“Why not?”
“No. I mean, why? What the hell are you doing up here with me in the middle of the night?” I laugh as I ask it, but I’m dead serious. This girl is beyond strange, and I feel strange around her. Grounded and light, tense and nervous, all at once. I haven’t felt like this around anybody for a long time.
Not since Natalie.
She stares at me for a few long seconds. Too long. In fact, she takes her damn time, letting her gaze slip over my features like she’s memorizing them. She opens her mouth, and I expect some bullshit answer, a joke maybe, because she doesn’t seem to want to linger on anything too deep, but what I expect is not what I get.
“Because I’m miserable,” she says quietly, her eyes still locked on mine. “And today, on the beach with you, I felt a little less miserable.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Well. Okay. But I don’t have any more sand on me, in case you get hungry.”
She laughs and I smile back and I feel myself sort of giving in. What I’m giving in to—?a new friendship or just another moment in time with this girl, I’m not sure.
But for now, that’s okay.
Wordlessly we turn side to side, our shoulders pressed together, the wind lacing around us, both of us staring into the light-swept black, feeling small and big all at once.
Chapter Nine
I’M JOLTED AWAKE. SOMETHING THAT FEELS THE SIZE OF A house lands next to me on my bed and jerks me out of a dream where a girl in a long white dress kept swan-diving off the lighthouse. Over and over. She’d catapult over the edge, land in the water, then climb back up the tower while I watched from the beach.
And right before she hit the waves, every time, her face morphed into my mother’s.
“Ugh,” I groan, rubbing my temples with both hands.
“Wake up, lazybones,” Mom says, sprawled out next to me. She’s definitely not the size of a house, but she reeks of cigarettes and hot glue. I don’t know what time it is, but it’s too damn early for whatever she wants.
But then she glides soft fingers down my cheek and, with the dream clinging like a hangover, I find myself curling into her side. She scoots closer, tucking my head under her chin, running her hand over my back. Mom’s taller than me, but my body is all hills and valleys where hers is straight highways and plateaus. In the rare moments when we tangle together like this, when the only thing between us is blood instead of men and cigarettes and unpacked boxes, I feel like a little girl. Her little girl. She hums a tuneless melody, and I let her feathery voice strip away the remnants of that dream.
“I need you to come with me to LuMac’s,” she says, breaking the spell. It never lasts long.
“Why?”
She sits up, straightening her spaghetti-strapped tank. “Because I’m craving the Philly cheesesteak omelet, and I want to meet Ella.”
“Eva.”
“Yes, Eva.”
“So go eat an omelet and meet Eva.”
Mom groans. “I can’t go alone, you know how Emmy is. She’ll want to talk and ugh. I can’t deal with her this morning.”
“She’ll probably just say hello, Mom. She’s polite.”
“I’m polite! I just always feel like she’s judging me. Like I can’t do anything right, and I don’t know what to say to her. You and I are doing fine. We’re always fine, aren’t we?”
I make an ambiguous noise. I’m not touching that one. I’ve spent what feels like ten lifetimes trying to get Mom to see how her behavior affects me, affects other people, how it’s not exactly healthy to chase toast with a Bud Light for breakfast, but she’s totally blind in this area. She’s a freaking paragon of motherhood and mental health. Just ask her.
“But, oh, this poor Eva girl”—?Mom releases a wistful sigh—?“I have to meet her, baby. Plus, you need to set up your job schedule, don’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah. Fine.” I pull on a pair of shorts and a black T-shirt before twisting my hair into a messy topknot. “I need to find a piano somewhere to practice on anyway.” I shoot her a look, but she only nods and tells me what a “great idea!” that is.
Out in the kitchen, Jay sits at the table, slurping up cereal.
In nothing but his boxers.
I grit my teeth as I pour a glass of water, but I can feel his eyes trailing me. Mom chats him up, giggling and patting his shoulder like he’s not seventeen and half naked.
I gulp down the water so I don’t puke and head out the door. Mom can follow me if she wants, but there’s no way I’m going to stay in here and watch whatever the hell that is.
Mom joins me halfway down the driveway.
“You didn’t even say good morning to Julian,” she says, lighting up a cigarette.
“I don’t say good morning to slobbering cretins.”
“Oh, he’s not that bad. He’s been very polite to me.”
Yeah, well he nearly ripped my belt loop last night. That’s real polite.
The words almost slip out. Seems like a no-brainer: tell your mother about the ass-wipe who makes you feel nervous in your own house, but nope. Because I know what she’ll say.
You’re just being dramatic now, Grace. I know he wasn’t nice to you when you broke up, but try to be civil, will you?
I press my mouth closed and keep it that way the four blocks to LuMac’s.
The first thing I notice right away when we walk into LuMac’s is the decor. Two weeks ago, it was an all-retro-fifties diner. Now it’s a retro-fifties diner with an industrial flair. Luca’s creations are eve-rywhere. Copper and nickel napkin holders, a soldered iron cake stand, twisted metal frames around the art on the walls. He’s always had few pieces here and there, but now it’s like a junkyard got artistic and then threw up all over a sock hop.
Mom gasps and mutters, “Well, this is an interesting choice,” but I think it looks pretty freaking cool.
Buttery, fried-food smells fill the space as Mom and I settle into one of the only booths still available. With summer starting up, tourists are spilling onto the cape, and they flock to LuMac’s at all hours of the day.
My butt has barely hit the sparkly red pleather cushion when Emmy descends upon us.
“My two favorite ladies!” she exclaims, sliding in next to me. Her long, rust-colored hair is pulled into her usual sleek ponytail, and her soft arms wrap around my shoulders. I lean into her a little. She smells like sugar and warm toast and looks exhausted.
“Hey, Em,” I say, my eyes scanning the dining room for Eva. “How are you?”
“I’m all right. We’re getting there.” She pops a kiss to my cheek. “Are you ready to work for me?”
“Yep. Just say when.”