Ink Is Thicker Than Water (12 page)

And, of course, I text Oliver as much as I can squeeze in before lunch is up. It’s good to have one person who seems to care about me. Besides my family. They’re required to, after all.

Kaitlyn sits next to me in geometry like always. I keep thinking of ways to address it, but I’ve read too many books forced on me by Mom. Saying things like,
Could you not find your way to the table?
or,
In case you thought my purse deserved its own seat, that was actually reserved for you
aren’t actually helpful but passive-aggressive. And I’m not perfect, but I’m not that.

“You want to do something after school?” I ask her on our way out of class, even though it’s my night to pick up Finn from daycare. Sara will understand if I ask for a switch. Retaining my best friend is high priority.

“Probably not,” she says without real eye contact. “See you later.”

“Kaitlyn—”

She walks past me like we’ve ended our conversation, but my mouth is literally still open, so I can’t believe she honestly thinks we did. I’d cry except that I never cry at school, and it’s also like my brain has too much to do to focus on just one thing like
crying
. Instead, I run to my car and blast the radio and speed off to get Finn. It’s hard being in a bad mood when Finn’s around.

Sara’s already home when we get there. Finn challenges us to Candyland, and we both accept. Sure, it’s not exactly a challenging game, but unlike the ones Sara really enjoys where you have to be smart with words or history or knowing what crappy pop groups somehow earned Grammy Awards, we all have a fair shot. The only bad thing about it is it always makes me hungry, so after the game is over (Sara wins, regardless), I offer to drive them both down the street so we can load up on sugar while Mom isn’t home.

“Everything okay with you?” she asks me as we watch Finn decide between flavors of taffy.

“I don’t know. Kaitlyn…” I shrug because I’m not even sure what to call it. “It feels like she maybe doesn’t want to be my friend anymore, out of
nowhere
, and I don’t even know why I care.”

“Why
wouldn’t
you care?” Sara leans over and helps Finn reach the blue raspberry taffy he’s pawing toward. “You two have been friends forever.”

“I know, but…she’s been into different stuff lately.” I feel no need to add that I guess I’m into different stuff, too. “She’s maybe not the same person I became friends with. Maybe it shouldn’t be such a big deal.”

“You’re allowed to
feel things
, Kell.”

“I feel things!”

“Besides bravery and coolness,” she says, which sounds nuts but also nice, so I don’t fight her. “I’m sorry about Kaitlyn.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” I say. “I don’t even know if I
am
supposed to do something.”

Sara reaches out and squeezes my hand. “Sometimes it just takes awhile when people change.”

“Takes awhile to what? Realize you shouldn’t be in their lives anymore, or figure out how you still can be?”

She’s quiet for a little bit, still holding my hand. “Both.”

Chapter Eleven

Tuesday isn’t as bad as Monday, I guess, because the shock’s worn off. Still, I hate this whole thing where Kaitlyn will walk by and stare right through me, and I have to act like that’s fine. I have newspaper after school, which I’m realizing I don’t mind at all. By now I have an idea about the outdoor cafeteria tables, and Adelaide and Jennifer approve it and write it next to my name on the board. Also, miraculously, my name is now spelled correctly! I’m like a real living and breathing member of the
Ticknor Voice
, and even the “Ticknor Ticker” is growing on me.

My phone is out during our meeting, in case Oliver texts (or maybe Kaitlyn with a huge and appropriate apology/explanation), but Jennifer doesn’t seem to care that it rings (
Mom calling
) or that I duck into the hallway and answer it.

“Hi, baby. We’re all going to have dinner tonight with Camille—”

“Like, Camille, Camille?”

Mom laughs. “Camille, Camille, yes. Your dad made reservations, and we need to leave the house by six thirty. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t have plans after your newspaper meeting.”

“I don’t. See you then, Mom.”

“See you, baby. Have a great rest of the day at school.”

“I’ll get right on that. Bye.” I click off my phone and think about this piece of news while I listen to the rest of the staff’s submissions. Yeah, by now I have a pretty good picture in my head of Camille, an older version of Sara who is smarter than anyone I’ve ever known, a scientist but totally not a geek.

To be honest, I’m getting a little nervous about Camille, because Camille is not going to be a weirdo. Camille is not going to be Dad with his secret girlfriend and his playing favorites, and she definitely isn’t going to be Mom with her billion tattoos and free-love approach to life.

I mean, Sara
has
to like her more, deep down.

“We’re all going to The Beanery,” Paul tells me as the meeting’s winding down. He makes really direct eye contact with me, which is about as subtle as all the butt-staring he did the last time we all hung out. “Need a ride?”

“I have family stuff,” I say. “Next time.”

“Come anyway!” Jessie says, and I actually feel bad that I can’t, even though obviously the Camille dinner is a thing not to be missed. So I say good-bye and head outside with Mitchell and Chelsea, who I assume are off to make out instead of consorting with the other newspaper people.

Mitchell extends his hand to me as we walk through the parking lot.

“What? Are you requiring payment for your friendship services now?” I ask, even though
services
sounds dirty once I say it.

“I need to get back that iPod I loaned you the other week. Kyle says he needs it to run.”

I dig it out of my purse and hand it over, even though I haven’t had a chance to steal any of its music yet. Mitchell’s chemistry lab partner has surprisingly decent taste. “There’s no way that kid runs. We had Fitness and Recreation together freshman year, and he got winded when we did those short relays.”

Mitch laughs, shoving the iPod into his pocket. “Oh, man, I know.”

Chelsea’s eyes light up. “Didn’t he run in, like, loafers?”

Mitch is practically giggling as we reach our cars. “Who even
owns
loafers?”

“My dad, that’s it.” I think about mentioning the impending Dinner with Camille, but even though I’ve known Mitchell since high school began, and Chelsea since last year when they started going out, they’ve never been people I talked to about serious stuff. “See you tomorrow. That was pretty fun.”

“Newspaper?” He grins as Chelsea gets into her car. “So you’re, like, really into it.”

“I am definitely
not
,” I say without even considering that maybe I am. “Ugh, sorry, I guess I am. You never told me it was fun. You never even told me you were on it.”

“Kellie thinks something’s fun!” he singsongs.

“I think lots of things are fun,” I say, even though I’m not dumb enough not to know what he means. It used to matter so much that I seemed like I wasn’t trying too hard at anything.

But everyone on the
Ticknor Voice
tries hard, and that turns into this tangible thing. Okay, it’s just a paper lots of people barely glance at before throwing away, but it’s still something real that I’m now a part of.

At home I try my best to look nice, borrowing this moss-green wrap dress from Mom that always makes me feel sophisticated or whatever and jamming my hair through the flat iron I rarely take out of the bathroom drawer. It’s always a fascinating process, taming my haphazard waves. I know Mom goes through this most mornings that her hair isn’t in a ponytail (and even some of those so her blond locks will hang just so), but if I’m ever the kind of lady who won’t leave the house without
x
amount of makeup and
y
minutes spent on my hair, I’ll kill myself.

I wear my nice boots that I’m pretty sure Jayne picked out for Dad to give me for my birthday last year, but I wear them over fishnets, because I saw a photo of some actress on some blog who was dressed really nice but with fishnets, and I sort of want that to be my thing someday. I say “someday” because even though I bought the fishnets right away after I saw that picture, whenever I wear them I feel like I’m in costume as who I want to be, or maybe even will be eventually. Tonight though, I’m in Mom’s dress with controlled hair and without any chipped nail polish, I’ve gone out on an actual date with an actual college guy, and there is no Kaitlyn in my life, so maybe it is okay after all to be a new Kellie.

Sara is meeting us there, as is Dad, so it’s just Mom and me in her car on the way to Brentwood, which is the next town over from Dad’s office and where Dad tends to meet us on Mom nights when we have plans with him for any reason. The reservations are at a restaurant Dad is really into, the kind of place that is really proud of itself for serving expensive entrées and forcing any men who want to dine there to put on a jacket. I’ve never paid for an expensive meal in my life, but if I was putting up that kind of money, I think I should get to wear whatever I want.

“Why isn’t Russell coming?” I almost ask about Finn, too, but if a guy has to put on a jacket to walk into a restaurant, he probably is also forced to take off his mask and cape.

“We thought we’d just keep it to the four of us,” Mom says. “Well, the four of us plus Camille, of course.”

“Why’s Sara at Dad’s?” I ask. Normally, we have mirror schedules, after all.

“You two are welcome to go to your dad’s whenever you want, baby,” she says, which doesn’t answer my question at all.

I get out my phone and check to see if I missed any texts. (I did.) And it isn’t one from Kaitlyn (sadly, my dream scenario #1) or Sara (I guess at this moment my dream scenario #2, for some kind of explanation or prep info about Camille so I feel less nervous about meeting her), but it is from dream scenario #3 at least.
Hang out soon? This week?
I respond right away:
yes!!
It sounds really eager, I know, but Oliver sounds eager, too. I’m not worrying about any of that dumb dating stuff. We like each other. This can be great and easy. Right now I’m so glad to have something great and easy.

Dad and Sara are already at the restaurant when we walk in, and Dad holds his finger to his watch as we walk up to them outside the restaurant’s front door. He’s always so eager to be the only prompt one in any situation that involves Mom or me.

“It’s six till, Clay,” Mom says. “We’re all on time. Sara, you look gorgeous.”

She does, too, in a deep blue dress and these patterned heels that contain the same blue that’s in the dress. When I try things like that, I end up looking like the “before” photo in a makeover article, but on Sara it works.

“She’s here,” Sara says instead of
thank you
, and the three of us follow her line of vision to a metallic gray Audi. Camille looks almost exactly like I thought she would, from combining what’s in my head with what Sara has told me. She’s nearly as tall as Sara, with darker blond hair, and of course she has Sara’s cheekbones. I did figure she’d be in a suit or something, but she’s wearing a tailored brown leather jacket over a deep blue sweater, brown pants cut like jeans, and boots that put mine to shame. Fashionable is even scarier than super professional.

“Hi,” she says to Sara. “I’m Camille Jarvis,” she says to Mom and Dad.

Mom and Dad shake her hand, while I feel about Finn’s age for getting overlooked.

“This is Kellie,” Mom says.

Camille shakes my hand. “Hi, Kellie.”

I follow everyone inside. The restaurant isn’t like a lot of Dad’s usuals—dark and straight out of a business-deal scene from a movie—but brighter and more open. If this place is straight out of a movie, it at least isn’t a mob one.

That’s vaguely comforting.

The maître d’ takes us to a table right in the center of everything and hands us menus. To him I’m sure this looks like a very normal meal and not one of the weirdest of our lives.

Camille asks Dad a few polite questions about his law firm before it happens. “And you’re a paralegal, Melanie?”

Mom is midsip on a glass of red wine, and I can tell just how close all of us come to getting doused in it. “Oh, wow, no, I haven’t been a paralegal since the girls were little, way back when Clay and I were still married.”

When I see the way Sara’s eyes widen, then shut, I know in some ways she’s no better than Dad with his secret divorce and then secret girlfriend. This is not the kind of thing I want to learn about my sister, that she thinks our family has to be edited and polished before anyone hears about us.

“You’re divorced?” Camille asks, then turns to Sara. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“I didn’t think it was important,” Sara says, which makes both Mom’s and Dad’s eyebrows shoot way, way up. “In the context of telling you about me. We’re all well-adjusted and—”

“The agency gave me a short profile,” Camille says, directed at Mom. “That’s how I knew you’d been a paralegal. Sara hadn’t said anything to—”

“I think we’re all well aware Sara doesn’t lie,” Mom says with a smile. “To answer your original question, sort of, my husband and I run a tattoo shop on South Grand, The Family Ink. It’s our dream and the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”

Mom can’t talk to someone for longer than ten minutes without saying something goofy like that.

“You’re remarried,” Camille says, piecing it together. “Do you have other children?”

“Russell and I have a four-year-old boy,” Mom says, still smiling, now with that glazed look she sometimes gets when telling someone how fantastic her life is.

“What about you, Kellie?” Camille asks.

“I don’t have any children,” I say. “Though I do have my own law firm. We’re Dad’s biggest competition.”

Only Mom laughs at that, and I’m sure it’s only to encourage my self-esteem.

“Do you attend Nerinx Hall as well?”

“No, Mom and Dad let us pick where we went, so I go to Ticknor Day School.”

“I’ve heard Ticknor’s a very good school,” she says.

“If she applied herself, she’d get a lot out of it.” It’s the kind of thing Dad says a lot, but it really never stops feeling like having a bucket of cold water thrown on me.

“Kellie’s on the school newspaper staff.” Mom squeezes my hand under the table because she isn’t big into calling Dad out on his shit, not since the divorce at least. Before the divorce I was too little to pick up on the intricacies of their relationship; also, it was tough being truly disappointed in someone under the age of six, so I’d had it easier then.

“Oh,” Camille says. “Are you a writer?”

I make sort of a
psssh
noise and fidget with my salad fork. Everyone seems content to let it stand at that, but it hits me that I wish I would have said
yes
. For maybe the first time it sounds good to be anything other than nothing, and not just because of Dad.

Mom and Dad ask Camille a bunch of questions about her work, while I zone out and dip bread into olive oil. Camille’s mystique alone isn’t enough to make me suddenly care about physics.