Chapter Three
Mila
My mother greets me at the front door with, “There you are! I thought you said you’d get here by lunchtime. It got so late, I finally ate without you.”
“Sorry, Mom.” The words come easily, accustomed as I am to leading with an apology. “My flight was delayed. Didn’t you get my text?”
She frowns. “I must have missed it. Next time, call. I’m not looking at my cell phone constantly like your generation.”
Willing myself to have patience, I open my arms. “Hi. It’s good to see you.”
She lets me hug her, enclosing me in her long, slender arms without actually making me feel like I’m being embraced. The familiar scent of her Chanel perfume triggers the hollow feeling in my belly I experienced as a kid when I looked for affection from her.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“The same,” she says with a sigh. “The pain is just terrible. I—” Her eyes widen as she spies Beatrix’s carrier, which is resting on the cement stoop behind me. She points at it. “What is that?”
“It’s a travel carrier for my cat.”
“You brought a cat?”
“Yes. My cat, Beatrix. I’m going to be here for six weeks, Mom. I couldn’t leave her behind.”
Given her horrified expression, you’d think I was trying to enter her house with a rabid skunk I found on the side of the road. “You know I don’t like animals in my house, Mila.”
And you know how badly I wanted a pet all my life, I feel like saying. Instead, I take a breath. “I know, Mom. But she’s really sweet. She won’t bother you at all, I promise.”
She flattens herself against the door while I bring Beatrix inside, as if my cat might spring from the carrier and attack her. Then comes the first sneeze, which is entirely artificial, just like the dozens that follow. “Oh, dear. I must be allergic.”
“I’ll take her right to my room and come back down for the rest of my stuff,” I say, heading straight up the stairs.
Our house is a bungalow with a converted half-story loft that serves as my bedroom.
The ceiling up here is low, and two of the walls are steeply pitched about four feet up.
The only windows are on the two pentagon-shaped flat walls at each end.
When we moved in, my mother said the space was too suffocating for her and took one of the two small bedrooms downstairs.
I was eight at the time and couldn’t believe my luck—an entire floor all to myself!
Of course, there was no door at the top of the stairs, which left much to be desired as I got older and wanted more privacy.
But by that time, my mother was so busy with the dance studio that she wasn’t around all that much to intrude.
When she was, I got used to her knocking on the wall at the bottom of the stairs and yelling my name.
She rarely came all the way up, so it felt like my own little world.
I switch on the light and smile. My room, always a refuge for me, looks pretty much the same as when I left it ten summers ago.
Same floral quilt on my twin-size bed. Same soft-blue paint on the walls, although my old Twilight posters have been taken down (Team Edward forever).
Same dresser my mom and I found at an antique store downtown and painted white in the garage.
I can still picture my mother in old clothes, a scarf holding back her hair, a spot of paint on her forehead.
She seemed like a mom from a TV show that day—warm and fun, beautiful but messy.
It’s one of my best memories of her.
Setting Beatrix’s carrier down on the floor, I let her out, and she immediately scurries beneath the bed. “I don’t blame you,” I say softly, glancing over my shoulder at the stairs. “I might join you under there if it gets bad.”
My dresser is tucked against the slanted wall opposite my bed. I wander over and sweep my hand across the surface, dusty from neglect. On a whim, I open the top drawer. Expecting it to be empty, I’m surprised to find a framed photo. I take it out and study it, my throat growing tight.
The five of us at the beach—Lydia, Yasmine, Gabi, Rachel, and me.
We’re dressed in bathing suits, our wet hair clinging to our shoulders, and our joy leaps out at me from behind the glass.
Lydia is making a peace sign. Gabi blows a kiss.
Rachel’s dimples pop. Yasmine is making bunny ears above my head, and I look like I’m laughing at something, my mouth open wide, my eyes closed.
I remember that day like it was yesterday.
It was the summer before senior year. Before Lydia was diagnosed. Before any kind of separation loomed. Back then, we couldn’t imagine a world in which we weren’t always this close.
“Mila? What’s taking you so long? I need you!”
“Coming!” I start to tuck the photo back into the drawer, but at the last second, I prop it up on top of the dresser instead.
When I go back downstairs, my mother is lying on the living room couch with a wet cloth over her eyes. “Could you please look in the bathroom for an antihistamine? My eyes are very itchy.”
“Sure,” I reply, biting back the suggestion that we immediately inform her surgeon—and maybe the Pentagon—that we are dealing with an outbreak of severe, sudden-onset cat allergy.
The bathroom is across from her bedroom.
Kneeling down, I open the cabinet beneath the sink to find it a complete mess of hair tools, beauty products, skincare, first aid, medicines.
It surprises me, since it isn’t like my mother to be so disorganized.
Maybe the pain in her hips prevents her from bending down enough to keep things tidy?
A twinge of sympathy pinches my stomach.
Tomorrow I’ll reorganize this cabinet and ensure the items she might need more regularly are in easy reach.
I dig around without success. “I think you’re out of allergy medicine,” I call. “Want me to run to the store real quick?”
“Well, I don’t want to be a burden…”
Rolling my eyes, I get to my feet. “It’s no trouble. I’ll be right back.”
Someone calls my name as I walk from the house to the garage.
“Mila? Is that you?”
Our longtime next-door neighbor and notorious Hart’s Landing busybody, Vera Pratt, approaches the old chain-link fence between our yards. Pasting a smile onto my face, I offer a wave. “Hello, Mrs. Pratt. Yes, it’s me.”
“Well, Lord love a duck! I was wondering whose car had pulled into your mother’s driveway. I always keep an eye out for strange vehicles in our neighborhood—I’m the President of the Concerned Citizens Brigade and run the Suspicious Activity Group for The Landing Pad. Have you been reading the Pad?”
“The what?”
“The Landing Pad. It’s the community news board on the Gazette’s website.
I subscribe to text updates—never miss a thing.
” She raises a knowing eyebrow, and I get the impression that what she really means is that she’ll make sure everyone in town knows I’m back in the time it takes me to get to the pharmacy.
“I can’t say I’ve seen The Landing Pad, no.”
“Make sure you do. Especially if you’re back for good.”
I shake my head vehemently. “I’m not back for good. Just six weeks to help my mother after—”
“I heard about your D-I-V-O-R-C-E.” She stage-whispers the letters behind the back of her hand.
I jingle the keys, unable to scrounge up any more W-O-R-D-S.
But Mrs. Pratt seems eager to move on anyway. “You know, you’re still famous around here.” She laughs with delight. “Or should I say infamous? Everyone remembers the fire.”
“It was pretty memorable.”
“The Gazette just printed a ten-year anniversary article, so even people who weren’t living here at the time know all about it. Your picture made the front page!”
My stomach plummets. “There was an anniversary article? With a photo of me?”
“Your graduation photo, if the caption was correct. Article ran just last week. I kept a copy if you’d like to see it.”
“No, thanks.”
Mrs. Pratt leans in closer, her rheumy gaze sharpening like a hawk spotting prey. “What I’ve always wanted to know is what the two of you were doing in that bakery all alone at night. They say the lights were already out and the place was completely dark.”
“I have to go, Mrs. Pratt.” I resume my walk toward the garage. If I were a betting woman, I’d say Mrs. Pratt fills her days listening to true crime podcasts and watching old episodes of Law and Order. No doubt she finds intrigue wherever she looks, even if there’s nothing to see.
“Nice chatting with you!” she calls. A glance back confirms she’s already typing furiously on her phone. The Landing Pad will have a new post in no time.
“No, it wasn’t,” I mutter, opening the driver’s side door to my mother’s Buick.
Just what I need. An anniversary article. With a photo.
So much for lying low.
I back out of the driveway and head downtown, all the while trying to forget I’m in a car with a license plate that reads PRIMA1.