100 Days of Cake (32 page)

“Maybe,” I say.

Elle and I decide to drive over and check. Chris wants to come too, but with V not having her phone, we decide it's better if he stays here in case she comes back or tries to reach him here. We exchange numbers and agree to keep each other updated if either one of us finds something.

“Like, even if she doesn't want to talk to me,” he says, all sincere and sweet, “can you just let me know if she's okay?”

I don't know a lot about Chris Partridge other than that he was shocked that I could be Alex's Molly, he's a fan of FSU frat punch, and he's unlikely to use natural enzymes instead of chlorine in his swimming pool. It is, however, crystal clear how much he cares about my sister, so I decide he's a good guy.

On the drive to the old part of town, Elle and I hardly say anything; both too nervous, I think.

Several texts come in from Mom asking if we've found V and if she was at her boyfriend's.
Almost
, I shoot back, which makes no sense, but anything else will only panic her more.

When we get to Gram's, Elle and I pound on the door, but no one answers. Then we simply try the knob, and, of
course, it's unlocked. People in the old part of Coral Cove are forever leaving their doors unlocked. We let ourselves in, and Elle starts looking through the rooms at the front of the house, while I run to the three bedrooms in the back, where Mom grew up, and where V and Mom and I all stayed when we came back after my father died (I mean killed himself).

The little twin bed where I slept and listened to my grandma fight with my mom about my dad when they thought I was asleep.
He left you high and dry.

“V!” I call. But the room is empty, as is Gram's bedroom with its neatly made bed, and Mom's old room too.

There's this episode of
Golden Girls
where Sophia accidentally donates Blanche's leather bomber jacket, not knowing that there's a winning lottery ticket inside the pocket. Once the ladies realize their mistake, they spend the rest of the show running around the city looking for the coat and the ticket, until they finally trace it to a homeless shelter and decide the people there need the prize more than they do. That feels nothing at all like Elle and my running around now. This is sheer terror.

“She's not here.” Elle appears at my side. She doesn't even bother saying that she's sure my sister is fine. “What now?”

“Maybe we just drive around? Try the bus station? I don't know.”

Though we don't have any clear plan established, Elle
and I sprint full-speed back to the car and start driving
somewhere
. The urgency makes us feel more productive and less helpless.

“Remember at the FishTopia event, she mentioned someone named Nell or Nina?” Elle is saying. “Maybe Chris knows her?”

“Good idea,” I say, but I bet he's already tried her. “I'll shoot him a text.”

We're turning down Sunflower Street by our old house, when I notice a flash of something shiny in the backyard swing—my sister's hair.

“Stop the car!” I scream, and Elle slams on the brakes. “There.” I point to my sister sitting in the backyard swing a quarter of a football field away.

Elle pulls up to the curb, puts the Jeep in park.

“I'll go talk to her. Can you let Mom and Chris know?” I say, already unbuckled and halfway out the door.

Jogging through our old yard, I almost trip over an orange lawn sprinkler, and I'm struck by the sense that it doesn't belong here, that our sprinkler was silver. How weird to be back in this place that's no longer ours. I hope the nice family who bought it doesn't mind a few trespassers.

As I'm getting closer, I call out Veronica's name. She raises her head in acknowledgment but doesn't get off the swing.

“Hey,” she says flatly when I'm finally next to her.

“You ran away from home to our old home?” I ask. Since she doesn't scream or throw anything at me—doesn't really say anything—I hesitantly sit down next to her on the swing where she and I must have sat thousands of times before.

She still has a few flecks of flour around her eyebrows and in the front of her hair, and she's wearing the same tank dress she was yesterday, only it's all bunched up. For once she doesn't look as though she walked off the pages of
Seventeen
. She looks more like she's the pretty but rumpled female lead at the end of an action film, having survived multiple chases/explosions and possibly even being shoved in a car trunk. Her skin is really cold and sort of clammy when I touch it.

“Did you go to Gram's? Have you been here all night?” I ask. Of course the heat wave finally broke yesterday. It's probably in the seventies now, but last night it got pretty chilly. Can you get hypothermia in Florida during the summer?

Shrugging, she tells me she walked around the park and the old neighborhood for a while before coming here. “I don't think the new people are home.” She points to our old house. “I went up and looked in all the windows; they made it different.”

From the outside, I can see little changes. The new owners have painted it a slightly orange neutral, the bushes are trimmed, and they've planted these little flowers around
the side. Whoever has my old bedroom has hung up lacy pink curtains.

“Why didn't you tell anyone where you were? Everyone was worried, and Mom is freaking hysterical.”

“Really?” V sounds almost hopeful.

“Yeah. Elle and I have been running around all over town looking for you. You can't pull shit like that.”

“I'm sorry.” She looks at me, then down again. “Thanks.”

She just sounds so spacey and vague, I rub her cold arms. I'm really angry with her again. But not because she told Alex that I was sleeping with Dr. B., and not because she threw flour and insults at me in the kitchen. I'm angry because I was terrified that something might have happened to her.

“Mol,” V says. “You know I didn't mean it when I told you to kill yourself, right?”

I
did
think she meant it, and I was really mad and hurt, but now it all seems really long ago. “It's okay.”

“It was just pretty hard watching you sort of face-plant at life so much,” V continues, like I didn't already forgive her. “And Mom had me believing if I didn't keep you in my sights at all times, you were going to jump off the roof of the J&J factory. It was a lot, and then when you started giving me shit for dating some guy I wasn't even dating, when you hadn't even bothered to ask me about the guy I was dating for weeks, I kind of lost it.”

“I shouldn't have done that. I should have just listened to you,” I say. “And I'm sorry I called you a slut. Chris seems like a really nice guy.”

She nods. “And I shouldn't have told you all that stuff about Dad. I've wanted to tell you about it forever, and I kept telling Mom that we should, but you know, not like that.”

“Why do you even
know
all that stuff? Why did Mom tell you?”

“I don't think she meant to tell me. When you got all screwy, I found her going over the accident report one night. At first she wouldn't say anything, but once she started talking, she just kept going and going. It was like she couldn't keep it a secret any longer without going crazy or something. So she passed the crazy on to me.”

She seems so sad and out of it and cold.

“V, it's all good. Let's go home, okay?” I wrap my arm around her.

“Okay.” She gets off the swing, and we start toward Elle, who's leaning against the side of the Jeep trying not to look like she's watching everything.

“Molly?” V asks.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for coming to get me.”

“Well, let's see how thankful you are after Mom grounds you for the rest of your natural life.”

I
t's hot again.

So hot that Elle finally convinces me to go to the outdoor pool at the Y with her and Jimmy, even though I haven't been in a pool ADF.

The place is packed, but Gina and Tina from AP English are already set up at lounge chairs by the deep end, and they invite us to share.

Jimmy drops off his stuff and then charges forward and does a huge cannonball into the shallow end, soaking all the old ladies in bathing caps tiptoeing around waist deep. A million lifeguards blow their whistles.

Gina and Tina can't stop talking about starting school in a few weeks, and all the college visits they went on over the summer. Zoning out, I focus on how delicious the warm sun feels on my back. When I hear that they're talking about
the summer reading and
The Catcher in the Rye
, which I finished last night, I perk back up.

“I don't know why everyone loves it so much,” Tina is saying. “Holden is such a whiny little bitch.”

“I know, right?” adds Gina.

“Eh, he's okay,” I offer. “He's just depressed.”

During adult swim (I'm finally old enough to go in!) I get into one of the lap lanes and swim the length of the pool a few times. ADF I forgot the feel of the water under my palms. The way your lungs tighten when you need to breathe, how you can be hot and sweaty but cold and wet at the same time.

“Looking good out there, Byrne.” Elle hands me a towel when I get out. “You coming back to the Coral Cove Swordfish in the fall?”

“Not a chance.” It occurs to me that at some point between signing up for the team because Elle was doing it, and hysterically fleeing the starting block during the divisionals meet, swimming became something I didn't really enjoy. It was something I was doing because I was good at it, and Coach Hartley kept telling me how important I was to the team. I was never doing it for me. But I do decide to call Ms. Cromwell and ask if I can still get into the advanced art class.

When Elle drops me off, there's a package for me. Inside is the backpack I left at Dr. B.'s, and a typed note.

Molly—

Once again, let me tell you how very, very sorry I am for everything. Like I said, you did nothing wrong. I was the one who let things go too far. I was the adult, and you were my patient.

I called my old adviser from Penn the day after everything happened, and he helped convince me to go back to Philly for a bit and help him with his research, I think that it might be good for me to reconnect with my family and friends up north. I'm leaving at the end of the week.

Please don't let your experience with me prevent you from seeking treatment. I'm enclosing the information for Charlotte Frankel—the psychiatrist I told you about. She's more traditional than I am, but she's a good person, and I think that she'd be able to help you. Therapy is personal, though, so if she's not the right fit, please try to find someone else to work with.

You really are a great girl. And there are a lot of people who would be very, very sad if you just disappeared, including me.

—Glen

He also enclosed Dr. Frankel's card and the DVD of
Say Anything . . .
with a Post-it note stuck on the front.
In case you want to watch the ending.

So that's it, I guess. He's gone.

I remember the fluttery vagina butterflies I'd sometimes get when we made eye contact during a session. How soft his lips were during the good kiss.

Maybe it's the newness of this information, or maybe it's that it hasn't sunk in yet, but I actually don't burst into waterworks or fall through the floor. No, I just feel sort of numb.

I go downstairs and taste the day's cake.