her to room 513. Violet knows she’s being silly, but she wishes it were a different number: 505 or 510.
“I’ll let you two have some time alone,” her dad says in a low voice. “I know it’s been a long time . . . well . . . since . . .” He swallows. “It’s fine, though. It’s fine.”
Violet bows her head. Hotness spreads through her.
Her dad raps on the door, twists the knob, and cracks it open. His body blocks Violet’s vision, but her mother is here, so close. Just feet away.
“Hey, hon,” her dad says to her mom. “Violet’s here to see you.”
Violet hears a gasp, and the shuffling of sheets, and then the rapid pad of footsteps. The door flies open. “Violet?” Her mother draws her hand to her mouth. Her dark eyes shine. “Oh, Violet! Oh, how I’ve missed you!”
And then she’s hugging her, and it doesn’t matter that Violet’s vision has suddenly gone blurry, because she’s smushed up against her mother’s hospital gown anyway. And it really is her mother. Violet is overwhelmed by her scent, her warmth, the wonderful feeling of her mother’s arms around her, holding her tight tight tight.
A sound squeezes out of Violet, and her mother releases her.
“Oh, baby, did I hurt you?” she says, worry creasing her brow.
Of course she did. The hurt lives behind Violet’s ribs, and it may never go away. But it’s less now than it was yesterday. Less than it was five minutes ago.
“No,” Violet lies. She feels older, and sad-happy, but also at peace. For now. She wants to tell her mom this, but she doesn’t have the words.
Violet’s mother pulls her back into an embrace, and Violet soaks up every bit of her. Even a little can go a long way, if she lets it.
her mom after listening with growing distress to Violet’s phone message. “I’ll be back!”
She leaves before her mom can tell her no. She wheels her bike out of the garage, climbs on, and pushes off, glancing at Max’s house as she pedals past. Inside that house, a tragedy occurred. A life was snuffed. And yet a casual observer would have no idea. Shouldn’t there be candles in the windows? A makeshift memorial, lik
e when someone dies in a car accident on the highway, and people place teddy bears and flowers and posters at the spot where their loved one died?
But, no. Everything looks exactly as it always does, from the house’s stucco exterior to the lushly landscaped yard. Same stone bench by the juniper tree. Same wild currant plants, which hummingbirds flock to for their nectar. Same flowering sage bushes, which Katie-Rose loves the smell of, but which Max thinks smell weird, like skunk.
She’s past Max’s house and all the way to the end of the block before a mysterious detail registers in her mind. She saw it, but thought nothing of it until now, when its subtle wrongness clicks into place.
It had to do with the sagebrush that stretches along the sidewalk in front of Max’s house. There’s a neighborhood cat named Zero who likes to hide in those bushes, his tail twitching as he watches the hummingbirds. But Zero is black, and what Katie-Rose saw was white. White and shiny. She makes a U-ie and cruises slowly back, squinting into the dense sagebrush.
There. A shiny white boot lying on its side. And there, next to it, its mate—only not as uniformly shiny and white. Splattered with rust-colored spots. Like coffee. Like blood.
Katie-Rose feels the punch of it in her gut. She swings her leg over the frame of her bike, coasts to a stop, and jumps off. She abandons her bike and approaches the hedge.
She squats when she reaches the spot where the boots are. They’re not in plain sight; they’re tucked in among the twisty branches. And yes, they’re Milla’s. Katie-Rose would know them anywhere. And the rust-colored spots on the right boot . . . well. Katie-Rose stays balanced on her haunches, focusing her thoughts on Stewy and saying good-bye to him in her mind.
Katie-Rose’s quads burn, but she holds the position a little longer, because it seems like the right thing to do. Then she gives a short nod and shifts forward onto her knees. She reaches through the branches and grabs the first boot, the one that’s still white. She can’t leave Milla’s boots here, after all. She tosses it over her shoulder and goes back for boot number two. This one’s farther in, and she has to crawl forward on her tummy, turning her head to the side so she doesn’t poke her eyes out.