It’s unnerving. That face.
“Um, they’re good.” I am confident and happy. And over you. Don’t forget, I’m over you. “Andy started his own business. He bakes and delivers these incredible pies, every flavor. It’s doing well. And Nathan is the same. You know. Good.” I glance away, toward the dark street. I wish he’d stop looking at me.
“And Norah?” His question is careful. Delicate.
There’s another awkward silence. Not many people know about Norah, but there are certain things that can’t be hidden from neighbors. Things like my birth mother.
“She’s . . . Norah. She’s in the fortune-telling business now, reading tea leaves.” My face grows warm. How long will we stand here being polite? “She has an apartment.”
“That’s great, Lola. I’m glad to hear it.” And because he’s Cricket, he does sound glad. This is all too weird. “Do you see her often?”
“Not really. I haven’t seen Snoopy at all this year.” I’m not sure why I add that.
“Is he still . . . ?”
I nod. His real name is Jonathan Head, but I’ve never heard anyone call him that. Snoopy met Norah when they were both teenagers. They were also alcoholics, drug addicts, and homeless gutter punks. When he got Norah pregnant, she came to her older brother for help. Nathan. She didn’t want me, but she didn’t want to get an abortion either. And Nathan and Andy, who’d been together for seven years, wanted a child. They adopted me, and Andy changed his last name to Nathan’s so that we’d all have the same one.
But yes. My father Nathan is biologically my uncle.
My parents have tried to help Norah. She’s hasn’t lived on the streets in years—before her apartment, she was in a series of group homes—but she still isn’t exactly the most reliable person I know. The best I can say is that at least she’s sober. And I only see Snoopy every now and then, whenever he rolls into town. He’ll call my parents, we’ll take him out for a burger, and then we won’t hear from him again for months. The homeless move around more than most people realize.
I don’t like to talk about my birth parents.
“I like what you’ve done with your room,” Cricket says suddenly. “The lights are pretty.” He gestures toward the strands of pink and white twinkle lights strung across my ceiling. “And the mannequin heads.”
I have shelves running across the top of my bedroom walls, lined with turquoise mannequin heads. They model my wigs and sunglasses. The walls themselves are plastered with posters of movie costume dramas and glossy black-and-whites of classic actresses. My desk is hot pink with gold glitter, which I threw in while the paint was drying, and the surface is buried underneath open jars of sparkly makeup, bottles of half-dried nail polish, plastic kiddie barrettes, and false eyelashes.
On my bookcase, I have endless cans of spray paint and bundles of hot glue sticks, and my sewing table is collaged with magazine cutouts of Japanese street fashion. Bolts of fabric are stacked precariously on top, and the wall beside it has even more shelves, crammed with glass jars of buttons and thread and needles and zippers. Over my bed, I have a canopy made out of Indian saris and paper umbrellas from Chinatown.
It’s chaotic, but I love it. My bedroom is my sanctuary.
I glance at Cricket’s room. Bare walls, bare floor. Empty. He acknowledges my gaze. “Not what it used to be, is it?” he asks.
Before they moved, it was as cluttered as my own. Coffee canisters filled with gears and cogs and nuts and wheels and bolts. Scribbled blueprints taped up beside star charts and the periodic table. Lightbulbs and copper wire and disassembled clocks. And always the Rube Goldberg machines.
Rube was famous for drawing those cartoons of complex machines performing simple tasks. You know, where you pull the string so that the boot kicks over the cup, which releases the ball, which lands in the track, which rolls onto the teeter-totter, which releases the hammer that turns off your light switch? That was Cricket’s bedroom.
I give him a wary smile. “It’s a little different, CGB.”
“You remember my middle name?” His eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
“It’s not like it’s easy to forget, Cricket Graham Bell.”
Yeah. The Bell family is THAT Bell family. As in telephone. As in one of the most important inventions in history.
He rubs his forehead. “My parents did burden me with unfortunate nomenclature.”
“Please.” I let out a laugh. “You used to brag about it all the time.”
“Things change.” His blue eyes widen as if he’s joking, but there’s something flat behind his expression. It’s uncomfortable. Cricket was always proud of his family name. As an inventor, just like his great-great-great-grandfather, it was impossible for him not to be.
Abruptly, he lurches backward into the shadows of his room. “I should catch the train. School tomorrow.”