Keeping Secrets Read online

  I put two mugs full of coffee, a little porcelain cow filled with cream, and a couple cubes of natural sugar on a tray and carry it into the living room where Guy is hanging on the couch humming along to that Jonny Lang CD I bought right after Connor dumped me the first time.

  “Oh, you like Jonny Lang?” I ask, trying to hide my dismay as I set the tray on the table.

  “Yeah, he’s awesome. I saw him perform a couple years ago, he was amazing.”

  I smile at him and add some cream to my coffee, stirring it slowly and watching the colors blend then change, and I’m wondering how I can ask him to choose a different CD without seeming weird. It’s like, I feel really nervous being alone on the couch with him because I know he’s probably going to try to kiss me soon and I think I want him to, but I wonder if it will be creepy if he does it with that CD playing in the background. I know it sounds kind of stupid, because I’m sure that plenty of people own it, but I think of that as my own personal soundtrack for when I lost my virginity.

  So we’re just sitting next to each other, drinking our coffees, when Guy sets his down, looks at me, and goes, “I’m glad I met you. I had a lot of fun tonight.”

  “Me too,” I say, and I’m wondering if he’s getting ready to leave or something, because that’s the kind of thing you usually say right before “good-bye.” But then he leans in and kisses me and it’s so unbelievably good, that I suddenly couldn’t care less who is singing in the background because now it’s all about Guy and me and nobody else exists.

  His arms are around me and his hand is buried in my hair and I’m clutching the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer, and kissing him deeper, when I hear someone say, “Uh, you left the door unlocked.”

  We spring apart. Practically to opposite sides of the couch, and I’m wiping my mouth, and shifting my top around, and I’m not even looking up because I have no idea how I’m going to explain this to my mom, but then I hear Guy go, “M?”

  And I look up and see her standing right in front of me, wearing her prom dress. “What the hell?” I say, and it comes out sounding really angry because I am really angry, but I’m not sure if I should be angry in front of Guy.

  “Sorry,” she shrugs. “Am I interrupting?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I say rolling my eyes and trying to tone down the anger, even though the sarcasm is loud and clear. “What, you don’t knock?”

  “I did knock, but you didn’t answer so I tried the door and it was open.” She sits down on the lumpy ottoman, and runs her hands over the front of her dress and I can’t believe she’s actually making herself comfortable, because there’s no way I’m letting her stay.

  “I should go,” Guy says, looking at M and then me.

  “No,” I say. “Don’t go. M won’t be long.” I give her a menacing look, but she doesn’t notice because she’s busy rummaging through her tiny prom purse.

  “M, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the prom?” I ask, sliding back toward Guy, and reaching for his hand.

  “Prom sucked,” she says, setting down her purse and reaching for a sugar cube that she plops into her mouth. “Fucking Tiffany won Prom Queen.” She shakes her head.

  “Of course she did. What, did you wanna win it?” I ask incredulously.

  “No, I didn’t. It’s just, this night is just totally annoying. And I miss you. I just wanted to go out and do something fun like we used to. Come on, what more can I say? I’m so incredibly sorry, I mean it. And I really need to talk to you.”

  “What happened to your date?” I ask, glancing briefly at Guy. I really don’t want him to know about our argument.

  “My date? I went to the prom with Harry Potter. I’m not kidding. He was four feet tall, wore thick glasses, and I think he was ten years old. I made a total fool of myself and then I sent him home. I thanked him, and told him he could keep the boutonniere, and I sent him on his way.”

  Guy laughs out loud, but all I can think is that’s karma for you.

  Then she looks at Guy and goes, “Hey, Guy, I’m sorry for crashing your date.”

  He just shrugs and squeezes my hand.

  “Is there any coffee left?” she asks.

  I glare at her and I can’t believe she refuses to get the hint and pack it up. But I just go, “Yeah, I’ll get you some. You look like you could use some coffee.”

  “Thanks,” she says. And I can’t tell whether she means it or whether she’s being sarcastic, but I don’t really care either.

  When I walk back into the living room I hand M a cup of coffee in an unfortunate mug that has, That’s my girl! printed over a picture of a little kid in an orange baseball hat. But it’s a picture of my sister this time, not me. She takes a sip of the coffee and looks at Guy and goes, “So what’s your friend doing tonight?” She sits up straighter and smiles hopefully, like we’re gonna fix her up on a date at one-thirty in the morning.

  “Mark? I don’t know, I think he’s on a date.”

  “Figures,” she says, slumping down again. “Story of my life.”

  She nods her head and picks at the tacky corsage she’s still wearing and I wonder what she could possibly mean by that. From my vantage point it always seems like guys jump through hoops for her.

  “Hey, M, there’s something I’ve been wondering?” Guy asks, taking a sip of his coffee.

  “Yeah?” she looks at him warily.

  “Well, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want, but, what’s your real name?”

  She looks at me and we both start laughing.

  “I’ll tell ya but it’s gonna cost,” she says.

  “How much,” he asks, reaching for his wallet.

  “How much is it worth to you?”

  “Ten bucks?”

  “Never!” She shakes her head and gives him an offended look.

  “Twenty?”

  She narrows her eyes at him and goes, “Okay, but no checks, no credit cards, just cash.”

  Guy tosses a twenty on the coffee table and M swiftly picks it up and stuffs it in the top of her prom dress.

  I sit next to Guy and wait for her to say it. She heaves a big dramatic sigh and says, “Madison. My name is Madison.”

  Guy gives her a disappointed look. “I want my money back! I thought it was going to be something awful, like Matilda, or something. Why do you go by M?”

  She looks at me and I answer for her, “Because since her first day of kindergarten all the way until junior high, at least one article of her clothing was always monogrammed. I mean, sometimes it was her T-shirt, or sweater, or even her socks, but there was always at least one big blue M. After awhile people just started calling her that and it stuck.”

  Guy looks at her and shakes his head, “I would have never pictured you as the preppy, monogrammed type.”

  “That was back when my mom still picked out my clothes,” she says.

  So we’re drinking our coffees and it’s kind of weird because I really want M to leave so I can hang out with Guy and kiss him some more, but she just keeps sitting there in no apparent hurry to be anywhere else and it’s really pissing me off but I don’t want to have it out with her in front of him so I’m acting all normal like this is fun, but it’s not.

  So finally Guy looks at his watch and goes, “I gotta go.”

  And I look over at M but she just sits there, and I know I won’t be able to get rid of her without a lot of drama, so I just surrender to the situation and look at Guy and go, “Okay. I’ll walk you out.”

  We’re standing next to his Jeep when he says, “Is your friend gonna be alright? She seems upset.”

  And I think it’s weird that he said that because if anyone is upset it’s me. But I just say, “Sorry about all that.”

  Then he leans in and kisses me and it’s really nice and completely amazing and when he pulls away he goes, “Next time, let’s go horseback riding.”

  And I smile and say, “Okay.”

  When I go back in the house M has abandoned the ottoman
for the couch. And she’s sprawled out on it, and her shoes are off and her feet are propped on the coffee table. So I go over to the CD player and turn off Jonny Lang since it’s now my soundtrack for making out with Guy, and I put on a Tori Amos CD because it doesn’t remind me of anyone. And then I look back at M and I’m so pissed at her for just showing up like that, and barging in, and I’m just about to tell her, but something about the way she looks, lying there like that, makes me go, “Are you okay?”

  She sighs heavily and scrunches her face into the palms of her hands like she’s trying not to cry. She sits like that for awhile then she says, “Shit, Alex, I’m so sorry. I’ve been such an ass.”

  I sit on the ottoman and face her, but I don’t say anything because I totally agree.

  She wipes her face with the hem of her prom dress and looks at me and goes, “Trevor and I broke up.”

  I just sit there and stare at her, and I know I’m supposed to say something, but to be honest, that really doesn’t make such a big impact anymore. I mean, not after the last time.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “Prom sucked. The whole night was a disaster. So I left early and I kept trying to call Trevor on his cell but he wouldn’t answer. So I drove all the way up to LA, and long story short, I caught him with another girl.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her.

  “It’s my own fault,” she says, shaking her head. “I should have dumped him the last time. I can’t believe the lies I let him feed me, just so I could keep hanging out in that whole, stupid, shallow scene.” She shakes her head and looks at me.

  “He kept trying to act like I’m just as bad, you know. Like it’s my fault he was out with another girl, since I was out with another guy at the prom. And I’m like, ‘Trevor, you didn’t want to go to the prom, remember? You told me to go and have fun.’” I watch her reach over and pick a tiny rose off her corsage and hold it up to her nose.

  “He knows damn well that the only reason I went to the prom is because it’s supposed to be some kind of big deal, and that for the last few months, I haven’t dated anyone else. And because of that, I didn’t have anyone to go with, so as everyone knows I was set up on a date with a fucking Hogwarts reject. I had a terrible time, the whole night sucked! All I wanted was to find Trevor and be with him. It never even occurred to me that he was totally taking advantage of the situation. Asshole!” She shakes her head and throws the rose across the room, watching it land on a hanging plant.

  “M, did you find out who she is?” I ask.

  “Oh yeah, that’s the really brilliant part. It’s his fucking ex-girlfriend that he’s told me all about. Can you believe that? So I go, ‘Hey Trevor, the definition of ex means prior not current. It means past not present. It means then not now.’ Then I told him that he’s a fucking loser for jumping back into a pool that he already peed in. Then I told him to fuck off!”

  She covers her face with her hands and she sits like that for awhile. And in the background I hear Tori Amos sing, “Never was a cornflake girl, thought that was a good solution.”

  After awhile she sits up and looks at me and goes, “I know you think I’m totally spoiled and that my life is one long easy ride. And maybe in some ways, it’s true. But that doesn’t mean my life is perfect. Far from it.” She reaches into her purse and pulls out a tissue and presses it against her nose for a minute.

  “You know, sometimes I feel like I’ve been dumped in the middle of the ocean without a life vest, but everyone just expects me to be able to swim to shore, and break the speed record, and get a gold medal for doing it. It’s like, everyone has these huge expectations of who I should be, you know, ‘M’s a cheerleader, M gets good grades, M’s going to Princeton. Mommy and Daddy’s perfect little M.’ “

  She shakes her head and rolls the tissue up into a tiny ball. “I’m so fucking perfect that they don’t even have to pay attention to me. I’m so fucking perfect that they wouldn’t even consider that those drugs were mine. Do you know how much that hurt? That my mom was so unconcerned about me that she just pawned the whole thing off on you? And do you know why she did that? Because that made it easier for her.”

  She looks at me for a moment, then she puts her head in her hands and starts sobbing these giant, shoulder-shaking tears. I just sit there and watch her cry, and think about what she just said, and I can’t believe how alike we really are. It’s like, we’ve both been really busy sabotaging ourselves. Just messing up anyway we could, hoping someone would pay attention. But the people we want to notice just don’t care as much as we wish they would and there’s nothing we can do about it.

  She wipes her face on the hem of her dress and says, “I’m sorry about messing up your date, really.”

  I just look at her and shrug. “Don’t worry about it. We’re going on another one.”

  Chapter 36

  Graduation is just two weeks away and I’m definitely earning my diploma. It’s like, on the nights I’m not at work I’ve stuck to my new routine of turning off my phone, TV, and stereo (anything that might distract me), and spending an hour on each of my subjects. It’s kind of like being on restriction again, only this time it’s self-imposed.

  When I finished my Anna Karenina essay I actually held on to it for two full days before turning it in. I just didn’t know how to go about it. I mean, I didn’t want to walk up to Mr. Sommers’s desk and give it to him in front of the whole class, and I really didn’t want to stay late and give it to him when no one was there. So one day when he got called out of class for a few minutes and everybody started acting all wild, I went up to his desk and slid it under some other papers and hoped that he’d find it, but not until after the bell rang.

  And even though I feel like I’m making some progress, it still seems like I’m the only person in this whole damn school that doesn’t have the slightest clue of what I’m going to do this summer. Practically everyone is either going on some great vacation, or on a major nonstop shopping spree for their new college wardrobe, and of course M is doing both. Her family is cruising the Greek Isles, and then stopping in Paris for a few days on the way home so she can load up on cool stuff to wear at Princeton. I’ll probably just put in more time at the store and wait for something to happen.

  I talked to Guy a few times, but I’ve only seen him once since that night with M ‘cause we’ve both been pretty busy studying for finals.

  So I’m just sitting in my room, taking a break from my French workbook, and reading my numerology in the new Elle, when the phone rings. I’m assuming it’s M so I pick it up on the first ring.

  Someone with a British accent goes, “Alex!”

  And I go, “Connor?”

  And the connection is kind of strange so I know he’s still in England. And he says, “What’s up?”

  And I want to pretend that tons of things are up, you know. But the truth is this magazine I’m reading has pretty much been the zenith of my day. So as part of my new honesty campaign I say, “Nothing.”

  So then he goes, “How’s school?”

  And I say, “Great!” Which isn’t as big of a lie as it would normally be. “How’s the band, did you sign them?”

  “We did, and I think it’s going to be really big. I’ll send you some studio tracks later. Hey, I heard Trevor and M broke up,” he says.

  “Yeah.” I close the magazine and put my feet up on my desk.

  “Wow, that’s too bad.”

  “I guess.”

  “So when are you coming to London?” he asks.

  “What?” I say. I mean, is he joking?

  He laughs and goes, “When are you going to visit me?”

  So of course I give a nervous laugh, and go, “Um, I don’t know.”

  “Well, think about it. It could be fun.”

  So then we chat for maybe a minute more and hang up. And I sit at my desk wondering what that was all about. It wasn’t long ago that I dreamed about going to London with Connor. I thought that would solve all my
problems, and change my life. But now, I’m not so sure. And like, what would happen once I got there? Would I be his girlfriend? And more important, do I even want to be his girlfriend?

  I guess after all that happened it never occurred to me that I would ever go there. But then I never really thought I would hear from Connor again and this is the second time he’s called.

  But maybe I could go there. I mean, I have nothing else planned, and I’ve even managed to save a little money from working at the store.

  So on my way to work I stop at a bookstore and pick up a travel guide to England. You know, just to skim through it and see what it’s really like there.

  About an hour before closing Blake calls me from the Men’s Department.

  “Alex,” he whispers, “I just gave Ronette my two weeks’ notice.”

  “No way,” I say. “How’d she take it? What’d she say?”

  “She wished me luck and great success. She was so nice about it I didn’t get to say anything nasty to her. And then she hugged me.”

  “Gross.”

  “Yeah, it was kind of. What are you doing?” he asks. “Because it’s dead over here.”

  “It’s dead here too,” I tell him. “I’ve had two customers all night. But I don’t care ‘cause I got this book on London and it’s pretty much taking up all of my time.” I close the book and run my hand over the picture of Big Ben on the cover.

  “Don’t you think you’re maybe taking your Richard Branson fantasy a little too far?” he says.

  I just laugh and say, “No, it’s not about that. Connor called and he invited me to visit.”

  “Are you going?” he asks cautiously.

  “I don’t know.” I twist the phone cord around my wrist and turn to look at myself in the mirror.

  “Did I tell you that Ken’s moving to New York with me?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, his company has an office there. He’s putting in for a transfer and there’s a really good chance he’ll get it. You know it would be really great if you came to New York this summer too. Between me and your sister, you’ve got plenty of places to stay.”