The Good Sister (11 page)

“Why not?”

The question catches her off guard. It’s probably meant in a benign way—of course it is—but to Jen, it feels almost as though the woman is accusing her of being an inadequate mother.

Come on, that’s ridiculous. It’s just a question, and a logical one, really.

She just wishes she knew the damned answer.

“Carley’s always been a quiet kid. She keeps things to herself.”

“Most teenagers do, Mrs. Archer.” The social worker offers a faint smile and shakes her head. “You’re not the first mother who’s sat in that chair and told me that her daughter doesn’t confide in her. I’m sure you won’t be the last.”

The words are meant to reassure her, but somehow, Jen only feels worse. She doesn’t want her relationship with Carley to be just like everyone else’s.

Why not? Because you’re special? Because you’re the perfect mother and she’s the perfect daughter?

Carley’s not perfect any more than Jen is perfect. But she’s always been the good kid, the easy one, the one who doesn’t make waves. The one who comes up to pat Jen’s arm when she’s upset over a brash comment from Emma or an argument with Thad or—

A shrill blast jars her: the tone announcing the end of sixth period. Already, she can feel the tide of movement as the students head to their next destination. Chairs scrape on wooden classroom floors above and below; voices and footsteps fill the hallways and stairwells.

Jen has run out of time to pump the social worker for the details of what happened to her daughter. Today isn’t the day to dwell on that, anyway.

Opting to focus on the more immediate hurdle—Nicki’s wake—she stands abruptly. “I have to go find Carley.”

“All right. Keep me posted and let me know how she is.”

Jen assures Sister Linda that she will. But as she makes her way out of the office, past an unsmiling Lenore, she can’t help but think it should be the other way around.

In the hallway, there are slamming lockers and chattering girls. Their faces are unfamiliar, as are those of the habit-clad nuns who linger in classroom doorways talking to students.

Jen’s journey into the school might have been a pleasant trip down memory lane, but it’s as though she took a wrong turn into unfamiliar territory on the way back. Now everyone—everything—seems foreign.

She quickens her pace, eager to find Carley and get out of here.

Entry from the marble notebook

Wednesday, December 25, 1985

Christmas Day is the same as any other day of the year in our house (in other words, miserable), aside from being a weekday that feels like a Sunday because we have to go to church and then come home and pretend to listen while Mother reads Scripture out loud to us, same as she does on Sunday mornings.

We don’t get presents. Naturally, Mother doesn’t believe in the commercialism of Christmas. I feel bad for Adrian because he wonders why Santa skips our house, just like I used to wonder when I was little. So last night I snuck into his room with one of my old red knee socks and I filled it with stuff and left it on his bed.

It wasn’t anything much—just little things I’ve been collecting, like packages of oyster crackers they have in the school cafeteria sometimes, a candy bar and some Matchbox cars I got at the dollar store, a couple of books from the library sale that look brand-new, plus a charcoal sketch of the two of us that I drew in art class. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good and I got an A on it. I put it into a wooden frame I found in the Dumpster behind the crafts store. Sometimes they throw away perfectly good stuff.

Adrian came running into my room with the stocking when he woke up, and I pretended I didn’t know anything about it. I told him he must have been a really good boy because Santa had found him and filled a stocking for him. I told him not to tell Mother and Father, because they don’t even believe in Santa anyway, and I made him promise to hide the stuff, especially the books. Mother only lets him read Bible tales.

I’ve already read the new stories to him over and over again and he’s so smart he practically has them memorized. One is about dinosaurs and the other is about trucks. He loves them both.

It was a pretty good Christmas for a change. I don’t know what I’d do without my baby brother.

Chapter 7

“H
ello?” Emma calls cautiously as she steps into the front hall, even though Mom’s car isn’t in the driveway.

She listens for a minute, hearing nothing but the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

“Mom?” she calls, just in case. “Carley? Dad?”

No reply.

Satisfied the house is empty, she turns to the others. “Okay”—she opens the door wider—“come on in.”

They file past her: Bridget, also in eighth grade at Saint Paul’s; Brian, who lives next door, and his girlfriend, Miranda, both of whom are sophomores at Woodsbridge High; plus Gabe, the new kid who just moved in down the street with his dad.

Emma’s had a major crush on him since she spotted him at the high school bus stop a few weeks ago. She promptly made it her business to meet him.

“Hi,” she said, marching right over to him. “I’m Emma.”

He unplugged one earbud. “Huh?”

“I’m Emma.” She could hear loud music blasting from the tiny dangling speaker. Guitars and drums—rock, as opposed to hip-hop.

“Gabe. What’s up?”

“I just thought someone should welcome you to the neighborhood.”

“Thanks.”

“Where are you from?”

“New York.”

“This
is
New York.”

He just looked at her from beneath those thick, manly eyebrows.

“Oh. You mean New York City?”

His expression suggested that he thought she was hopelessly unsophisticated.

To show that she wasn’t, Emma managed to work into that first awkward, brief conversation that she’s almost sixteen and that she goes to private school. Naturally, she didn’t mention that it’s a parochial elementary school.

“Not to be mean or anything, but if he’s a senior and he’s from New York City and so hot and so cool, then how come he wants to hang out with you?” Bridget asked when she first told her about Gabe.

“Gee, thanks a lot,” said Emma, secretly pretty sure that if he weren’t the new kid, Gabe wouldn’t give her the time of day, even if she really was sixteen.

“So what does he look like?” Bridget wanted to know. “What makes him so cool?”

“He’s like . . . he’s not a boy. He’s a man.”

“In what way?”

“He’s really tall, and he’s always dressed in flannel shirts and jeans and work boots.”

Bridget made a face. “Ew.”

“What? Why ‘ew’?”

“I like it when guys dress up.”

“I like it when guys look rugged, not prissy.”

“I didn’t say—”

Emma went on, talking over her, “And he has shaggy dark hair and a little bit of a beard and dangerous eyes . . .”

“What do you mean dangerous eyes?”

“You know . . . really dark and kind of . . . just
dangerous
.” Sometimes Bridget can be super clueless.

Plus, Emma can’t help but notice that she looks like such a baby today. The sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks aren’t usually so noticeable at this time of year, but she got sunburned when her family went to Florida a few weeks ago. Her gingery hair is pulled back in a ponytail with a dorky blue satin ribbon tied around it, and of course she’s wearing her school uniform.

Emma is wearing her navy Saint Paul’s jumper, too, but she went into the girls’ room before they left school and safety-pinned the shoulder straps to make it shorter. She wanted to do the same to Bridget’s, but Bridget refused, saying her thighs are too chubby.

She’s right about that, in Emma’s opinion. But once when she advised Bridget that she really needs to lay off the bread and butter, Bridget got all pissy.

As she ushers the others toward the kitchen, Emma kicks a pair of Carley’s sneakers out of the way. The sole of one hits the white baseboard and leaves a faint smudge.

Not my fault, Emma thinks. It’s Carley’s, for leaving them there. And Mom’s, for being so wrapped up in what happened to Nicki that the house has been taken over by clutter. There are stacks of newspapers, magazines, and mail on every surface; a basket of folded laundry sitting at the foot of the stairs; coats draped over the backs of chairs.

“How long do we have?” Brian asks Emma, his fingers intertwined with Miranda’s.

“My mother said the wake goes till four, and then she and my sister have to drive back down here, which takes, like, a half hour. So . . .”

“Are you sure? I mean, we don’t want to take any chances,” Bridget points out. “Your parents would kill you if they found out you skipped school plus had all these people over.”

Emma rolls her eyes, wondering why she even bothered to include her today in the first place.

Actually, she knows why. It was because she herself was feeling a little shy about hanging out alone with the older kids.

Plus, Bridget is usually game for pretty much anything, which is why she’s at the top of Emma’s BFF list. Like, it was Bridget’s idea to lie about hanging out at each other’s houses one Saturday night so that they could go to a high school party. And it was Bridget’s idea to help themselves at the mall to expensive eye makeup they couldn’t afford and their mothers would never let them buy.

Today was Emma’s idea. She thought of it the moment her mother mentioned that Woodsbridge was excusing kids early today to go to Nicki’s wake. She made a beeline down to the Woodsbridge bus stop while her mother was in the shower.

Brian and Gabe were there, both plugged into their iPods. When Emma suggested that they sign out under the pretext of going to the funeral home, they were wary, but interested. Brian only vaguely knew who Nicki was, and Gabe didn’t know her at all.

“Can Miranda come, too?” asked Brian, who’s been dating her since freshman year.

“Sure.”

“And you’re positive no one will be home?”

“Positive. My dad will be working and my mom and sister will be at the wake.”

“Don’t
you
have school?” Brian asked, and Emma shot him a warning look. She’d already begged him not to tell Gabe how old she really was, and he agreed on the condition that she owed him a big favor.

“I’m faking a note from my mom,” she said, “saying I have to leave early for the wake.”

“Seriously?” Gabe looked impressed.

“Yeah, I do it all the time. No big deal.”

Maybe she doesn’t do it all the time, but she’s done it before.

Well, once. And she was amazed at how easy it was to fool Sister Agatha, the elderly principal at Saint Paul’s.

Today, Emma again faked a note for herself and wrote one for Bridget, too.

“Didn’t you feel guilty,” Bridget whispered to Emma after they handed in the notes, “when Sister Agatha blessed us and said she’d pray for Nicki’s soul?”

“Nope. I’m just glad she said she’s not going to the wake herself until tonight.” Emma had stupidly forgotten that everyone at Saint Paul’s knew Nicki, who’d graduated eighth grade there last year. “Can you imagine if she ran into my mom at the funeral home this afternoon and asked where I was?”

But that didn’t happen. Things had worked out for Emma, as they always seem to have a way of doing, and now she and her friends have the house to themselves for a couple of hours. Bridget is just nervous because she likes to be the one in control, and she’s not used to being the youngest kid in the group. Plus, she keeps sneaking these sideways looks at Gabe, like she’s interested in him. When she’s around a guy she likes, she tends to get flustered. Definitely not cool.

I shouldn’t have invited her
, Emma thinks again.

What if Gabe is into girls who are cute and perky, like Bridget? It doesn’t seem likely, but you never know. Sometimes opposites attract.

Look at Emma’s parents. Mom is outgoing and likes to run around doing things, and Dad is quiet and antisocial.

That’s what Mom called him once last summer when they had a fight because she wanted to go to some patio party Dad had forgotten about, and he wanted to make up an excuse and stay home.

“I deal with people all day every day at work, Jen,” he said. “On weekends, I like to lay low.”

They don’t argue that often; Emma listened with interest.

“I lay low every day,” Mom shot back. “On weekends, I like to get out of the house.”

She won the argument, of course. Unlike Dad, she’s super good at talking. She had way more to say about why they should go out than Dad did about why they shouldn’t. In the end, they went to the party and came home laughing and acting all lovey-dovey.

Nicki was sleeping over that night. Emma heard her tell Carley wistfully, “Your parents seem like they really love each other.”

“Well, they’re married,
duh
, Nicks.”

“Yeah, but still . . . it’s nice that they laugh and kiss and stuff.”

Personally, Emma cringes whenever her parents get affectionate. Who wants to think about
that
?

“Do you guys want something to eat?” she asks, leading her four afternoon visitors toward the kitchen.

“Like what?” Gabe tosses his down jacket over a stool at the breakfast bar, sees the glass cookie jar, and opens the top to peek in. “Are these, like, homemade?”

“Yeah.”

“Who made them? You?”

“My mom. They’re peanut butter.”

“Your mom
bakes cookies
?” he asks, wide-eyed, as if she just claimed that her mom raises the dead.

“She makes the best cookies,” Bridget bubbles. “Have one!”

Gabe makes a face and pushes the cookie jar away. “Got any beer?”

“Sure.” Without missing a beat, Emma opens the fridge.

She moves the condiments and milk cartons around and finds four bottles of Bud. Hopefully her dad won’t notice if a couple are missing. He’s not a big beer drinker, just keeps it on hand for company. When Dad drinks, it’s usually whiskey. Emma snuck a sip once and nearly puked.

“You want a beer?” she asks the others casually, as if she does this every day.

Miranda and Brian, wrapped around each other in a corner, don’t even seem to hear her. Good. Dad would definitely notice if all the beer disappeared overnight, and it’s not like he’d ever suspect Carley.

“I’ll have one, Em,” says Bridget, munching a peanut butter cookie.

“We can share.” She plunks two bottles on the counter and twists off the caps.

“Why do we have to share?”

Ignoring Bridget’s question, Emma hands an open bottle to Gabe.

Brian extracts his mouth from Miranda’s and announces, “Um, we’re going to go upstairs for a bit.”

“Whatever. Just don’t go into my parents’ room.”

“Which one’s yours?”

“Second door on the right at the top of the stairs.”

Bridget, well aware that it’s actually Carley’s room, starts to open her mouth to protest, but closes it when Emma shoots her a look.

After they all leave, before her mother and sister get home, Emma will sneak in there and make sure nothing is disturbed. She doesn’t really want Brian and Miranda rolling around in her own sheets. Plus, this way, her bedroom is vacant, just in case Bridget gets a clue and goes home, leaving Emma alone with Gabe. She’d rather take him to her own room than Carley’s, with all those stupid stuffed animals and juvenile books she won’t get rid of, and the frilly pastel color scheme. Emma recently got her parents to repaint her own room in shades of blue and brown.

“Brown?” Mom asked dubiously. “Isn’t that a little bit—”

“It’s super chic,” Emma assured her, only she mispronounced it—“chick”—and her parents and sister acted as though that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. Sometimes, they bring it up even now—“Hey, Em,” Dad will say, “how’s your chick brown room?”

Hilarious.

Sometimes, she really can’t stand her family.

Emma looks over at Gabe and finds him looking right back at her. He smiles and her heart beats a little faster as she takes a sip of beer.

Then he asks, “So how come your friend blew her brains out?”

She blinks. “You mean Nicki?”

“You got another friend who blew her brains out?”

Emma looks at Bridget, who raises an eyebrow at her.

Yeah, it is a little insensitive of Gabe to phrase it like that, but you can’t really blame him. After all, he’s new in town and didn’t even know Nicki.

“She didn’t blow her brains out.”

“No? What’d she do?”

“Slit her wrists.”

“Yeah? How come?”

“She was depressed,” Emma tells him with a shrug.

“Yeah?”

She nods. Actually, she has no idea what happened with Nicki. But you’d have to be pretty depressed to do what she did, right?

A couple of kids at Saint Paul’s have asked Emma about Nicki, assuming she has the inside scoop because Carley was close to her. It made her feel kind of important.

“Did she leave a note or anything?” Gabe asks.

That’s a good question—and one Emma herself had asked her mother when she found out the news. Mom didn’t know the answer. But Emma doesn’t want to admit to Gabe that she’s that far outside the loop, so she nods.

“Yeah? What did it say?” Gabe wants to know.

“It said, ‘Farewell, cruel world.’ ”

“Seriously?” Bridget’s blue eyes are big and round. “You didn’t tell me that.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “I’m just kidding, you idiot. Who writes a note like that?”

The approval in Gabe’s expression makes it easy for Emma to ignore the wounded look on Bridget’s face and her muttered “How was I supposed to know?”

Grinning at Gabe, Emma takes another gulp of beer. “Want a tour of the house?”

“Sure.”

“You know what, guys?” Bridget reaches for her jacket. “I’m going home. I’m not feeling great.”

“See ya,” Emma tells her, eyes locked on Gabe’s.

Yeah. Definitely dark and dangerous.

Really dangerous.

And that’s just fine with Emma.

A
fter Sandra Lutz died, Angel called the real estate office, offered brief condolences, and told one of her colleagues to hold off on the listing.

“I’ve decided to hang on to the house for at least a while longer, make some repairs, and wait for the market to turn around.”

“Just give me a call,” the colleague said hurriedly, as phones rang in the background, “when you’re ready to sell it.”

“I will,” Angel promised.