For my dear friend,
Jenny Greenberg,
with love
Contents
Preface
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Acknowledgments
Also by Carolyn Mackler
About the Author
Preface
The first thing V did upon arriving in Brockport was fool around with my ex-boyfriend. Well, not the first, but it happened within twenty-four hours of her plane landing at the Greater Rochester International Airport.
Her full name is Vivienne Vail Valentine, but she only answers to V.
My name is Mara Valentine. I’m seventeen and a senior in high school. I’ll turn eighteen in late July, which makes me a Leo. Not that I know anything about astrology except my own sign. Anyway, it’s a total joke because according to the Democrat and Chronicle horoscope page, the moon is heading into my house of romance this spring. Well, the only romance that ever entered my galaxy was Travis Hart. We were together spring of junior year. He definitely wanted more than my moon and he wanted it at the speed of light. He dumped me over Instant Messenger three days before the college-entrance exams – the SATs. Thank God I still cracked a score of fourteen hundred, or I may have cracked his skull.
I’m a straight-A student and, yes, my parents both have that MY CHILD IS AN HONOR STUDENT bumper sticker on their cars. Those are now sharing fender space with the Yale bumper stickers they stuck on in December when I got accepted for early admission.
Getting into Yale wasn’t a total shocker. I’ve been in student government since junior high. Over the years, I’ve done pressure-cooker summer programs and Model UN and Odyssey of the Mind. I even got a part-time job at a café so my college application wouldn’t make me look like a typical upper-middle-class brat who subsists solely on a hefty allowance.
My dad is a dentist with an office in Brockport. My mom does fundraising for the University of Rochester. I got my height from my dad. I’m a five-foot-ten vegan. I haven’t touched dairy or meat or eggs in seven months, though sometimes I dream about grilled-cheese sandwiches. I’m thin bordering on gangly with chin-length brown hair and hazel eyes. I have type A blood, a type A personality, and wear an A-cup bra.
My parents had me when they were in their forties. Now they’re in their early sixties, which makes them ten or fifteen years older than most people’s parents. Not that they show their age, aside from the fact that they generally go to bed around sunset. We NEVER talk about sex, so I don’t know the specifics of my eleventh-hour conception. But I’m convinced that my parents brought me into this world to compensate for my older sister, Aimee, who was eighteen and skidding down a road to nowhere.
When I was still a baby, Aimee dropped out of college and moved to Vail, Colorado, to pursue her dream of becoming a ski instructor. Instead, she pursued a ski instructor and got pregnant by a guy she’s only ever referred to as the Sperm Donor. V was born in September, by which time Aimee was living on a vineyard in California and pursuing her new dream of learning to make red wine.
By all logical deductions, V is my niece. But the whole aunt-and-niece-are-one-year-apart thing is too freaky to think about, so I basically try not to.
Aimee is now thirty-five and can’t stick to one decision about her career, geographic location, or sexual partner. For the past six months, she’s been living with a guy named Michael in San Diego and managing a Tex-Mex restaurant. Before that, she and Elias were tending an organic farm outside of Eugene, Oregon. Two years ago, it was bartending in New Orleans and an artists’ commune in Vermont.
In between Aimee’s transcontinental moves, she and V crash with us in Brockport for a few days. Aimee stays in the guest room upstairs. V sleeps on the air mattress on my floor. I dread these visits. If V and I weren’t related, we’d never end up in the same stratosphere, much less the same bedroom. We’re both tall and thin, but the similarities end there. V is one of those in-your-face girls. Besides, she acquires a new bad habit in every town. In Vermont, she lost her virginity to an eighteen-year-old harmonica player. She kept me up half the night describing their sexual encounters. In New Orleans, V honed her nymphomaniacal skills and added more guys to her list. On the organic farm, of all places, she started smoking cigarettes. She burned through two packs while leaning out my window over the course of five nights.
My parents are always wringing their hands about Aimee and V. They long ago gave up on the idea of Aimee finishing college. Now they’re just hoping she’ll put down roots for more than a few months. But their pressing concern is V. They’re frequently calling Aimee and offering to pay for V to take singing lessons or an SAT prep course. More than once, I’ve overheard my parents say things like, “V has so much unrealized potential. If only she lived with us, we could do wonders with her.”
So that explains how much pressure is on me. Aimee has always been the Screwup. V, the Unrealized Potential. And me, the Only Hope.
But then, in January of my senior year, Aimee unloaded her daughter in Brockport. Less than a day later, V realized her potential with Travis Hart in the boys’ locker room of my high school, which left me with only one hope: that V would get the hell out of my life.
Chapter One
My parents tag-teamed me on a blustery Monday evening in early January. It was flurrying like crazy out, one of those nights that practically guarantees school will be canceled the next day. Even so, I was sitting at my desk, studying for a quiz in psychology. My parents came into my room, stood on either side of me, and asked if we could have an impromptu Family Meeting.
Family Meetings are big in our household. We have Family Meetings to figure out where we’re going for vacation. We had a Family Meeting when I said I didn’t want to do Model UN senior year. When I was deciding where to apply to college, we had multiple Family Meetings to pore through books and read course catalogs before determining that Yale was the School for Me.
“What about?” I asked.
“Aimee called a few days ago,” my dad said.
“She’s moving to Costa Rica!” my mom exclaimed. “She wants to pursue her dream of cooking traditional Central American cuisine.”
I glanced suspiciously at my mom’s face, her crow’s feet wrinkling, her smile lines cutting deep grooves. Usually when Aimee announces her latest dream, my mom gets all huffy about my older sister’s flakiness. But this time around, she looked way too happy.
“So?” I asked. “Why the Family Meeting?”
My parents caught each other’s eye for a second and then my dad said, “There are no English-language schools in the region where Aimee is going…”
“And V doesn’t speak Spanish,” my mom added.
My pulse sped up as I got a terrifying hunch about where this was headed. Sure enough, I was right. My parents proceeded to inform me that they’d already bought V a one-way plane ticket to western New York. She was going to arrive in a week and a half and stay in the guest room upstairs and continue her junior year at my high school.
I was so shaken, all I could think to say was, “Aimee wants to cook traditional Central American cuisine??
??
My mom nodded. “Supposedly they use a lot of interesting spices.”
“And so many variations on rice and beans,” my dad said.
I stared out my window. The powdery snow was sticking against the screen like confectioner’s sugar in a metal strainer.
“The upside is that V is coming to live with us,” my mom said. “Junior year is crucial. There’s still time to get her on the college track.”
“We’ve signed her up for an SAT prep course in Rochester,” my dad said. “Aimee says V doesn’t have her license yet, so Mom will drive her in on Tuesday evenings and I’ll take her on Thursdays.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” I finally asked.
My parents glanced at each other. I knew exactly why they didn’t tell me. They wanted everything signed and sealed before I could make any noise about it.
“We knew it would be an adjustment for you,” my mom said.
“You and V have your differences,” my dad said.
“But everything is going so well right now.” I was thinking how I’d been planning to fast-forward through my five remaining months in Brockport. I’ve already applied to an academic program at Johns Hopkins this summer, where I can complete two college courses in eight weeks. My mind is on the future, anticipating a swift departure, no bumps or hurdles or nicotine-addicted nympho houseguests.
“It’s going to be fine,” my mom said.
My dad patted my shoulder. “You’ll be so busy with your own things, you won’t even notice V is here.”
I stared up at my dad. Were we thinking about the same person?
“It’s going to be fine,” my mom said again.
Nine days later, we picked V up from the airport. Her honey-colored hair was long, and her bangs hung like a venetian blind over her eyes. My mom kept sweeping them toward V’s temples, but they kept sliding back in place. Her nails, with chipped tangerine polish, were chewed all the way to the skin. There were freshly inked words on her left hand and fingers, but my parents were mauling her with hugs, so I couldn’t make out what they said. And despite the fact that western New York in January is colder than Antarctica, she was wearing a tank top, no bra, and jeans that were mutilated in the butt region.
When my dad went to retrieve the car from short-term parking, my mom took off her coat and insisted that V wear it. As V put on my mom’s coat, I eyed the backpack she’d just slid off her bare shoulders. It was one of those hemp-cloth stoner satchels that made me wonder what new smoking habits she’d acquired in San Diego.
On the car ride back to Brockport, my parents asked about Aimee’s newfound interest in Central American cuisine.
“Whatever,” V said, rolling her eyes. “It’s really about Campbell.”
“Campbell?” my mom asked.
“Yeah,” V said. “He’s this surfer guy she met in November. He’s going to Costa Rica in search of killer waves. She’s going to Costa Rica in search of killer orgasms.”
We do not, I repeat, DO NOT talk about sex, much less orgasms, in the Valentine household.
My mom coughed. My dad swerved to the left, narrowly missing a Wegmans truck. No one said anything for a moment. V began gnawing at her fingernails. I stole a peek at her hand. Down each finger, from her pinkie to her pointer, she’d scrawled fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. On her thumb it said everyone.
Yikes.
Chapter Two
After we got home from the airport, my dad carried V’s duffel bags to the guest room and my mom heated up curry vegetables and basmati rice with lamb in a side dish for those of us who don’t want our food coming in contact with flesh.
V helped herself to a heaping pile of lamb and a small haystack of rice.
“You don’t like vegetables?” my dad asked.
V shook her head. “I’m all about baa-baa black sheep these days.”
“It’s lamb,” I said.
As V ingested a chunk of meat, she began humming “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
She was totally doing it to piss me off. On the car ride home, my parents told her how I’m still a vegan. When she asked why anyone in their right mind would deprive themselves of hamburgers and pizza and ice cream, I said I’m grossed out by animal byproducts.
That’s partially true. I’ve never been able to get over the fact that meat is essentially roadkill with pedigree or that eggs are unfertilized baby chickens. But I have my secret reasons, too. Basically, after Travis Hart broke up with me, I couldn’t stop obsessing about him, about the rejection. Finally, after several hellish weeks, I decided I needed to obsess about something else. Something big. Which is why veganism made sense. It’s all-consumingly obsessive. You have to read ingredients on every food item and bring peanut butter with you when you travel and only go to certain restaurants. It can be a total pain, but it helps keep my mind off things.
Toward the end of dinner, my parents asked V whether she was nervous to start at a new school.
“No big deal,” V said. “This is the seventeenth school where I’ve been the new kid. It basically feels like … whatever.”
“Seventeen?” My dad raised his thick eyebrows. “Is that really how many it’s been?”
My mom’s hands were clasped around her water glass like she was restraining herself from saying something less than nice about Aimee.
V nodded. “At some point, they all blend together. Same locker, different combination. Different lunchroom, same sour-milk stench. Same snobs, same moronic gossip.”
My mom pushed V’s bangs out of her eyes. Her fingers were damp from the glass perspiration, so this time V’s hair slicked over to one side. V quickly looked down at her plate.
“Maybe Brockport will be different,” my dad said. “After all, you know Mara. And I’m sure she can introduce you to people. She’s involved in so many activities … I can’t even keep track.”
V and I caught each other’s eye and had this quick I’m-sizing-you-up moment. I could tell by her smirk that she was thinking I’m a hand-raising, teacher-hugging goody-goody. But I didn’t care because I’d already decided she was a class-ditching, chair-in-the-principal’s-office-warming deadbeat.
“I have an idea!” my mom exclaimed. “Mara, why don’t you grab a yearbook and we’ll give V a quick who’s who of Brockport High School.”
I pushed my plate away from me. “Can’t I just do the dishes? It’s my night.”
V smiled sweetly at my mom. “That’s a great idea. It would make me feel so much better to look at a yearbook, you know, to see who’s who.”
“You’re totally lying,” I said. “You just said it doesn’t matter, that we all blend together.”
“Lying is a strong word,” V said.
“You heard her,” I said to my dad. “She said it doesn’t matter who’s who.”
My mom and dad stared at each other like, What now? My parents and I rarely fight. Sure, we disagree, but it’s nothing that a few Family Meetings won’t solve.
My dad ran his hands through his hair. It’s mostly white and definitely in the Albert Einstein, out-of-control subcategory. I inherited his hair texture, but I always blow-dry mine into submission.
“I’ll take care of the dishes tonight,” my dad finally said.
“Great,” my mom said. “Mara, go grab your yearbook. Or do you want me to?”
I stabbed at my remaining piece of curried cauliflower. The tag team had just expanded from two to three.
My mom sat in the center of the couch with “Time of Our Lives” open on her lap. V and I sat on either side of her. “Time of Our Lives,” by the way, is the name of last year’s yearbook. I was the junior section editor but was attending a Model UN conference at Georgetown when they voted for the title. I think it’s an idiotic name for a yearbook. If you give people the notion that high school is the time of their lives, won’t it be depressing when they graduate and assume it’s all downhill? But the yearbook adviser was also the person who was writing one of my college recommendation lett
ers, so I wasn’t about to argue it.
My mom was flipping through the pages, plunking her finger on various “nice kids,” as she called them. Translation: they are college-bound with professional parents. It was strange to see my mom point out “Mara’s friends.” Girls like Bethany Madison and Lindsey Breslawski. I ate lunch with them freshman, sophomore, and junior years, and we sometimes slept over at each other’s houses.
We’ve grown apart this year. For all of senior year, I’ve been leaving the high school at eleven-forty. I’m in this special program for honor students called 3-1-3. The point is to take three years of high school, one year of high school and college together, and—if you get enough credits—three years of college. I’m in the “1” part now, so I have college classes at SUNY Brockport every afternoon. Assuming I get accepted to the summer program at Johns Hopkins, I may be able to enter Yale as a second-year student.
All this to say that I don’t eat lunch in the cafeteria anymore. I do the high-school thing in the morning, leave for the afternoon, and sometimes come back later for meetings. I still chat with Bethany and Lindsey in school, but we haven’t talked on the phone or e-mailed in months.
My mom flipped through the “clubs” section and pointed out the myriad pictures of me. V kept making these snide little clucks. When my mom got to the Chemical-Free Fun Nights page and there I was—organizing Friday-night volleyball games as an alternative to killing brain cells—V actually snorted.
“Chemical-Free Fun Nights?” she asked. “What do you do? Give out chlorine and krypton at no cost? What fun!”
“Lay off,” I said.
“I’m just teasing you, Mara. Chill out.”
I hate when people tell me to chill out. It’s just like when I’m walking down the hall and some cheese-ball social-studies teacher bellows, “Smile, Mara!” like I’m supposed to be perennially pumped on Prozac.
I think my mom was sensing the tension. She flipped the page but unfortunately landed on a spread of candid shots from last year’s Winter Ball. And smack-dab in the center was that picture of me in a spaghetti-strap dress and Travis Hart in a suit, our arms around each other, with a caption that read Valentine and Hart: 2-gether 4-ever. My cohorts on the yearbook staff, confident that we were a match made in Hallmark heaven, slipped that in as a surprise. Surprise, all right. Travis tossed me aside in late April, by which time the yearbook was already at the printers. So when “Time of Our Lives” came out in June, I had to weather the public humiliation that Travis and I were no longer two and four, but one big zero. Not to mention that in the month since our split, he’d transformed into a male slut and was sleeping his way through the sophomore class.