From Where I Watch You (2 page)

A dish shatters in the kitchen. I flinch. Noelle raises an eyebrow at me. I reach for the postcard in my backpack so she won’t hassle me about why I’m jumpy. When I grab it I can’t help but see the blue-gray envelope wedged between the pages of my math book. That will have to wait. I haven’t told Noelle about the notes I’m getting. I haven’t told anyone about them. About him.

“What’s this?” Noelle asks, grabbing the card from me. Her eyes narrow, zooming in on the Snowflake Sugar logo.

“Uh, it’s a baking contest in San Francisco that Mr. King wants me to enter.”

She reads it and sighs. “Snowflake Sugar Cookie Bake-Off. Wow.”

“Shut up,” I whisper. “I don’t want my mom to know, okay? And yeah, wow, the prize is a full scholarship to La Patisserie Pastry School—far away from here.”

After I graduate from La Patisserie I’ll go live in France and take more pastry classes and eat lots of cheese and baguettes. And I’ll force myself to drink wine, which I don’t like. I’ll make myself like it because I won’t want to stick out as the dumb American who doesn’t like wine. Then I’ll open my own bakery somewhere on the California coast. Or maybe on the East Coast. Or maybe I’ll love France and I’ll stay there and find a guy to teach me French and other things.

Mom keeps telling me La Patisserie is out of the question because it’s out of state. Yeah, like that will stop me. My whole future lies in winning this contest. If I don’t, I’ll be stuck here forever with Mom and bad memories.

Noelle sighs. “Uh, hey, Genius? You’ll need a plane ticket to get there and that requires actual money, which you don’t have. So how can you get there without telling your mom? Unless you’re planning on asking Officer Frank?”

The ceramic mug warms my fingers. I ignore her reference to my father. “I’m going to start working at Crockett’s.” I stare into the mug at the latte foam, swirled into a perfect brown creamy spiral. “The guy called me yesterday and said I got the job. I’ll earn enough money.” I look across the table. “And seriously, don’t tell anyone. I don’t want your mom telling mine.”

Noelle’s cell chimes. She looks at it and laughs before texting something back, probably to her boyfriend, Mason.

“What’s so funny?” I ask her.

“Sorry, your eyes are just too young for this.” She sets the cell on the table and raises her eyebrows. “Hey, Mason’s parents are going to Vegas for the weekend.”

“Is he having a party?”

She cracks her knuckles. That sound always makes me sick. “Nope. Well, just with me . . .” Her eyes drift from mine. They fix on a spot behind me and her face lights up. “Hey!”

“Ladies.” Mason, Noelle’s boyfriend of two years, the guy who wears black eyeliner, slides in next to her.

“Hey.” I sip my latte.

They kiss and I become wallpaper.

Noelle hasn’t always been my friend. She moved up here from California in sixth grade, and for some reason being from California gave her instant fame, even though she was a bitch to everyone, including me.

But once we started high school, she talked to me when my best friends Jen Creighton and Gaby Navarro stopped. Something happened during that summer between middle school and high school. Horrible secrets have a funny way of erasing friends from your life.

Mason is texting and Noelle has her head on his shoulder. They both laugh and I assume they’re making fun of me because of the looks I’m getting. I hate that Mason’s black eyeliner looks really good. His skin is the color of Dove soap. But it is weird when Noelle drags us into Sephora and I catch Mason checking out the products.

He sets his phone down. “McKinley, what’s up? You look almost happy.” He smiles and rests his elbows on the table.

“Aww.” Noelle grabs Mason’s arm and pulls him into her. “Our girl’s growing up, honey. She’s going to fly herself off to a big baking contest in Frisco and make all her dreams come true!”

Mason smiles. “Hey, that’s awesome. Is it like a contest-contest, like on uh . . . you know, like Iron Chef or some shit like that?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Something like that, except not on TV.” God, I hope it’s not on TV. I flick my eyes to Noelle. Her face oozes condescension. Her eyes are wide, blinking at me and nodding like she’s fixated on every word I say.

Then she’s back to texting. I scoot out of the booth, grabbing my bag. “I gotta get to work. Call me later, ’kay?”

“Like ‘frosting cookies’ work?”

Taking a deep breath, I turn without a reply because when Mason is around, Noelle’s even snarkier than usual. I hear them giggling. But I still have to smile. They are all I have.

Fourteen-Year-Old Carrot

I stop. Jen stares at me from the end of my bank of lockers. It’s the first day of our freshman year. The last time we were in school together, she was one of my best friends. Jen gives me a half-smile, looking like she wants to say something.

It’s September and I haven’t talked to her since June. Not since the end of eighth grade.

Her expression is like an open door for me, and I remember all the times, all summer when she called or came over and I ignored her because I just couldn’t talk about it. Gaby called once, and then gave up on being my friend. But not Jen—she kept it up all the way through August.

Closing my locker, I walk toward her.

I’m ready to tell her my secret.

I’m finally going to tell her what happened way back in June—after I left her and Gaby at the pool.

But I’m not ready to tell Gaby. I just can’t. She’d say it was my fault. But Jen will understand. She always does.

Then Gaby comes from around the corner and stops before I can say anything. Her eyes flick from me to Jen and she leans over to whisper in Jen’s ear, her eyes resting on me. Jen nods and lets Gaby pull her away.

So I eat lunch alone.

Alone on my first day of high school.

Alone with my secret.

My sister Kellen is the only person who knows. Now she’s a freshman, too, a college freshman—far away, across the mountains at Washington State University and I don’t talk to her anymore.

She only has a month and a half left to live.

But I don’t know that, and neither does anyone else.

2.
First, pick cut-outs of drops.

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I open the old four-paneled door marked private and drop my backpack on the bottom step, deciding to take a walk instead of going upstairs to the tiny apartment I share with Mom.

We couldn’t stay in the house once my dad left. He wasted no time sticking around after Kellen died.

When I was little and hated dinner, I’d swipe bits of food into my napkin every time eyes were off me, so each time someone looked there was less food on the plate. I think of my dad and how he started leaving us in the same way, bit by bit.

Pieces of him fell away—or were swiped away—long before my sister died, with every shift change, every new case.

But I really noticed Dad’s departure when Kellen would talk about college, and he’d find a way to leave the room. As the time got closer, he went out on more calls.

Swipe.

And then he’d pick more fights with Mom and always leave the house. Where did he go?

Swipe.

Kellen went off to college, and I don’t think he or Mom even knew I’d entered high school. He started taking phone calls in the garage, and in the bathroom.

Swipe.

The chores Kellen used to do were left to me, including laundry. Hard not to notice that distinctly not-Mom smell on Dad’s shirts. Mom was allergic to all perfume.

Swipe.

By the time Kellen died, he was all but gone. A few pieces of him were left, but all of them were too sad to stay in a house of memories. Mom didn’t care. She was already lost inside herself, not seeing the last bit of him slip away. My dad couldn’t even stand the memories of being on this side of the state, so he moved three hundred miles east to Spokane and I have to spend summers with him. Until I turn eighteen.

I walk down to my favorite store because it always makes me happy. This is how I fool myself into pretending I don’t have another note, unread and burning a hole in my backpack.

Wind gusts up from Puget Sound, stinging my face. It delivers the aroma of the bagels and coffee and grilled meat. I pull up the hood on my jacket and tighten the drawstrings under my chin.

On Queen Anne Avenue—“the Ave”—I pass five people, each holding the leash of a big-ass dog in one hand and a latte in the other. The Hill is very coffee-addicted and very dog-friendly. I’m sure if all the coffee shops found a way to sell dog water, everyone on the Hill would buy it. All the shops set out water dishes for the dogs, year-round. The Moon Bar’s water dish is frozen and yellow, with two dead flies and a cigarette butt in it. They’re just putting on an act.

The pet shop where Noelle works has three dishes out front, all clean with fresh water. I slow down enough to peek through the window to look for Noelle, even though I know she’s with Mason in my mom’s café; it’s a reflex. It’s hard to see around the display of organic, vegan dog treats. I’m pretty sure dogs would rather eat meat.

On the next block, I pause at the display window of Hill Kitchen. It’s only November but cookie cutters dangle from a twinkly Christmas tree; sprinkle jars with bows on top sit underneath. This is my favorite store. I collect cookie cutters and sprinkles like other girls collect makeup or shoes. But this time I can’t have them. I have a plane ticket to save for.

Something catches the corner of my eye and when I turn, I see my former friend Jen. She stands a couple doors down, in front of Queen Anne Pizza, her backpack slung over one shoulder. She’s by herself, so the disgust I sometimes see on her face when she looks at me is only half there.

I’m used to odd looks from people; I’ve been putting up with it for almost two years. Because I’m her, the daughter of that crazy lady who used to be an ass-kicking lawyer and now sells sandwiches and Jesus soup on the Ave. I’m her, the sister of that dead girl, Kellen McKinley, who spent her time mouthing off to teachers, cutting class, and basically blazing a trail of shit and splattering it all over the faculty—making them hate any future McKinleys who might walk through the door.

Jen disappears into the pizza shop and I turn back toward the window. More people pass behind me, their reflections in the storefront window distracting enough to make me notice.

A boy wearing a Mariners ball cap stops to look at the Christmas tree. He meets my eyes in the reflection, holding them for a moment before he walks away. I think I’ve seen him at school with Noelle before.

I shiver and walk toward home. I’m freezing and I don’t like the way that boy looked at me.

And I have another note to read.

June: Thirteen-Year-Old Carrot’s
Summer Fun Before High School

Kellen sits on the bathroom counter, watching me.

Mom has finally started letting me use makeup. I begged her to let me buy some with my allowance so I could become a pro at putting it on over the summer. A week ago Mom took me to Bartell’s to pick out my own stuff. I’ve given up on waiting for her to show me how to put it on.

“You’re such a baby, Carrot. I was wearing makeup to school when I was eleven. You should’ve snuck it to school like I did. Mom never knew.”

Focused on not poking my eye out, I don’t say anything. She’s right. I’m thirteen. I’m wearing makeup and growing boobs and Kellen still calls me that dumb baby name.

On the day I was born, my sister learned two new things—one she hated right away and the other she learned to hate later. At the hospital, Grandma made her eat cooked carrots for the first time. A few hours after that, Kellen was introduced to me. She confused “carrots” and “Kara,” which Mom and Dad thought was so adorable that they never corrected her.

“Hey, dumbass, you’re supposed to put the eye shadow on first, then the mascara. And you stretch out your face. Like this.” Kellen opens her eyes and mouth wide. “So you don’t get mascara all over.”

I pretend to ignore her, but really I don’t because she’s showing me and I want to learn. But I’m sunburned and it hurts the top of my cheeks to stretch out my face.

Kellen pulls her legs up on the counter and sits cross-legged. She smells like aloe vera lotion. “Why do you wanna wear makeup anyway? Are you hot for someone? Hmm, Carrot?” She smiles wide and her eyes almost pop out as she reaches in front of me, almost making me stab my eye out with the mascara wand.

“Stop it,” I whisper.

“Speaking of hot for someone . . .” She grabs her makeup bag. “Almost forgot it!” She makes a big show of taking out her birth control pills.

I only know what they are because she’s told me at least a hundred times. She punches one through the foil, pops it in her mouth, and chases it with a swig from her Bud Light. She sets down the beer and smiles as she opens the pill case again. Then she snaps it shut, opening it, shutting it—in my face, practically clipping my sunburnt nose.

“You know, Carrot, you’re going to need a lot of makeup if you ever want the chance to use these.”