Underneath (7 page)

seven

I glance at Auntie Mina across the restaurant table, my hands twisting the cloth napkin in my lap. She looks like she hasn't slept in weeks, and she's lost weight. Her face is all sharp angles. It makes her look younger somehow, more vulnerable. It could just be the dim lighting throwing shadows across her face, but she looks like Shiri.

Her Caesar salad is practically untouched, the fork resting across the top of the salad bowl with a single lettuce leaf speared on it, as if that will somehow keep us from noticing the fact that the bowl is still full.
Eat something
, I will her silently.
Please
.

A dark-haired waiter in a crisp white button-down shirt arrives with our entrees, moves from place to place with a wooden pepper grinder and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Everyone takes a few bites in silence as other voices murmur around us.

“Well, this is lovely,” my mother says suddenly, with a smile I can tell is forced. She toys with her silver napkin ring absentmindedly. “Thank you again for suggesting this place, Randall.” She doesn't quite meet his eyes, instead sliding her gaze over to Auntie Mina, who takes a tiny bite of bread under my mom's scrutiny.

Going out was my parents' idea. Nobody really wanted to face the traditional Thanksgiving turkey around the Langfords' huge oak table. Not this year.

“Angelini's is very classy,” Uncle Randall says, taking a sip of white wine. “I have a lot of business lunches here. Outstanding service.” He addresses all of this to my dad, who gives a noncommittal “hm” and a nod in response.

Auntie Mina pushes the linguine around and around her plate, the Florentine sauce congealing into a gloppy mess. I look down at my three-cheese ravioli, feeling a little ill. I should have just ordered soup.

I wish this dinner were over already.

“Don't just sit there, eat your food. You love linguine,” Uncle Randall says to Auntie Mina, as if she's a toddler needing to be coaxed. “You don't want Chef Carlo to think you didn't like it.” He smiles and puts a hand on her shoulder.

My fingers tighten around my fork. He really doesn't see his family as people sometimes, just as shiny trophies from which he feels compelled to polish every last speck of dust lest they make him look bad. Ironically, there is a tiny, circular droplet of pasta sauce on his otherwise immaculate gray shirt.

“I'm just not that hungry,” she says with an apologetic smile.

“It's
Thanksgiving
,” Uncle Randall says sharply.

“You can always take it home for later,” my dad puts in. Dad told me once that he never cared for Uncle Randall, but he puts up with him because Auntie Mina loves him. Because Dad wants to “keep the peace.” He says that's what he always did when he and Mina were kids—he'd try to calm down Dada's furious bouts of temper, be the peacemaker, the appeaser, until finally the yelling would stop.

Right now I wish he would forget about keeping the peace.

“I'm not going to be able to finish all this either,” I say loudly, into the awkward silence. Auntie Mina gives me a little smile, but nobody else says anything. Mom isn't helping either. She's got this pained smile plastered on, like she wants to talk but doesn't know what to say.

They didn't say anything when Uncle Randall told them what kind of house to buy, either. What kind of neighborhood to live in. The evening after the funeral, my dad sat on the living room couch and drank down three glasses of wine, and then he told me: Uncle Randall was the one who pressured them to move here. He was the one who found an amazing deal on a house for us. They'd always been so grateful, so glad I could grow up close to family. But to me it just seems like more proof that Uncle Randall likes to boss everyone around.

Yet if we'd stayed in Pomona, I never would have grown up with Shiri.

For just a second, I wish we had.

My chest tightens and I put down my fork. My mother and Auntie Mina both glance up at me, so I try to act normally. I swallow my feelings down with a bite of ravioli and force a smile, willing myself not to think. And then I realize my mistake, realize that clearing my mind is the last thing I want to do. But it's too late.

—can't see why she doesn't eat

does she do this just to embarrass—public—
everyone is looking at us

and they all know who we are and what she did—

My head whirling, I feel a surge of anger, of furious emotion that isn't my own. And it doesn't stop.

aren't women supposed to take care of the family so this
kind of thing doesn't happen—

—always rocking the boat, never happy with
what I provide—

—when we get home she'll listen to me or I'll—

Uncle Randall. I almost trip on my long skirt getting up, but I manage to choke out a quick “excuse me” and then I run. I barge into the empty one-person bathroom, lock the door, and hunch over the toilet, my stomach churning, but nothing comes out.

I stay there for a moment waiting for the dry heaves to subside, for the emotions that aren't mine to untangle themselves from my own fear and panic. My nails dig into my palms and I feel a jabbing pain, but I don't care. I'm shaking, and all I can feel in my mind is dizzying darkness and anger, like a whirling tornado. I felt it coming from Uncle Randall when I underheard his horrible, selfish thoughts. But even more frightening is that I can feel a terrible darkness in myself, welling up from some deep part of me that I don't even want to look at.

The Monday after Thanksgiving the weather is windy again, scouring the sky to a raw blue. I have to put my Gatorade bottle on my lunch bag so it doesn't blow away. Cody has been talking to me more, being friendlier in his own abrasive way; today he razzes me about my choice of beverage, my mom's oatmeal cookies, my tuna sandwich, and my “trendoid mall wear.”

“Seriously, it's like an A&F barfed on you.” He and Becca look at each other and laugh.

“Sorry,” Becca says, smiling, “but he has a point.”

“Of course I have a point,” Cody says loftily. “I always have a point.”

“Whatever. Shut up.” I flick cookie crumbs at him and force my beige Banana Republic cap over his head, grinning, until he finally cracks a smile.

“You're an honorary mall rat,” I say.

“Great.” Cody gives up and just sits there, glowering, but the smile fighting to emerge from one corner of his mouth ruins the effect. So does the girly cap smushing down the black tendrils of hair he'd so artfully arranged.

“Hey,” Mikaela says, reaching for her purse. “We could put my lipstick on him. And that hoodie of yours. Then he'd really be a mall rat.”

“No!” Cody hastily pulls my cap off and scrambles down from his perch on the edge of the orange picnic table. “God, no.” He composes his face and then saunters over to me with his usual scowl plastered over his face, bushy eyebrows a hard line. “I shouldn't even give this hat back to you. You look better without it. Much less like a droid.”

“Fine. Keep it,” I say, feigning indifference. I guess he just gave me his version of a compliment, but I'm not sure how to react. I blink my eyes innocently at him.

“Maybe I will,” he says. “I'd be doing you a favor.”

Mikaela walks over and interposes herself between me and Cody, hands on her hips, and tilts her head at him flirtatiously.

“Are you dissing my friend here? 'Cause if you are, I might have to punish you.” She pulls the blood-red lipstick out of her purse. Cody backs away, forcing a laugh, and turns to talk to David. Mikaela follows, brandishing the lipstick at him threateningly.

For some reason this annoys me a little. I can handle Cody myself. I don't need Mikaela to convince him to like me, as if it's some kind of favor.

And I set out to prove it. All week I find excuses to talk to him: making him eat one of my oatmeal cookies, trying to elicit a coherent explanation for his fervent adoration of Black Sabbath, listening to his surprisingly convincing rant against the destructive conformist culture of high school athletics.

On Thursday, I come up to him in the hallway between classes and shove the hated Banana Republic hat on his head. He whirls around in surprise. When he glares at me and says “What the fuck?” I just give him my most innocent look.

“Aww, what happened? Did an A&F barf on you?” I can't help smirking a little.

He rolls his eyes, snatches off the hat, and shoves it in his backpack, taking a quick look around to make sure nobody saw his abject humiliation. When the hat is stashed out of sight, he turns away and stalks off, leaving me unsure whether to laugh or be furious. Ten feet away he turns his head and flashes me a quick, impish grin. His teeth are perfectly straight and white, and his blue eyes squint just a tiny bit as he smiles.

For some reason, the incident leaves me in a blissful mood the rest of the day. I finally cracked Cody's obnoxious exterior, and it feels like an accomplishment. If I'm honest with myself, it's a relief, too; it's a relief that his jerk act is just that—an act. Armor, like his black clothes and oh-so-superior smirk. And underneath the armor is someone I can actually be friends with, maybe. I drive home with music going full blast, singing loudly to whatever comes on the radio and not caring what I look like doing it. I haven't been happy like this in a long time. I park the car in the driveway with a slight jerking of the brakes and let myself into the house.

It's nice to have the living room to myself, just me and Pixie with a bag of pretzels, a few hours of sitcom reruns, and, less fortunately, my pre-calculus book.

By the time my mom gets home from her case manager job at Citrus Valley Community Outreach, I'm ready for a break. I head into the kitchen. Mom is already puttering around trying to scrounge dinner ingredients. There's a random assortment of vegetables already on the cutting board: three carrots, a potato with a small root starting to protrude from one end, half a bag of spinach leaves, and an onion. I open the fridge, humming a little to myself, and grab a sugar-free soda.

“You're cheerful today,” Mom says, beaming at me. “I'm glad to see you in such a good mood. I've been worried about you.”

“Me? I'm fine,” I say. “Never better.” Feeling unusually magnanimous, I pull out the vegetable peeler and start scraping the carrots. “What's for dinner?”

Mom's head is half-inside one of the cabinets as she rummages around, pulling spices off the rack.

“Oh, just trying a little creative cooking with leftover ingredients,” she says, emerging from the cupboard. “Cut those carrots into strips, would you please? I think I'll sauté all the vegetables together and … do you think it would be too weird if I cut the leftover roasted chicken into pieces and put it in? Like a stir-fry?”

I roll my eyes. “It sounds fine, Mom.” It actually does sound pretty good, unlike some of her experiments with leftovers. Like the time she tried making shepherd's pie with two-day-old lamb
korma
as the base. Dad liked it, but it sat in my stomach like a spicy brick. Today's concoction might work out, though.

I don't realize I'm singing to myself until Mom mentions it.

“Good day at school today?” She turns to me, her expression curious and eager. Her long hair is falling halfway out of its bun. “You haven't brought home much news lately. How are Cassie and Spike doing? I don't think I've seen them in weeks. Not since you quit the swim team,” she adds pointedly.

I wince. “I … haven't been hanging out with them much lately. They, uh—” I try to think of something that sounds innocuous, that won't put her into interrogation mode. I'm positive the grief counselor gave her a spiel about “warning signs” and “troubled teens” because it seems like whenever I catch her looking at me lately, she's got little lines of worry between her eyebrows. Even now, when she's smiling.

“I've been making some new friends.” It surprises me a little as it comes out, but I realize it's true. “But Spike's fine. His usual self.”

“Oh! Good.” Mom pretends to be scrubbing the potato, but she's looking at me sideways. There's a long silence. “So tell me about these new friends. How did you meet them?”

I slice carrots for a minute, not sure what to tell her. That I heard Cassie's thoughts and decided I needed a new place to eat lunch from now on? That I couldn't handle Cassie's anger, her scorn? I skip that part, but I can't help starting to smile as I tell my mom about Mikaela, about how she went from being just some other freshman girl to this way-too-cool chick with springy little braids and an attitude. Then I catch myself babbling about Cody.

“ … And he dresses in black, which accentuates his eyes, and his teeth are really, uh, straight,” I conclude, trying to wrap it up. But it's too late.

“He sounds adorable,” Mom says, winking at me.

Ugh.
“Yeah, he's a real hottie,” I say flatly.

“Why don't you invite him over sometime so your dad and I can meet him?” She dices the potatoes into home-fries-sized bits. “He could come over for dinner. I won't even cook with leftovers, I promise.”

“Mom! It's not like we're going out. I just met these people. We're not best friends or anything.” The funny thing is, the minute I say that, I realize they pretty much
are
my best friends. At any rate, right now they're all I have. Them and Spike, who isn't very discriminating.