Watch for Me by Moonlight (5 page)

“I’d see this guy twice. I’d see this guy twice a day. I have to find out who he is,” Meredith said. She flipped open her phone. “This is a job for Neely Chaplin.”

That was a bulls-eye,
Mallory thought. Although only a year ago, Neely had been one of those uprooted urban blossoms, no one had put down roots more quickly. Neely had a kind of knack for social activism: She had cultivated the network of her and Merry’s friends to unearth and spread gossip so quickly, she was like a twenty-four-hour news service. And although all the girls routinely got in trouble for rampant over-texting, it was Mallory’s opinion that Neely had opposable thumbs that had evolved even beyond the ordinary video-game-playing teenager. As she told her twin, if there were a text-typing competition, Neely would medal in every event.

That was what Merry was counting on.

THE BOY IN THE BROWN LEATHER JACKET

D
on’t talk to men,” Neely told Meredith as they leaped down, grinning like fools, from their respective pyramids.

“What did I do?” Merry asked Neely through closed teeth, as she dipped her shoulder and flipped her hair forward in the first steps of the last quarter of the half-time cheer dance they were practicing after school. It was four days after Merry and Mally’s shopping trip.

“You ruined my perfect record of finding out everything about any cute boy anywhere anytime if he’s within a five-mile radius,” said Neely. “At least I failed so far.”

“So you don’t know who he is,” Meredith said, dropping into a split and madly waving her hands above her head.

“Are you sure he didn’t just come through on a bus and leave?” Neely asked, as the two of them jumped up and retreated to a corner to wait for the music to signal their final tumbling run.

“No, he lives here. I’m sure,” Merry said. “Neels, I’m shocked. This is your ... your art. Your gift.”

“The problem is not me or my lack of talent. It’s that I don’t have enough information. I need vital statistics. Height, weight, hair color, preferred method of dress,” Neely said. “Not he’s just so hot and cute and wears a jacket.”

“Okay, well, he’s got blond hair ... long,” Merry said. “Really long in front, like almost as if it would cover his eyes if it were wet.”

A sharp note sounded on the whistle. “I’m very sorry to interrupt your chat, girls,” Coach Everson said. “But I was hoping we’d actually finish this practice tonight. Let’s take it from the last sixteen bars. Please.”

After practice, Neely ran off to study with her tutor for her Latin final and was then gone after lunch on Friday taking the test at the private school in Kitticoe where her parents had arranged for her to study three afternoons a week. Ridgeline offered only Spanish and German. Convinced that Neely would be a doctor—or a lawyer like her father—the Chaplins had insisted she study Latin since eighth grade.

So Meredith had to content herself that she wouldn’t be able to share more about the boy with Kim, who was staying over at Neely’s along with Meredith after the dance on Saturday.

Forty hours. It wasn’t really that she truly wanted her best friends to start a text campaign about him, Merry realized. She knew she would see him again. All she had to do was wait and be. But waiting was nearly impossible. Meredith just wanted to talk about him and not, for some reason she didn’t understand, with Mallory.

All those hours.

Meredith thought she would count every one of them by the hands on the clock.

As she dressed for the dance, Meredith didn’t know how short the time would really be. And she didn’t know how short a time it would be until she wouldn’t need—or even want—anyone’s help when it came to the mystery boy.

STRANGER AT THE DANCE

“L
ook at all my beautiful girls,” Campbell said on the night of the formal.

Campbell included Sasha, putting an arm around her shoulders, and the twins didn’t mind. After all, Sasha had worked that very morning, taking care of Owen (Luna, who disdained any school function, would come later when Campbell left for her night shift). Their father was still at the store and would be until nearly midnight because of the After-Christmas Crazy Sale at Domino Sporting Goods—which lasted until about March 1, when the town workers finally got around to taking down the lighted snowflakes and signs that read PEACE.

Because she basically had no family, Sasha had no one to make a fuss about her formal or take her pictures. She hadn’t complained, but her predicament went to Campbell’s heart. Sasha seemed so touched by the attention that she showed up early. She went up to the twins’ room, where she stood in her crinolines, and with a few twists put Meredith’s stick-straight hair up into a froth of loopy curls. The crinolines were almost as wide as the twins’ attic bedroom, but Meredith couldn’t believe how beautiful her hair looked.

“How’d you learn to do this?” she asked Sasha.

“Oh, just fooling around,” Sasha said.

Then she slipped her pale, jonquil-yellow strapless gown over her head, and she really did look like something from some old-time movie the twins’ mother forced them to watch at the Belles Artes Theatre to make sure they didn’t grow up “uncultured.” She looked, in fact, like Cinderella, right down to shoes with Lucite heels, each of which had a yellow rose in it.

“Where did you find those shoes? Not in Ridgeline,” said Meredith.

“I got them second-hand online. The lady at the other place I work just got a new laptop, and she lets me use it. She’s really nice and she’s not really that old. She used to garden and do all these things, but she got sick the last few months.”

“That’s too bad,” Mally said. “At least she’s not crabby.”

“No, she’s getting weaker every day,” Sasha said softly. “I don’t think she’ll live very long. It makes me sad.”

“Come down here, you guys!” Campbell yelled.

As each of them descended the stairs, Campbell and Mrs. Vaughn from next door started snapping pictures. There had to be pictures of the twins together, then the twins with Sasha, and then of Mallory and Drew, as well as Neely and Meredith, who were riding to, but not from, the dance with Drew and Mallory. (“I’m staying at Neely’s. Her dad will pick us up at the school, or send the driver,” Merry said.)

After forty or so photos, Drew finally yelled, “Stop! I’m losing sight in my right eye!”

Finally, Campbell took a picture with her telephone and sent it to Tim at the store. He texted back and said, “I HATE WORK MAKING ME MISS THIS. I’LL DROP BY THE DANCE.” Although they loved their dad, both girls devoutly hoped their father, who was best friends with every coach at school, wouldn’t make good on the offer.

Just then Luna made her entrance, in black combat boots and a floor-length lace dress that looked like someone’s hammock.

“Stylin’, Luna,” Drew said.

“This is so juvenile,” she answered. “I wouldn’t go to a Ridgeline High School function willingly if somebody paid me. I can’t believe I even show up there every day.”

“You have all honors classes,” Merry said.

“Not willingly,” Luna said. “Merry, did you know your aura is orange? That’s healing and love. But yours is dark,” she said to Sasha and Mallory. “Troubled.”

“Who decides this?” Mallory asked Luna. “Is there an aura color wheel?”

“Nothing like that. You just know. You know if you know,” Luna said.

“I guess you’d know, with all that sky dancing,” Mallory said.

“If you say one more word about that, I’ll make you have dreams about things that will make your hair stand up like that all the time,” Luna said. Mallory thought,
If you only knew....

Then, bright in his new penguin footed pajamas, Owen came running into the room, making noises like a truck. Luna’s whole face changed. “Hi, big guy!” she said, scooping him up. “Wanna party?”

“Luna,” Merry whispered. “Do you know that your mother’s father stands at the end of her bed every night and that he’s pissed? He knows about the stamps she sold before he died when she thought he was in a coma.”

Luna stared hard at Meredith, who was, in fact, telling the truth. Then her face converted to its usual mask of vaguely bored superiority. “Don’t be foolish,” she said.

“Watch out,” Merry warned her. “That noise in the attic isn’t mice. It’s Gramps looking for those stamps.”

Having heard nothing, Campbell hugged the girls and then Sasha. “I wish your mom could be here to see you,” she said.

“It’s okay,” Sasha said. “I got over being a little girl a long time ago. But I sure am glad you let me be part of your family for the night.” She began to wave her hand and held her head back so tears wouldn’t run down. “Look, now what a slob I am. I can’t get all sad at times like these. It doesn’t change anything. My sister’s in college, and I’ll live with her when I get finished.”

Mallory said, “That’s very courageous. I can’t imagine having lost everyone at my age.”

“Not everyone is as lucky as you are, Mallory,” Campbell said. “Not everybody can grow up surrounded by a healthy family. Aunts and uncles. All but one of your grandparents is still alive.” Campbell’s mother had died in an accident when the twins were young, and her father lived in Virginia and Florida. He visited three or four times a year.

“Your mama has been very kind to me,” said Sasha. “I’m very grateful. Y’all can get lonely.”

Drew said, “Let’s get going! Your grandma’s going to be mad. You know how she is about manners.” Grandma Gwenny had offered to cook dinner for the twins and their friends, as much simply to see them in their finery as to save them the cost of a restaurant meal—which, she assured them, would not be half as good as what she would produce. About the only thing that could bring out the vanity in Grandma was her homemade this or her family recipe for that.

“You’re right!” Merry almost shouted. It was a relief to break the moment, which was stretched thin as elastic wrap.

Slipping Campbell’s opera cape around her shoulders, Drew told Mally, “Your coach awaits!”

Drew’s Toyota, the Green Beast, still kicking at 185,000 miles, had once been silver but now was painted perhaps the ugliest color anyone had ever seen on anything that wasn’t in a test tube or a horror movie. But Drew treated it with pride and care—and more than once, it had been a welcome sight for the twins in one of their life-and-death spots when there seemed to be no hope left.

It all seems so long ago,
thought Mallory.

The night was glorious. The stars were out, and although she could see her breath, it wasn’t frigid. They sang with the radio all the way to Bell Fields, where Grandma and Grandpa Brynn owned a spacious ranch, not at all like the deluxe mansion-ettes that multiplied in size the farther up and out you went into the concentric half-moons of the more upscale Haven Hills. One was Neely’s house on Pinnacle Way, sprawling like a cream-colored castle at the very top, overlooking the whole town and the hills that surrounded it.

It was for the acre of land that their grandparents bought the new house. Their old house, where Mally and Merry lived, with four bedrooms and two-and-a-half stories, was just too much for them. They’d sold it to Tim after he and Campbell had the twins.

The twins knew they could count on their grandfather to point out at least three times that everything except the shrimp and the flour came from his and Grandma’s own gardens—yep, they would practically be self-sustaining if they had a cow. (“And a pipeline to Alaska,” Mallory sometimes whispered when Grandpa Brynn got all wound up.) He did, but tonight it was comforting instead of annoying.

Whenever they were around Grandma, Mallory got nostalgic. She thought about things she never thought about otherwise.

Grandpa and Grandma were getting older.

Mally and Merry might go to different colleges, although that was basically unthinkable.

Owen would soon be talking in sentences. Adam was already as tall as his sisters.

As Grandma brought out strawberry shortcake, she leaned over and whispered to Mallory, “Hush now. Every girl feels that way. Like your mom says, it’s just biology. By the way, will you tell your mother I’m not about to keel over? I don’t know what her problem is. Actually, I do know what her problem is. Campbell’s always had a mind of her own. I think she’s afraid I’ll alphabetize the canned goods. I can watch Owen every day for a year or more if need be. Tell her to forget about adding that Melissa Hardesty.”

“Melissa Hardesty isn’t just one sitter too many. It’s all of them,” Mally said.

Grandma went on, “Tell you the truth, I have to agree, Mallory, and I’m not one to put an honest person down. I don’t like a whole bunch of people taking care of my grandson, especially now that he’s feeling a little poorly. I’m not that cool with it.”

“You’re not that cool with it?” Mally asked, trying not to laugh.

“No. Plus, I’m a lot cheaper. I’ll do it for nothing. I swear Campbell treats me like an old woman. Dr. Hardesty is my doctor, and I happen to know that Melissa Hardesty smokes—and not just cigarettes. Wacky tobaccy too.”

“Grandma!” Mallory said, losing the battle to keep her laughter inside.

“You didn’t think our generation knew about anything but elderberry wine, huh?” Grandma put her hands on her hips and mimed holding a long cigarette holder and pushing an invisible hat brim down over her eyes.

“That’s not it. But I’ll tell Mom. I’m relieved. Merry will be, too. It’s not just everyone prying into our lives. It’s Owen. Like you said.” Mallory followed her grandmother into the kitchen, carrying some of the serving plates. “I don’t want so many strangers around him either.”

“Exactly,” Grandma Gwenny said. “Someone who smokes has heavy metal residue in their hair and clothing even if they don’t do it around the child. Bad enough Carla Quinn does. I know she doesn’t smoke. But her friends do and that’s all over her. I’m not saying she’s a bad person.”

“But she’s weird,” Merry said. “She started crying over someone named Ellie when Owen first got sick.”

“Oh, mercy. That was such a sad thing.”

“You know about Ellie?”

“Well, yes, it happened just a couple of years ago, and she hasn’t been right since. She used to go to our church, but she’s part of this sort of Catholic cult now founded by a priest who left the church because it wasn’t strict enough.”

“Who’s Ellie?”

“This isn’t the time or the place,” Grandma said. She seemed to have come back from someplace far off and noticed that the voices around the table were growing quiet as, one by one, the other kids started listening in on her conversation with Mallory. “The important thing is that I love my Owen, and I likely won’t get to know him as well as I know you.” Mallory’s eyes suddenly glittered with unspilt tears. “Oh, Mallory. You act so much like the hard one. Your sister cries at the drop of a hat, and you put on a big act like you’re so past all that.”

“I can’t imagine Owen not knowing you.”

“Okay, I’ll live to be a hundred. That suit you? I’ll be an old pest and tell everyone what to do.”

“Thanks Grandma,” Mallory said. Gwenny put her arms around Mallory and had a flash in her own mind of Mallory’s children—of what a strong woman and a good mother she would be. Mally added, “I love you.”

“You aren’t so bad yourself,” said Grandma Gwenny.

After dinner, Mallory was afraid her stomach would protrude visibly, making all those beautiful shiny little fish scales stand on end like quills—while she was trying to dance and remember to press down on the ball of her foot and then step. Fortunately, the mermaid-glisteny dress had a little welcome stretch in it.

“I feel like I gained ten pounds,” said Sasha, feeling the strain in her tight-waisted gown.

“I wonder why Brynn’s grandparents don’t weigh two hundred pounds each with all that homemade pie and bread and stuff,” Drew added, as Sasha left. They all watched the ritual of Sawyer helping Sasha, who’d in fact eaten only about three bites of her dinner, into the front of his car. Even with the passenger seat canted far back, Sasha’s dress still stuck up in front of her face like a huge, diaphanous umbrella opened wide. They were both laughing, though, so Sawyer obviously didn’t mind. He was driving a Ford Explorer. All the richies had gas guzzlers.

In the Green Beast, Drew thought, Sasha would have had to sit in the trunk and dangle her feet.

“Grandma is always doing something, going a hundred miles an hour,” Merry said. “She’s always bringing meals to what she calls old people, even though she’s like seventy-five.”

“She’s seventy-seven,” Mally said.

“She looks ten years younger than that at least,” said Drew. “Did she have a face lift?” Drew stopped to let Neely get into the car.

“Who got a face lift?” Neely asked.

“My grandmother,” Merry said. “Except she didn’t.”

“Maybe she had, like, face work?” Neely continued. “Injectible wrinkle remover? My mom had it and she’s not even forty.”

“Crack me up,” Merry said. “My grandmother would be as likely to climb Mount ... Wait! Drew! There he is!”

They had just turned off Cambridge onto School Street when Merry saw the boy in the brown leather jacket walking along the side of the road. He was headed toward the school.

They passed him so quickly that when Merry turned to look back, the boy had vanished in the dark winter shadows.

“Neely, that was the new guy. He’s the one! I told you! He’s got blond hair cut like the guys in
Grease?
And he wears this old bomber jacket?”

“I missed him,” Neely said. “I was lining my lips, which is hard in this car, I might add.”

“Drewsky, do you know who I mean? Is he a senior?” Merry asked then.

“I don’t know every senior guy, but I’d know if there was somebody new,” Drew said.

“Weird,” Merry said with a sigh. “Oh well.”

They pulled up to school just as the Winter Princess, Angela DiJordano, was getting out of the car with her mom and dad. A surprise choice: Because she was in a wheelchair from an accident, Angela was one of those lucky picks—a girl who was both a sort of hero and one of those types who would look drab in the movie until she whipped off her glasses and morphed into a beauty. She couldn’t feel anything below her thighs due to a spinal injury from falling when a dock collapsed at Sugar Moon Lake when she was nine or ten.