Hallie Hath No Fury . . .

 

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Copyright

CHAPTER 1

The Fourth of July

I stared across the sand at Gemma Tucker as a firework exploded over her head, sending a shower of sparks across the sky. She was still blinking fast, clearly trying to deal with the bombshell I'd just dropped on her. Before I could turn to go, she started talking, all about how she'd just lied to try and show me she was a good person, that she'd been trying to make things right with me, blah blah blah. I crossed my arms, barely listening to what she was saying. She was doing what she always did. Ever since we were kids, Gemma wanted everything her way. She wanted to be able to do whatever she wanted and wreck whatever she wanted and then still have everyone love her. And life just didn't work that way. I shook my head, not wanting to listen to anything else.

“You thought I was just going to forgive you?” I asked, and I could hear the disbelief dripping from my voice. “Did you really think it would be that easy?” I tried to scoff, but it was like all the anger I had, the anger I'd been holding on to for five years, was starting to rush out, and it was making my voice shake. “You
ruined
my life. You almost wrecked my family. Did you think I was going to let you get away with it?” I was speaking faster and faster now, not even planning my words carefully like I'd been doing all summer around her. It was like everything I wanted to say was threatening to spill out of me. “You think I didn't see through you the minute you stepped off that train?”

I was about to go on—I had
years
worth of things to say to Gemma—but I stopped myself, just in time. I made myself look away from her and take deep breaths. I'd come too far to lose it at the last minute.

I turned back to Gemma, who looked as shaken by my outburst as I felt. “Go home, Gemma,” I said. I wanted nothing more than to have her out of my sight—out of my life—forever. “Go on home to Connecticut. This is over. I won.” I let the words hang between us—the words I'd been dreaming about saying to her, and seeing the expression on her face when I said them—for five years. I let myself have the moment, then I turned away and walked up toward the house.

I didn't hurry, and I didn't look back once, even though I could feel Gemma's eyes on me, probably still trying to figure out how I'd wrecked her perfect little life.
Good
, I thought fiercely as I crossed from the beach up to the deck.
Good.

I stepped inside the mudroom but didn't turn the light on just yet. I knew Teddy was waiting inside, probably beginning to wonder where I was. I needed to join him, but for a second, I wanted to savor my victory.

It didn't feel quite how I'd imagined it, though. I kept replaying the moment in my mind, telling myself that it was enough. That I'd done what I needed to do.

I looked out to the beach again and saw that Gemma hadn't moved from where I'd left her looking out at the water. For some reason, the sight of her standing so still made me shiver, even though it was a hot, muggy night.

I tried to tell myself that it was over. That it had all been worth it. But as I looked at Gemma, a new thought, uninvited, crept into my mind.

Maybe this wasn't over after all. Maybe I'd just made things much, much worse.…

CHAPTER 2

Five Years Earlier

My mom unlocked the door—five locks in all—to our Brooklyn walk-up and stepped inside. I followed behind, keeping my eyes on her as she set bags and suitcases down and went around the tiny apartment, silently turning on lights (it didn't take long). I'd never seen my mother quite like this, and I was worried. Ever since we'd packed up our Hamptons beach cottage that morning, she'd said only a handful of words. And most of them had been driving-related, as she asked me for change for the toll and to check if she could switch lanes. Normally my mother was cheerful, if always a little frazzled, too likely to get caught up in her latest manuscript to remember about dinner, then ordering out for enough pizza to keep us in leftovers for a week. But when she wasn't working, she was chatty—which made her sudden silence feel all the more ominous.

I was still trying to get my head around it myself—the unexpected turns the summer had taken. It had started out amazing, like something out of a storybook. We'd been living in a cottage on the beach, and my mom was happy—her writing and teaching both going well. And there had been Gemma Tucker and her father, Paul. From the outset, Gemma and I had had a ton of freedom to hang out at the beach all day, ride our bikes around, swim in the pool of the crazy mansion where Gemma was living, the house of a real-life movie producer. It was a world I'd never thought I'd get to spend any time in, and there was a piece of me that was selfishly glad that my older brother, Josh, hadn't been there, too. It seemed like Josh was always getting to do cool stuff in interesting places (the benefit of being a crazy-good lacrosse player) so I was thrilled that for once, it was happening just to me.

My mom told me after the first week that she and Paul were thinking about dating—wanting to see if I was okay with it. My mother hadn't dated anyone seriously since my dad had died five years earlier, and I found, a little to my surprise, that I
was
okay with it. I really liked Paul, but mostly, I saw how happy he made my mom.

There had been a few bumps in the road, of course—my mom accidentally put the wrong date on my birthday Evite, which meant nobody came—but for the most part, things had been great. Until the night of the dinner party.

My mom had been so excited about it—Paul's big-time agent was going to be there, and he was going to consider representing her as well. There were editors, journalists, people who might be able to help her book really succeed. But the party hadn't gone like my mother had hoped, and over the next few days, we watched, horrified, as everything started to fall apart.

She was accused of plagiarizing her novel, and from all over the Internet, people were rushing forward with examples to prove it. Paul's agent wanted nothing to do with her. Her publisher canceled her book contract and made her return the money she'd been paid for it. And yesterday, the Hamptons Writing Workshop had fired her and told us we had twenty-four hours to vacate the rental house we'd lived in all summer.

We'd jumped into action because we had to, packing up a summer's worth of things and cleaning out the refrigerator. But the action had been interrupted by the most terrible revelation yet—that Paul was the one who had started the rumor that she'd plagiarized her book. It was that blow that seemed to do my mother in. She basically hadn't said anything, not even when Paul and Gemma stopped by, Paul to try and explain what happened and to give us a box of our stuff that had migrated over to their house.

Gemma had stayed in the car, occasionally glancing at me but then looking away. I guess she didn't know what to say, and there was a piece of me that wanted to tell her it wasn't her fault—and maybe if she would have gotten out of the car, I would have. But she just stayed there, not meeting my eye—as if we hadn't spent almost every day of the summer together—her expression … troubling, though I couldn't say why, exactly.

Paul and Gemma left soon after that, and my mom and I put the last boxes in the car, then drove back to Brooklyn in suffocating silence.

I just couldn't understand it.… Why would Paul have done something like that? It didn't make any sense, and any explanation I would try out just seemed to ring false.

“Hallie?” I was shaken out of these thoughts by the sound of my mother's voice, which sounded scratchy, like she'd just woken up, despite the fact it was nine at night.

“Yes?” I asked as I set my own bag down. I was ready to be helpful—basically, I wanted my mother to start acting like my mother again and not like a silent zombie who knew how to drive a car.

“Go down to the bodega, would you?” she asked, sounding exhausted as she pulled her wallet out of her beat-up leather bag and handed me a ten. “Just get some milk and cereal so we'll have something in the morning. And then get a slice for dinner if you're hungry.”

I nodded and pocketed the bill. “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” my mother said, giving me what I'm sure was supposed to be a smile, but was actually just a poor imitation of one. “I'm going to bed. Lock up when you get back, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.” I took a breath, to try and say something—maybe that things would be okay, or that this would pass—but I honestly wasn't sure things
would
be okay. And I wasn't sure my mom thought they would be, either. And both of those things were terrifying to me.

When I came back upstairs, I put the groceries away, then sat in the quiet apartment at our kitchen table with my pizza. I picked at my slice, even though I didn't really have an appetite. I thought back to all the pizza I'd eaten with Gemma all summer—Gemma and the crazy sausage-pineapple-pepperoni pizza that only she and Paul seemed to like.… I suddenly drew in a sharp breath. I knew now why Gemma's expression when she'd looked at me from the car had bothered me. It was because I
recognized
it.

It was the same expression she had on her face when we'd been playing Monopoly and I'd find out later that she'd stacked the deck with get-out-of-jail-free cards. It was the expression of fear that she was going to be found out mixed with triumph at winning, however she pulled it off.

It was how she looked when she'd just gotten away with something.

*   *   *

“Any change?” Josh asked. In the background, I could hear people yelling and the sounds of laughter and scuffles, and I wondered, not for the first time, why boys—especially lacrosse-playing boys—were so
loud
.

I looked over to my mother's closed bedroom door. “No,” I said, relieved that I could actually tell someone the truth. In the two weeks since we'd been back from the Hamptons, things had gone from bad to worse. Strangers on the Internet were still accusing my mother of plagiarism, and her regular teaching job—the one whose salary we basically lived on—had told her that her services wouldn't be required for this coming fall. She'd spent a few days on the phone, putting on her best confident voice, trying to get a teaching job somewhere, anywhere else, but getting rejected at every turn. Paul had called a lot the first week, trying to explain, but my mother always hung up pretty quickly, and I guess he'd gotten the message, because the calls slowed and then stopped.

She'd gone into her room three days before and had gotten into bed, even though it wasn't even dark outside yet, and had basically been there ever since. I didn't think she was sleeping, though—I'd sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and hear the faint sounds of late-night TV—old-timey movies and infomercials promising miracles. Josh had called from his lacrosse camp to check in, and I'd wasted no time in letting him know just how not-good things were here.

My brother let out a long sigh, and I knew him well enough to understand what he meant by that—that we were both feeling totally out of our depth here. “I know,” I agreed.

“I think I should come home,” Josh said. I could tell he was trying to sound decisive and brave, but I could hear the disappointment in his voice.