Look Both Ways

  “This is a lot like our room,” Merry said. She thought of their corner of the attic with one dresser in one closet and the private bathroom they were so proud of in the other closet and wanted to fall on the floor laughing.

  “It is?”

  “Oh, please. My room is in the attic. It’s not a hole in the wall. It’s a hole in the roof!”

  “You live in a big house,” Alli said loyally.

  “It’s big, but it’s old-big. . . .There are a bunch of goofy little rooms they used to keep canned berries and bags of potatoes in and stuff a hundred years ago. Literally a hundred years ago. And something is always breaking. This house . . . this is like the mall,” Merry said. “I share a room with my sister.”

  “I couldn’t stand sharing a room,” Neely said. “I have to have absolute darkness and quiet when I sleep because I’m so wound up. I have to wear a sleep mask.”

  Merry said, “But it’s so quiet here at night. It’s hard to believe, living here, that people take the train to New York every day.”

  Neely said, “They wanted me to have country air. I loved city air.”

  “We like being close to New York but not in it,” Caitlin said.

  “Well, you see, Chicago, in a lot of ways, was more cutting-edge than New York. Like fashion, for example.”

  “Like that’s nuts, for example,” said Alli, defending her city. “If Chicago is so about clothes, why does, like, Ralph Lauren live in New York? Is he still alive?”

  Nobody was sure, but they knew he had lived in New York, or at least New Jersey.

  “You’ve never been to Chicago,” Neely said softly. She didn’t elaborate. Was it really just an explanation or a whole new form of snottiness? If it was, Merry wanted to learn it: All three of the girls from Ridgeline had just got spanked somehow, and they didn’t even feel it.

  Mrs. Chaplin (“Call me CeeCee . . . . ”), who had her own online hat and jewelry boutique, and whose black velvet leggings with a green velvet riding jacket and a huge suede hat were the talk of the town, stopped in. She was as thin as one of the girls. “I’m going to do my yoga practice, Neely, love. Do you girls want some pizza puffs to go with the shrimp?” she asked.

  “We’re fine, Mama. We’re going to watch the movie.” Mrs. Chaplin wiggled her fingers in farewell. Neely dimmed the lights. “This is such a cool little indie. It’s not in theaters yet. It’s about this girl who runs away from a religious commune with her boyfriend.”

  “How did you get it?” Alli asked.

  “My dad’s one of the producers,” Neely said. “He does a lot of little things besides entertainment law. He produces movies. He’s working on a book about renewable energy. He’s the lawyer for mostly directors and stuff but some movie stars too. Like, I used to think Demi Moore was my aunt or something.”

  Merry said, “Oh.”

  “Where did you get these?” Alli asked of the shrimp puffs. “These are so great I could, like, live on them. Is Luda a caterer?”

  “No! Luda’s a person. Ludamila. She’s from Georgia, not the state—the country by Russia. Luda’s lived with us since I was born.”

  “And Stuart?”

  “He’s her husband. Sergei. He changed it when they became citizens. He works here too. And then I have tutors and my gym coach. She comes once a week from the city. And the cleaners and my mom’s assistant, Natalie.”

  “You have your own coach? Like . . . no class?” Caitlin asked.

  Neely smiled. “My mother was an Embraceable You when she was young. Before she met my father.”

  “A what?” Meredith asked.

  “A St. Louis Rams cheerleader. A professional cheerleader,” Neely answered. “She was teaching me style things when I was in preschool.”

  “They’re called the You’s, like the You’s and Me’s?” Caitlin asked.

  “No. E-W-E. It’s a female ram.”

  Imagine living this way,Merry thought. It was like Neely was princess of something. She imagined even being an only child, without the constant emotional noise of Mallory’s moods and Adam’s pranks. What she felt stunned her: For a moment that fluttered past like the flap of a wing, she missed Mallory.

  “Forget the movie! Let’s do something!” Neely said. “I require action.”

  Neely opened her makeup cabinet, where Merry could see boxed sets in gold or turquoise packages, unopened. Neely took out a length of silver tasseled braid, which she attached to a roofing nail under the windowsill. She filled a backpack with rolls of toilet paper and helped the others, one by one, slide down to the ground, showing them how to leap the beams of the motion detectors so no lights went on when they slid the golf cart out onto Woods Meadow Road.

  “Andy Wegner is that cute junior, right?” Neely asked. “His father is the club pro? They live right behind us.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, Neely and the others festooned the Wegners’ house and trees with roll after roll of toilet paper that waved in the mild night breeze like the sails of tiny ships.

  “He’d kill you if he knew it was you!” Caitlin said.

  “Oh no! He’d be flattered,” Neely said. “Who else can we do?”

  Forty minutes and three more cute guys’ houses later, the girls rope-climbed back into Neely’s room, where cups of hot chocolate were magically waiting. Neely replaced the silver braid and took out a small bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream. Of all of them, Alli usually pretended to be the most sophisticated, but even her eyes popped. She asked, “Don’t they see that stuff? I mean Luda cleans in here, right?”

  “My parents can handle it,” Neely said. “We’re totally honest with each other. They know a person has to cut loose once in a while. If you get to do a little now, you won’t be tempted to do a lot later. I stay in limits.”

  “My life would be limited,” said Merry. “To about five minutes.”

  “So tell me stuff,” said Neely as they sipped. “Tell me all the bad things that happened before I came. I know Kim’s older brother died. Was it in the Middle East?”

  Her eyes seemed to glitter. Was gossip like this what she thought of as fun? About somebody’s dead brother? Merry wondered what Neely would think of as a really bad thing to do. . . . Merry thought of the little fingers, with their rings.

  “He fell off a cliff, up above the river,” Caitlin began slowly, before Merry could shush her. “Meredith was there. Tell her, Mer.”

  “There’s not that much to tell. I heard him scream. It wasn’t suicide. No one thinks that. It was a total accident. I just called the police.”

  “And now Kim’s doing weird stuff,” Caitlin said suddenly. “She’s hanging with boys from Deptford and going to the quarry.”

  Going to the quarry was code. It was code for using drugs. None of them knew what kind of drugs they were, but everyone knew they were the dangerous kind, and the girls who went there would be pregnant by sophomore year.

  “Kim wouldn’t do that,” Merry objected. The shrimp and cheese were too rich for her stomach, and the house suddenly seemed too hot.

  “You don’t know her anymore,” Caitlin said.

  Merry thought, Do I?

  She didn’t feel as though she knew very much about anything.

  For one thing, she’d never had more than a sip of champagne. Downing at least three little cups of Bailey’s in her mug tasted great with the hot choc, but she was woozy. She got up and splashed her face.

  It did no good.

  “I’m so exhausted,” she told the others, who were now preparing facial goop in a marble basin. “It must be from the hospital. I have to rest for a little while.”

  Nearly stumbling, Merry fell into her own queen-sized pouf of a bed, which had been prepared for her while they were out TPING.

  She heard the others laughing and trying to decide between mint-jasmine and honey-butter-cream scrub.

  Merry was asleep when she walked over to the window and looked down—although she didn’t know it. She thought she was sleepwalking, although she
later found out that her feet had never touched the floor. Merry looked down and saw that she wore a white gown with blue satin behind the eyelet lace—the kind of gown that probably cost fifty dollars. Out across the expanse of dark lawn were the ranks of the Chaplins’ trees, the moon between them like a ball tossed nervously hand to hand. But beyond the trees, it was morning.

  There was Mallory, running—her hair pulled back in a nubby ponytail, her sweatshirt tied around her waist. The leaves were green. It was summer beyond the Chaplins’ lawn. Up into the hills Mally magically ascended, and as Merry watched, her hands pressed against the glass—so cool to her palms it seemed real—the scrub trees next to the path parted, and the huge white lion, four times Mallory’s size, stepped out into the path behind her sister. It took a few slow steps, then broke into a lope, slowly gaining on Mallory—who seemed unaware that anything was there.

  “Mallory! Siow!” Merry shouted.

  She began to hammer the glass, harder and harder.

  Mallory didn’t hear her. The lion loped closer, then closer . . . .

  “Merry! Wake up! Merry!” Neely was holding Merry’s arms down at her sides. “You’re having a nightmare.”

  “I was? My arms . . . are so tired. I don’t feel like I was even really asleep.”

  “You were rolling and thrashing around.”

  “I’m sorry,” Merry said. “Did I wake anyone else up?”

  “No, they’re out cold, and I wasn’t even asleep yet,” Neely said. “Do you want some water or some hot chocolate?” Neely’s hazel eyes, so haughty in daylight, were soft and gentle with concern. “You were crying too, Merry.”

  “I’m okay,” said Merry. “It was the Bailey’s. I felt so strange, I must have dreamed I got up.”

  But when Merry looked down, her breath stopped for an instant and then began to come faster and faster. For when she put her hands together, she saw that her fingers were bruised, as if she really had pounded madly on panes of glass.

  EDEN’S GIFT

  The following Sunday was the big fall sidewalk sale, the biggest day of the year at Domino Sports. Mally was out in front, stacking shoe boxes in a pyramid, when she heard a soft voice behind her murmur her name.

  Eden.

  “Hi,” she said. “Boo. Aren’t you going to run away?”

  Mallory shocked herself by starting to cry, making this about five times more than she’d cried in the previous five years.

  “Eden, I didn’t mean to.”

  Quiet for a moment, Eden nodded. “I know that. I know why you did.”

  “But there’s no reason for me to be afraid of you.”

  “Well, there is, Mallory. I have to be afraid of the same things about me that you do. But I would never hurt you or your sister or anyone you love. No matter what it cost me. And it could cost me everything.” She held up one hand. “I can’t tell you any more. It’s just like you can’t tell people about you and Merry. Do you trust me?” Eden’s eyes grew darker and brighter, like wet stones.

  “Of course I do,” Mallory said.

  “Help me find a sleeping bag.”

  “I already have one picked out,” Mally told her. “It’s wrapped and in the back.”

  “It’s a Christmas present, but I’m so excited I might have to give it to him before. How much is it?” Eden asked. It was filled with two kinds of down and cost $299 on sale. Mallory counted up what was in her own bank account. She was a bit of a hoarder, and Eden couldn’t read minds. “It’s a hundred dollars!”

  “Oh, Mallory! That’s less than I thought! How long is it going to take you to stack those shoes?”

  “Years. I haven’t even got the ladder yet,” Mally said.

  “Well, it helps to have tall friends,” Eden said, laughing as she attacked the four-sided pyramid. “I’m putting the fives on top. Who wears size five? Cinderella?”

  “Me,” Mallory admitted.

  As they worked, Eden explained, “You know that the cat is a symbol, right? We’re Bear Clan, my family, but the mountain lion is a symbol of power. In the old times, people thought human beings would shift into animals, and that shape-shifters—that’s what they were called—brought luck to the tribe. It’s like mythology. Every tribe has stories like that one. They’re like the stories in the Bible.”

  “How,” Mally asked, “did you have any idea I was thinking about the mountain lion?”

  Eden sighed. “A guess. You brought up the dream when I talked about James. You know, all people have their superstitions. Your family has superstitions, right?”

  “You could call them that,” Mallory said, standing on tiptoe to hand Eden another box.

  “Eden,” Tim said. “I was coming out here to help this one finish up the stack but I guess she doesn’t need me.”

  “Hi, Mr. Brynn.”

  “We’ve got your pretty red sleeping bag all wrapped up in back. Must be one special couple for you to spend—”

  “Dad!” Mallory warned Tim.

  “Oh, right,” Mally’s father said, without quite knowing why he was agreeing. “Uh-oh. Here come the Delsandros. All five boys. Five bats, five cleats, five jerseys.”

  “I’ll be right in, Dad,” said Mallory.

  “No, it’s good. The store is pretty quiet otherwise. Mrs. Delsandro’s got a system with those kids. She must assign them numbers, like you get at a deli. Besides them, there’s just Caitlin and Jackie browsing for two hours.”

  When the jingle of the door and Tim’s hearty call engulfed Mrs. Delsandro and the five boys, Eden said, “Then you get that it’s not real.”

  “The mountain lion? Sure. But I ran because I dreamed about the cougar again just the other night! I dreamed it was in school!” Eden took a deep breath and looked away. “I was scared. There was an accident after I had that dream. And I thought the lion was bad luck.”

  “It is bad luck. Some things that are very powerful are also bad luck. But . . . not for you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I . . . it’s my superstition. I just know. Can you go just around the corner and get a coffee?” Eden asked. Mallory held up her hands to her father, signifying she’d be back in ten minutes. In the Latte Beans drive-through, Eden ordered two large green-tea lattes, with extra whip. Handing Mally one, she said, “My treat.”

  Mallory took a long drink to make sure her voice wouldn’t sound like a rusty door opening.

  “Do they want you away from James because he’s not, you know . . . ?”

  “Not an Indian? No! But he’s not afraid of them . . . like most people.” Eden laughed but it wasn’t pretty. “Most people think that if my family gets mad they’ll kill them with tomahawks or something. Even you probably, and you’re one of my closest friends.”

  “Eden! I’m not like that!” Mallory was reeling from hearing Eden say that she, little Mally, was one of Eden’s closest friends.

  “You’d be surprised what people think if you’re not just like them,” Eden said, as Mallory thought, No, I wouldn’t. “But yes, the present is a secret. My family doesn’t want me to date anyone! They wouldn’t care if he was Geronimo.”

  “Geronimo?” Mallory asked. It was the first time she’d heard the name other than hearing someone in one of Adam’s idiot shows yell it when he was jumping out of a tree.

  “The great Apache warrior. Goyaase. Don’t you know any American history but George Washington?” Eden winced. “I’m sorry, Mally. My whole . . . life is getting on my nerves.”

  “Tell me about it,” Mally said. “Mine too.”

  “Strict is one thing but . . . they’ll go hysterical if I fall in love, ever. It’s not just James.”

  “You mean in high school.”

  “You’ll never get it,” Eden said with a sigh.

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Are you exaggerating?” Eden asked. “Like, how you look right now. You didn’t sleep. You’re so tweaked about something you saw.”

  Mally curled a strand of her hair aroun
d one finger before she said, “Eden, you’re the best friend I have, except Drew. Or you were. I can’t stand that you don’t like me anymore.”

  “What? Of course I like you, Mal,” Eden said. “I just understand why you’d want to avoid me.”

  “Avoid you? Edes, you wouldn’t let me apologize.” Eden put her hands over her ears. “Friends don’t lie to each other. I couldn’t tell you that I didn’t feel danger from the cat.”

  “Don’t, Mallory. Don’t.”

  “Okay, I won’t!” Mallory said. Why did any mention of this myth upset her so, if it was only a myth?

  “I love James, Mallory. I only get to see him part of the year because he works in New Mexico in spring and summer. But I truly love him.”

  “How could you know that when you were only fourteen when you met him?”

  Eden smiled slowly and, after a moment of hesitation, reached over and lightly hugged Mallory’s shoulders. She said, “You just know.” Mally made a hoovering noise with her straw. Both girls laughed. “Or maybe not!”

  “So you forgive me?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  Back at the store, Eden and Mally carefully opened a corner of the package so Eden could see the lush heft and color of the sleeping bag. She smiled like she’d been accepted to Harvard.

  “Thank you so much, Mal. And don’t worry about the other thing anymore, okay? It scares everyone.”

  “You mean, other people have the same dream?” Mallory asked.

  “No,” Eden said. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “Mallory, can’t you just please stop asking?”

  “That’s like telling me to stop caring!”

  “Then stop caring!”

  “I can’t do that,” Mallory said.

  “You’ll be sorry,” Eden said.

  Mallory said, “I know that.”

  POWWOW

  After practice the following Saturday, Eden pulled Mallory aside.

  “Do you want to go to a powwow?” she asked.

  “I’d go to a luau,” Mallory told her. “I’m sorry, but I need some distraction. Not only did I spend two straight days of twelve hours selling tennis shoes to bratty kids, I had two term papers due and . . .” And then there was worrying as a second job,she thought, but didn’t say.