Aside from the stray things in the garage, Mom has worked on my room. My eyes burn a little, imagining her organizing my space before she even unpacked her own things.
“So, Pete’s and my room is at the other end of the house, and Julian’s just across the hall,” she says. She peers anxiously at me, no doubt searching for signs of an impending explosion.
And, oh, do I feel it brewing. Despite the homey feel, this is still a room I didn’t choose and never planned for. My throat feels tight from holding back all the eff-bombs I want to drop right now. Not that I usually rein them in too much in Mom’s presence, but she looks so damn hopeful. She’s trying really hard to make this a good thing.
“Okay,” I say, as usual.
“It’s going to be so lovely, baby,” she says. “I mean, it’s the lighthouse! I know you love this place and have always wanted to live right on the beach.”
I nod, looking out my window at the rocks dotting the shore, angry waves spitting white foam all over their surfaces. She’s right. I used to love this lighthouse. It always seemed so magical when I was six or seven, but you can only hold your own mother’s hair back while she pukes up vodka so many times before you get a little disenchanted.
“Oh!” Mom says so loudly, I startle. “With the move, I almost forgot.” She grins at me and digs into her back pocket, retrieving a folded rectangle of paper. She opens it up, her smile growing wider as she holds it out to me. “This is for you.”
I take the wrinkled paper, almost scared to look at it. Because what now? As usual, when it comes to my mother, curiosity and hope nearly smother me. My eyes devour the writing.
When the content registers, my head snaps up, gaze locking with Mom’s. “For real?”
She nods. “For your audition. We can drive there pretty cheap and stay at that hostel, tour the Big Apple during the day, eat off the street carts. We need to plan ahead if we want show tickets. I’ve picked up a few shifts at Reinhardt’s Deli, and with some help from Pete, I’m saving a little. You need to do more than audition when you go, baby. You need to see where you’ll be living next year, and I want to be part of that. I’m so proud of you.”
I stare back down at the paper, which tells me there are two beds at a New York City hostel reserved under Mom’s name for July thirtieth through August second. Underneath that is Mom’s chicken-scratch handwriting, listing all the things we’ve always talked about doing in the city. It’s got the usual stuff, like visiting the Empire State Building and Times Square, Central Park and Ellis Island. But it’s also got the Grace stuff—?auditioning and touring Manhattan School of Music. Seeing Hedwig on Broadway. Finding a way to get a backstage tour of Carnegie Hall and standing on the stage, maybe even sliding my fingers over one of their piano’s keys.
“Thank you,” I manage to whisper. Part of me knows she timed telling me about this trip to perfectly coincide with this move to the lighthouse, a little peace offering. The bigger part of me doesn’t care.
“Of course, baby. It’ll be the perfect weekend. Just wait.” She pulls me into her arms, crushing the already-crinkled paper between us, and presses a kiss to my forehead.
“Well, I know you’re tired from your bus ride,” she says, releasing me. “Get settled in. You can meet Julian later and . . .” Mom must see all the roiling emotions mirrored on my face, because she pats my shoulder and is out the door without finishing her sentence.
I drop my stuff and sink onto the bed, finally overwhelmed. To clear my head, I close my eyes and mentally go through the beginning of Schumann’s Fantasie in C major, Opus 17. The piece plagued me at the piano workshop I just completed in Boston, the complicated, rapid fingering and the ethereal, dreamlike quality of a first movement a pleasing sort of torture. The music is pretty kickass, all chaotic and angsty. And it kicked my ass, which I have to appreciate.
Now I play it on my bed. I imagine myself on an auditorium stage or in a practice room at some college. Manhattan School of Music. Indiana University. Belmont in Nashville. Though Manhattan is my white whale, my dream, and the thought of going far away and staying in dorms that I can actually live in for longer than three months makes me giddy, it also freaks me the hell out. I can’t imagine actually moving away. Leaving Mom alone to flit from one house to the next, one guy to the next, one skipped meal to the next bottle of beer.
My fingers fly over the wrinkled comforter, the music alive and real in my mind. Nerves coil in my stomach—?but whether from auditioning and laying my whole future on the piano keys in front of a few judges or leaving Mom, I’m not sure. Either way, I keep pressing into the soft cotton until my left hand collides with a box. My eyes flick open and absorb the room again.
My room.
I unzip my duffle and dump its contents onto the bed, sorting through dirty clothes and the ones clean enough to wear again, even though they smell like the inside of my bag. I rearrange a few things around the room, moving my composition paper from my desk to my nightstand—?when I can’t sleep, I make up dumb little songs in bed—?and find a picture of Luca and me that Mom had tossed on a shelf in the closet and place it on my dresser. Luca looks predictably happy, grinning through his curly mop of hair with his arm slung around my shoulder at the beach last summer.
Halfheartedly, I order my little universe. No matter how many times I tell myself it doesn’t matter—?that I’ll have to pack it all up in a matter of months anyway—?I can’t resist trying to make a place my own. This lighthouse that I used to love and now suddenly hate is no exception.
I grab my toiletry bag and venture into the hallway to check out the bathroom. It’s clean; a clawfooted tub with one of those wrap-around shower curtains sits against the wall under a frosted-paned window. The tiled sink is cobalt blue, and an antique-looking light fixture sends an amber glow through the room. It smells like wet towel mixed in with some crisp, boyish scent. Aftershave, maybe. A navy-blue toothbrush sits in a holder by the sink. I throw mine into an empty drawer. Call me unreasonable, but sharing toothbrush space with a guy I’ve never met just seems weird.
I unpack my face wash and deodorant and then stuff my empty bag under the vanity before flicking off the light. As I enter the hallway, the door to my left swings open and my eyes dart over.
I swallow a few colorful words and press my back against the wall.
He’s tall. I mean, of course, I knew he was, but he looks gigantic in the tiny hallway. Intentionally messy light-brown hair. Hair I used to yank to get his lips back on mine whenever he started sucking on my neck too hard.
“Oh my god,” I choke out. “What are you . . . How did you . . . Why are you . . . ?” I swallow, trying to get my breath back as his mouth—?a mouth I know way too damn well—?bends into a smirk. It pisses me off to no end.