Capture the World (4 page)

Head shaking, I return the wave. The food smells fabulous. Coming from the Moretti house, it always does, but I can’t leave.

“There’s plenty!” Francesca adds.

Matthew closes the distance between us, stopping on the edge of our property, close enough to see my face, my lips. “Ma’s right, we always have too much.” He hooks a thumb at his house. “You want something?”

The Moretti family gathers around their old picnic table, jackets pulled close around them. I wonder if his whole family knows about the decision my aunt and uncle made, or if it’s just Matthew and his grandmother. “It’s a little chilly for eating outside, isn’t it?”

“You’ve seen the size of my family, right? With Celia visiting, it’s better being cold than trying to squeeze all of us inside.” Pausing, he studies me, the look long and probing. “You should come.”

“Because of your nonna?” The words come out harder than I mean them to; angry, confused, and uncertain.

He flinches. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

I wave off his words. “Don’t explain. It’s fine.” Hugging my knees, I add, “Thanks for the invite, but I’ll stay here.”

Creases dig a trench between his brows. “Look, I—”

A loud bang drowns out his words. My gaze flies to the room above our heads.

“My jewel!” Mom sings, her window jerking up. “It’s spring in Monaco! Come see!” Her sandy brown hair wild and tousled around her face, she leans forward, waving me in.

I fly to my feet. “Not so far!” Palms out, I raise my hands, as if the gesture alone is enough to catch her should she fall.

Not now, Mama. Please.

“It’s beautiful!” she cries, arms sweeping open, her sleep-drunken eyes red but bright.

Cheeks flaming, I stammer, “I-I’ve got to go!”

Rushing inside, adrenaline sweeps me up the stairs and into her room faster than I’d ever be able to move without it. “Mom, you can’t do that! You could fall!”

She leans out farther, and I stumble toward her, my arms circling her waist. Matthew remains below, his gaze on the bedroom, on me, his expression dark and unreadable.

“I can fly!” Mom exclaims, all giddy.

“Not without wings,” I tell her gently, tugging her back.

Her gaze falls, landing on Matthew.
 

Oh no! No, no, no, no, no.

“Oh!” Hand covering her mouth, Mom glances at me, eyes shining. “You’ve been to Italy again!” she squeals. “Is that him?”

She yanks herself out of my grip, sending us both hurtling into the window. “Did you dance inside the Sistine Chapel?” she calls down.

My heart races, embarrassment a nasty beast clawing at my insides. “Mama, stop! Please!”

She doesn’t listen.

“You should come to Monaco with us!” she shouts. “Dance along the narrow, historic streets on Le Rocher! Or surround yourself with roses in the Princess Grace Rose Garden.” She giggles, plucking at an imaginary flower. “He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not ...”

Despite my embarrassment, my mother’s enthusiasm is contagious, her excitement forcing a startled laugh from me.

Below, Matthew’s lips twitch. “It sounds beautiful, Mrs. Lawson.”

“Come!” she insists.

He hesitates, and I decide to save him. “He doesn’t have a passport, Mama.”

Her face falls.

“I have to get back,” Matthew hedges, backing away, his gaze sliding to my lips. “Maybe another time?”

“Okay,” I answer dismissively, because I know there won’t be a next time. Not now. Not after he’s gotten a look inside of my life, a look inside of my mother’s world.

I’m not ashamed of my mother. Not really. I’m overprotective of her, and I feel embarrassed
for
her … and for me, but I’m not ashamed. I’m not. Really.

I am her daughter, and I carry who she is inside of me. Not the nervous breakdown and the way she is now mentally, but the part of her that loves the dramatic. The part of her that needs to be everywhere all at once.

Picking up my passport—the bent cardboard with ‘my jewel’ written in crayon down the front, stickers surrounding it—I hold it out to her. “Let’s stamp it,” I insist.

Her frown vanishes, replaced by giddy anticipation. She digs through a jewelry box full of stickers, being careful to pick just the right one. She goes with a purple flower, a faux lavender jewel in its center.

Pressing it to the cardboard, she cries, “Perfect!”

Hugging it to me, I grin, showing her that I’m happy.

The front door bangs open.

“Can you come help me with these groceries, Reagan!” Aunt Trish calls up.

Giving Mom a quick hug, I close the window and leave the room, taking the stairs two at a time.

We have bags strewn all over the kitchen counter when I confront her. “I don’t need help making friends.”

She glances at me, a can of English peas in one hand, a box of cornbread mix in the other. I know by her innocent look she’s going to lie. “I don’t know—”

“Matthew Moretti,” I interrupt, “of all people.”

Placing the peas in the pantry, she sighs. “You’ve always seemed to like him.”

“He’s nice, Aunt Trish. That doesn’t mean I want to be all buddy-buddy.”

“He’s a good boy.”

“He’s the senior basketball star.”

“Reagan—”

“I don’t want to send her away,” I whisper.

Leaving the rest of the groceries unpacked, Trish grasps me gently by the arms. “Oh, for heaven’s sake ... do you really think I want that? That if there was any other way—”

“There is. Keep her here.”

Exasperated, she releases me. “She’s my sister, and I love her. This isn’t a random, out-of-nowhere decision, Reagan Renèe Lawson! It’s been—”

The phone rings.

Trish’s mouth snaps shut, her fist clenching and unclenching indecisively, first reaching for the phone and then reaching for me. On the third ring, she chooses the phone. The landline is Uncle Bobby’s work line.

“Robert’s Towing and Junk Yard.” Aunt Trish’s gaze finds mine, curiosity sloping her brows. “Yeah, she’s here. One moment.” She offers me the phone. “For you.”

I stare at the receiver, horrified. No one calls me. Except Gracie, the only friend I have, but she uses my cell. “Who is it?”

“Take it.” She shakes the phone at me.

Accepting it, I lift it cautiously to my ear. There’s breathing from the other end of the line.

“Would you say something?” Trish insists, returning to the groceries.

The phone is cordless, and I carry it with me into the hall. “Hello?”

“Reagan?”

“Yeah?”

“Hey, it’s Matthew.”

I hold the phone out, glaring at it. Seriously? Will this ever end, or is this day stuck on some weird loop, repeating itself over and over again?

Matthew Moretti sounds different over the phone, his deep voice less deep somehow. Less confident. Even so, I feel the churning uncertainty in my gut.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, returning the phone to my ear. “Calling me, I mean? I told you, I don’t need—”

“I didn’t go back home because your mom freaked me out,” he rushes to say. “I just thought you should know that.”

I freeze. I wasn’t expecting that. “How did you get this number?”
Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Online business search.”
Of course he did.
He coughs, adding, “Um … it was actually kind of cool.”

“What was?” I ask, confused.

“The stuff your mom knew about Monaco.”

I’m speechless.

“Anyway, that was it,” Matthew blurts. “I just wanted you to know that.”

“Okay … then—”

He hangs up, and I’m left staring at the phone, completely thrown for a loop.

“Matthew?” my aunt asks smugly from behind me.

Frowning, I hand her the phone. “I’m not being friends with him because of you!”

She shrugs. “Then don’t be.”

My mouth purses, as if I’ve sucked on a lemon. “This is your fault!” I accuse.

Rather than get upset, Aunt Trish smiles, her hands clutching the phone to her chest. It reminds me of Mom. “He’s cute.”

Kill me now.
“His nonna probably threatened him with crochet needles!”

Still battling the smile, Aunt Trish agrees, “Perlita
can
be intimidating.”

I am halfway up the stairs when she stops me. “He’s not scared of his nonna, Reagan. As a matter of fact, Perlita says he asks about you. Which is why we thought that this might be good for you. I don’t know, maybe it’s you that’s scared. He just needed an excuse to talk to you. You don’t invite conversation.”

Her words are poisonous darts, my heart the bull’s eye.

Gripping the bannister, I take the rest of the stairs, head hanging. “It’s weird how the Moretti boys are all named after saints.”

Aunt Trish laughs. “You know what they say? Name someone after a saint, and he’s more likely to sin.”

“No one says that.”

“They should.”

My head feels like a shaken up soda can
waiting
for the tab to be pulled.

“Maybe it’s you that’s scared.”

Yeah, right. Whatever.

FIVE

My world

The origami empire

MY ROOM WELCOMES me, the pale green walls swallowing me whole. This room, my world, is fragile, made of paper dreams. An origami world that grew from a birthday gift given to me on my tenth birthday, the wrapped box holding my first stack of colored paper along with a guide full of amazing pictures and how-to instructions.

Since then, I’ve built an origami empire.

From my ceiling, hanging from strings, birds and butterflies fly. Swans swim along the wall, their bodies resting on cream carpet. Scattered around the space, stacks of books stand, makeshift tables holding origami architecture: The Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, London’s Big Ben, China’s Great Wall, Egyptian pyramids, and Rome’s Coliseum. Places I’d never actually been to with my mother, but places we’d seen nonetheless.

Pulling a box out from beneath my bed, I sit on my forest green comforter before tugging the lid off of a Tupperware container. My fingers play with the paper inside, sifting through it, to settle on green, red, pink, and yellow.

For hours I fold, delicate roses forming in my hands.

Clearing a space in the corner of the room, I arrange the flowers in an old mason jar I confiscate from the kitchen. The Princess Grace Rose Garden ... or a piece of it anyway.

My dresser is covered in colored bottles, a myriad of fragrant body sprays. Despite rarely wearing perfume, I collect different kinds, different scents.

Going through them, I select the ones with floral names. None of them smell like roses, but I spritz my origami creations with lavender and hyacinth, leaving little droplet stains behind on the paper. The flowers and the scents carry me to another world, to a beautiful place far away, to the rose garden and a day full of sunshine and gentle breezes. My careful fingers brush greenery, and a long, wispy skirt blows against my legs, my hair flying around my face.

I am there, and it is glorious. My ivory tower. My corner of heaven.

In my origami kingdom, I am a queen.

Cross-legged in front of my roses, I touch them, my thoughts flying suddenly to Matthew Moretti. What would he say if he saw this? If he was sitting here next to me, too big and too male for my paper world?

Lying back, my gaze on the birds and butterflies hanging from my ceiling, I plug my ears with my fingers, blocking out all noise. It leaves me drowning in roaring silence, and I wonder if this is what Matthew hears when he doesn’t have his hearing aids in. Is his silence quiet or loud? I wonder how bad his hearing really is, how much of the world he’s closed off from while still being so much a part of it. I’m awed by how
there
he is at our school, how integral and popular he is despite his impairment.

I want that for my mother, for people to surround her, celebrating the way she is rather than fearing her.

My aunt is right. I’m scared. I’m really, really scared.

Rolling on my side, I curl up and fantasize about Matthew, pretending that my arms are his, holding me. I don’t have to know him that well to want this, to like the idea of being held. I like the way he smells, the way he looks at my lips like they’re special.

My cheeks flame, my breathing deepening, when my mind goes to other places—passionate places.

It isn’t that I never fantasize about boys. I do, but the boys I dream about are unattainable. Actors, musicians, and athletes I doubt I’ll ever meet, or nameless men I create in my head. Not boys I know.

Shame engulfs me, and I go rigid, my body a piñata beaten by a stick. My mother is being sent away, and I’m fantasizing about Matthew Moretti.

What’s wrong with me?

Hyacinth and lavender pose as roses, their scent hugging me. My eyes fall closed.

There, in a fetal position on my bedroom floor inside of an origami world, I fall asleep and dream about things I shouldn’t be dreaming about, tears wetting my face.