“H
ey, neighbor.”
Olivia and Violet were walking toward the Muni stop the next morning, Olivia’s eyes trained on the parallel cable-car tracks, per the tested
I’m not hearing voices
routine. She didn’t see Miles until she’d almost walked up and over the tops of his fungus loafers.
“Oh.” Olivia stopped short. “Hey, Miles.”
Ever since their mothers’ office reception, where they’d discovered that they lived a mere two blocks apart, Miles, Bowie, and Olivia had found themselves on similar commutes to and from school. At first, it had seemed a coincidence, and Olivia was happy for the (real-life) company. But Miles’s timing quickly became alarmingly precise, and lately it seemed that he was always there alone, waiting at the bus stop whenever Olivia arrived.
“Missed you on the ride home from school yesterday,” Miles said lightly. Over his shoulder, Violet’s face was locked in a sort of half grimace that Olivia couldn’t read.
“Yeah,” Olivia said, as the J Church Muni car squealed to a stop at the curb. “I got held up talking to a friend.” It felt a little premature to be calling Calla her friend, but Olivia figured it was easier than explaining the whole Madonna incident to Miles. Plus, something told her that he wouldn’t exactly approve.
“No problem.” Miles shrugged, as if Olivia had apologized without meaning to. Olivia found a seat in the middle of the trolley and Miles planted himself standing beside her. Olivia turned to look out the window, hoping to avoid the uncomfortable reality of sitting face-to-face with his crotch.
“Hey, I’ve been thinking,” Miles boomed from over her head, hugging the metal railing close to his chest. “You don’t, I mean, you haven’t picked a, uh, partner yet. For Whitley’s project, I mean. Have you?”
Olivia’s memory stalled and she searched for Violet, who was perched on a plastic red seat across the aisle. Miles was
in
her English class? She hadn’t even noticed him. Violet was vigorously shaking her head from side to side, and out of habit, Olivia did the same.
“Awesome,” Miles replied, and Violet hopped across the aisle, tugging on Olivia’s sleeve.
“No!” Violet whispered. “I meant, ‘no,’ as in,
don’t do it
!”
Olivia looked down at her hands folded in her lap and took a deep breath. “Oh,” she said, then quickly looked back up to Miles. “I mean, I thought Mr. Whitley was assigning us groups?”
Miles hoisted the strap of his black messenger bag up higher on his shoulder as the bus pulled to a stop in front of school. “Nope,” he said happily, making his way to the front.
“And this is perfect, because I was planning on working with Jake, but I think he’s trying to get with Leah, you know, that girl with the tongue ring? So he probably already asked her.”
Violet gripped her head in her hands, and Olivia winced, following Miles down the steps and onto the sidewalk.
“I mean, not that the only reason you’d ask a girl to be your partner was if you wanted to
get with
her,” Miles backtracked, waving his hands in front of him as if declining a second helping of dessert. “What does ‘get with’ mean, anyway? That’s so lame. I don’t even say that, really, I was just, I mean, I was thinking, because we’re neighbors, and everything…”
“Oh, no,” Violet interrupted. Olivia assumed she was reacting to Miles’s sudden attack of verbal diarrhea, when a voice sang out from behind her.
“Madonna.”
Olivia whipped around to find Calla, perched on one of the benches on either side of the stone walkway leading up to Golden Gate’s glass doors. She was draped in an open, wide-sleeved ivory cardigan, a mammoth canvas tote covered in pastel scrawls of French graffiti cradled in her lap. On the bench to Calla’s left was Eve, her button nose scrunched as she navigated the screen of her iPhone, and standing to her right was Lark, with one sturdy hip angled forward, tapping one toe of her black-and-tan vintage Pumas against the cement.
“I was hoping to run into you today,” Calla said, standing and reaching a hand through the bamboo handles of her bag to lightly touch Olivia’s wrist. “Do you have a second?”
Olivia felt Violet not-breathing behind her and Miles’s watchful eyes on the back of her head. “Um, I guess,” Olivia stuttered. “I mean, I—”
Violet jabbed her fist into the small of Olivia’s back.
“Sure,” Olivia squeaked. “What’s up?”
“I was just thinking about the fundraiser on Friday,” Calla said. “Do you think you’ll be able to come?”
Although Olivia had hardly thought about anything
not
fundraiser-related since Calla had given her the invitation yesterday, it had been mostly in an abstract, disbelieving kind of way. RSVPing hadn’t exactly crossed her mind.
“Easy,” Violet cautioned. “Say yes, but not like it’s a given.”
“Oh,” Olivia said, shifting her bag—which was much heavier and less practical than her old backpack—from one shoulder to the other. “I mean, sure. Yeah, I think I can make it.”
Lark and Eve exchanged curious glances behind Calla’s back, but Calla smiled widely and exhaled, lifting her dimpled chin to the clear blue sky. “Great.” Calla sighed. “Because I have a kind of big favor to ask.”
“A favor?” Olivia repeated, taking a step onto the grass as a carpool of giggling freshman girls piled out of a Lexus SUV and scrambled onto the path.
Calla nodded, twirling her thick black hair at the nape of her neck. “I have nothing to wear,” she said plainly. “I’m so sick of everything in my closet, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that amazing dress you wore to Graham’s party.”
Olivia drew a bit of air into her lungs. Not only had Calla noticed her at the party, she’d noticed what she was wearing. And she’d
liked it.
Olivia smiled, trying not to notice Violet doing what appeared to be some form of spastic victory dance over a row of yellow tulips.
“Do you remember where you got it?” Calla asked. Eve
pocketed her iPhone and Lark crossed her arms, tapping the outsides of her elbows with long, shiny nails. All eyes were on Olivia.
“Uh-oh,” Violet said, freezing midlunge.
Olivia tucked her thumbs into her fists, anxiously digging her nails into the soft, fleshy mounds of her palms.
“Say
something.
” Violet panicked, jumping into the middle of the cobblestone path.
“Oh,” Olivia managed. “I’m not, I mean, I don’t exactly know where—”
“Because I was thinking maybe you could take me sometime,” Calla said, inching a few steps toward the double doors. Lark quickly followed and Eve stood to do the same. “I have a peer theater meeting after school today, but I’m free tomorrow, if you are.”
Violet was back at Olivia’s side, hanging on her shoulder with both hands. “You have no choice,” she said. “She’s asking you to take her shopping. That’s girl for
be my friend.
If you say no, you’re missing a very big opportunity, and who knows when the next one will be.”
Olivia tucked her hair behind one ear, pulling at the corner of her lower lip with her teeth as she followed the girls inside.
“That is,” Violet continued dramatically, “if there is a next one.”
Calla held the door open for Olivia as Lark and Eve stood impatiently on the other side.
“Sure,” Olivia said, and felt Violet start breathing again as they stepped into the lobby. “Sounds fun.”
Calla held out her hands on both sides of her hips, palms up. “Thank you,” she exhaled. “You’re a lifesaver.”
She tossed Olivia a wink before spinning on her heels and linking her arm into the crook of Lark’s elbow. Eve waved and the threesome started through the lobby, passing Bess at the reception desk and disappearing down the hall.
“So,” a small voice started behind her. “What do you think?”
Olivia had completely forgotten about Miles, who had apparently been hanging by her side the whole time, his brown eyes eager and blinking.
“We don’t have that much time until the adaptations are due,” he said, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his baggy cargo pants. “We could get to work at my house after school today, if you want.”
Olivia’s head was swimming, and half of her had already waltzed down the arched corridor after Calla, so the sound of her own voice echoing against the polished lobby floors came as a surprise.
“Sure,” it said, like a dreamy, broken record. “Sounds fun.”
“M
y mom’s a freak for Zimbabwe.”
Olivia sat on a couch in the middle of Miles and Bowie’s living room. The apartment, a high-ceilinged duplex by the park, was decorated in dark reds and oranges and crowded with a dizzying collection of African art. It had taken Olivia’s eyes a few moments to focus on any one thing, as handcrafted sculptures and small, ambiguously functional pieces of furniture seemed to be stuffed into every square inch of the space.
“She does these documentaries about women in third-world countries,” Bowie explained, helping herself to a handful of cashews from a wooden bowl carved in the shape of a lily pad. “She says if she’s not being threatened or shot at, she’s not filming in the right place.”
The couch was skeletal, more like the bare frame of a futon, and covered in a yellow tapestry with a giant red sun at its center. Olivia sat at one end and Miles leaned over a square arm at the other, pulling out a three-ring binder from
his bag. Violet had decided that school projects were a punishment only the living should have to endure, and had opted instead to eavesdrop on a bickering couple at the coffee shop on the corner.
“So I was in the shower this morning and I had an idea,” Miles said, immediately flushing purple from the neck up. Olivia slipped her feet out of her new boots and tucked them beneath her on the sofa, trying not to picture Miles in the shower.
“I mean, I was thinking,” he continued after nervously clearing his throat. “It seems like, in the book, the Ramsays are just totally stuck in the past. And Lily, the main character, she wants to move forward. And it’s kind of like today, how some people are just in total denial about the threat of global warming, which is really, you know, real, and—”
“You can’t be serious,” Bowie spat from her perch on an angular and armless wooden chair. “Miles, it’s fiction. Not everything has to be about saving the environment.”
“See?” Miles said, pointing an accusatory finger in Bowie’s direction. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Until people are willing to accept that this is
happening
…”
Olivia let their bickering wash into background static as she gazed around the room. An unfinished claw-foot coffee table stretched out in front of the couch, and a handful of framed family photos were displayed from end to end: Miles and his mother, looking elegant and holding up a heavy glass award; Bowie and her mother baking in the kitchen, frosting stuck to their fingers and hair; Miles, Bowie, and Bowie’s mom, goofing around on a movie set, Bowie mugging for the camera while Miles diligently maneuvered sound equipment, a giant microphone poised overhead.
“Olivia?” Miles called from across the couch. “Hello?”
Olivia jumped and looked up. “What happened?” she asked, her voice startled and panicked.
Bowie laughed. “I was just praying that you had a better idea,” she pleaded. “You know, maybe one that wouldn’t put people in a coma.”
“Shut up.” Miles snapped his binder closed. “You’re not even in our class. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I live here,” Bowie answered sweetly, a salted cashew balanced precariously between her top and bottom teeth.
Olivia looked from Bowie to Miles, who was nibbling at his thumbnail and furrowing his brow. She glanced back to the framed photos on the table and suddenly had an idea. “What if we made a movie?” she asked.
Miles looked up from his binder and leaned forward on his knees. “A movie?” he asked. “You mean, like, filming a scene from the book?”
Bowie smiled, clapping her hands free of cashew dust. “That’s more like it,” she said, as sounds of the front door creaking open and footsteps clacking across the hall wafted up from downstairs. Bowie hopped to her feet.
“And
that
is my cue,” she whispered, running for the hallway and ducking her head back inside. “If Caroline asks, I’m in my room studying. As I have been all afternoon.”
Olivia looked to Miles, who rolled his big brown eyes. “She’s on probation,” he explained. “Caroline’s her mother. God forbid she call her
mom.
”
Olivia smiled, remembering the days of covering for Violet. At the time, it had been a chore, always having to come up with some excuse for where her sister was, or why she would
be late. Now it was just another fuzzy memory from a life that belonged to somebody else.
“So,” Miles said, turning back to his notes. “Are you serious about this movie idea?”
Olivia shrugged, picking at a loose thread at the hem of her new dark denim, high-waisted jeans. “I like to write,” she offered quietly. She still hadn’t cracked any of her old journals, but lately she’d been missing the way it felt, curling up with a crisp lined notebook and a glossy ballpoint pen. “I could come up with some kind of a script, and you could film it. It wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Film what?” Bowie’s mom called out from the kitchen, dropping two canvas bags full of groceries on the low center island. “Hi, Olivia.”
Olivia smiled and started to stand, following Miles into the kitchen.
“We’re working on a project for school,” Miles explained. “Do you think we could borrow a camera?”
Caroline flipped her dark-rimmed glasses up over her short, choppy hair, pinned back from her face with what looked like a hundred tiny bobby pins, and began unloading colorful piles of vegetables onto the kitchen table. “You know the rules,” she said, inspecting the stems on a fat bunch of asparagus. “Use whatever you want, just as long as I get a producer’s credit.”
Caroline winked at Olivia and passed her the asparagus. “Do you mind trimming these?” she asked, reaching for a heavy wooden cutting board and a knife. “They had the most amazing morels at the farmer’s market today, and there’s this asparagus bread pudding recipe I’ve been dying to try.”
Olivia took the asparagus and the knife, holding them away from her like artifacts from a lost civilization. Noting
her hesitation, Miles gently took the knife, showing her how to slice off the coarse, white ends in precise, diagonal cuts.
The front door creaked open again and a voice called out from downstairs.
“Hello?” Phoebe Greer draped her tailored suit jacket over a six-foot-tall sculpture of a grazing giraffe and started up the spiral stairs.
Olivia glanced up through the long kitchen windows at the slope of the park below. The sun was still shining through the leafy cover of trees, mottling the concrete paths with geometric patterns of light. She could count on one hand the number of times her mother had come home from the office before dark, and here were not one, but
two
moms, together in the kitchen at 5 p.m.
“Hi, love,” Caroline called out in greeting, squeezing past Olivia to lower a mesh carton of juicy red strawberries down onto a shelf in the fridge. “How was your day?”
“A total drag,” Bowie droned melodramatically, jumping out from her room at the end of the hall.
Bowie kissed each woman European style on both cheeks, while Olivia and Miles squished against the table to make room. The kitchen area was not exceptionally spacious, and all five of them were squeezed in there together, lounging between the sink, a bare round dining table, and the hall.
Olivia glanced up from the cutting board, remembering back to what passed for a family dinner in her house. Her parents still seemed to be giving each other the silent treatment after Sunday night’s debacle.
“Hi, Olivia,” Phoebe said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “You’re staying for dinner, I hope?”
Olivia watched as Caroline flitted from the sink to the stove, readying ingredients and searching through cupboards for bowls. She imagined the four of them sitting down at the table, passing plates, happily crowded and talking over one another to be heard. Her heart ached at the idea of being a part of something so…alive.
But then she thought of Violet, waiting for her at the edge of the park. And she thought of her father, eating takeout from plastic containers, standing up in the kitchen, or sitting alone in front of the flickering TV.
“I would love to,” Olivia said softly. “But I should probably get home. My parents will be wondering where I am. We always have dinner together.”
The lie felt heavy and awkward coming out of her mouth, but nobody seemed to notice. And for a moment, Olivia felt like it could have been true.
As she said her good-byes and let herself out onto the street, her shadow stretching long and dark across the sidewalk, she let the idea linger, as if taking it out for a test drive. She
could
be a girl, like any other girl, walking home to dinner on the table, or parents who talked to her and each other. She
could
be a girl with a life that was whole, the way her life had been before.
She
could
be normal, she thought. But, as she rounded the corner to her street, she saw her building, the dangling, crooked shingles, and the heaps of debris outside waiting for a trip to the dump. And she saw Violet, the invisible ghost of her once-dead sister, crouched at the corner of her stoop. And that was when she remembered:
This was her life, and there wasn’t anything normal about it.