I’ve deleted and reinstalled my email app, climbed the apple tree and waved my phone around for 4G, and boinked it with my fist—but, aside from our addresses and the date at the top, Thomas’s email refuses to be anything but this gibberish.
It shouldn’t even exist! I hadn’t even set up this account when he sent this. Did he guess hundreds of addresses, sending out emails like messages in bottles?
v 4.0—opening Schr?dinger’s box determines whether the cat is dead or alive.
But what if the cat isn’t in there yet?
When dawn arrives, I shove my new hair into a facsimile of normal and change out of my planet-print PJs into a vest and shorts. At my bedroom door, I pause, looking out at the damp grass—and kick off my tennis shoes. If I’m going to discover the universe, I’ll start with my feet.
When I enter the kitchen, muddy up to my ankles, Thomas and Ned and Papa are already at the table. There’s a plate of cinnamon rugelach between them.
Papa’s eyes go wide, while Thomas swallows in a choking sort of way, then says, “Whoa. Your hair.” I can’t tell from his tone if it’s good or bad.
I reach up and prod it. “Scale of one to eleventy million, how awful?”
Thomas shakes his head, his own tousled hair bouncing. “Nah, you look awesome. It’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.”
We stare at each other for a moment, something unspoken passing between us.
Then Ned whispers in Papa’s ear, and he harrumphs, muttering in German. I think I catch the word Büstenhalter. Bra.
I fold my arms across my chest, and Thomas leaps up, launching himself round the kitchen, putting a rugelach on a plate for me, flipping the kettle on, bat-grabbing and babbling a mile a minute about Ned’s croquembouche commission.
I eat the pastry, licking sticky sugar from my fingers, and let myself laugh at Thomas’s antics. Ignore the way Ned’s scowling at us both.
After nearly a year of mourning, I feel like the Victorians when Edison came along—all those years in the darkness, and then electric light.
I’ve got the earth between my toes.
*
On Sunday, I dodge Ned’s weird policeman act and walk inland out of Holksea, along the canal to Sof’s. It’s a scalding day, and she’s already sunbathing when I get to the boat, barely visible through the jungle of pot plants her mum keeps on the deck.
I stand on the towpath for a couple of seconds, watching as Mrs. Petrakis goes from watering the plants to sprinkling Sof, who shrieks with laughter. Grey used to do that to us in the garden. Did he do that to my mum? Would she have done it for me? The thought is a wormhole yank to my heart.
“Sof!” I bellow, to stop thinking about it.
She sits up, peering over the ferns, and her mouth forms a perfectly lipsticked, perfectly gobsmacked O.
As in, oh, my hair. I’d forgotten about the makeover.
While Sof stares at me, I clamber on, rocking the boat—my movement makes all the leaves sway, even though there’s no breeze. Sof shakes her head, maybe in disbelief.
“Hi, Mrs. Petrakis.” I wave, awkwardly.
“Hello, stranger.” Her mum’s smile is warm, sending lines radiating out from her eyes. She puts the watering can down. “Darling, I’d give you a hug, but my hands are covered in compost. It’s only been four days since all the rain, but everything’s totally dried out. I expect your garden’s much the same?”
She and Grey used to bond over mulch and leaf mold and compost, oh my. Her ideas are all throughout the diaries. It’s how Sof and I first became friends. Sof, who still hasn’t spoken.
“It’s okay,” I fib. Has Sof told her how neglected the garden has become? I should invite her round to say hello to the plants. Ask her what we need to do to restore the garden to its former glory.
“Let me get you a drink—coconut water?” Mrs. Petrakis smiles again, turning away and taking off her gardening gloves. She touches the back of her hand to Sof’s shoulder. “Don’t forget sunscreen.”
Sof follows her inside to get it, and I try not to hate her for having a mum who remembers about sunscreen.
“Wow,” Sof finally says when she returns, carrying bottles of water and a bag of dried apple slices.
“You think it was a mistake?”
“No, no…” Sof looks like she thinks it was a mistake. Her own hair is done up in giant Princess Leia buns as she stares at mine. “Turn around, let me get a better look at it.”
I do a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin, then sit down on the towel next to hers, sweating from the small exertion.