Valley of the Moon (9 page)

“She’s your stepsister?”

Oh crap.

I scrambled to explain. “No, no. My former stepsister. Seems like you’re getting a lot of your facts wrong, Cressida! Anyway, we have plans. They involve a trip to Hawaii tomorrow. So, bye!”

I started the engine and stared grimly out the windshield. I wanted to speed off to the nearest windy road with no guardrail.

“Hm, sounds like you two have a lot to talk about. Have fun!” Cressida sauntered off.

Caleb tried the driver’s door but I’d locked it. He stomped around to the passenger side and hurled his duffel bag into the back seat. He got in and slammed the door.

Briar girls streamed past us on their way to their late-model cars and late-model homes stocked with gluten-free products and helicopter parents and perfectly planned spring break vacations. I was pretty sure their lives didn’t include shady Russian businessmen and teetering small businesses and creepy cemeteries and cruel stepfamilies and bottomless loneliness and parents who killed themselves.

I hated them all in that moment. I hated myself the most for being so jealous. Of all the other girls in Sonoma, he had to date Cressida Crawford.

I hated my life.

I didn’t look at him.

I just floored it.

***

I sped up the highway to Glen Ellen.

Caleb gripped the dashboard, his knuckles white. We hit some traffic and I slammed on the brakes.

“Hey! Take it easy!” I had a death grip on the steering wheel to stop my hands from shaking.
It’s not like he cheated on you. Whatever happened must have been way before he met you. You have no right to be mad at him.

But that was logical thinking. What I was really thinking was how could anyone I liked possibly like her?

Cressida did offer Caleb one thing I didn’t. Hadn’t yet, at least.
Don’t think about them together. In bed. Don’t think about that!

A convertible Mercedes passed us with a good-looking young couple inside. The girl had her feet up on the dashboard. Tanned legs, French manicure, gold sandals. The guy rubbed her knee and she giggled as they zoomed away.

“So. Cressida Crawford used to be your stepsister.” He said it warily, as if I was a bomb that might explode if he said it too loud.

“Right.”

“The one you always talk about.”

“I do not always talk about her!” I knew I was being unfair. He didn’t do anything wrong. Other than have really bad taste in girls. Could I stay mad at him?

Yes, I could.

“It’s pretty funny,” I said. “We share an ex. My ex-stepsister is your ex-girlfriend.”

He pounded his fist on the dashboard and I jumped. “She was never my girlfriend, okay? Are you going to let this ruin our trip?” But it was too late. My anger had already formed a laser-guided missile aimed straight at his head.

“As
if
I’m still going with you!” He reached out and touched my arm.

“What exactly did I do wrong?” I jerked away from him and almost steered into another car.

“If she wasn’t your girlfriend, what was she?”

He looked out his window. The hot afternoon sun was turning the grassy hills on either side of the highway into shimmering gold waves. Behind my sunglasses I could feel the burn of tears. I was in gorgeous Sonoma with a gorgeous boy, but I was in hell.

He took a deep breath. “I met her at ski camp in Whistler, during Ski Week, two years ago. I was a junior. She was a sophomore.” Right after I moved out of the Crawford’s house.

“Continue,” I ordered.

“There were like thirty kids from all over and we were bunking in one big ski chalet. Every night was a big party. I mean, we had zero supervision. The counselors were college kids, so they partied with us.”

“Sounds awesome.”

“One night some guys brought in a case of Jack Daniels. I ended up—well, let’s just say I don’t remember a lot of it.”

“But—why
her
? There must have been other girls there.” He looked out the window and drummed his fingers on the armrest.

“There were. I hooked up with a couple of them.” He shrugged as I shot him a disgusted look. “It was ski camp, Lana.” Caleb smiled apologetically. “And I was seventeen. I had trouble turning girls down. Hey, it’s my only flaw.” He smiled sheepishly at me.

I tried not to yell. I wanted him to keep talking. For some sick reason I had to know everything.

“Did you guys hook up more than once?” We were almost at my house. The Mustang careened up the hill.

He paused. He pulled a water bottle out of his bag and took a swig.

“Ugh, how could you Caleb!?” Seriously. How could he?

“I don’t know. She’s kind of relentless, as I’m sure you know. I remember not being able to shake her, all day skiing, and that whole night. When she decided she liked me, the other girls decided to ignore me.”

“That’s so her.”

Caleb was silent for a minute. “I’m sorry you found out this way. I would have told you earlier if I had known who your stepsister was. If you had told me! But you never did.”

I pulled into my driveway too fast and gravel sprayed the trees. I turned the engine off and took a few deep breaths. Caleb unbuckled his seat belt and scooted over to me, but I refused to look at him.

“She said you dated for a while. How long was it?” I asked. He put his hand on my leg. Despite my anger, the butterflies in my stomach fluttered to life.

“I don’t want to talk about her anymore,” he said quietly. “Do you?”

“So you guys didn’t…sleep together?” The words were out before I could stop them.

“Oh God, Lana.” His cheeks flushed pink. “I don’t ask about your past boyfriends.”

“Lucky for you, I don’t have any.”

“Look at me. Please.” He gently removed my sunglasses and put his hand on my chin, forcing me to look at him. “I never slept with her. Please don’t let this ruin our trip.” I shrugged and wiped my tears on the back of my hand. “We’re going to be in Hawaii in 24 hours. I
order
you to start having fun with me.”

I pictured my spring break moping in bed while Caleb modeled Speedos on the beach.

His dark blue eyes twinkled in the sun. “I’m really sorry you’re upset. Will you let me kiss it better?” His voice got husky. He had me. How could I resist?

He proceeded to make me forget the hellish last half hour. All I knew was the feeling of his warm lips on mine.

“Better now?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“We better go say hi to your dad or who knows what will happen in here.”

***

We were just finishing dinner when I heard my phone ping in my bag. And ping. And ping.

My dad shook his head. “You kids and your texting.”

“I’ve seen you text before, dad,” I retorted.

“Just to you, honey. And each one costs me twenty cents.”

Caleb laughed. “Mr. Goodwin, I promise I won’t tell anyone you don’t have an unlimited texting plan.”

“Unlimited texting? No wonder teenagers can’t read.”

Caleb cocked an eyebrow. “I, sir, am an excellent reader.” I checked the texts on my phone.

It’s Eden. My flight is at ten. What time are you coming? XOXOXO

It’s Eden. I am soooo excited. My mom and Cress left already.

It’s Eden. I love u so much Lana!

I texted back:

I’ll be there at 7:30. Love you too.

Caleb was scarfing down the flourless chocolate cake I made the night before. It was my dad’s favorite.

“Hey, Caleb? Is it okay with you if we don’t go out tonight? I’m pretty burned out.” He swallowed a huge mouthful of cake and grinned a chocolaty smile.

“Are you kidding? I was in the car for like nine hours today. I’m pooped.”

We both looked at my dad. He knew what I was about to ask. He sighed and shook his head. “Take the couch in the den, Caleb.”

“I’ll get it ready,” I said, jumping up. I hoped he wouldn’t mind using my old princess sleeping bag.

***

Before bed, I washed my face and packed my toiletries. Caleb’s fancy leather dopp kit was sitting open on the wicker shelf behind the toilet. When I reached across it for my hair dryer, I brushed against it and knocked it over. It fell to the floor and landed face down.

I knelt down and flipped it over. A square orange foil packet was sticking out of it. I lifted it out and a long strip of orange packets unfolded. I read the labels in disbelief. Lubricated. Ribbed. I counted twelve. My stomach did somersaults. I remembered what Bernadette said about garlic.

I quickly stuffed the packets back into his bag, zipped it shut, and put it back on the shelf.

I shut off the lights and crept out of the bathroom as quietly as I could. I peeked into the small den at the back of the house. Caleb was dead asleep on the couch, his body half in and half out of my ratty old sleeping bag. He was wearing a t-shirt and boxers and his muscular legs were on full display.

I tiptoed to my room, crawled into bed, and curled up on my side. I thought about his kisses, his hands on my body. Apparently he thought we were definitely going to be cavorting in Hawaii. Did he love me? Did it matter? I barely knew him, actually. Was I going to let IT happen just because we were in a fancy resort together? What if we got home and I didn’t hear from him for weeks? Or, ever? He’d never called me his girlfriend.
He’s taking you to Hawaii. Do you need more proof?

All I knew was, I was not equipped to handle more heartbreak. But I also wasn’t sure I’d be able to resist him.

For the millionth time in my life I prayed to my mother for guidance.

Just like always, the only answer I got was silence.

The car smelled like vacation.
I’d slathered my body in my new coconut-scented sunscreen. When we were halfway down the hill, I asked Caleb if he would mind giving Eden a ride to the airport. “Eden Crawford?” He fidgeted in the driver’s seat of my Golf. He argued that we’d be late, that his parents were expecting us on time, but I insisted. Eden needed me. He finally just shrugged and put on his sunglasses.

“Did you ever meet Eden?”

“Um, no. But I heard her name.”

I didn’t tell him it was a kidnapping.

He steered my Golf up the road on the east side of the valley. I hadn’t been to the Crawford Estate since that last awful night, but I still knew the way.

As we approached Castillo Lane, Caleb put on his turn signal and slowed down.

“How’d you know this is her street?” Cold realization washed over me. “Oh.” He squeezed his eyes shut and cursed softly to himself. The black feelings I had the day before seeped through me. I couldn’t even look at him. The sweet smell of coconuts in the car only made it worse.

He made the turn onto the Crawford’s street. I didn’t bother telling him which house it was. He drove up and pulled over a few yards down from the wrought iron gate in front of the driveway.

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Lana, let me explain.”

“Save it,” I snapped. I texted Eden, fighting back tears.
How many times had he been there? How many times had they…?

Eden materialized behind the gate. She punched a code into the keypad and it rolled open, springing her from that mansion-sized prison.

She came loping down the street dragging a pink suitcase and wearing her pink backpack. She carried a bed pillow. When she saw us, she broke into a gallop. I helped her stuff her luggage into the back seat and she clambered in next to it.

“Hey, Eden, this is my…this is Caleb.” He didn’t turn around. He didn’t even nod.

He made a U-turn and headed back to the main road.

I stared out the window as we drove by lush vineyards and spectacular estates. She filled me in on the names of her new fish and all the activities her dad and Alicia were planning: shopping, the beach, Disneyland, front-row seats at Staples Center where some teenage boy band was playing.

When we got to Sausalito, Eden took a break from her soliloquy on the YouTube channels she subscribed to and leaned towards me.

“Where are you guys going again?”

“Maui.”

“Cool! What hotel?”

“The Four Seasons,” Caleb answered.

“Oh!” She stared at his reflection in the rearview mirror. I watched her examine him. “Is your last name Weaver?”

He nodded.

“Oh yeah! You babysat me once with Cressy when my mom was in New York!” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Wait. Are you Lana’s boyfriend now? Wait. Okay.”

I jammed my window button down and held it down. Hurricane-force winds whipped through the car. The boarding passes sticking out of his jacket pocket fluttered violently. “Please close the window,” he muttered.

I left it open.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” Eden said, clawing through her backpack. “I found this in my room last night. First I thought it was Cressida’s, but then I remembered you used to wear it.”

She held her hand out. A silver charm bracelet dangled from her fingers.

“Yeah, wow. I thought I lost it in the move.” I held out my palm, and she dropped the bracelet into it.

The silver links pooled in my hand. I knew these charms so well. I couldn’t remember who had given it to me, only that I’d always had it. The dog, the ballet shoe, the key, the ice skate, the crescent moon. “Thank you, Eden.”

“It’s so weird, because when I was done packing, I pulled my suitcase off my bed and the bracelet was just right there! I have no idea how it got there. You used to wear it all the time. Remember?”

My fist closed around the bracelet. I stuffed my hands into my jacket pockets.

“I remember.”

We hit some traffic getting onto the bridge. The Bridge. I squeezed my eyes shut. I hated driving on it.

It was like returning to the scene of a murder.

***

We dropped Eden off inside the Virgin America terminal.

“Don’t worry,” she told me. “If my mom finds out about this, I’ll tell her I took a cab. Bye, Lana. I love you!”

“I love you too, Eden.” I pulled her into a hug and ruffled her hair. “Have a great time, okay?” I watched her until she disappeared at the top of the escalator, and Caleb and I headed over to the United terminal to meet his parents. As soon as we were through the sliding glass doors and on the curb outside, I snatched one of the boarding passes out of his pocket.

“Lana, what are you doing?!” I crumpled it up and threw it at him. “Are you nuts?”

“I can’t do this. Have a nice trip.” I turned away from him, but he grabbed my arm. Travelers streamed into the terminal around us.

“Calm down!”

“Let go of me!”

“Why? Because I went to a girl’s house? Before I knew you existed?”

“No.” Well, sort of. “Because you lied to me. You made it seem like it was a one-time thing. And it wasn’t, was it?”

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

“So are you mad I lied, or jealous I dated your stepsister before you?”

Hot tears ran down my cheeks.

“Both.”

“Jesus, Lana! I only did that because I didn’t want to hurt you—it’s pretty obvious you hate each other.”

I couldn’t erase the vision in my head of the two of them…together. He grabbed my elbow and led me to a metal bench outside the terminal.

“I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “I don’t get it. If you liked her, how can you like me?”

He sighed. “I didn’t make the best life choices that year. I used to get high. A lot. With Cressida. She was pretty wild; her mother has
no
idea.”

Cressida did drugs? She hid it from me. Or I just avoided her so much I never knew. I didn’t even set foot in her room for over a year.

“Sounds like you guys had a lot in common.” I wanted to smack his face. Instead, I put my head down in my lap and sobbed. His arm hugged my shoulders and I shrugged it off.

“Her mom gave her way too much money. She had access to—well, a lot of stuff. Things just sort of happened between us. When my parents found out, they made me go to rehab for six weeks over the summer. And I wasn’t allowed to have any contact with her after that.” He wiped the tears from my cheeks with his sleeve. “Which was a huge relief.”

“So can we make up please?” Those eyes—I melted a little. His phone vibrated in his pocket. “That must be my mom.” He dug it out and looked at it. His face blanched. He started shoving the phone back into his pocket, but I grabbed it out of his hand.

“Hey, wait! Lana, no!” He tried to wrestle it away from me, but I jumped off the bench and ducked away. I had just enough time to see his screen.

Someone had texted him a photo. In it, Cressida was draped across his lap, wearing a tiny white bikini. They were on a tropical beach. The text said: “Enjoy Hawaii! Xo, C”

Something cold was winding around my throat, squeezing it shut. I tossed the phone back to him.

“I’m sorry,” I managed to say. “Please tell your parents I am so sorry, Caleb, but I just can’t.” I picked up my bag and ran, as fast as I could, back to the parking structure.

He yelled after me, but I didn’t look back. I ran to the nearest crosswalk and darted across it. At the elevator in the parking structure, the doors opened and an older, attractive couple emerged, followed by a boy wearing earbuds. They all pulled small suitcases behind them. The woman was blonde, smiling, dressed in white. She was talking to them. “—and he said they were going to meet us inside, so Max, sweetie, keep an eye out. Max?” She pulled one of his earbuds out.

“Okay, Mom. I heard you.” She tousled his hair and kissed him on his cheek. They walked by me, oblivious. I got into the elevator and pressed the grimy button.

It smelled like coconut lotion.

***

I hiked up the hillside in the cool shade cast by the giant oaks. It was still sunny, but hazy clouds drifted over the western edge of the valley. The stone steps, carpeted with moss and dead leaves, absorbed the sound of my footsteps. The air was still and heavy. Fresh bouquets rested on some of the graves, but there was no one else at the cemetery.

When I got to the Abbott plot, I smelled burning cloves. A thin curl of smoke wafted skyward from a spot in front of my grandpa Bart’s grave. It was the butt of a thin, brown cigarette. I squashed it with my shoe. There was a crumpled piece of yellow paper in the dirt next to it. I picked it up and smoothed it out.

A Post-it note; someone had scribbled TANITH FREMONT on it.

Was someone looking for her grave? But if they know she’s dead, why are they sending her mail?

I tucked the note into my jeans pocket and collapsed onto my usual spot. The lavender roses from Christmas were gone, except for a few dried remnants at the base of her headstone. I reread the passage from Song of Solomon carved on Bart and Caroline’s joint headstone. The marble slab was at least four feet across. 

My dove in the clefts of the rock,

in the hiding places on the mountainside,


show me your face, 
let me hear your voice;


for your voice is sweet,
 and your face is lovely.

Sitting on the cool ground next to my mother’s smaller headstone, I whispered those words, breaking the stillness. She must have read them when she visited them. Maybe she’d sat on this exact patch of dirt. Maybe she’d memorized the lines, trying to hold onto some memory of her mother, before they sent her away.

My mother died young. Her mother died young. Was it a family trend I was doomed to continue?

And then I wept, not from heartbreak, but loneliness. The hateful loneliness that clung to me like a shadow.

Afternoon sun slanted through the trees and warmed my face. I lay down and closed my eyes. A peculiar calm washed over me. The Earth under me was the beating heart of my mother. As long as I was close to it, I might keep breathing.

***

I woke with a start. Light from an almost-full moon illuminated the hillside. Dozens of headstones glowed pale in the light. I’d never realized just how many dead bodies were laid to rest at the cemetery—and how totally unnerving it was at night. I’d read the stories in the newspaper about the “sightings” in Mountain Cemetery. But I’d been there enough times to be pretty sure it wasn’t haunted.

Pretty sure.

I jumped up, brushed the dirt off my clothes, and rushed down the twisting path to the road.
You could have spent the whole afternoon on warm sand with Caleb. But no—you chose a nap in a graveyard.

My shaky legs slipped hard on a stone step, and my arms shot out to break my fall.

Something fell out of my hand. I stopped on the steps and picked it up.

It was a sprig of wildflowers. Did it come from one of the bouquets left on the other graves?
The wind must have blown it into your hand while you were asleep.

There was a sharp crack in the trees above. The night air shimmered in the moonlight. I shivered and ran to my car.

There had been no wind that day. None at all.

***

I pushed past my bewildered dad and ran to my room, dragging my suitcase with me, and locked the door. I shoved my luggage into the closet without bothering to unpack. All those new clothes. What a waste.

I sat on my bed and closed my eyes.

The doorknob rattled. “Lana! What the hell happened? Do I need to call the police?”

“I’m fine, Dad. I had a fight with Caleb and I changed my mind about the trip. I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”

“Honey, are you okay? Can you let me in please?”

“Don’t want to talk about it. I’m going to sleep.” There was silence outside my door. When I heard his footsteps leaving, I let out a deep breath and collapsed back on my bed. I climbed down into the dark places, deep inside, and let myself feel her. Her warm hands on my face. The way she’d comb my hair out with her fingers after I took a bath. Showing me how to prune her prize rose bushes, guiding my arms so the thorns didn’t snag my skin. The deep throaty laugh when my dad told a good joke. Teaching me my basic ballet positions so I would impress my teacher before my first class.

I opened my eyes and looked up. There was the moon in my window, luminous against the fathomless sky. White squares of moonlight printed themselves across my bedroom floor. Once my dad pointed out the dark blotch on the right side of the moon. “That’s the Sea of Tranquility, Lana. Where the astronauts landed.”
Did they see her there? Dancing on the shores of the sea?