“Is that England?” she said. “Let me talk to them.” But I wrapped myself in the phone cord as I turned away, and she stepped back.
“I’d never seen Dad so excited,” Robin said, her voice calmer then. “We got to the airport early.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. For the weather, for the electricity, for Dad, for Robin, for me.
—
The day after the snowstorm, when Drew and Mum had to cancel their child-free plans, I expected to be in trouble. When Drew knocked on my bedroom door, I inched a little farther away from where I was sitting on my bed working on my algebra.
“If I hadn’t been here to take you to the airport,” he said, really seriously, “I’d have driven to work and got stuck. Maybe even killed.” I didn’t know what to say, but he warmed to the idea and grabbed my hands in his. “You’re my guardian angel, Sarah. My good-luck charm.”
He’s said it since, and I’ve started to like it. He’s finally noticed that I’m a good girl.
“I booked that flight,” Mum had huffed after one of his bouts of praise, but he’d ignored her.
Drew is tall, like Callum. Like me too. He’s broad and strong. He plays golf but no other sports, so I guess it’s just luck. Mum has to work at it. Drew has sandy hair and dark eyes. I guess he could have been my dad. Maybe if I let that happen, I’d be happier. Maybe he is my dad now.
At school, I’m Sarah Granger, but I’m not allowed to tell Robin or Dad, as “Jack’d blow his stack.” Americans are more traditional, Mum says, and everyone at Drew’s work thinks they’re already married. “We’re as good as,” she says, fixing Drew with a look I never saw her give Dad. More like the looks Dad used to give her. Longing.
Sarah Granger. A new name. A new dad. A new life.
ROBIN|1993
“Happy Sarah and Robin Day!”
It was eight o’clock in the morning for Sarah, but Robin had been awake for five hours already and was full of birthday bounce.
“Thank you. Happy Robin and Sarah Day,” Sarah said, her voice muffled and a little sleepy.
“What did you get?”
“I don’t know yet,” Sarah said, and laughed a bit. “Mum’s at the gym and Drew’s gone to work.”
“Oh.” Robin flickered her eyes at Callum, who was perched on the stairs but didn’t know how to interpret the look.
“What did you get?” Sarah asked in the space that had opened up.
Robin took a deep breath and then launched into it. “Some T-shirts from Dad and Hilary, Lemonheads CD from Cal, ten pounds from Phil in the pub that he gave Dad last night and Dad says he probably won’t remember and not to say thanks or he might ask for it back. And a box of makeup from Mum,” Robin snorted. “Did you tell her to send that?”
“What do you think?”
“If she asks next time, tell her I want—”
“She never asks. You should just tell her what you want.”
“Yeah, right.”
“What else?”
“The best bit…drumroll…Cal!”
“Yeah?” he replied softly.
“Do a drumroll, please,” Robin commanded, and Callum slapped a fast beat on his knees.
“I go-o-o-o-t…”
“Yes?” Sarah chided, a toss-up between amused and annoyed.
“A guitar.”
“Oh nice. I thought you had a guitar?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah, I’ve got Dad’s old acoustic guitar, but this is a proper guitar. An electric guitar with—I’ll have you know—an amp and…drumroll again, Cal…a whammy bar.”
“Oh great. What’s that?”
“It’s like a stick screwed into the guitar and you pull it when you play a chord and it makes it go…” Robin launched into an impression of vibrating rock guitar noises, and Callum smiled to himself and walked off into the kitchen to leave her to it.
Callum had been playing the guitar awhile longer than Robin.
He’d had piano lessons since he could first sit up on a stool, and because of his early exposure to music and hours of excruciating practice, Callum found it easy to pick up other instruments. He learned guitar methodically, as he had the piano. As he did everything. Robin thought she’d have a go too. She’d picked up her dad’s scruffy old acoustic guitar from the garage, got Callum to tune it and started learning how to play along with him by ear.
Sarah’d had to endure an audio update every phone call since, but Robin improved rapidly between the calls.
Robin’s dad had been shaken when Sarah couldn’t come because of a snow blizzard in Georgia. He’d been playing it cool but casually mentioning to Robin the things that they would do during Sarah’s stay, picking up presents for her with Hilary’s help, making a little truckle bed to slide out from under Robin’s so Sarah had her own proper bed to sleep in. Practical Dad stuff. When he’d gone to the airport, driving faster than Robin was used to, he’d bounded out and practically run into Arrivals. Her plane was not on the board. He worried he’d gone to the wrong terminal and went to ask someone who worked there. When he found out she wasn’t coming at all, he’d looked at Robin aghast, like he was waiting for his daughter to know what to do or say. What could she do? What could any of them do?
Robin was glad Hilary was waiting for them when they got home from the airport. Hilary was good at extinguishing drama. She’d hugged Jack and Robin, made tea, called the airline.
Robin had cried into her flannel in the bath for an hour, then sat on the sofa scowling through her wet hair. “Come on,” Callum had said, linking his arm through Robin’s and tugging her into the hall to put on jackets. “We’re going to the petrol station.”
“Why?”
“Wait there a sec.” He’d thundered up the stairs, his long legs and big feet barely fitting on the steps. A few moments later he was back down, patting his back pocket.
They trudged through the village in silence, icy water running down Robin’s neck. Everywhere she looked, Robin saw something that had changed since Sarah’d left, something she could have shown her. The new white wood cricket pavilion, which someone had already drawn a dick and balls on in marker pen. The big rock that had been dug up at the quarry down the road, seemingly at random, and stuck out in front of the village hall. A sign said it was PROBABLY OVER A MILLION YEARS OLD. The vagueness of the claim creased Robin and Callum up every time they read it. “You’re probably over a million years old,” they would often say to each other, out of the blue. Sarah could have joined in the joke.
The wind was biting, but there was no snowstorm here. The idea of her sister being stuck in some kind of extreme adventure while they just trudged past the million-year-old boulder seemed to make no sense.
“Right,” Callum said, as they pushed open the door to the petrol station mini-shop.
She’d glowered at him. “Yeah?”
He pulled two folded notes from his back pocket.
“Where d’you get that cash?” she asked accusingly.
“It’s the rest of my Christmas money,” he said, and before she could interrupt to ask more questions, he added, “We’re going to buy every guitar magazine they’ve got, and whatever’s left will buy as many bags of sweets as we can cram in before we puke. Okay?”
She’d smiled then, for the first time since the ride to Heathrow.