Pieces of Us

For my grandparents, who brought me to the Catskills every summer,

taught me card games and dominoes,
and showed me the simpler,
safer world of berry-picking.
I will remember you always.

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Pieces of Us
© 2012 by Margie Gelbwasser.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Flux, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover models used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book’s subject.

First e-book edition ©2012

E-book ISBN: 9780738730066

Book design by Bob Gaul

Cover design by Ellen Lawson

Cover image © Fancy/Photolibrary

Flux is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Flux does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

Flux

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.fluxnow.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Brian Farrey-Latz for his great edit ideas and for buying
Pieces of Us
before either of us knew what it would become, just because he believed in me. Steven Pomije and Courtney Colton for answering my million questions. Sandy Sullivan for her keen eye, fantastic ideas, and for always finding ways to make my manuscripts better. Everyone at Flux for letting me publish this book and for allowing me, two years ago, to start my career as a published novelist. It all means so much to me. My agent, Jennifer Laughran, for supporting all my efforts, always listening and telling me whether my concerns are valid or not. My friends and best readers, Vinessa Anthony and Shaun Hutchinson—you know how thankful I am for you both. To Alex for lending two more eyes despite being busy with twins, writing, and teaching. To Matt for his info on Philly (told you I’d thank you here). To my family for always supporting me with babysitting, love, and encouragement. To my little guy, Noah, and husband, Stu—you both keep me going, and I love you
.

Katie

~
The Lake House: Something to Know
~

I
first met Alex (or Sasha, as his grandparents call him) the day the chicken man came to the lake houses. I was nine, Sasha was eleven. I heard about the chickens all week, how some man was going to come and bring fresh ones for everyone to pick. I was really excited because I thought it meant we’d get our own chicken to feed. I asked my grandparents if we had enough food for them. They gave each other worried smiles.

The day he came, I sat on the bench closest to him. There were so many chickens. He had a little pen for them to roam in so people could see which one they liked best—which they clicked with, I thought. They didn’t look all that different, other than wing size or white feathers as opposed to brown or speckled. “This one,” I told my grandma, pointing to a chicken that pecked seeds from my hand. Its “pak” sounded like a purr. I stroked the feathers and its beak nudged my hand.

“Not that one, Katya.” Her pet Russian name for me. In the Catskills, we were all called by our Russian names.

I pouted. “But I really like her.”

My grandmother gave me a hug and walked over to the chicken man and whispered something. He shook his head no, and my grandma spoke quietly but firmly, waving her hands for punctuation. Finally, the man sighed and put my favorite chicken into a cage in the truck.

I plopped myself back on the bench and sulked. I saw my seven-year-old sister Julie (Yulya) sitting in our cottage, peeking through a window, and motioned for her to come outside. She shook her head no and closed the blinds. That’s when Sasha sat down beside me.

“You sure you want to be watching this?” he asked.

“Why not?” I still thought there was going to be some special chicken ceremony, and even though I couldn’t get my favorite chicken, I’d be fine with another one for a pet.

He shrugged. “My kid brother wants nothing to do with it.”

“Neither does my sister.” It bothered me that he called his brother a kid, since he was my age. “Maybe they just don’t like chickens.”

For some reason, this made him laugh. “Which one is yours?”

“Well, I wanted the one with the white feathers. It ate right out of my hand, but my grandma didn’t let me have it. Now it’s in the truck.”

His eyes widened, like something clicked. “What do you think is going to happen?” His voice was soothing when he said this, like he was talking to a little kid. I wasn’t a little kid.

I got huffy. “What do you mean? We’re getting chickens!” But even as the words came out, I began to realize that wasn’t what was going to happen. I didn’t know what was, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get a pet.

The chicken man stepped into the pen and the chickens squawked loudly. He picked one up and the chickens went crazy, running around the pen, squawking a chorus of protests. Sasha gripped the top of my arm. “I don’t think you should stay for this.”

I jerked my arm free. “I can if you can.”

“You don’t get it. They’re not just
giving
them away.”

I bit my lip. My voice shook. “What do you mean?”

The man took out a knife.

“Just go,” said Sasha.

But I wouldn’t. I needed to see what would happen.

The man gripped the chicken above the neck and sliced straight across the throat with his butcher knife. I gasped as the blood flowed from the hole. Tears fell down my cheeks. Then, the chicken flapped its wings and flew a few feet in the air, no head and all, before flopping back down for good.

It’s then that I felt Sasha’s hand tightly on mine. “I’m sorry,” he said as I cried into his shoulder.

When we saw each other after that, we only said hi and kept on walking. He played with the boys, I played with the girls. The next time I was that close to him again, I was thirteen and his lips were centimeters from mine and something had changed in his eyes.

Julie

~
Cherry Hill, NJ
~

T
he only cherries you see in Cherry Hill are in the supermarket. There are no hills blooming with them—no trees either. Back when it was first named Cherry Hill, the land was a farm. As far as I know, the farm did not grow cherries. My best friend Chloe says calling it Cherry Hill is ironic, but obviously words are not her strong suit. That’s not what ironic means. No, the name Cherry Hill is a misnomer, and a sad one at that. Just ask my mom.

She and her parents moved to the United States from some small “backwards Russian hole” when she was in high school. They lived in Brighton Beach, New York, which made my grandparents ecstatic and annoyed the heck out of my mom. Living in Brighton Beach—where all stores were Russian-owned, where there was no need to learn English—was the same as being back in Russia, she said. She was bigger than that.

For college, my mom got a scholarship and went to California. She loved the glitz and said it was her kind of place. Somewhere along the way, she met my dad. By that time, the Cali glamor was burning her out. Dad was from Cherry Hill, and she thought there would be fields and fields of colorful flowers and cherry trees under which she could rest and dream. This place, she thought, would be all beautiful, the kind of place she deserved.

When I was ten, I thought I’d fix things for her. Katie had just painted some dorky pic of a cherry tree, which mom loved. No, more than loved—adored, revered. It seemed to make her crazy happy. That Mother’s Day, I got us matching headbands with saved birthday and lunch money. Since Mom liked it when she and Katie wore the same styles, I thought it was the perfect gift. The headbands were silver in color, with red plastic cherries intertwined at the top and little green stems as accents. Mom put hers on right away and smiled real big. I put mine on too and ran to get a mirror so we could see what we looked like in these identical bands. Mom put her arm around me, smile still on her face. “Julie, honey,” she said, “I don’t think this is quite right for you. I think you need to grow into it.”

Grow into a headband?
I thought. What the heck did
that
mean? “We’ll get you one that works better with your coloring.” A week later, she got me a new headband. It was brown and plain and not pretty at all. I put it on for her anyway, and she nodded. “Perfect. One day you’ll grow into the other one. Until then, maybe Katie should wear it?”

Katie took it. She wore it all the time. The cherries bloomed on her head the way they never would on mine.

Even when Katie stopped wearing the cherries—“too babyish for high school”—Mom still kept it, and I caught her taking it out of her drawer to stare at them. She never gave the headband back to me. I’m thirteen now, and I guess I still haven’t grown into it. But each time she takes it out, she mumbles about being tricked and manipulated and glares at my dad. He says he never described Cherry Hill the way Mom says he did. That it was my mom’s own creation.

It really doesn’t matter. Either way, she’s stuck here—waiting for cherries that will never bloom.