Have I seen her before?
“Plus, I have band practice after this. So that’s wild.Andcrazy.” Her voice is sarcastic, almost theatrical. “Bands are very wild and crazy, Nonni, you have no idea. If you did, you probably wouldn’t even approve! Tomorrow I’ll bring my guitar, and we can be wild and crazy together, okay?”
I think of my own guitar, neglected since moving here, and wonder what kind of band she’s in. There’s a picture of her being pieced together in my mind.
Noticeably thin.
Tree trunk legs.
I’ve been in bands before, but never with girls. I don’t even know any girls in bands, but I picture neon tights, short shorts, and a ripped T-shirt that hangs off of her shoulder. Something with a skull on it, maybe. She’s confident, sarcastic—she seems like the kind of girl who could pull that sort of thing off. The kind of girl who comes to school in leather pants with purple hair, and then three days later it’s green.
Ginny stays for another hour, telling Evelyn all about her week. Her band, The Melon Ballers, got a gig at a local bar in two weeks. She’s excited about it, but they still need to find a new guitarist to take the place of someone who moved over the summer.
Playing at a bar. She’s obviously older.
She’s excited for school to start tomorrow.
Maybe not.
A lot of the conversation is about music. One of her favorite bands, The Icarus Account, is playing a concert a few hours away, but she can’t afford tickets. I’ve never even heard of them.How expensive could tickets possibly be?It’s quiet for a minute, and then I hear acoustic guitars. The music is faint at first—probably playing on her phone. The four of us sit in silence as the singer joins in, describing a girl who “always wears yellow on days when she feels like herself.” It’s one of those songs that sounds happy and sad all at once, and when it’s done I find myself hoping she’ll play another. She doesn’t.
“I’ll see you Friday for the big First Week of School Recap. Same place, same time, Nonni.” The door squeaks open, and the hallway sounds infiltrate our quiet room. “But I’ll be on time. Promise!”
I’ll see you then,I silently reply.
With a final click of the door, I know she’s gone. It feels like that moment when the end credits run at a movie, and you wishthere were just a few more minutes left before you have to dump your popcorn in the trash. A few more moments before you return to your real life, leaving the imaginary world and characters of the movie behind, trading them in for your own reality.
VIRGINIA
Mom pushes a sticky yellow puddle of eggs around the pan, eyeing me hopefully as I sit across from her on the kitchen island with my glass of orange juice. “You want some?”
I shake my granola bar in front of me. “I’m good.”
“I’ll just pretend like I didn’t see your car missing this morning.” She’s looking at me the way most moms probably would, if they were about to launch into a full-fledged Gitmo-style interrogation of their seventeen-year-old daughter. Except my mom isn’t most mothers, so she just cracks a smile and keeps stirring.
My mom only wishes there was a story of wild adolescent rebellion attached to the disappearance of my green Ford Focus. While she doesn’t outright say it, deep down I think my mom, like my Nonni, wishes I had followed in her free-spirited, “try anything once,” leather-bound sandal footsteps. Instead of my father’s more practical loafers. It’s hard to complain. I have a ridiculous amount of freedom. I rarely use it, but it’s there. And she isn’t one of those weird, incompetent moms who think they’re an overgrown teenager, either. She’s just got a lot of things to worry about, so I try to make sure I’m not one of them.
“I really don’t ask for much, Virginia, just—”
That you come home drunk once.
Get your heart broken.
That you be more like me when I was your age.
“Full disclosure.” I say it with a cheesy grin, in my most mocking voice.
“Yes.” She’s pointing the spatula at me like it’s a weapon, but she’s smiling. “And I don’t think that’s so much to ask.” She still has her light blue scrubs on, and there are tiny flecks of color on them. I wonder if it’s the result of a meal tray malfunction, or some sort of bodily fluid.
Gross.
“Nothing to tell. Steve got wasted at band practice. Again.” I sigh. “I left my car at Logan’s so I could drive him home. So I’m stuck with his car. Case closed, Detective Miller.” I think I can actually hear my mother’s hopes fall with each boring word out of my mouth.
“So Logan’s picking you up for school?”
“Like usual.” My best friend Logan has picked me up for school every day since before he could actually drive. All through middle school Logan’s older brother Drew forced us to sit in the backseat and drove us chauffeur-style.Logan should actually be here by now.
“I haven’t seen him around much lately. Everything okay?”
