“What?”
“Mia is shy. I’m sure you already know that. She doesn’t make friends easily and she worries too much about being liked. She’s always been that way. And last year, she had her heart broken. Not by a boy. It was worse than that. A girl—Haley—befriended her. For a few months, they were inseparable. Mia was as happy as I’ve ever seen her. But the truth was that Haley had her sights set on Zach, and he fell into her trap. He didn’t know how it would upset Mia. Anyway, Haley dumped Mia for Zach, and when Zach lost interest, Haley refused to come to the house anymore. Mia was so hurt she stopped talking for almost a month. I was really worried about her.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I guess … because if you’re going to be her friend, she needs to know she can count on you. I’d like to know that, too.”
“I would never do anything to hurt her,” Lexi promised.
Jude thought of all the dangers this friendship could pose to her daughter, and all the benefits, and she weighed them, as if this decision were hers to make, although she knew it wasn’t. A fourteen-year-old girl could make her own friends. But Jude could make it easy for Mia and Lexi to stay friends, or difficult. What was best for Mia?
When she looked at Lexi, the answer came easily. Jude was a mother, first, last, and always. And her daughter desperately needed a friend. “I’m taking Mia into the city on Saturday for manicures. A girls’ day. Would you like to join us?”
“I can’t,” Lexi said. “I haven’t got a job yet. Money’s tight. But thanks.”
“My treat,” Jude said easily, “and I won’t take no for an answer.”
Three
2003
The last three years had both worn Jude down and sharpened her. She hadn’t known how terrifying life could be until the first time she handed Zach and Mia car keys and watched them drive away. From that moment on, she’d begun to be afraid for her kids. Everything scared her. Rain. Wind. Snow. Darkness. Loud music. Other drivers. Too many kids in a car.
She’d issued her kids cell phones and instituted rules. Curfews. Accountability. Honesty.
She paced when they were minutes late and didn’t breathe easily until they were safely in bed. She’d thought that was the worst of it, the freedom that came with a driver’s license, but now she knew better.
It had all been a prelude to this: senior year of high school. The semester had just begun, and already it was a pressure cooker, a Rubik’s Cube of deadlines and paperwork. College loomed on the horizon like a nuclear cloud, tainting every breath of air. Years of driving back and forth to sporting events, practices, play rehearsals, and performances was nothing compared with this.
On the wall above her desk she had two giant calendars, one marked ZACH and the other MIA. Every college deadline was written in red ink; every test date was in bold-face type. Jude had spent years studying admission statistics and reading about the various universities, gauging which would be best for her kids.
Getting into college would be a cakewalk for Zach. He had entered senior year with a 3.96 GPA and a perfect SAT score. He could go almost anywhere he wanted.
Mia was a different story. Her grades were good but not great; same with her SAT. Even so, she had set her heart on the prestigious University of Southern California drama school.
Jude had begun to lose sleep about it all. She lay in bed at night, going though admission statistics and criteria in her head until she felt sick. She was constantly figuring out how to make her daughter’s dream come true. It wasn’t easy to get one kid into an ultracompetitive school, and Jude needed to get two in. The twins had to go to college together; any other outcome was unthinkable. Mia needed her brother beside her.
And now, as if all that pressure weren’t bad enough, the word she’d been dreading had just been said aloud.
Party.