MY ROOM LOOKED out over the driveway, which meant that as I shoved my few possessions into my backpack and a plastic grocery bag, I could look down and see the massive black SUV idling there, waiting for me. The business-suit-clad man who’d arrived in it, Mr. Albright, had told me to take my time, but I didn’t have enough stuff to take my time with.
The door pushed open, and I expected to see Ms. O’Neil. But it was Tam who came in, looking around in a curious, wide-eyed way. She had a duffel with her, and she heaved it onto the bed.
“My room now,” she said, as smug as a house cat.
“Good for you.”
She sighed and sat down on the mattress, arms folded. Then she leaned forward to peer down at the car in the driveway.
“So you’re just getting, like, adopted?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to be adopted. I’ll be a ward.”
“They’re probably going to make you their servant or something.” She didn’t sound entirely disappointed by this idea. “Lock you in the cellar and all that. I’m sure you’ll be miserable.”
“You never know.”
She sat back and shook her head. “Ridiculous.”
“Yep.” I finished folding my third and final T-shirt and stacked it in the bag on top of the other clothes.
“If you’re rich now, will you send me stuff?”
“I’m not rich,” I said.
She pointed out the window. “That’s a hundred-thousand-dollar car. You’re rich.”
“It’s not my money,” I said. “I’m the servant, remember?”
She snorted. “Fingers crossed.”
“Make yourself useful,” I said. “Take the sheets off the bed.”
She obeyed without complaint, reaching across to pull the fitted sheet out from under the mattress.
Then, driven by curiosity, I asked, “What kind of stuff would you want me to send?”
“Hmm,” she said. “A pair of sunglasses. Like, really nice ones. And a crossword-puzzle book. And—”
I reached into my backpack, pulled out a crossword-puzzle book, and lobbed it at the bed. She picked it up, studied the cover, quirked her mouth into a smile, and went on.
“—a better phone?” She watched expectantly to see if I was going to give her mine.
I was not.
She shrugged. “So your whole family is dead, right? No grandparents or aunts or anybody?”
“Nope,” I said. “My parents were only children and my grandparents are all dead.”
“Hmm,” she said. “I have aunts, but it doesn’t do me any good. My mom’s sisters. They won’t take me because they think I’m too much like my mother. I don’t care, though. I turn eighteen in seven months, and then I’ll go do my own thing.”
“Where will you go?”
“New York,” she said. “I’m going to be a model.”
I looked at her in disbelief, but even as I prepared to mentally dismiss the idea, I suddenly felt as if I was seeing her clearly for the first time—that simple, odd face. The impossibly tall, slender frame. I could totally see her slinking down a runway in some outlandish outfit. Her scowl was perfect for it, too.
“Good luck,” I said. “I think you could be a model, actually.”
She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t asking for your opinion.”
Never change, Tam.
“Anyway, you’re the lucky one.” She dumped the bundle of sheets on the floor.
“You keep saying that,” I said. “I don’t know if you realize how much my life has sucked over the past three months.”
She stretched out on the bare mattress, relishing it. “I never said your life didn’t suck. Only that you’re lucky. Those are two totally different things.”
Huh. Were they?
“For instance,” she said. “My mom is a homeless meth head who stole my grandma’s life savings and her pills, which is probably why Grandma died. Be careful who you let handle your meds, by the way.”
I was about to reply, but she silenced me with a finger.
“My last foster family fed me exactly one bowl of generic-brand Cheerios per day. I had a kitten there, but Palmer House made me give it away before I could come. I haven’t seen my brother in seven years. My life sucks. And yet—no rich people have ever, even once, swooped in to adopt me. Hence, unlucky.”
I looked down at the SUV waiting to cart me off to an enormous estate in the country, owned by millionaires who (I assumed) would not actually make me live in the cellar and carry trays of food around.
Then I looked at Tam, whose left hand was curled around a small stuffed kitten wearing an Easter hat.
Well, maybe I am lucky, I thought. But my life still sucks.
“So then—” I said, and I wouldn’t have gone on except she took the trouble to open her eyes and look at me. “If things are so terrible, what’s the point?”
“The point of what? Of life?” she asked.
“Yeah, I mean . . . it’s so hard.” I felt myself blush. “I can’t believe I used to think there was anything wrong with my life. I was so ignorant.”
She shrugged. “Nobody has a perfect life. My cousins are rich, but they hate themselves.”
“Doesn’t everybody hate themselves?” I asked.
Tam’s eyes narrowed contemptuously. “No. I don’t. I’ve never done anything bad enough to hate myself. Have you?”
I felt as if our eyes were locked together. She was waiting for an answer, but I didn’t have one. Or maybe I did, but I didn’t want to say it.
“You’re overthinking this,” she said finally. “You’re alive, so you might as well go along with it. There’s no big secret. You live, and then you die, and that’s it.”
“That’s it?” I half laughed.
“That,” she said, closing her eyes, “is plenty.”
I carried my bags and the bundle of bedsheets to the door. “Tam, we could have been friends if you weren’t such a jerk.”
“I don’t want to be your friend,” she said, not even bothering to open her eyes. “I don’t like you.”
I closed the door and went downstairs.
I didn’t bring the toothbrush.