22

MY NAME IS CLAIRE, AND I’LL BE YOUR PILOT TODAY.

CLAIRE IS IN ESPECIALLY ROTTEN FORM when I get back. When I walk in, she’s mincing Dad into tiny pieces about putting a knife in the wrong drawer. When she sees me, she barks, “Astrid, come here.” I can’t even send my love to her, she’s that bad. Claire, I am not sending any love to you because you are a horrible person right now. Who made you eat bitch for lunch? Who poured you a tall bitch beer float? Who sprinkled bacon bitch on your salad? I nearly crack myself up with these but keep a straight face for the interrogation.

“What time did you get in last night?” she asks.

“Just after two.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I say. “Why?”

“Because sometimes teenagers lie, that’s why.” Picture Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? That acrid, biting, accusatory tone she takes every time she speaks.

“What movie did you see?” she asks. The second she asks it, my brain goes numb, and I can’t even think of one title of one movie ever made. Like, ever. Not even my favorites. All movies are titled Untitled in my brain.

“I only saw about half of it. We were late getting there because Jeff’s car broke down, and Justin had to help him get it to the garage.”

Where the hell did that come from? I seem to be a natural liar. Who knew? Up until two weeks ago, I’d gotten by on doing nothing exciting and telling the truth all the time.

“What was wrong with his car?”

“I don’t know,” I say. Then I head up the steps so I can change out of my shrimpy-smelling work clothes, and once I do, I sit on my bed for a minute and stare into space. I don’t feel right about Dee. I don’t feel right about lying about Jeff. I don’t feel right about anything.

I make Frank S. appear. This time he’s on the flat roof outside my window, so I have to open it and let him in. When he gets in, he hovers over the warm radiator a minute and then looks at me and smiles and sits down on my vanity bench.

“Are you ever going to say anything?”

He just looks at me.

I sigh. “I wish more people would be like you, Frank. I need quiet people in my life.”

He keeps looking at me.

“That said, I could really use some advice, you know? Got any advice?”

He doesn’t have any advice, so I ask myself the same question. Hey Astrid, got any advice? And the only answer I have is to tackle the problems I can tackle. Like lying to Jeff.

I take out my phone to text Kristina about how I can’t do this to Jeff anymore, and when I flip it open, there’s a message waiting for me. From Dee. It says: I’m sorry for being an ass. How about we agree on a signal? When you’re ready to take it further, you say “Abracadabra” or something. Until then, I’ll be more patient, and I will shut up right before I’m about to say something stupid.

A huge part of me wants to text back abracadabra because that would make such a great line in a movie, wouldn’t it? It would be so romantic and make everything perfect.

But this isn’t a movie.

Ellis arrives at my door a few minutes later.

“Hey.”

“Oh, hey,” I say.

“Everything okay?” she asks.

“Sure. You?”

“Yeah. I guess.” She shrugs. “Some stuff could be better.”

I think she means Claire’s mood, but in case they’re about to go off on a Mommy and Me wine binge/country club buffet/shopping trip or something, I keep the speculation to myself and continue to reorganize my closet, which is what I’ve been pretending to do since she showed up at my doorway.

“I saw Jeff last night,” she says.

“Oh yeah?”

“He was walking around Main Street. You weren’t with him.”

“So?”

“So you’re lucky Mom and Dad didn’t see him, too.”

I sigh. “God. That kid.”

Ellis sits on my bed, and I sit on my vanity bench, where Frank just was. She says, “You need to watch out because Mom is getting all buddy-buddy with his mom, and they’re, like, joking about weddings and shit.”

At times like these I wish I was a passenger.

At times like these I need an air sickness bag and an oxygen mask and a chair cushion that doubles as a flotation device.

“I think I need to throw up,” I say. We both think I’m joking until I catch a whiff of my shrimpy catering pants on the hamper and I jog to the bathroom and puke. Twice.

When I finish brushing my teeth and go back to my room, Ellis is still sitting on my bed.

“Wow. So I take it you don’t like Jeff Garnet?”

“Yeah.” She smiles at me a little—like she feels bad for me. “Were you serious about Mom talking to his mom? Because that’s just gross. What’s wrong with her?”

“She thinks it’s cool,” Ellis says.

“Would you want her being like that about you?” I ask.

“It’s her way of caring without leaving the house.” She rolls her eyes. “Which is more important than, you know, everything.”

Ellis baits the hook, and I know she genuinely wants to talk, and she’s bummed, probably, that Mom can’t make time for her hockey games. But though she’s pissed off right now and needs me to save her from the flying monkeys, there’s the “Mommy and Me” Ellis. The one who might drink too much wine while wearing Mom’s fineries and spill out whatever I say.

“Shit, man. I have to get this load of wash in, or I’ll have nothing to wear this week. You have any whites?” I ask. My brain says: Ellis, you’re a great kid, and at the moment you are perfect. Enjoy it while it lasts and know that I love you, even though you can’t be trusted. One day you will know the truth, and then we’ll talk.

“Yeah. I have a few whites,” she says, and goes to her room to get them. She puts them in the basket, and we both go downstairs. I go to the laundry room and start the machine, and she flops herself on the couch and flips through the channels.

I see Mom at the kitchen table, her empty lunch plate still in front of her, banging her phone keyboard with her thumbs. She giggles. She texts again. It makes me realize that maybe this is her back door to being accepted in Unity Valley. If she doesn’t leave the house, the gossips-in-charge won’t have anything to say about her. But she can still be involved somehow from her handy smartphone.

I put on a sweatshirt and my coat and my gloves, a hat and a scarf, and I go to my table and lie down. The sky is biblical today—rays of sun forming straight lines from behind rounded, fluffy clouds. The planes shine like gold stars up high. I ask: If I unzip my Unity Valley suit and let my happy person out, will she still be happy?