“Remember how much fun we had when we went to Mexico? It’ll be fine.”
“I was eight.”
We did have fun in Mexico. We had an amazing time. I was a little kid, and I wanted nothing more than to be with Lila. She was the treasure you were only allowed to peek at, until one astonishing day you finally got to run your fingers through the pile of gold coins and try on all the gold jewelry and drink out of the golden goblets. Plus, she made whatever we did exciting. We sat under umbrellas and walked through markets and bought stuff and ate in nice restaurants and spent a lot of time staying out of the sun, even though sun is something Mexico happens to have a lot of. I could never really see her eyes in those sunglasses, but she held my hand and it made me happy.
I didn’t know her as a person then. I knew her as a thing I didn’t have in the way I wanted, though maybe that’s true about most parents.
“Cora’s taking a pastel workshop this summer. She wants me to go too.” A last plea. I wasn’t an amazing artist like Cora, but I loved my pastels—the colored dust on my hands, the way you could disappear into an image you created. “I’d be so busy, I wouldn’t even bother you.”
Edwina ignored me. “How about a haircut before you go? I’ll make an appointment. Your hair is a big wall of blonde.” This was how Edwina showed her love. Feeding you, buying you a six-pack of underwear at Target, watching the way you looked even if you didn’t. Being brisk and bossy and occasionally critical. Sometimes you had to remind yourself it was love.
“I like it how it is.”
“No one likes a big wall of brown.”
I put my hair over my face. “I prefer to call it a waterfall of blonde.” When I peeked through, Edwina was rolling her eyes again.
When you picture Lila Shore in Nefarious or in What the Neighbor Knew or in some article in a magazine, you can’t imagine her growing up in a house like that, but you wouldn’t have imagined me right then either.
I always felt too regular to be hers. I was just me, a girl. I was never beautiful. I was never desired.
And then I was.
CHAPTER THREE
Exhibit 5: Framed promotional film poster with partially shattered glass, 27" x 41" featuring Lila Shore in Nefarious
A week before I boarded the plane, Lila called. After that phone call, I felt an actual pulse of worry, a skitter of anxiety under my skin, something more definite than the ghost whisper. I almost didn’t answer. The Mayor’s Cup Regatta was in two days, and I was about to go to practice. Coach Dave gave extra crunches if you were late. The Mayor’s Cup was supposed to be just a fun, end-of-the-season thing, but Academy was always competitive. We were good, and being on that team mattered to me, like it mattered to all of us.
“Baby!” Lila sang. “So, here’s the deal. Don’t be mad. I know I promised it would be just us, but Jake wants to come when I pick you up at the airport.”
“Liiiii-laaa,” I groaned, because, well, typical Lila. A man, a lie. “I haven’t seen you in months. And I don’t even know the guy. It’ll be weird.”
“We’ll have plenty of time alone. Plus, you two need to meet! You’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.”
She’d just contradicted herself, but whatever. The more important thing was, my head began to throb with tension. History was flashing before my eyes. The bad kind of history, where people do horrible stuff for generations, not the good kind where they learn and do better. “Just don’t marry him before I get there.”
“Oh, baby, don’t. Come on.”
She was exasperated. I could hear her nails clicking against a hard surface. It wasn’t an unreasonable thing to say. As you know, she’d done that before. Lila and men—ugh. Of course I felt uneasy.
There was a long, strained silence. I looked out my window toward the Montlake Cut, the slender neck of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, where the crew team was already gathering. I could see the satiny blue and yellow of their uniforms, the same satiny blue and yellow I was wearing. Meredith would be knocking at my door any second.
“I’ve got to go. Practice is about to start.”
“Oh, not yet! Don’t leave mad. Please. Talk to me some more.”
Lila, well, she could be a conversational hostage-taker, letting you free only after you met her demands.
“I can’t.”
“Syd! Don’t be like that. Stay. Let me just read you this letter I got today. You’ll laugh your head off. An actual letter. Who writes letters anymore? A seventeen-year-old boy, that’s who.”
She laughed, because we always laughed at mail like this. It was one of our things. But I didn’t feel like laughing. I was fifteen, almost sixteen. I went to school with seventeen-year-old boys. I mean, yeah, the whole world watched her, but seventeen-year-old boys were sort of mine.
Right then, Meredith popped her head into my room, and I was so glad to see her, it was like I’d been stranded at sea for years and she was the captain of the tanker who spotted me. I waved madly and gestured for her to come in. Meredith had her Academy crew bag over her shoulder. She tapped her wrist where a watch would be if people wore watches anymore. “We’re late,” she mouthed.
“Meredith’s here. I need to go.”
“She can wait! What have I told you a million times?”
“Don’t be the first one anywhere.”
Meredith pretended to gag.
“Precisely. Oh, you should see the handwriting on this thing! So tiny and restrained! ‘Dear Ms. Shore: I’ve never written anyone a fan letter, but ever since I saw Nefarious, you’ve tormented my imagination. That scene where you’re on the ladder and Brandon Searing lifts your skirt and we see your legs and the white lace of your—’ ”
“Lila, I’m hanging up.”
“Tormented his imagination! Isn’t that a riot? I think he’s got his anatomy mixed up.”
“Stop.” I was pleading by that point.
“Oh my God! I’m late for my manicure. Baby, I have to rush out of here. I love you, I love you, I love you.”
She waited for me to say it back. But I was irritated, plus all kinds of other things jumbled together like the pile of dirty laundry in the corner of my room. I didn’t want to say it. I could hear what I owed just sitting in the silence.
“I love you, Lila.”
Ugh! Whatever. I hung up. Meredith and I took the steps out of Montgomery Hall. “We better hurry,” I said.
“You okay?” she asked. Mer was my best friend. She knew me. She knew the me I was then.
“Yeah,” I said, even though I wasn’t, not by a long shot. And that irritation I felt? It was going to get worse. A lot worse. Outright fury. “Hey, cute hair.”
Meredith made the ends of her braids dance. And then we heard Coach Dave’s whistle and had to run.
* * *
In the boat, out on the water, I looked down at my own, regular legs. I remember this so clearly, how I examined this one body part like it was the malfunctioning O-ring that might make the whole ship blow up. Those legs were long and skinny and ended with my feet in a pair of Nikes. My knees were as knobby as a couple of oranges. I had a scratch on my calf from when I missed the hurdle during the track unit in PE the week before. There were little golden hairs that shimmered in the sun.