Bound Together (5 page)

I looked out my open door into John’s old room. The room my mother had turned into a generic
-
looking guest room six months
ago, just months after his
death. There was a suitcase on the floor, and I figured my
mom
had started packing for me. I walked across the hall and flipped on the light.
The room had even been repainted stark
-
white. It didn’t smell like him anymore.

I found all my clothes for the trip folded in neat piles on his old bed. I open
ed
the black roller suitcase on the floor and
started
put
ting
everything inside. Eight pairs of boxers neatly folded, eight pairs of socks rolled together, white undershirts, jeans, a pair of khaki’s, which I almost toss
ed
a
side, then decide
d
to keep, in case we
went
somewhere nice.
There
was
a
Frommer’s
Travel Guide on top of my T
-
shirts. I flip
ped
through the pages. I kn
e
w I should appreciate
the things
she d
id
for me, but I just want
ed to be able to t
alk
—
to not be some fucking robot family that acts like nothing’s wrong.

Chapter Five

Zoey

I waited for my dad to get home last night, so when my alarm went off at eight, I was still exhausted. I’d reminded my dad about the pre
-
trip meeting
we had
th
is
morning. He’d given me a twenty for spending money and said I’d have to go the meeting myself, he doubted he or my mom would be up yet.
And he was right.

I was the first one up, but Cora wasn’t far behind me. We sat
at the table
,
eating
cereal together. “
Wanna
help me wi
th the laundry today?” I asked, slicing a banana into her Cheerios.

“Sure,” she said. She sounded so grown up. I both liked it and didn’t.

After breakfast we packed up my dad’s car with six laundry baskets in the trunk and backseat and headed over to S&J’s Laundromat. I’d pretty much spent every Sunday here since I was thirteen. Only now,
I wouldn’t be here this Sunday
—
I’d be in
Paris
, responsible for no one but myself.
I could hardly wait.

Cora helped
by
carry
ing
in the laundry detergent and the bag of quarters while I heaved the baskets inside.
We commandeered three commercial
-
sized washers
in the front
and I stuffed the clothes inside while she used the step stool and filled them with quarters. The commercial
washers
were more expensive, but not twice as much as the regular washers, so it was still cheaper to do giant loads in
these
rather than
use
six separate machines. I mixe
d all the colors together with
reckless
abandon. No wonder most of our clothes came out looking grayish.

“Excuse me, but you might consider separating your whites,” a
male
voice
said
behind me.

Without look
ing behind me I replied,
“Yeah,
and
when you’re down to wearing bathing suit bottoms because you’re out of underwear, you do it this way.” I stood up and turned
, s
uddenly face to face with
Matt
Parker
.
Awesome
.
“What are you doing here?”
I straightened my shoulders and pushed my hair out of my face.

“You mean other than blushing at your
total lack of a filter
?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Picking up a quilt my mom had cleaned.” He moved past me to the service c
ounter. But not before glancing back at me in a way that made me shudder. He was picturing me in my bikini
bottoms
.
Weirdo
.

“Come on, Cora, we have twenty
-
three minutes to enjoy ourselves in the lovely confines of
the Laundromat waiting room
.”
She followed behind me and picked up an old coloring book from the kid’s table.

“
Got
any crayons,
Zoey
?” she asked
,
looking up at me.

“I
think I have a pen in my purse.
” I offered
it to her
while watching
Matt
collect
the white fluffy down comforter from the counter.
He tipped his hea
d at me before walking out into the sunshine.

I flipped open my Calculus book
to look at next week’s assignment.
Just because some of us would be missing school for the class trip, didn’t mean we didn’t have to keep up on the homework assignments
while we were gone
. I hoped to get ahead before I left, rather than trying to cram it all in when I was jetlagged. My phone buzzed in my bag, and Cora handed it to me. I fished the phone out from the bottom of my purse.

“Hello?”

“Hey,
Zoey
.
” It was Morgan. I hadn’t even bothered to
check
the caller ID, she was pretty much the only person who called me.

“Hey, Morgan. How was
Brandon’s
last night?”

“Ah
—
mazing.
Everyone was there. That sucked
you couldn’t come
. Is Pete okay?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah. We got him through it. That reminds me though, his inhaler’s still at school
,” I said to myself more than to her. “Oh, guess what? Jordan came by last night.”

“What? After the party? He did disappear
early
.”

I turned away from Cora. “Yeah, he was looking for some sweet, sweet
lovin
’.”

“Yeah, and how’d that work out for him?”
I could tell she was smirking.

“I let him down gently, Morgan, you know me.” I glanced back to check on Cora. She was still coloring with my black pen.

“I do know you
—
too well,
Zoey
. Anytime a guy gets interested in you, you find a way to back out of it.”

“Not true.”

“Umm, true and you know it. What’s wrong with Jordan? You seemed to like him
just fine
last weekend
—
that is before he started liking you. You always have to be in control,
Zoey
. I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s just how you are. You never let anyone get close.”

I was silent on the other end.

“I mean look at me and you
—
we’re best friends, but I’ve never even been inside your house.”

I guess she had noticed that. I sighed. “Are we done?”

“We’re done. Next topic
,” she said. “What are you
doin
’ later
?”

“At the Laundromat right now
. I have a meeting in a
Mr. Rhinehart’s classroom
little bit. Ugh, and get this
—
I’m paired with
Matt
Parker
for the assignment in
Paris
.”

“Yeah, that sounds horrible,” she mocked. “He’s a
hottie
.
”

I c
ouldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Sure
Morgan easily floated between the social
circles
at school
a
nd didn’t really belong in any
one group over another
, but even she should realize that
goody
-
two
-
shoes
jock
-
boy and I had nothing in common.

“Morgan,” I sighed, shaking my head. My voice sounded tired.

“
You need to loosen up. Have fun
—
hook up with the star football player
in
Paris
, whatever,
Zoey
. Just stop being all dramatic. This is all good stuff
—
you’re
fre
akin
going to
Paris
for a week and you got paired with a hot guy. Who’d you want, Albert Price?”
s
he joked.

A
lb
ie
was the lau
ghing stock of the school. He was ninety
-
eight pounds tops, and
insisted on wearing sweatpants to school and talked incessantly about bacon to anyone who would listen. I didn’t mean to
,
but I started laughing.

Morgan joined me.
“There, that’s better,”
she
said.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Cora tapped on my knee.
“Our machines are done,” she said, pointing to our washers.

I nodded to her. “I
gotta
go. See
ya
, Morgan.”

Chapter Six

Matt

The only reason I wasn’t working
at my parent’s store
this Saturday
wa
s because I agreed to run my mom’s errands before I left for the trip.
So far this morning
I’d been to the dry cleaners, pharmacy,
post
office and then to the Laundromat where I’
d had an awkward run
-
in with
Zoey
.

I carried everything inside,
set my mom’s pills on the counter then pulled open the fridge.  I started blankly inside and thought about the way
Zoey
looked
bent over, cramming a mountain of laundry into a washer.
Their washer at home must have been broken, because she was doing enough laundry to last a month.
I stood up and let the fridge swing closed.

I went to my room and organized my papers for the trip one last time. I had my passport, an envelope
with
important phone numbers
and some money
,
my
immunization records and
some
other stuff my mom stuffed in.
O
u
r trip itinerary
sat folded on the top of the pile.

My phone chirped from the other room and I jogged to grab it. It was Justin.
“Hey man, what’s up?”

“You have time for a B-
ball game later? We’re meeting up at
Bryant
Park,” Justin said.

I glanced at the clock. “Yeah, what time?”

“Three.”

“Cool
—
see y
ou
there.” I clicked the phone off and headed out to pick up my mom for the pre
-
trip meeting.

E
veryone else had one parent with them, but I was flanked by
both
my mom and dad in the
front row
of the classroom
. Mr. Rhinehart passed out
a sheet of paper
to each parent with
the
phone number
to his international cell, his
email address
, and a detailed day-
by
-
day itinerary. He stopped in front of
Zoey
’s
desk and pressed his lips together. “Where’s your parent?” he asked.

She shrugged. “They couldn’t make it,” she said.

“
Zoey
.” He released a deep sigh,
that hissed through his teeth
and all heads in the room turned to watch their exchange.
“S
omehow this doesn’t surprise me. Did you even tell them?” he asked.