Moving Neutral (3 page)

She made eye contact with me, and I watched as relief flooded across her face. For a moment, I thought everything was going to be alright.

Then the relief was replaced by fury as she took in the whole scene -- the side of the car, crumbled in a way that suggested thousands of dollars of damage. Me, sitting in the driver’s seat, unable to even open the door. The key still in the ignition. The radio still on.

I looked down. In the impact, something on the floor of the passenger seat had moved, and it glinted in the garage light. I picked up Madison’s earring and shoved it into the pocket of my jeans. Great.

My dad joined my mom at the door of the garage, neither of them seeming to know what to do next. I turned off the ignition and climbed over the emergency brake, pulling my body into the passenger seat. The corner of my sweater caught on the cigarette lighter, pulling it out of the dashboard. I didn’t bother to put it back, kicking it out of my way with one foot.

I couldn’t even talk to them. I knew what was coming, but I just couldn’t listen to it.

So much for my summer of freedom.

Pushing past my dad, I ignored his bewildered expression and stormed into the house. The television was still on in the living room, our pizza box from the morning folded and stuffed halfway into the recycling bin.

I went straight into my bedroom and slammed the door. Before my parents could take it away, I flipped open my cell phone to make one last call. I thought about calling Madison for an instant and then decided not to -- it wasn’t her fault I’d hit the garage wall, but I couldn’t help blaming her a little bit.

Instead, I dialed the other number I knew by heart.

The phone rang three times before Brett answered.

“Casey?”

There was a ton of noise around him, like he was out at a party or something. Did everyone on earth have more of a social life than I did?

“Hang on,” he said over the background noise. “I’m going to duck into a closet.”

By the time he finished the sentence, his end of the line was already quieter. I heard the squeak of a door shutting, and then there was nothing except his breathing.

I opened my mouth to explain, but I couldn’t form a word. I could feel my lips starting to quiver, and using all my will, I choked back a sob.

“Are you okay?” I heard Brett ask, my ears still ringing with panic.

“No,” I heard my voice break as I tried to talk. “I just did something really stupid.”

No knock on my door yet. My parents must have decided to survey the damage to the car before deciding on my punishment.

“What happened?”

I paused for a second, and then said it out loud. “I crashed my car.” I heard Brett suck in his breath on the other side of the line, and I cut him off. “It’s fine, I’m fine. But I guess this means I’m not coming to California this summer,” I paused as it hit me. “I probably won’t be allowed out of the house until college.”

Brett had been one of my best friends for almost our whole lives. But in the spring of eighth grade, right before we were all supposed to start at Prospect Academy, his dad had gotten a job at some internet startup company in Century City, which sounded like something out of Batman, but was, it turned out, just a neighborhood in Los Angeles. Two weeks later, Brett was living in L.A. He hadn’t even gone to graduation that year.

We still kept in touch, but I hadn’t seen him in two years, since his last visit when we were sophomores. I’d been planning to go out to California to see him this summer, searching for the right moment to ask my parents to buy the plane ticket. Los Angeles seemed like the coolest place on earth, the kind of town where you could see Cameron Diaz at Starbucks and park your car at In-N-Out Burger next to Orlando Bloom. I’d never been west of Illinois, and that was just for my grandmother’s funeral.

Brett went to a private school in the suburbs, but the L.A. suburbs were totally different from where we lived in Connecticut. For one thing, he went into the city whenever he wanted, instead of having to brave a three hour drive, like we did. He’d seen Moving Neutral six times when they were first getting started, and he was the first to recommend them to me and Madison.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Brett said, and I could tell from his voice that he was trying to sound soothing, but he mostly just sounded drunk. I heard some banging from his end of the line, and he yelled, “somebody’s in here,” without bothering to muffle the phone.

That was another thing about going to high school in Los Angeles, unlike Rockland. Brett went to parties thrown by kids who had modeling contracts and reality shows. We were stuck with YouTube and a few bottles of beer, and that was a pretty big night as far as our friends were concerned. I’d spent most of the spring fantasizing that Brett would take me to some party of some friend of a friend, and I’d turn around and there would be Blake. It was the kind of thing that actually felt possible in L.A.

“I know,” I said, but I was saying it more to myself than to him, trying to convince myself that he was right, that it would all be okay.

Then the sound that I’d been dreading. A sharp knock-knock-knock at the door of my bedroom, like a hammer pounding the last nail into my coffin.

It was hard not to be a little overdramatic.

“Brett, I’ve got to go,” I said quickly. “I’ll try to call you this week, okay? I’m sorry about this.”

I barely heard him say goodbye as I snapped the phone shut. Madison had buzzed in once while we’d been talking, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer.

“Come in,” I called through the closed door, sitting down on the bed and pulling my legs up to my chest. I tucked my toes beneath the comforter and wiped a tear off my cheek just as the door opened.

“Have you been drinking?” My father asked it with a disappointed expression, shaking his head at me as if he already knew the answer.

I knew they were going to ask, but I didn’t think it would be the first question.

“No,” I protested, raising my voice. It was barely even a lie -- I’d only had one beer the whole night. Thinking back on it now, it seemed so pointless -- to end up grounded now, when I’d been so responsible. I should have just gotten hammered and slept at Matt’s. Probably that punishment would have paled in comparison to this.

They both looked at me like they knew I was lying. It’s like parents think they have some sixth sense, where they can just look at you and know if you’re telling the truth or not. But I’d been playing this game since the beginning of high school -- if I just stuck with my lie, I had half a chance of convincing them.

“Mom, I swear I didn’t. Where would we even get it?” My mom didn’t have to know that there was a liquor store five blocks from our campus, where the cashier knew Madison by name. Not her real name, of course.

“Casey, we really want to trust you,” my mom squinted at me, shaking her head from side to side as if she didn’t believe a word she was saying.

“Just tell us the truth,” my dad chimed in, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I said, shaking my head. “I didn’t.”

My mom sat down on the bed next to me, moving her head toward me until her face was only a few inches from mine. She stared hard into my eyes, like she was trying to look behind them. “Breathe.”

I immediately regretted drinking beer -- if I’d had something less noticeable, probably there would have been a better chance that this would work. I exhaled, half through my mouth and half through my nose, hoping that would help.

When my mom spoke again, her voice was low and serious. “Casey,” she said, standing up and clenching her hands into fists. “How could you?”

“You could have killed someone,” my dad added. “You could have gone to jail for this. How do you think Columbia would feel about that?”

My parents sometimes talked about Columbia as if it were a person, like the big gothic stone buildings were silently passing judgment over my admission or my character. Usually I found it funny.

Not tonight. I leaned back and buried my head in the pillow. It was over.

“I’m not drunk,” I tried to explain, knowing it was useless. “Madison thought she’d left her earring in my car, I was trying to find it for her.” I pulled the loose earring from my pocket, holding it out for them as if it corroborated my story. “See?”

“It doesn’t matter how it happened,” my mom got up off the bed, heading for the door. “This was really poor judgment, Casey. You have a lot to learn before this fall.”

My dad crossed the room and picked up my cell phone from where I’d set it down on the comforter. “You’re grounded until we see a big change in your attitude, Case. I expected a lot more from you.”

I knew it wasn’t a good idea to press the issue tonight, but I couldn’t help myself. I picked my head up off the pillow.

“Wait--” I blurted out before they could close the door. “What about Saturday?”

My mom choked back a laugh, looking stricken. “No, Casey.” She sounded as if I’d just asked her to run across our yard naked. “Saturday is out of the question. We aren’t going to reward you for this. If you’re lucky, you can plan something else with Madison for the end of the summer. But you’re going to have to prove to us that we can trust you,” she warned me. “And it’s going to take a lot of proof after tonight.”

It felt like water was filling my lungs. Ten weeks until I left for school. This morning, it hadn’t felt like that long. But now -- it was an eternity.

And worst of all, the Moving Neutral concert on Saturday -- Madison would have to go without me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I pulled the candy pink comforter over my head, muffling the noise as I started to sob.

My car was towed away in the morning, the sound of metal on concrete waking me up as they peeled it away from the wall.

Madison had called our house a half dozen times the night before, until my dad finally picked up the phone and told her I was under lock and key until further notice. Without a cell phone, I couldn’t even explain what had happened.

I’d hoped that as soon as my parents went to work, I’d be able to call her, but to my horror, my mom ordered me to get dressed the next morning.

“You’re coming to work with me,” she said as she opened my door at seven thirty. “There’s some filing that you can do at my office, since apparently we can’t trust you to be left on your own.”

Great, I thought. My mom was a partner at a law firm and her office was, literally, the most boring place on earth. Spending the day there made working at the coffee shop sound riveting. At least at the coffee shop, you were allowed to play the radio.

I pulled on a tank top and jeans, grabbing my iPod and a lip gloss and sticking them into a shoulder bag. As I walked out into the kitchen, my mom took one look at me and shook her head.

“You’re coming to my office today,” she said, her voice wavering with impatience. “You can’t look like you just came home from a mosh pit. Brush your hair, Casey -- and take off those jeans.”

I groaned, turning around and slamming my door in protest. Prospect Academy had a dress code year round, and I cherished the few months during the summer when I could actually wear jeans and t-shirts without getting yelled at by teachers.

Muttering under my breath, I took a knee-length khaki skirt out of my closet, pulling it on and fishing out some ballet flats. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, ignoring my mother’s instructions to brush it. I picked up a thin black sweater from the top of a pile of laundry and went back out to the kitchen, glaring at my mom across at the kitchen table.

“Fine,” she said after taking a quick glance at me. “Grab a bar for breakfast. We’re leaving in five minutes.”

College, I thought to myself. When I got to college, I didn’t even have to come home for the holidays if I didn’t want to. They had special dorm room arrangements for kids who lived in China, I remembered Jason telling us about it last night. I wondered if they’d let me do it too.

Nine weeks, six days.

I was stuck with a paralegal in my mom’s office, some creepy girl named Sylvia who was a few years older than me, wearing glasses and a boxy suit. She stuck her hand out to me when
my mom introduced us, saying her full name in clear, enunciated syllables like she was trying to impress me. I wondered if she had a cell phone I could borrow.

For the rest of the morning, she didn’t leave me alone once. The only phone I could possibly use was in our workroom, and all I could think about was calling Madison. If anyone could think of a plan to get me un-grounded, it was her.

I wondered if Sylvia, who I’d nicknamed the Troll in my head, had been given instructions not to leave my side. My mother came to get me for lunch and returned me to the room forty minutes later, after I’d picked at a tuna salad sandwich until she’d given up and bought me a bag of potato chips. It was afternoon before the Troll got a call from another partner and ducked out of the room to find some misplaced binder.

Picking up the phone, I dialed 9 and then Madison’s cell phone number, holding my breath and praying it wouldn’t go through to voicemail. Madison wasn’t great about making sure her phone was charged -- one of the extra perks of having parents more laid back than mine. She could go incommunicado for a few hours before they called out the national guard.