“A piano? You do realize how much we’ve been spending on plane tickets, don’t you?”
“Seriously, people give them away for free. Nobody likes pianos, apparently. Except Angela—she needs one. I’ve made a few calls already. There are some people nearby who have orphan pianos. All you’d need to do is arrange for pickup.”
“For this orphan piano. To go where?”
“Right here.” I sit in the spot. “It’ll fit, I promise.”
“You’ve been strange since I got home. Both of you. I can’t even say if you or your sister has been weirder.”
“Yeah. That’s a toss-up, isn’t it?”
“Mercedes, hijita. Can you tell me? Can you tell me anything?”
Anything. For the first time, I wish I could show her my self-portrait room, because I think the reaction she’d give me is fairly close to the one I’d want. She would know everything from how I hated my bedroom in Naples, to the strange days of summer camp and Mia Cortelyou, to how Lilia, damn it, is not a drug pusher. All that, and more. For a minute, I think the carpet under me feels like that rug Lilia got me to work on the room. My perfect painting rug, which got cleared away by the bulldozers last week, with the walls of the purple room and the self-portrait room and the penthouse and the rest of it.
But I know I can re-create it. Maybe it won’t be as huge and grand as the original, but it’ll say exactly what I want it to. Maybe I can start it at Abuela’s house and then assemble it at the end of the summer, piece by piece.
“Mom,” I say, “Victoria’s leaving.”
“I know,” Mom says.
“But she’s leaving.” Maybe there’s another way to say this. “But she’s leaving.”
Mom gets up from the chair and sits with me in the old piano spot. Her arm wraps around my shoulders. Her hair falls against my cheek. She’s looking at me sort of like she looked at my painting a few minutes ago, with an expression that says, I know these shapes, I know these colors, and I think I know how you’ve put them together. Sort of like that. Maybe. I mean, I know I’m not a painting. Ah, damn it, I’m crying now.
Mom rubs my shoulder. “I know. I know,” she says.
It’s strange how long a single lizard can keep our attention.
He’s on the outside of the porch screen, darting up and then down, stopping to breathe in his little lizardy way, and then racing up to the top of the screen, seemingly to grab a different spot of sun.
“How long do lizards live, do you think?” Vic says.
“A couple years, I’m pretty sure,” I say.
“I wonder if that’s the right idea.” Vic goes to press her face against the screen to get a better look at the little guy. “Spending your life going from place to place, sunning yourself along the way.”
“This is the sort of philosopher graduation turns you into, huh?” Because we’re done with school, technically. We’re caught in a strange appendix of time when everyone who’s not a senior is taking finals and we’re waiting for Friday night to walk across the stage in our goofy gowns. I have to say, I’m looking forward to it in a weird way, like I’m getting pre-sentimental about hearing “Pomp and Circumstance” played five hundred times.
I go to the kitchen to refill my orange juice, and when I return Victoria is still pressed against the screen, and I could start into a cheesy metaphor with her that we’d both laugh about: Vic, I think you’re already a lizard. You’ve lived around the whole perimeter of this country and you’ve probably sunned yourself from time to time. But instead, I put the orange juice on the table and I wrap my arms around her from behind.
“Hi,” she says.
She turns toward me and we are holding each other and that’s all we are doing. She leans her head on my shoulder and her breath collides with my neck. And I think a part of me will always want that in the same way I did last summer, but it doesn’t ache at me like it once did. We are making the possibilities wait for us. We are Florida and New York, an artist and a dancer. We are best friends and we are leaving. We aren’t stuck in beginnings anymore—we’re in the confusing, strange middle, and right now that has got to be the best place to be.
Acknowledgments
I’VE BEEN WRITING about Mercedes, Victoria, and Angela since I was a young teen. They’ve evolved from the characters they were in those early stories, but the heart of why I loved those girls at age thirteen has remained intact. It feels like both a beginning and an ending to be giving their story to you.
So, after many years writing about these characters, in stories I often kept to myself, let me tell you how strange it was to talk about them with an Actual Literary Agent, in a We Are Going to Sell This Book! kind of way. Yes, very strange. And wonderful. That agent is Victoria Marini, and I’m so lucky to be working with her. She’s strong and kind, wise and funny, a great advocate for my book and for the greatness of books in general. My thanks to her, and to the teams at Gelfman Schneider and Irene Goodman Literary Agency.
Victoria found my book a home at HarperTeen, where I began working with my editor Emilia Rhodes, a storybuilding genius who knew just the right questions to ask to make my book better. I’m so thankful for her guidance through this weird and wonderful publishing world. Thank you also to Alice Jerman, Michelle Taormina, Renée Cafiero, Valerie Shea, Gina Rizzo, and the rest of the Harper team.
The beta readers and critique partners who worked with me at various stages in the drafting and editing process have been invaluable. Thank you to Alexis Allen, Kara Bietz, Ashley Blake, Jenn Woodruff, Maryann Dabkowski, Natasha Garcia, Ashleigh Hally, Liz Lang, Dana Lee, Terra McVoy, Cathi O’Tyson, Margaret Robbins, and Ricki Schultz. A special mention to the ladies of my two fabulous writing groups, the DSDs and the WIHGs. I would never have written “the end” if not for you. Thank you for sharing chapters and conversation, despair and inspiration, and the sense that part of the answer to “why are we even doing this writing thing?” is to spend time together.
Joanna Farrow saved my plot half a dozen times. She’s brilliant, and I can’t wait for her own novels to be out in the world. Ash Parsons once told me to get out of my way, and a couple years later, I finally took her advice. Jocelyn McFarlane gave me a single word of inspiration in 2009 that eventually unspooled itself into this story. Adi Alsaid gifted this book with a gorgeous blurb. I am so thankful for all of these fine folks.
Going way back here: In the seventh grade, my friend Melanie Garrick Hill read every novel-ish thing I wrote, including some of the early Mercedes and Victoria stories. Whenever I needed a deadline or some fangirling, she was there.