High Heels and Lipstick (20 page)

“We'll discuss it,” Mom said again, more firmly this time.

I decided to quit while I was ahead. The two most important things had been decided. Mom and Dad would loosen up on me. Ninety-five percent of the time, when they said they had to discuss a decision about one of us kids, they ended up giving us the answer we wanted.

And Jim was actually getting punished for what he'd done to Maryellen and me. It wasn't enough, but it was something. He'd admitted to it, and instead of just slapping him on the wrist the way they'd done after he beat up Evan, the court was actually making him pay.

In spite of what I'd said, I did feel a tiny bit sorry for him. He would be locked up completely for a month, and his family didn't want him anymore. Even though he was getting what he deserved, those were tough things to deal with. Once upon a time, I'd cared about all the crap he put up with from his parents. I'd cared about him. I didn't have any reason to now, but one small part of me still did.

But mostly, I was just relieved. Whatever happened to Jim wasn't my problem.

I
WOKE
the next morning to falling snow, white streets, and a message on the landline voice mail informing me school was closed. I should have been happy to be able to miss a day of gossip and teachers, but the thought of being stuck in the house all day killed the happy. I didn't have any clue when the snow was supposed to stop, but judging from how hard it was coming down now, it would be a while. And even when it stopped, it would take the town some time to clear the streets and sidewalks enough for people to get around safely.

Dad had to go to work regardless of weather, as long as Boston's public transit system was running, so he left about an hour earlier than usual, before daylight. Mom was awake by then, but I wasn't in the mood to talk to her once I informed her I didn't have school. I had no clue whether she and Dad had discussed the whole “letting up on Chastaine” thing yet, and until they did, I didn't have much to say to either of them.

I could have gone back to sleep once I knew I didn't have to go anywhere, but I'd had nightmares most of the night again, and woken up a bunch of times. That made me even more tired than usual, but it also made me reluctant to sleep anymore. For all I knew, the dreams would come back the second I closed my eyes.

Why I was suddenly having a full night of bad dreams about Jim was anyone's guess. I'd had some nightmares about him before, but nothing like this. They'd gone on for hours, and every time I woke up and went back to sleep, they started again.

Maybe my subconscious was so relieved it had to let out all the crap I'd built up. I'd cried for about an hour before going to bed, once I was safely in my room where Mom and Dad wouldn't know. Now that the whole thing was over, I didn't have to keep myself together and pretend to be okay. At least not when I was alone. So the dreams were probably part of that, but they were still something I would be happy to never have to deal with again.

There wasn't much to do in my room, but I didn't want to deal with Mom or Marcus, so I stayed there most of the day. Mom made me go downstairs for breakfast and lunch, because apparently she didn't trust me to eat if she wasn't on my case about it. I didn't really blame her for that, given how little I'd been eating lately, but understanding why she was doing it didn't make it any less annoying.

Other than that, I spent the day catching up on TV shows online and chatting off and on with Holly and Evan. Guillermo messaged me early on to let me know he'd heard about Jim's sentence and hoped I was okay, but that was the only time I heard from him. Holly and Evan had me join in an instant message chat with them for a while, which turned out to mostly be Evan giving us fashion and makeup tips he'd picked up from the drag queen competition TV show he liked to watch.

It was entertaining, but I wished I could talk to Holly privately. Not that I had any real idea of what to talk to her about. We'd settled my biggest questions the day before. We were together, and neither of us wanted to risk anyone else finding out.

But some things still confused me. We were seeing each other, but she was still seeing Nathan. Or at least pretending to. She wasn't happy about the idea of me seeing guys, but she hadn't said she didn't want me to. I'd thought I only wanted a friendship-dating thing with her, the same kind of thing I'd had with some of the guys I'd been with, but part of me wanted Holly to be my girlfriend, not only a friend.

Labels or not, I wanted to be certain of what was going on.

With Evan part of the conversation, though, I couldn't ask. If Holly told anyone about us, Evan would probably be the one, but it wasn't up to me to fill him in. So during the time we chatted, I kept my mouth shut and pretended nothing was going on. I didn't even ask Holly if I could talk to her without Evan being part of the conversation, because Evan probably would have wanted to know why.

The good thing about the chatting and watching TV shows was that I managed to stay away from social media. Since Guillermo had heard about Jim's sentence, I assumed others had too. I was incredibly curious about what they were saying and who was still on my side. At the same time, I was afraid I'd see more angry or insulting posts, so I just stuck to instant messaging, ignored stuff that came from anyone other than Holly and Evan, and indulged in marathons of shows I liked but didn't usually watch because Mom and Dad controlled the TV at night.

The sun came out eventually, and the street outside our house was cleared, which meant probably most of the rest of the streets in town were too. We were usually one of the last ones the plow hit. That meant we would almost definitely have school the next day. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. On one hand, it would be nice to get out of the house and see my friends. On the other hand, I didn't want to deal with school.

I had to get over the not wanting to go to school thing, or at least hide it. If my parents realized just how afraid I was to walk into school, they might start insisting again that I go somewhere else. They wouldn't understand that I wasn't afraid of anyone or anything in particular. I didn't want to hear what people would say to me now that Jim would be basically going to jail. Some of them might blame me for ruining Jim's life, or even say that I was the one who should have been locked up.

My parents would have figured I didn't want to go to school because of all the same things as before, and that might have changed their minds about letting me stay in town. No matter how worried I was, I still wanted to be at the same school as my friends.

Holly and Evan had only been talking to me off and on, since both of them had housework and homework to do, and by late afternoon the conversation had pretty much ended. I still hadn't dared to talk to Holly without Evan seeing it, even though I could have asked her to chat privately or even texted her, and I was starting to wonder if I would ever have the chance. Maybe it was for the best if I didn't. If Holly was as nervous as she seemed about our relationship, discussing it might make things worse for her. And I wasn't sure it would help me much either.

By suppertime, I was bored out of my mind. I was relaxed and a lot less tired than that morning, since I'd been lying on my bed most of the day, but I was glad to go downstairs when Mom came to my door to say Dad had finally made it home. We almost never ate until he was there.

Mom had decided not to cook, and instead had laid out a variety of sandwich meats, cheese, and condiments, along with sandwich rolls. All of us put together our own sandwiches at the kitchen island and took them to the table to eat.

“Long day.” Dad looked exhausted. “I'm glad I didn't have to drive, but the T's been running behind all day. Marcus, thank you for clearing the walks and driveway.”

“No problem,” Marcus said. “It wasn't like I had much else to do.”

I hadn't even realized Marcus had done that. In the past, I would have helped, and we probably would have had a snowball fight or built a snowman or something. Just because we were older didn't mean we didn't still sometimes play in the snow. But he hadn't asked for my help. I didn't know whether he'd assumed I wouldn't want to go outside or just hadn't thought about it.

“Chastaine, what did you do all day?” Dad asked.

“Stayed in my room, mostly.” I looked at Marcus. “I didn't know anyone was clearing the snow.”

“I thought you weren't feeling well,” Marcus said. “When you came down here for lunch, you didn't look so great, so I left you alone.”

“I didn't sleep well.” The last thing I needed was for Mom and Dad to think I was sick. Mom always went a little overboard about viruses. “I had crappy dreams, so sleep didn't happen. I'm feeling fine, and maybe fresh air would have been good for me.”

“I doubt it,” Marcus said. “I don't think the temperature got out of the teens, and you won't wear jackets. If you aren't sick now, you probably would have been. And why am I lecturing my kid sister about proper winter attire?” He winked at me. “I didn't mind dealing with the snow. I would have asked for help if I'd wanted it.”

“Okay.” I still felt kind of guilty for having him do it all, but it wasn't my problem.

“Did you do anything?” Dad asked.

“A little homework,” I said. That was true by a very loose definition of homework. Evan had asked Holly and me about a question at the end of our history chapter. He hadn't been able to find the answer anywhere in the chapter. Neither had I, but I'd paid enough attention during class to have been able to tell him what to write.

Of course, I hadn't done the homework myself. It was kind of hard to concentrate with the instant messenger tone going off at random intervals, not to mention being too tired to think.

We ate without speaking for a little while. It was kind of nice to have a family dinner that didn't involve some serious discussion about Chastaine's school and mental stability. Hopefully now that Jim had been sentenced, my parents would back off a little.

After a few minutes, Mom set down her half-eaten sandwich. “You'll probably have school tomorrow.”

“I'm guessing,” I said. “The street looks okay, and they don't want us to miss too much school because the teachers don't want to go too late into the summer.”

“How do you think it's going to go?”

It took me a second to catch on to what she was really asking. People would have heard the news about Jim last night or today. I hadn't paid enough attention online to know whether there was any backlash. Tomorrow, I would find out.

“It's going to go however it goes,” I said. “I can't stress about it. There's no point. I can't change what people think or what they're going to say to me.”

“Chastaine's going to be fine,” Marcus said. “She learned how to stick up for herself from the best.”

“Yeah, you guys definitely taught me that.” I rolled my eyes. My brothers loved me and watched out for me, but that hadn't kept them from causing me grief most of my childhood. Just because they didn't allow anyone outside the family to give me a hard time didn't stop them from doing it.

“I just worry.” Mom picked up her sandwich again but didn't take a bite. “Your dad and I talked last night, Chastaine. We agreed you had a point about the rules changing and making you feel like you were the one who'd caused what happened.”

“We're sorry about that,” Dad said. “Believe me. The last thing we wanted to do was make you think we blamed you. We were trying to protect you in entirely the wrong way.”

“Thank you.” I smiled at both of them. I doubted they were over the whole overprotective thing, but at least they were apologizing for how they'd handled it. And they said I'd been right. That was pretty rare.

“We're going to try going back to the rules and restrictions you had before,” Mom said. “I can't promise not to call or text to check on you if I get worried, though.”

“And if we have a reason to think having those rules is putting you in a bad spot, we're going to change again,” Dad said.

I wasn't entirely sure what he meant by “bad spot.” From their perspective, a lot of the things I'd enjoyed doing were probably bad. I didn't ask him to clarify, though. It was definitely not time for another dissection of how “Chastaine is making poor choices.”

“I'm not friends with most of the people I hung out with before,” I said. “I haven't gone to any kind of party since Homecoming night. So I don't think you have to worry about me being in a bad spot, but I get what you're saying. Thank you.”

Dad nodded. “You'll be seventeen in a couple of months. You aren't an adult yet, and you still have to follow our rules as long as you live here, but it doesn't make sense to give you less freedom instead of more as you get older.”

“You handled things better than a lot of people I know would have.” Mom put down her sandwich again. I was starting to think she hadn't thrown it away yet only because she needed something to do with her hands. “You heard what I said to Jane the other day.”