The Princesses of Iowa (9 page)

That night, Nikki came over to help me prep appetizers for my mother. “I should have called Chris,” she said, stabbing a toothpick through a bacon-wrapped date. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

“Ha.” My sister walked into the kitchen, heading for the fridge. “The way to a man’s heart is through his rib cage.” She reached out and grabbed an imaginary heart in her claw, bringing it up to her face. “Yum.”

Nikki looked slightly horrified. “Ignore her,” I said, turning my back to my sister. “She’s going through her dark phase.”

Miranda grabbed a soda and walked past us. “Ignore her,” she told Nikki, nodding at me. “She’s going through her artificial phase.”

“Go away, Miranda,” I said.

“Gladly.” She turned and stalked grandly out of the kitchen, calling back over her shoulder, “It’s Mirror!”

Nikki sighed. “I wish I had a sister.”

“Um, okay.”

She was quiet for a moment, staring out the big kitchen window into the dark yard. Nikki was an only child. Her parents were older than everyone else’s, and she once told me that she’d been a mistake. In middle school, she’d been obsessed with babysitting, and she kept trying to get Lacey and me to start a babysitting club with her. I imagined her at dinner with her parents, silent but for the noise of a knife scraping across a plate. Poor Nikki. She’d probably spent the summer months alone, trapped in her cavernous house, beating herself up for one bad night. One mistake. No wonder she seemed quieter this year.

When she turned back from the window, her blue eyes looked gray. My heart broke for her, just thinking about all the sleepless nights she’d had, blaming herself for everything that had gone wrong between all of us.

“Do you think,” she finally said, her voice quiet and thoughtful, “if I put orange frosting on a cookie, it counts for my diet?”

Nikki and I made a good team. I pitted the dates while she wrapped them in bacon and secured them with a toothpick. We’d had years of practice, ever since my mother went to work for Stella Austin when I was in middle school. Some Friday nights before a huge event, my mother would appear in the doorway of my bedroom, where the three of us were curled up in our usual spots, painting our toenails and watching movies, and flirt with Nik and Lace until they thought it was their idea to help her in the first place. In exchange, she’d give us each a twenty and talk Lacey’s mom into driving us to the mall the next day.

“Where is Lacey, anyway?” I asked.

Nikki’s eyes got shifty like they did when she was trying to get out of something, as if she were literally looking for an escape. She was the worst liar I’d ever met, and she couldn’t keep a secret to save her life.

“You know something,” I accused.

She turned her back to me, grabbing for the box of toothpicks and spilling them across the counter and onto the floor. “Oh, no!” She scrambled to catch them as more and more rolled off the counter.

I ignored her little crisis. “What are you not telling me?”

“What do you mean?” she finally asked. Her voice was squeakier than normal.

I narrowed my eyes. “Nikki . . .”

She didn’t look at me. “Hand me the tinfoil?” I pushed it across the counter without saying a word. Nikki was the kind of person who got nervous in silence. Wait long enough and she’d crack, every time. I crossed my arms and leaned back against my mother’s designer countertop, prepared to wait as long as I needed to. Nikki’s arm moved up and down as she folded and tucked tinfoil into a new baking pan. She was way too skinny, I thought. Her elbow crooked out at an unnatural angle.

“You’re staring at me, aren’t you?” she asked, still not turning.

I nodded and then realized she couldn’t see me. “I’m going to keep staring at you until you tell me what you’re hiding.”

She sighed and turned, her eyes all squinched up in her narrow face. One eye opened slightly to peek at me. “She’s with Jake.”

The words rang through the large kitchen, bouncing off my mother’s decorative copper pots and shiny appliances, vibrating in the air for nearly half a minute before my brain understood them. “Right now?”

Nikki opened her eyes, looking miserable. “Yeah.”

“With Jake?” I repeated. My arms wound tighter around my ribs, cutting into my abdomen.

“Don’t get mad, Paige, okay?” Nikki held up the box of foil like a white flag. “Promise?”

“No,” I said.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Nikki said.

“But?” My ribs ached, but still I pulled my arms more tightly against me.

“They’re at the gym.”

My arms fell to my sides. “What?”

“They’re doing physical therapy or something. Jake’s helping her.”

“Physical therapy.”

She nodded. “She was in the hospital for like a whole month, and her doctor told her she’d be walking with a limp for the rest of her life, and she refused to accept that. So she got Jake to start helping her with exercises.”

Exercises? Jake said Lacey had been in physical therapy all summer, but I’d just assumed it was over . . . I hadn’t considered that it might be an ongoing thing. I hadn’t asked, though, had I? I’d just tried not to stare at the cane and pretended that everything could magically go back to the way it had been before.

I realized I was staring at the shiny black refrigerator across from me. For the first time, I noticed that it never had anything hanging on it, no cute artwork from when we were kids, no coupons for a free oil change or haircut. No magnets, even.

Jake’s voice echoed in my head.
She’s got a lot on her mind right now, babe.
“Why doesn’t Randy help her? Or Chris? Or Tyler? Or anyone else?”

Nikki shrugged. “Jake took that sports medicine elective last year when the rest of them took bowling. He knows the people at the clinic —”

I interrupted her. “Are you sure that’s all? They’re not . . .
together
?”

Nikki’s eyes glistened in the glow of the tasteful track lighting. Automatically, she ran a finger under her eyes to catch any stray mascara. “No! Of course not! Jake totally loves you, and Lacey’s your best friend. They wouldn’t do that to you!”

I felt like choking on the words. “Would you tell me?”

Nikki nodded emphatically. “Yes! Of course!”

“So why didn’t they say anything to me? Lacey’s barely spoken to me since I got back, but Jake could have . . . should have . . . said something.”

She sighed and wiped at her eyes again. “I don’t know, Paige. You had such an amazing summer, and you seemed so different when you got back. . . . I don’t know. Maybe they thought you’d be weird about it? It’s just, with the whole divorce —” She clapped her hand over her mouth, eyes wide. “Whoops.”

I was too startled to correct Nikki’s claims about my summer. “Divorce?”

“Oh God,” she said through her hand. “You can’t say anything. She was going to tell you herself. You don’t know, okay? Please. Don’t say anything.”

“Lacey’s parents?” I asked. “They’re getting a divorce?”

Hand still over her mouth, Nikki nodded. “She’s been really messed up about it. Jake’s been helping her.”

A few years ago, Jake’s parents had gone through a trial separation, after his mother discovered his father’s affair. Mr. Austin lived in an apartment in Iowa City for a whole summer, moved back in with the family in September, and as far as I know, they never said another word about it. Even in the gossipy country club set, few people knew about it. So it made sense that Lacey would want to talk to Jake. What I didn’t understand, though, was why she hadn’t said a word to me. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

Nikki shrugged helplessly. “You were in Paris when it happened. . . . And when you came back, you just seemed really distant.”

Frozen in place, I said nothing. I didn’t even blink. Was I so self-absorbed that I hadn’t even picked up on the clues? There must have been clues, right? People don’t just get divorces out of nowhere. And I practically lived at the Lanes’ house — at least I had, before the accident. How I had not guessed? Poor Lacey.

After a time, Nikki set the box of foil on the counter and crossed the kitchen, cautiously putting her arms around me. “I’m sorry, Paige.” She whispered the words into my neck, and I thought of all the times I’d held Jake in the same way, speaking my words directly into his skin.

Nikki left with worried eyes. “Promise me you won’t say anything to Lacey about the divorce thing, Paige. Please. She will kill me if she finds out I told you.”

I walked her out to her car, shivering in the cold night air. “I won’t.”

“Thanks, Paige.” She reached over to hug me, giving me a quick squeeze around the neck before climbing behind the wheel of her giant SUV. Before closing the door, she said, “It’s been really hard on her. Don’t be mad at her, okay?”

“I’m not mad,” I said automatically. But I was, a little. Why hadn’t Lacey told me?

“This is our year, Paige. Pretty soon everything will be back to normal, okay? Just like we all planned. It’s going to be awesome.”

I nodded, swallowing hard. “I know.”

“Okay, see you tomorrow!” She closed the door and waved though the window, starting the SUV and backing out of the driveway. She was halfway down the street before she remembered to turn on the lights.

I headed back into the house. My mother stood in the kitchen, wiping the already clean counters. “Where was Lacey tonight?”

“Um.” My chest was tight. “She had a student council thing.”

“That Lacey! She’ll be a legend in her sorority.” She ran the sponge under the faucet, squeezing it out carefully. “Did you remember to label the vegetarian trays?”

“Yes.”

She checked the fridge to see for herself, and then she nodded in satisfaction. “Did you girls have fun?”

“Yeah,” I said, standing in the doorway. “It was great.”

My mother turned and looked at me, her eyes thoughtful. I struggled to keep my face neutral. What did she see when she looked at me? When I was little, she seemed to see all, to know everything.

“Honey?”

I swallowed against my closed throat.
Don’t ask,
I thought.
Don’t ask if I’m okay.
I just wanted to go to my room and call Jake. I wanted to hear it for myself. I would tell him I was cool with it, that everything was fine. Everything
would
be fine, just as soon as I could talk to him. Jake would reassure me and explain everything.

My mother perched a fist on her hip. “Does Nikki look like she’s gained weight to you?”

I shook my head. “She’s very skinny, Mom.”

“You girls are at the age when your metabolism will betray you, you know. It can happen so quickly. You let go for one day, and you’re just lost.”

“I know, Mom.”

“It’s just, with the vote coming up, and after last spring . . . well, you girls can’t afford to slip again.”

“I know, Mom.”

“You were lucky, Paige. You got to be away from here while things cooled down. And if we’re really lucky, people aren’t thinking about the accident when they look at you. Not like Nikki.” She clucked in sympathy. “Poor girl. But at least she’s out of the running, and it’s just you and Lacey, though I don’t see how anyone could possibly vote for a crippled queen. On the other hand, the sympathy vote might be big.”

I shifted my weight uncomfortably. “I don’t think that’s true, Mom. Nikki’s still very popular.”

“Well, you can be popular and not have a shot at being queen. It’s not about popularity; it’s about being the girl everyone else wishes they could be.” She leaned in to check her teeth in the reflective surface of a copper pot. “Nobody wishes they could be a drunk. Or a cripple.”

The world spinning toward us, everything dark, Lacey screaming, shattered glass
—

My mother kept talking. “The vote’s next week?”

I shivered. “Yeah.”
Just let me go, Mom. I have to call Jake. I have to make things okay.

“Are you wearing the yellow dress?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, stepping backward into the dining room. “Yeah. I have a lot of homework, so . . .”

“Okay, honey,” she said, still watching herself. “Don’t stay up too late now, okay? You need your beauty sleep.”

Jake didn’t answer. All night. Lacey didn’t either. I called them three times each, feeling less forgiving each time I hit the
SEND
button. Were they together, ignoring my calls? Was Jake reaching across the seat of his silver car, pressing the button to silence Lacey’s phone for her? It made me ill just thinking about it.

Divorced. How could she not tell me about that? Mrs. Lane had been like a second mother to me, ever since middle school. She and Lacey’s dad always seemed so happy together, not like Nikki’s parents, who always seemed overly formal and weird, or my parents, who were incredibly polite to each other but didn’t seem to actually like each other that much. Of course, they only spent about three days of every month together, so how they felt about each other hardly seemed to matter. But the Lanes kissed in public, much to Lacey’s middle school mortification. What had happened to them? And how could Lacey not tell me?

This was supposed to be our year. For the last four years, Lacey and I had studied
Cosmo
like some people study the Torah, modeling ourselves after the perfect, smiling girls in every toothpaste and shampoo ad. And for what? What’s the point of being perfect if your best friend won’t even talk to you about what’s going on in her life?

The roles we’d carved for ourselves were narrow. I hadn’t seen just how narrow until I’d spent the summer in Paris. I’d always taken my life for granted, assumed that the path I’d been traveling was absolutely the correct one. Never gave it a second thought, until last spring. But after the accident, and a summer away, it all seemed narrower than I’d remembered, harder to navigate.

Neither Jake nor Lacey called me back. I sat in the oversize wing chair by the window in my bedroom for hours, trying not to imagine them holding hands across a sticky booth at Perkins, cradled together in the front seat of Jake’s car, lying on their backs in the middle of the golf course, looking up at the stars. . . . A thousand images flashed before me, and I tried not to see. I stayed tucked in my chair, unable to sleep, staring through the cold glass as the stars shivered in the sky and the moon rose and fell over the trees.