“Well?” Dr. Mallory said. “Shall we talk about the book? Like friends?”
“You’re not my friend.” Take that in your honest pipe and smoke it. The truth was she didn’t have any friends. Not true friends. Her grandfather and Lucy had been her two best friends, and now both were gone. And so who exactly would be her friends? The girls that everyone at school thought were her friends really weren’t, more like frenemies. For one thing, they could turn on you in an instant. Like the other day at the mall when they’d been trying on clothes, Christy had called attention to the roll of flesh around Meredith Banks’s middle and said in a voice loud enough for other shoppers to hear, “That’s not just a muffin top, it’s the whole muffin,” and then they all—even Meredith—had laughed in that totally fake way that was supposed to mean it was all in fun. Rain could only imagine what they would say if they found out she was seeing a shrink.
“We don’t have to be friends to talk about the story.”
“I guess.” She might as well waste her parents’ money discussing the book. It was better than having to talk about herself. Anything was better than that. Although on the way over today, she’d had a sudden urge to tell Dr. Mallory that she hadn’t cut herself since their last session. Which would have been totally weird since they had never even talked about that subject. Which was also seriously weird since that was the reason her mother had done the total freak-out and dragged her there in the first place.
“So what did you think it was about?”
Rain thought for a minute. “A lot of things, I guess. Ya know? For a small book, there was a lot to think about.”
“For instance?” Dr. Mallory leaned forward and picked up the candy dish and held it toward Rain.
Rain chose a butterscotch caramel and unwrapped it from the cellophane. “Choices people make. And art. I think it was a lot about art. Ya know. Babette being an artist and how important that was to her.”
“Ah,” Dr. Mallory said. “You are a very careful and intelligent reader.”
Rain tightened her lips against a smile. “What do you think it’s about?”
“You are correct in that it is about many things. Families and love and art. But one thing that struck me about the story the first time I read it is all the rules the people on the island lived by.”
The sweetness of the caramel filled her mouth. “What do you mean?”
“There were rules both spoken and unspoken for all the people on the island. For instance, they were forbidden to enjoy earthly pleasures. Beauty, the pleasures of food. The sisters had rules that formed their lives as they were growing up, and they accepted them without question into adulthood. And they were constricted by these rules in every way.”
“Like their clothes,” Rain said, remembering the description of how the sisters dressed. “And how they couldn’t go to parties or balls when they were young.”
“Exactly. And you know, in that way, the people on the island are no different than any of us. We all have rules we grow up with. Even something as simple as how we are supposed to do the dishes.”
Always put the forks in the dishwasher basket tines down. Rules. Don’t get her started or she would have to stay there all day. Make your bed before you come down to breakfast. Floss your teeth before you brush. Never wear torn underwear. Keep your elbows off the table when you eat. Write thank-you notes the same day you get a present. “But why would Babette spend all her money on the dinner?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. It reminded me of something Lucy might have done.”
“In what way, Rain?”
“Spend all her money doing things for others.”
“I’d like to hear more about her.”
Rain closed her eyes, near drowning in the loneliness of the past months. She swallowed the last of the butterscotch caramel. “I don’t mean to make her sound too good or perfect or anything.” That was one of the things Rain loved about Lucy, how just when she was a perfect goody two-shoes, she could surprise you with a naughty smile and a sly and spot-on imitation of one of the teachers. Her imitation of Mr. Marshall was so funny Rain had almost wet her pants. “Like I told you, she isn’t a saint.” Wasn’t. Wasn’t a saint. “But she always seems older than the other kids. Even as a freshman, she was elected president of SADD. Ya know. Students against Drunk Driving. She was always working to bring in speakers to talk to the kids about it.”
“That’s curious.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, often when we are drawn to a cause, to work for something, it’s because we have had a personal experience. For instance, a girl whose mother has breast cancer might want to take part in a fund-raising walk for a cure for cancer.”
“I guess maybe because of the accident last year when we were freshmen. After the junior prom one of the kids, a boy named Jared Phillips, crashed his car and all four passengers ended up in the hospital. One of the girls died.” Rain remembered how on Monday when everyone was back at school, kids were crying, but Lucy didn’t cry. She was upset. “She said drinking and driving was so stupid. Lots of things made Lucy upset.”
“For example?”
“People being mean to each other. Or doing things for stupid reasons. Grown-ups who are cruel to their kids or their pets.” Rain looked back over at the empty bed beneath the desk.
“It sounds to me as if Lucy had a strong moral compass.”
Strong moral compass. Rain played the words through her mind, imagined a little compass occupying a space somewhere inside a person’s body. Somewhere in the chest. Or belly.
“I want you to think about something, Rain.”
Rain waited, not willing to commit.
“Do you think Lucy would have chosen for her best friend someone who didn’t also have a moral center, who didn’t share her values?”
“But I’m not like Lucy. Not in that way.” She thought about shoplifting, about how she was mean to her mother.
“Sometimes it’s hard to see our own best qualities.”
Rain poked at the carpet with the toe of her sandal. The compliments made her skin itch, like sweat. “I really did like the story.”
Dr. Mallory smiled. “I can see that.”
“I kind of got lost in it. I—” She hesitated.
“Go on.”
“Well, the other night, I couldn’t sleep.” She remembered the disastrous dinner, her mother’s anger. “So I started to read the book, and somehow it made me forget to check the locks on the doors.”
“Is that something you usually do?”
“Yes. You know. At night. To make sure they’re all locked and the alarm system is on.”
“Why?”
“I just have to.”
“Don’t your parents do that?”
“I guess. I mean, my father does, but I can’t get to sleep unless I check.”
“Is this something you have always done?”
“No. Not really.” She could no longer taste even a lingering sweetness of butterscotch on her tongue. “Just since Lucy was murdered.”