I hesitated. “No. I—there’s no one.” When I looked up, expecting to see derision on their faces, Arden’s eyes had a sheen of wetness.
“That is so sad. You went through your whole first day alone?” She pressed her hand to mine. “I would havedied. You are so brave, Mary.”
Whatever response I might have made was interrupted by the buzzing sound emerging from Lydia’s bag. “My mom’s running late,” she reported, glancing at her phone. “I have to walk Muffin.”
“I’ll tell Morrison we’re ready for a ride.” Picking up her own phone, Arden tapped out a message. “One more week and he’ll be back in his dorm. It’s going to be so nice when a bag of tortilla chips lasts more than ten minutes at our house.” She looked up from the screen. “What’s your number, Mary?”
“I ... don’t have a phone.” My parents weren’t technophobes, exactly, but they had informed us in no uncertain terms that they couldn’t afford data plans for a family of seven. That wasn’t the sort of information I felt like volunteering.
“Thanks for the advice,” Terry said with a shy smile.
Lydia jerked her chin at me. “Yeah. Allegedly, and all that, but you made some good points.”
The bell over the door jangled as a red-faced Marco staggered inside, a tower of books balanced between his arms.
“I made it,” he panted, stashing the reading material behind the counter. He straightened slowly. “Whoa. Customers.” He looked questioningly at me. “Friends of yours?”
I hesitated. Saying no would sound like I was repudiating them, while claiming them as friends would be presumptuous—however much my heart swelled at the thought.
“Yep,” Arden answered for me, with another of her easy smiles. “Coming, Mary?”
Dear Diary,
When my parents decided to name all their kids for someone from the life and works of Virginia Woolf, I’m guessing they didn’t expect to have four daughters.Maryis clearly an afterthought—the kind of name you give someone when you’ve already used up the good ones.
Sometimes I worry it marked me for life. Why couldn’t I have been the firstborn, or a twin, or as tough as Cam, or the only boy? A name like Jasper Orlando is wasted on my little brother.
M.P.M.
Chapter 5
Dinner that evening was a sweaty affair.The windows had been thrown open to admit the purple dusk and chanting cicadas, and also because my parents didn’t believe in air conditioning.
All seven of us were home, filling the long oval table. Mom and Dad sat at either end, with my four siblings arrayed around them: twins Addie and Van, the Shakespeareans, now in their second year at Millville College; athletic Cam, whose hair was the same burnished gold as the twins’ but worn short so it couldn’t be used against her on the field hockey pitch; and my brother Jasper, the baby of the family. The din of so many forks and knives made it easy to retreat into the privacy of my own thoughts, which were currently stuck on the incident at Toil & Trouble.
I was still bemused by my own daring in following Arden and the others to her brother’s car. It was as though she’d said,Lifeboat, Mary?and I’d leaped at the chance, even though I could easily have walked the few blocks home.
Hopefully I’d acquitted myself in a reasonably normal fashion when we parted ways. At the time, I’d been too caught up in seeing my house through their eyes. The peeling paint on the porch, the patchy lawn: they’d seemed so much starker in the harsh light of afternoon. While Arden in particular had exclaimed over the quaintness of the neighborhood’s cobblestone streets and whimsical pastels, I wondered if that was a euphemism forpoor.
Not that the disparity of our financial situations really mattered, compared to the gulf in social standing. What had been an epic encounter to me was likely a minor blip to girls like that, who met new people all the time.
Using the edge of my fork, I nudged the chicken and broccoli closer to the mound of brown rice, hoping to imbue the gooey mass with a little flavor. This was a typical late summer meal: a littletoogood for you, as our parents tried to compensate for all the times during the academic year when they had essays to grade and lectures to prep—the hummus months. I thought I was doing a good job rendering myself invisible without being too conspicuous about it when Jasper suddenly piped up.
“What’s up with you, Mary?” Although he’d spoken through a mouthful of rice, the words seemed to hover in the thick air, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Nothing,” I said stiffly, shoving a bite of chicken into my mouth.
“Nothing as innothing,or nothing you want to share?”
All at once I was grateful for the stifling temperature, which meant my face was already flushed. Had Jasper heard about the Anjuli incident? I couldn’t think of a way to find out without showing my own hand, and I had no intention of discussing the subject with my family, despite the fleeting satisfaction it would have given me to tell my parents how very wrong they’d been. Piling their pity on top of my humiliation would be too bitter a pill.
“Can you pass the salt, please?” Addie asked our mother, who was seated closest to the shaker.
“Try behind the dresser,” she replied without lifting her head.
“Thanks, Mom,” Jasper said. “Very helpful.”
She gave a vaguemm-hmmin answer. Jasper waggled his brows in my direction, an invitation and a dare. I wasn’t feeling especially playful, but pride demanded I make an effort.
