Chapter 2 Audrey
Audrey
Way back then
The first best thing that ever happened to me was being born into my family.
The second best thing that happened was when we adopted Stephen. I was eight, and from the second he got out of the back seat of Mom’s car, he was my brother right down to my cellular structure.
The third best thing that ever happened to me was becoming one of the Core Four.
I don’t remember where the nickname came from, but there we were—Jasmine, Micah, Beck and me.
I had always known I was lucky, because people told me that all the time.
“You’re Dr. Kate’s little girl? Oh, aren’t you lucky!”
“Your daddy flies airplanes? Well, that sounds special!”
Playdates showed me that my house was bigger than most. I had five horses, two dogs and four barn kitties.
“You’re so lucky to live here!”
“You already know how to ride a horse?”
My mom bought me cute clothes, and my hair was shiny and always in braids or ponytails. Based on this alone, I was anointed with popularity long before I knew what the word meant.
On the first day of kindergarten, the other kids said nice things to me.
I like your hairband. That’s a pretty dress.
Your mommy fixed my sore throat. I knew about half the kids just because we lived in a small town and had intersected through our parents or the library or T-ball.
Mrs. Schultz, the teacher, and her husband had been to our house for dinner because they were friends with my parents.
I was not nervous or worried in the least on my first day.
At snack time, Charlotte Lee planted her flag as a mean girl. “Ew!” she said, pointing at a girl I had not yet met. “You’re wearing my clothes! They’re my hand-me-downs! Are you poor or something?” Charlotte looked triumphant, and a few of the other kids snickered.
“Yeah, Jasmine, are you poor?” echoed Hattie.
Jasmine had tangly blond hair. Her mommy should put it in a braid, I thought.
I wanted to tell Charlotte she was being not nice.
I wanted the teacher to do something, but she was talking to another grown-up in the doorway.
I hesitated a second, then sat down next to Jasmine, whose downturned face was bright red.
She glanced at me, and I saw that her eyes were green. And watery.
“You have pretty-colored eyes,” I said. “Wanna be friends?” It was in the top three of the bravest and most noble acts of my life.
A tear fell on the table, and Jasmine nodded.
“What’s your favorite snack?” I asked. “Mine is doughnuts, but I only have banana bread today.”
Somehow, without having the vocabulary to express it, I knew that my popularity, as undeserved as it was, would protect her.
Jasmine opened her baggie of Cheez-Its and said nothing, but she scooched a little closer to me.
For the rest of that day, I stood next to her in line when we went to the art room, sat next to her on the bus and said a loud goodbye when she got off in front of a crumbling one-story house with peeling paint and a car in the front yard.
It soon became apparent that Jasmine was a lot smarter than the rest of us.
By October, a special teacher came by three times a week and took Jasmine out of our class to tutor her on advanced math and science.
She was quiet and watchful, and though she came over for a playdate, her mother did not call mine and reciprocate.
My mom packed up some of my clothes for her.
“Jasmine, would you help me out here? I just cleaned Audrey’s closet, and she’s outgrown so much,” Mom said.
“Take these home and see what you like, sweetheart. You’ll be saving me time.
” And unlike Mean Charlotte, I never let anyone know Jasmine was wearing stuff that had been originally bought for me.
Micah and I knew each other, had been over at each other’s houses a few times. She was popular in a different way—funny, a little naughty and very, very pretty, with hypnotic blue eyes that I, being a brown-eyed girl, quite envied. Also, her mom ran the bakery, so she had easy access to cupcakes.
When Stephen came to us, I was in second grade and experienced another surge of popularity.
No one else had an adopted six-year-old brother, and Stephen was so ridiculously cute, with his two front teeth missing, his perfect brown skin, his giant eyes and those curly eyelashes.
He was an instant celebrity, and I was his adored and adoring big sister.
Everyone wanted to know Stephen, and most of them had to go through me, a role I very much enjoyed.
But it was when Beck moved to Stafford in seventh grade, taller than everyone except Ché Anderson and completely comfortable in her own skin, that the magic happened. “Kids, this is Rebecca Morrow, your new classmate,” Mrs. DiNatale said.
“Hey,” she said easily. “Call me Beck.”
“Tell us a little bit about yourself,” the teacher said, and Beck didn’t even blush.
“Sure. I love basketball, which is convenient, since I’m, like, super tall.
” This got a laugh. “I’m a military brat—my mom’s in the army, and she’s working for the Vermont National Guard right now.
We’ve lived all around, but I hope to be here long enough to finish high school. Great to meet everyone.”
“Where have you lived?” Mrs. DiNatale asked.
“Oh, gosh. California, most recently. Germany, Tennessee, Japan, Georgia . . . I think that’s it. But some of those places, I was only in for, like, a few months.”
My girl-crush was instant. She’d lived abroad? A military brat? An athlete? I invited her to my house that weekend, then included Jasmine and Micah in case Beck Morrow thought I was boring.
And that was that. From then onward, it was the four of us.
Beck was the jock to Micah’s pretty girl, the sophisticate to my ridiculously sheltered life, the empath to Jasmine’s gritty home situation.
Like Jasmine, Beck was being raised by a single mother, but she was an only child.
Her mom worked a ton and was very strict.
She’d met her father twice—“Not a big deal. He seemed nice.” As fascinated as I was by her, she was equally curious about what she called my “Hallmark movie life.”
Jasmine (never Jazz . . . “Isn’t it bad enough to have a stripper’s name?
”) had always been a little reserved, a little private.
But when the four of us became an established friend group, she started to open up more.
She had a somewhat scary (to us) half brother, who had tattoos that went all the way down to his fingers.
Her mother looked like a teenager except for her hardened eyes.
Jade Malinowski was known for being drunk, getting arrested and starting fights at Red’s, the local dive bar.
Jasmine confided in us about her mother’s drinking and drug use, the endless parade of creepy boyfriends, how her brother would disappear for weeks and months, sometimes to jail.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” she asked, biting the cuticle of her thumb. Of course we didn’t tell. Well . . . I told my mom, and she dropped by to visit Jasmine’s mother for a friendly chat. After that, Jasmine spent most weekends at our house.
Micah, like me, had two parents and a sibling.
She’d always been pretty, but when she hit her teen years, she became beautiful.
Girls liked her (and envied her, sure), and most boys (and two girls) made no secret of their yearning for her.
She invited us to hang out at Lola’s after school once or twice a week.
And so we became the Core Four. That summer between seventh and eighth grade was built around sleepovers at my house, with Stephen tagging along, beloved, adored, included.
It was magical, sitting around in the barn, listening to the snuffles and whickers of our horses—Jenny, Monte, Damien, Pride and Starlight.
We went on gentle trail rides, since Stephen and I were the only ones who had taken lessons.
The girls would watch as I jumped Starlight in the ring, praising me for not falling off (standards were low from the non-riders).
We took over the kitchen while Mom was at work or late at night, baking ridiculously complicated desserts at Micah’s direction, marveling at how much Beck could eat in one sitting.
And we talked. God, how we talked. We never ran out of things to say.
We talked about puberty, periods, boys, girls, friends, teachers, siblings, parents.
Jasmine told us about how she had to fend off creditors and cover for her mother when she was drunk.
Micah vented about her sister, who spied on her, and her feeling that their parents were headed for a divorce.
Beck told us, hesitating, almost guilty, that while her mother was a decent provider and never yelled at her, Beck wasn’t a hundred percent sure her mom actually loved her.
And me . . . I listened. I empathized and encouraged, supported and consoled.
I shared my perfect family and home, with all its beauty and security.
I wanted them to have everything I’d been given.
I didn’t have any problems—not really. Sometimes (rarely), Stephen and I bickered.
In eighth grade, I broke my arm falling off Jenny, who was the wildest of our five horses, and had to spend six weeks in a cast. When Dad was gone for more than a few days, I missed him.
That was about as bad as my life got. I really was what the other kids called me. The lucky one.
When high school started, we got even closer.
Micah described French-kissing with Louie Drake as we shrieked with laughter at the idea of swallowing someone else’s saliva.
“He licked my face like he was Rusty,” she said, pointing to my Irish setter.
“I needed a paper towel to wipe him off me. No more bodily fluid exchanges with Louie, no way.”
We were at the party when Micah got drunk for the first time after a senior had handed her cups of Baileys Irish Cream. She threw up in a garbage can, and even then the guy was groping her. “She’s drunk, dude. Get lost,” Beck said, shoving him aside.
“Do you want to get arrested for rape?” I asked him, shocking myself by standing up to a senior guy. “The age of consent is sixteen in this state.”
When Beck had a game, Micah, Jasmine and I all went and sat in the first row, cheering for her.
It was thrilling, watching her dodge her opponents or float in the air as she sank a jump shot, arms extended, her hands so graceful.
We even made up a song for her when she scored: “Beck, Beck, what the heck, everyone else, you’re just a speck!
” No boy was cute enough for Micah to miss a home game, no exam too hard that Jasmine would rather stay in to study and there was nowhere else I wanted to be.
Just there, with my friends, enveloped in a cocoon of belonging.
Stephen might come, too, and Micah would wrap her arm around his neck and noogie him, and Beck would high-five him when she came off the court, making him glow in the attention of the star player.
So Beck played, and Micah partied and lost her virginity, and Jasmine slayed at grades and helped me pass algebra and chemistry, and I offered my house, my parents, my brother, my love.
We had other friends, too, sort of . . .
Taylor Dennings and I had played a lot together when we were little.
Ava Bianchi, who was a science and math whiz, often talked to Jasmine about their AP classes.
Ché Anderson, well, everyone loved him, and we welcomed him at our lunch table if he wanted to hang with us.
Amber Gillette would come to the movies with us once in a while or sit next to us at a game.
We knew she wanted the Core Four to be the Core Five, but she just didn’t click into place.
Once, she asked outright if she could come to one of my sleepovers, and before I could fumble for an answer, Micah said, “Sorry, Amber. Core Four only.”
Because the sleepovers were sacred. Core Four only, with Stephen hanging out for movies and snacks.
Mom had a kind word for everyone, asked the right questions, was affectionate and familiar, dropping a hand on Beck’s shoulder, putting Jasmine’s hair in a French twist for her induction to the National Honor Society.
Sometimes I’d see one of the other girls talking privately to my mom, which always gave me a rush of pride.
Dad would dole out Dad jokes and careful compliments, never resentful at having three extra teenage girls in the house.
I always felt a little wonderstruck, almost like I was outside, watching us. My friends, the best in the world; my sweet and funny brother; my perfect parents; the house that felt like a warm hug.
I never dreamed we’d stop being friends. Not once.