Reid: Last chance to come to my premiere. I’m not going to beg.
Me: :(
Reid: Okay fine I’m begging. John thinks he’s second in line, and it would be so wrong to make that true.
Me: What about your mom?
Reid: Hmm. I don’t know that she’d want to go.
Me: I would if I were her!
Reid: Then why don’t you want to go if you were you?
Me: I told you, I would love to go, but I don’t want to miss class. Stop being a bad influence.
Reid: NEVER.
Me: *sigh*
Reid: I’ll think about asking her. Calling you later. Be there.
Me: Don’t tell me what to do, Mr Alexander.
Reid: Cut, cut, cut! You’re supposed to say ‘make me!’.
Me: I forgot my lines. Sorry.
Reid: You’re forgiven. Vixen.
Me: Hahaha – no! You are so sexist.
Reid: That sounds naughty when you say it.
Me: You’re impossible.
Reid: Oh, trust me. I’m SO possible. Please consent to answer my telephone call later this evening and I shall show you, Miss Cantrell.
Me: That’s better.
‘So where are you tonight?’ I keep my voice low, despite the fact that Shayma’s got her headphones in place and wouldn’t hear a word I say if I was conducting this call in song.
‘New York. We have Good Morning America tomorrow.’
I glance at the time, which is approaching 10:00 p.m. ‘Isn’t it getting late there?’
‘Yeah, I’m three hours ahead of you right now.’
‘What time is your interview?’
‘Not sure what time they’ll do the interview – but we head for the studio in about four hours.’
‘Four hours – don’t you need your beauty sleep?’
‘Do I? Hold on – I’ve got another call –’ There’s a pause while he checks the display. ‘Never mind. That can go to voicemail.’
‘It’s not your mom, is it?’
‘No,’ he laughs. ‘Looking out for my mom now, Dori? God, you’re cute. It’s just Brooke.’ He clears his throat. ‘No big deal. I can talk to her tomorrow – or whenever.’
‘Brooke … Cameron? Why is she calling you? Wait. Scratch that. It sounds like something a jealous girlfriend would say.’
‘Jealous? Rawr. I like the sound of that,’ he encourages, and I wish he wouldn’t. ‘So, classes begin tomorrow? What’s up first?’
Outwardly, I launch into a loose explanation of my schedule: intro courses in statistics, psychology, sociology and cultural anthropology. I tested out of a number of required prereqs. Advanced English took care of reading and comprehension, and my four years of Spanish – in addition to the fact that I used it nearly daily during community service projects – dispatched my foreign language requirement. I’m not as behind as I feared I would be, starting a semester late.
Internally, I’m wondering why Reid is getting late-night calls from Brooke Cameron, who is exactly the sort of girl I’d have imagined him with months ago, when he showed up – condescending, obnoxious and oh-so beautiful – on my Habitat project. The fact that they used to date, and I dare not even think about what else, just makes it more difficult to ignore the fear.
What competition would you be, if a girl like that decides she wants him?
‘I miss you,’ he says then, and I mash my insecurity into a corner.
‘I miss you too.’
10
RIVER
I don’t remember Mama’s face. I remember parts of it, but not all of it together. Sometimes I dream about her and I know I can see her in the dream, but when I wake up I can’t remember. Even if I squeeze my eyes closed really tight and try.
I don’t remember Daddy at all.
Harry told me I didn’t even have a daddy and that I am a bastard. He told me that a lot of times. I don’t know what bastard means, but I know it’s bad because Wendy’s eyes got big when Sean grabbed my shirt and called me that.
Now he has to do a time-out.
I feel bad because I took Sean’s Fruit Roll-Up and hid it in my pyjama drawer. I don’t know how he knows I took it, but he does. He tells Wendy, ‘But he stole my cherry Roll-Up!’
She shakes her head. ‘Then you come talk to me. You know that word is on the Never List, and furthermore you can’t go all vigilante justice in this house.’
‘Huh?’ he says.
She shakes her head again and sighs like she’s tired, and then she takes his arm and puts him on a kitchen chair. She sets the timer for six minutes because Sean is six so that’s how many time-out minutes he gets. His face is as red as that cherry Roll-Up and his eyes are angry and looking at me.
‘River. Come with me,’ Wendy says, and I follow her to the bedroom. When we get there, she stands in the middle of the floor and opens her hand. I go to the drawer and get Sean’s Roll-Up and give it to her. It still has the wrapper on. I’m glad I didn’t eat it.
She slips the Roll-Up into her shirt pocket and takes my hand. We sit on my bed.
Her mouth makes a straight line, like she’s holding her words in. You don’t have to press your lips together to hold words in, though. I opened my mouth wide one time to see if the words I was thinking would fall out, but they wouldn’t. If words don’t want to come out, they don’t. I don’t understand when people say things and then they say, I didn’t mean to say that. Words don’t just fall out. You have to push them out. And sometimes, you can’t push them out, even if you want to.
I count to nine in my head before Wendy says, ‘River, you can’t take other people’s things. It’s bad enough when you hide your own food, but you can’t take other people’s food and hide it too. Do you understand?’