It was a girl’s voice first. I could tell by the tone, although I wasn’t able to make out what she was saying. Then, after a pause, a lower timbre. I rolled over, looking down at Layla, who was sound asleep, knees pulled to her chest.
At 1:50, things had gone quiet, and I was suddenly aware that I really, truly had to pee. It was always weird to navigate someone else’s house, especially at such a late hour. By 1:59, I knew I didn’t have a choice. I slid out of bed, stepping carefully over Layla, and walked to the door, turning the knob as quietly as possible.
The first thing I saw was Lucy, Rosie’s Mariposa friend, sitting on the couch. She was in a tank top and pajama shorts, her hair loose over her shoulders. Mac was beside her, his eyes on the TV, which was showing an infomercial I’d actually seen before, for a product that cut fruit into fun and jazzy shapes. By the intense, focused way he was watching it, though, you would have thought it was breaking news.
They both turned toward me as I stepped out into the hallway. Mac said, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Just, um . . .” I nodded to the bathroom, then started toward it, feeling hopelessly awkward. As I shut the door behind me, I heard Lucy say something, then laugh. There was no way of knowing if it had anything to do with me, but still, I felt my face flush.
I did my business, washed my hands, and ran a hand through my hair, which, considering I’d not yet slept, was sporting a serious case of bedhead. Then I opened the door as loudly as I could, announcing myself. I wanted them to know I was coming.
The infomercial was still on—“BUT THERE’S MORE!”—and Mac continued to give it his full attention. Lucy, however, had moved closer to him, and was now resting her head on his shoulder. This time, she didn’t look at me.
“Good night,” I said to Mac, then pushed the bedroom door open. I was just about to slip inside when he spoke.
“Is that bothering you?”
I turned around. “What?”
“The clock,” he said, nodding toward the room. “It’s kind of bright. I can turn it off, if you want.”
Lucy shifted, pressing herself against him. On the TV, a woman was entirely too excited about the prospect of making star-shaped watermelon pieces. I looked at Mac, who was holding my gaze in such a way that I knew, somehow, I should say yes.
“Actually,” I told him, “I was kind of wondering how to—”
Before I could even finish, he was on his feet, startling Lucy, who now did turn, clearly irritated. I stepped back as Mac came into the bedroom. Then, with her still watching me, I slowly shut the door.
It felt very dark, and I stood still for a moment, letting my eyes adjust. Mac, however, walked right over to sit on the bed, pulling the clock toward him. As he hit a button, turning off the projected time, he said, “Thanks. For the save.”
“She’s pretty . . .” I trailed off, not sure what adjective I was going for. “Intense.”
“That’s one word for it.” He put the clock back down, then got to his feet. “You have everything you need?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”
He nodded, stepping carefully over Layla, who was now snoring slightly. As he put his hand on the knob, I heard myself say, “You can stay, if you want. Until she goes to bed. It is your room, after all. I’m fine on the floor.”
I realized, too late, how this might sound: now I was the girl making the strong move. When Mac turned, though, he looked relieved. “I’ll take the floor.”
As he grabbed a blanket from the closet and spread it out on the carpet, I got back into the bed, pulling up the covers. With Layla smack in the middle of the room, there was no real space other than parallel to where I was. Still, he left as big a gap as he could, even though it meant basically resting his head against the desk.
“You want this pillow?” I asked him as he shifted, trying to get some headroom.
“No, you keep it.”
“I don’t need it. And you are on the floor.”
“I’m fine.” He shifted again, and I heard a clunk. “Ouch.”
I snorted, and then laughed outright.
“Oh, that’s nice,” he said. “Mock my pain.”
“I’m trying to give you your pillow.”
“I don’t need it.” Another clunk. “Crap.”
I sat up, grabbing his pillow and launching it at him. It hit him right in the face. Whoops. “Sorry,” I said. “I—”
Before I could finish, it was coming right at me, at twice the speed I’d thrown it. I ducked, and it bounced off the wall, hitting the clock, which immediately projected the time back on the ceiling, bright as day.
“See what you did?” he said.
“It’s two fifteen a.m.,” I replied, launching it back at his head. “Time to take your pillow.”
Suddenly, there was a soft knock on the door, and we both went silent. A moment later, it opened, a slant of light spilling in. “Mac?” a voice said. Lucy. “Hello?”
I closed my eyes. For a moment, all I could hear was Layla breathing. Then the door shut with a click.
Still, we were silent for a full two minutes, according to the clock. I was beginning to think that maybe he was asleep, somehow, when the pillow hit me square in the face.
“I’m not throwing it back,” I whispered. “You’ve officially forfeited it now.”
“I never wanted it in the first place.”
“Just go to sleep before she comes back,” I told him.
“You’re the one talking.”
I felt myself smile widely in the dark. It was 2:22 a.m. “Good night, Mac.”
“Good night, Sydney. Sleep well.”
This, however, seemed impossible at that moment, with him only an arm’s length or so away. So I was surprised when I jerked awake at 4:32 from a deep, thick dream, the details of which disappeared the moment I opened my eyes. I blinked, then rolled over, taking in Layla, still curled up, and then Mac, who’d shifted away from the desk and now lay on his side, one hand stretched in my direction. He was sound asleep, I knew, and not at all aware of this. What you do in your dreams is never your choice. But it made me happy anyway.
CHAPTER
13
I THOUGHT I’d dodged the bullet of Family Day at Lincoln. A couple of weeks later, however, another issue arose. Just my luck.
“I have great news,” my mother announced at dinner one evening. Suddenly, it all made sense: the way she’d been humming to herself while she set the table, the extra cheerful manner in which she questioned me about my day at school. “We’re going to get to see Peyton. All of us, together.”
“Really?” my dad said.
She nodded. Clearly, she wanted to draw this out: it was that good. “I got a call today. He’s finished his first course, and there’s going to be a graduation ceremony, with all family invited.”
From the way she said it, so proud, you would have thought he was getting an Ivy League diploma, not a certificate from a prison program that was, in fact, mandatory. But that was my mom. When it came to Peyton, all she needed was a glimmer of good to extrapolate to outstanding.
“This is the civics course?” my dad asked, helping himself to more bread.
“Civics and Law.” She took a sip of her wine. “It’s such a great thing. He’s really learned a lot, and now that he’s done, he can pick other classes. There’s quite a variety, actually. Michelle says Lincoln is good that way. The warden really believes in the importance of on-site learning.”
“When is this happening?” my dad asked.
“The end of November,” she replied. “I’m thinking we’ll drive up the night before and stay at that hotel that’s right nearby. That way we won’t have to leave at the crack of dawn.”
“But I have school,” I said automatically.
For the first time all day, my mother’s cheeriness waned. “You can mis
s one day. This is important, Sydney.”
End of discussion. My father glanced at me, as if maybe he might speak up, but then returned to eating. And so the countdown began.
Plans were made, two hotel rooms booked. One for me and my mom, and one for my dad and Ames, who was of course coming along. My mother, in her networking mode, reached out to some other Lincoln families with “graduates” (as she insisted on calling them) to coordinate a potluck of desserts and coffee for after the ceremony. Just like that, she was back in her comfort zone. She was so busy, in fact, that she hardly noticed that I was spending just about every afternoon at Seaside. Which was fine with me.
“So it’s a class he took?” Layla asked me as we sat doing homework there one day. “I didn’t know there was school in prison. Seems like being locked up would be punishment enough.”
Unlike Jenn and Meredith, with whom I’d always shared a drive to succeed academically, Layla basically spent the school day counting down to the final bell. Even homework made her uncharacteristically grumpy, and she usually needed two or three YumYums to get it done.
“It’s a class everyone there has to take, about the law.” I flipped a page in my calculus book. “I guess to remind you not to break it?”
“I thought that’s what the whole being-behind-bars thing was for.” She put her lollipop in her mouth, then took it out. “Actually, though, I can see the point. If going to school was the only activity I was allowed, I’d probably love it.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. We’d been sitting there a full hour, and all she’d done was doodle her name and some hearts on the page in front of her.
“Okay, maybe not.” She sighed. “I think it’s time for a break. Want to hit SuperThrift?”
“Layla.”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“No.”
“Ten. I swear I’ll go when you tell me to.” I looked at her, making my doubt clear. “I will! Come on.”
Against my better judgment, I packed up my books, then stored my backpack behind the counter, where Mac was prepping vegetables, his chem textbook propped up against the counter in front of him.
“Where are you two going?” he asked.
“Nowhere,” Layla replied.
“SuperThrift,” I said at the same time.
He shook his head, then looked at me. “She won’t leave when you want her to, even if she says otherwise.”
“We’ll be back in ten minutes,” Layla sang out over him. I sighed, then followed her out the door.
SuperThrift was housed in a small, nondescript building just around the corner from Seaside. I’d driven past it a million times in my life and never given it a second look, as my family didn’t do much secondhand shopping. We donated—my mom was forever picking through my closet, a bag in hand, demanding if I’d worn this or that in the last year—but more to Goodwill or other charities. SuperThrift was a business.
The first thing you smelled when you walked in was a strong, pungent cranberry air freshener. It was like a wall of scent, stretched across the entrance area. Once you passed through it, you realized why: the next thing you breathed in was mothballs and mildew.
“I love the smell of bargains in the afternoon,” Layla said. This transition always made my nose itch, but it seemed to energize her: I had to quicken my step to keep up. “Ooh! Look at this!”
The first time I saw the racks of clothes stretching all the way to the back wall, I just felt tired. There was just so much, and arranged in a way that it was work to browse through it, with no set categories or sections. You’d see a thick winter coat, smashed up against a cheap rayon shirt with shoulder pads, bracketed by two hideous prom dresses. And that was just one inch of what was there.
Layla, however, had a gift. Somehow, she was able to spot the good stuff, as haphazardly as it might have been presented. I’d still be bogged down trying to get past a pair of extra-long men’s tweed trousers from circa 1950, but she’d already have found a cropped leather jacket and a white dress shirt that only needed a good ironing to look like something my friends at Perkins would wear.
“It’s just practice,” she explained to me the first time I complained about this. “My mom is a serious bargain hunter. We used to hit this place, all the other thrift shops, and yard sales every weekend. She always says you have to look and move fast. Do it enough and it becomes second nature. Like Mac with his clocks.”
I hadn’t realized, when we first met, how much of Layla’s stuff was secondhand. It was only when Rosie and her friends finally relinquished her room the morning after I stayed over that I got my first glimpse of her closet. While a small space, it was packed, as well as meticulously organized. When she saw me notice, it became clear it was a source of pride.
“These,” she said during the ensuing tour, as she pulled out a pair of jeans folded neatly over a hanger, “I found at Thrift World. They’re Courtney Amandas! Barely worn, and all I had to do was hem them. That was a good day.”
I soon realized that all of Layla’s clothes had a similar origin story. I couldn’t remember where I’d even gotten the shirt I had on, but she knew the background of every single thing she owned. It made me ashamed, even more than the fact I didn’t own anything I hadn’t gotten brand-new. But Layla didn’t seem bothered at all by the differences between us. It was just . . . well, how it was. One more way I aspired to be like her.
Whenever we were at SuperThrift, Layla always pulled stuff for me as well as herself. I’d still be trying to get past a slew of housecoats in various patterns, holding back the inevitable sneeze, when she’d appear beside me and toss a vintage dress, a barely worn pair of boots my size, or a cashmere sweater “just my color” at me before disappearing again. After the first couple of trips, I’d stopped looking for myself altogether and just killed time wandering around, knowing if there were things that were right for me, she’d find them.
Today, this was a pair of black capri pants and a shoulder bag made from a feed sack, both of which she brought to me just after we arrived. “Six minutes,” I reminded her. She acted like she didn’t hear me.
By now, my nose was running. After digging for a tissue, I wandered to the back of the store. The shoes, unlike the clothes, were arranged by gender and size, although who did this it was hard to say. I’d never seen anyone actually working at SuperThrift, other than the women who, when you rang the ASSISTANCE button at the register, emerged from a glass-walled back room where they were watching TV. Even then, they acted like their true job was to show how much they disliked having to help you.
Kids’ and ladies’ shoes were on the left, and men’s were on the right (there were fewer of them, and a lot of bowling shoes, for some reason). Then there was a final section that simply said ETC. Today, it was filled with galoshes.
That was the thing about SuperThrift. Usually, Layla had explained to me, its inventory was made up of donations, castoffs from yard sales, and things other secondhand stores couldn’t get rid of. Occasionally, though, they were given collections, either from places going out of business or estates of people who had passed. This explained why, on one of my first visits, there had been an entire rack of old big-and-tall three-piece suits in varying patterns and colors. It was also probably the reason a box of unworn gas station coveralls, unused, appeared one day.
The galoshes, however, were harder to figure out. They were in bright colors and children’s sizes: small, and green, yellow, red, and polka-dotted. Clearly they’d been worn (I saw fade marks and scuffs), but who had that many kids? I’d counted at least ten pairs and was still going when I heard a voice behind me.
“Man,” it said. “That’s a lot of boots, huh?”
If you had asked me, as I faced the SuperThrift footwear collection, who I would see when I turned around, the last person who would have come to mind was David Ibarra. And yet there he was, in jeans and a red sweatshirt, in his
wheelchair. Smiling at me.
I went deaf for a second. Then I stood there, staring at him openmouthed. All those months of studying his face, absorbing every detail I could get about him, and now here he was, real and in the flesh. It seemed like he should know who I was, my association with my brother like a pervasive smell, warning him away.
“Man. What’s with all the boots?”
It was Layla, now coming toward me, her arms full of clothes. She peered at the boots, then looked at David Ibarra. Immediately, her own eyes widened. She’d read that article; never forget a face.
“That’s what I was saying,” he said, moving the controller on his wheelchair so he could get closer to the bin. “Guess it means there’s a bunch of kids out there who are gonna have wet feet next time it rains.”
“When I see stuff like this here,” Layla said slowly, glancing at me, “I want to buy it just for the story.”
“Not me,” he replied, backing up again. “Just because someone gave up all those bathrobes behind us doesn’t mean I necessarily want to know why.”
“Brother?” I heard a voice say from behind a rack of dresses. “Where are you?”
“Coming,” he replied, turning himself around. I still hadn’t said a word; I couldn’t. But maybe he was used to people staring at him, mute, because he just gave us a friendly wave and then drove off.
“Hey,” Layla said, dropping her stuff on the floor and coming over to me. “Sydney. You look sick.”
“That . . . He was—”
She put a hand on my shoulder. “I know. Seriously, take a breath. You’re scaring me.”
I did as I was told, sucking in that awful smell. Distantly, I could hear a whirring noise as David Ibarra and whoever he was with made their way up to the front of the store. After a moment, Layla stepped away from me, leaning into the aisle to look at them. I made her swear on her mom, twice, that they were gone not just from the store but the parking lot as well before I would move.