Gemini (18 page)

And I would never have a chance to live a nice, normal life, but that wasn't what Hailey wanted anyway.

All this time I'd been holding on to the idea that the life we'd planned—or rather, the life our parents had planned for us, and that we'd accepted—was the best that either of us could hope for. But maybe that wasn't true for Hailey. Maybe it was true only for me.

Maybe she was right, and I really had failed to make room for her in my overcrowded, self-centered brain.

I glanced at Hailey, who sipped nonchalantly from an empty coffee cup, and then I looked back up at Alek, who was staring at Hailey with a pained expression. As weird as he was, he didn't seem like a psycho killer to me. And nobody had ever turned up any actual evidence of that, had they?

“What is she so mad about, anyway?” I asked him. “What did I miss?” Maybe if he would explain it to me, I could find some way to get it straightened out.

“Nothing!” said Hailey, with a menacing look at Alek.

He looked confused. “You were there,” he reminded me. “You don't know?”

“I . . . wasn't really listening. I was a little distracted.”

As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn't; it was like pulling those guys' voices right into the room with us.

Dad reappeared, with an empty plate for Alek and a steaming mug of coffee for himself.

“Hailey,” said Mom, “should we ask your friend to sit down?”

“I'm not really that hungry,” Alek said, looking at Hailey. “I just wanted to apologize. And to make sure that you being mad at me isn't going to stop you from applying to Golden Gate for this summer.”

The way Hailey scowled up at Alek through all that
dark eyeliner and mascara, she actually looked a lot scarier than he did. “Of course I'm still applying. What did you think, I was doing it for
you
or something?”

Dad set the plate down in front of Alek and lingered at the edge of the table, not too far from Alek, looking back and forth between him and Hailey.

“Well, good,” Alek said. “I guess that's it then. Except, um . . .” He took a deep breath, looking down at his hands, and then finally back up at Hailey. “Well, what about the dance? Are we still on for that, too?”

Hailey bugged her eyes out at him. “What, are you kidding me? No, we're not going to the dance, you fraudulent frog-faced Frodo!”

My dad, perhaps belatedly realizing that he ought to play the role of bouncer, took a step toward Alek.

“Honestly,” I said to Hailey, “what did the poor guy say to you last night?”

Alek backed slowly toward the door, his hands held up, palms out, as if to show that he had no weapon. Other than the hatchet in his head. “I didn't say anything.”

“It's not what he said,” Hailey confirmed.

Alek stopped and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“Put it away,” Hailey said.

“I just wanted to show your—”

“I said, put it away!”

He said, “She was mad because I—”

Hailey stood up abruptly, yanking me with her, and my leg slammed into the edge of the table. By the time we were four years old, we had learned not to do stuff like that.

“Hailey!” I snapped. “Seriously!” But I knew she could feel the impact, just as much as if my leg belonged to her.

“Alek,” she said, “get out of here, and don't you ever bring that up again. To either of us!”

“But you don't understand. It wasn't a wish! All those paintings I do, they're not—”

She pointed at the door. “OUT!”

Dad gestured toward the front door, making a sweeping motion with one arm, as if urging Alek in that direction; and finally Alek followed him to the door and walked out.

At 1:24 a.m. Clara nudged me awake. “Bathroom. Sorry.”

I groaned but clambered out of bed with her, groggy from the deep sleep I'd been in. We trod quietly down the carpeted hallway, leaving the lights off.

As we passed our parents' bedroom, we heard some muffled sounds. Couldn't tell what they were. Did not want to think about it.

But on the way back from the bathroom, the sounds were a little louder, and I realized what it was: Mom was crying.

Without discussing it, Clara and I paused in the hallway.

I heard Mom's voice through the door, too quiet and muffled for me to make out the words.

Then Dad. “They're going to be fine. They're only asking us to take them for the interview. That's not asking so much.”

Mom said something, but again I couldn't hear.

“Well,” Dad said, “would that be the end of the world?”

My heart rate accelerated. What could he mean? Was he talking about letting us go for the summer? For the whole six weeks?

I pressed my shoulder against Clara's in the dark. Reminded myself that it didn't matter what Dad said. Between Clara and Mom, there was no way a thing like that was going to happen.

“I know,” Dad said, his voice clear through their thin wooden door. “Of course. You were right about not separating them. You were probably right about that, and you were probably right about raising them here. But—”

“Probably?”
Mom demanded, her voice louder now.

I grabbed Clara's hand. I hadn't even known that it was Mom who had insisted on these things, these choices that they'd made for us. They always put up such a united front. But I should have known, should have been able to tell that the front they put up was always hers. He was always the one who went along.

“Probably,” Dad said evenly. “All those things I said back then, about the things they might miss out on, that's all still true. So it's hard to say. But even assuming that you were right—”

“I
was
right,” she said forcefully. “I
am
right. If it weren't for me, you'd have had them separated, even if it had left us with only one of them.”

This knocked the wind right out of me. And out of Clara, too. I could feel it.

“Maybe,” Dad said. “I don't know what I would have done. I needed time to think about it. I needed a few days to be sure. You convinced me, and you were right, and I've never looked back at that part. The part about living up here isn't quite as clear to me.”

“This is about you,” Mom said, a sharp edge entering her voice. “This is about what you gave up for them, isn't it? You'd like to think they would have done just as well in LA, so you could have had the career you planned.”

“No, Liza. No. Come on. We've talked about this. I don't regret any of that. I like Sutter. I like being able to focus on the actual teaching. Not every minute of it, obviously. But on balance it's turned out to be good for me, even though it's not what I originally thought I wanted. Anyway, you gave up a lot more than I did.”

“No,” she said. “As soon as we saw that ultrasound, I knew I would give up work. So moving up here didn't matter for me in that way. And I do like it here.”

“Me too,” he said. “And I know there have been a lot of advantages for the kids. But things change. They're nearly grown. It's up to them now.”

Yes. Yes. Please.

“But this is what we always planned,” Mom said, her voice rising in shrill desperation. “This is what we agreed on.”

“You and I agreed,” Dad said. “They didn't.”

“If they leave Bear Pass,” Mom said, “then we could leave too, if we wanted. Are you sure that's not what this is about?”

“I'm sure,” Dad said. “I'm not saying I wouldn't like to travel sometime, but we can do that even if they stay. I'm not looking to move or change jobs. Unless you are. I promise.”

Mom started crying again, or maybe had been crying all along.

Clara squeezed my hand. Pressed her shoulder against mine. But I knew she must have been feeling something very different from what I was. I wanted so badly for Dad to make Mom understand that she was wrong—wrong to limit us, wrong to think that she still knew what was best for us in every situation. But what did Clara want? To be held carefully, forever, in this cocoon?

“I know you're scared,” I could hear Dad say, through the door. “I get that. I do.”

“And you're not?” Mom demanded.

“Maybe I am. Yeah. Thinking where this could all lead. I'm just not sure that's a good reason to hold them back.”

“I've been scared for so many years,” Mom said, her voice raw. “Do you know how exhausting it is to be so worried about so many things, for so long? All the things that could happen to them. Even now.”

There was a long pause.
Did
he know? Did
I 
? No. I didn't know, couldn't know her fear, her need to protect us. What that felt like. I could only guess. And maybe Mom couldn't know what it felt like to be me, to feel like I was suffocating here and needed so badly to break away.

But wasn't it her job to try? Wasn't it?

And then my dad's voice came through, as clear as if there'd been no door between us at all. “Liza. I'm sorry. But I think you have to let them go.”

“I
have
to?
Have
to?”

A much shorter pause this time, and then, “Yeah. I think you do.”

•  •  •

When I was finally sure that Clara was asleep, I pulled out my phone and started looking through all the video clips that everyone had been sending at my request.

Art school wasn't going to happen. Leaving Bear Pass wasn't going to happen. But some kind of change. That had to happen, even if it happened right here, in place.

If I was going to apply to Sutter's film school, I had to send in a sample film by December 1. That gave me just less than a month, and all I had done was collect some material. I had some general thoughts and ideas but nothing coherent; basically, I had no idea where I was going with any of this.

Luckily, I already had around thirty clips to start
working with. I'd put out the call to a few friends, but the files were coming in from unexpected places too. Even people I no longer wanted to speak to, like Gavin and Josh.

I'd glanced at a few of these clips before, but I was always rushed, trying to hide them from Clara, and always with the sound off. Now I reached carefully for a pair of headphones and took my time, still lying on my side and barely moving so I wouldn't disturb her.

A new clip had just come in from Juanita a couple of hours before, with a message attached.

What are you doing with all this? Film project for that art school in SF?

I answered quickly.

No, for Sutter film school.

Since it was the middle of the night, I didn't expect any response to this until morning. But before I could even open the clip, I got her reply.

Good. Ironic if I stay in BP and you leave.

I rolled my eyes and replied.

You're not staying. What are you doing awake?

Same as you, I guess. Don't you think a house together sounds fun? Like Bridget was saying?

Of course I did. The truth was that these two ideas—trying out film school and living in an apartment with friends, instead of at home with our parents—had given me a surge of hope about the near future. Where these coming
years had looked so grim and suffocating, without any space to grow up and out of our old enclosures, now they were offering at least a taste of change. Enough to seem like a time when maybe, in some small way, a little bit of me could bloom.

And if part of me also felt just a smidgen of relief at the idea of staying, well, it didn't matter. Nobody even had to know.

I responded to Juanita.
Superfun. Wish you could be there. We will miss you when you're off at Harvard and we're partying at Sutter.

Ha-ha. Can't get rid of me so easily.

Shut up and go fill out your FAFSA.

Already done.

I stopped and thought. Could she really not scrape together the cash for even one or two college apps, without her parents interfering? I wasn't sure about the mechanics of how you paid, but I supposed you might need a credit card or a bank card so you could pay online. Maybe actual cash was beside the point. Though there must be some way you could use cash. Should I offer to pay? Ask Mom if we could loan Juanita the money?

I opened a browser and typed in
can't pay college application fees.

A minute later I sent Juanita a link to a website describing how you could get the fees waived if you couldn't afford them.

She responded after just a couple of minutes.

I don't qualify. Anyway, it's not the point. My parents could pay the fees if they really wanted to. They just don't want me getting my hopes up.

I nodded against my pillow, though she couldn't see me. I probably should have known that.

I know you don't believe me,
she wrote,
but I'm okay with this. It makes sense in the long run. Starting at a four-year college is money down the drain.

I closed my eyes. I had this weird claustrophobic feeling, like the three of us—Juanita, Clara, and me—were trapped in a tiny dark cave together and we were never going to get out.

But then I thought of the house. Living on our own with Juanita and Bridget. No Mom to take care of us or tell us what to do. Of course she would call every day and text us constantly and stop by without warning. But we still wouldn't be living at home, right under her wing.

I opened my eyes and felt like maybe I could see a little sliver of light just shimmering into view on the horizon.

Will it really work for us to live together?
I typed out, feeling half-sick with the selfishness of my hope—my weakness in letting Juanita give up on her own dreams and stay here with us.