Pasadena (6 page)

T
uesday, my mother takes the day off work. “I thought we could spend some time together,” she told me over pizza last night. I guess Roy has to work, because it's just going to be the two of us. I get up early and walk to the coffee place around the corner, unwilling to face her without some caffeine and sugar under my belt.

The line is short this morning. I order a latte and a cinnamon roll, then shuffle down the counter to the pickup line.

“Hey, Jude.”

I look up. At the counter, Keith Dunfee, Maggie's ex, is nursing an iced tea. They lasted all of twenty seconds sophomore year. After Maggie had slept with his big brother,
Scott. That was some kind of baggage. Nasty baggage, if the wrong person ever opened it.

I move around the line to join him. “How's it going, Keith?”

He shakes his head. His skin is gaunt beneath the summer tan, the dusting of freckles prominent. “Kind of rough, actually.” He takes a sip of his iced tea. “Scott's back.”

Maggie and Keith had been a long time ago by high school standards. He wasn't her type, just a B student with B-level charm, but he worked part-time at the local animal shelter, which made him more of an A minus in Maggie's book. Keith had been her attempt at a normal high school boyfriend.

But nothing was ever normal with Maggie Kim.

Scott was more of a stereotypical teenaged dreamboat— a hunky blond football player who worked at the equestrian center. He was also a soldier, and Keith's idol. Hell, Keith might've been glad to get Scott's hand-me-downs once he found out.

But maybe Scott had felt differently. Maggie was the last girl he slept with before leaving the country. Finding out she had moved on might be one thing, but moving on with his kid brother?

I take the seat next to Keith and face him. “You heard about Maggie?”

“Yeah. I know you guys were close.” He watches his cup make a ring on the counter. “Sorry.”

“Me too.” I rest my elbows on the counter. “When did Scott get back?”

“Not soon enough to say good-bye.” He turns to me. “She ever tell you she slept with him? The week before his deployment.”

I nod slowly, alarm bells ringing in my head. “Who told you?”

“Scotty did. When I first started dating Maggie, my mom sent him pictures from the spring dance, and he thought I should know.”

So much for motive. Scott was up-front and honest. Maybe it came with the uniform, a twelve-step plan for making amends while at war.

Down the counter, the barista calls my name to pick up my order. I ignore her. “How did that go?”

Keith smirks. “How do you think it went? I was pissed she hadn't told me. I mean, we weren't together or anything, so what are you going to do? It's not like she was a virgin. But she could've said
something
.” He clenches and unclenches the hand holding his iced tea.

“So what did you do?” I prompt.

“I confronted her about it and she told me everything.”

I frown. “There was more?”

He cuts me a look.

“It's Maggie. There was always more.” He relaxes his grip on the cup and exhales. “She was Scott's pen pal. Wrote a letter to him every week from the day he left, even after we broke up. Real letters, too, not e-mail. Perfume and everything.” Keith smiles. “Scott said it made him feel like a doughboy or one of those guys in World War II.”

I spin in my seat, my mind doing a few revolutions of its own. Maggie had been keeping up with Scott all this time. Or maybe Keith was the hitch in their longer romance? Either way, it wasn't a stretch to believe he'd think those letters meant something more. If the soldier boy was back, maybe their reunion went wrong. Maybe Corporal Punishment had finally lived up to his nickname. “You think she was carrying a torch for him?”

“No, nothing like that. It was just . . . The military wasn't Scott's first choice, and when his assignment came up in Afghanistan, well, nobody really wants to go to a war zone, right? But every few weeks, he'd get this batch of letters smelling like flowers and all the guys would go crazy. It made him feel . . .”

I think of how it would have made me feel. How it
did
make me feel, every time Maggie turned her attention my way.

“Loved.”

Keith considers it. “Yeah, I guess. Loved.”

I can see the appeal for her, writing love letters to a man in uniform. But why keep it from me?

A sour taste fills my mouth. I swallow and ask the question anyway.

“Did she say anything in her last letter to Scott?”

Keith wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “You mean like, ‘good-bye, cruel world'?” He laughs. “No. She knew Scotty was coming home. It's got him messed up, making it back in one piece to find out she's gone. The last thing she said to him was ‘see you in July.' To be honest, that's why I don't think Maggie killed herself.”

I could hug Keith for saying it, for agreeing with what I've known all along. “So what do you think really happened?”

He sighs and rubs his face with his hands. “Scotty used to go on patrol every few days with his team and they always made it back somehow. But then, one day, there's this random helicopter crash and two of his buddies are killed.” Keith takes a sip of his drink and fixes me with
a look. “The majority of accidents take place within five miles of home, right? Cosmically, it sucks, but it's true.”

“Is that how they comfort you in the army these days?” I say. “With statistics?”

Keith slides down off his stool. “Come on, Jude. We're in high school. We're like salmon swimming upstream. It'd be a miracle if we all survived.”

I stare at him. “Seriously. You're comparing us to fish.”

Keith smiles sadly. “Not everyone makes it to twenty-one.” He rubs his eyes. “When's the funeral? Scott and I'd like to be there.”

“Thursday. I'll send you the details.”

He comes closer and gives me the hug I've been holding back. “See you at the funeral.”

“Yeah. See you then.”

He pushes the door open and a gust of heat rushes in to fill his place.

T
here you are, honey.” My mom is waiting for me at the kitchen table when I return. A stack of fashion magazines is fanned out on the gold-and-white Formica and her car keys are in her hand. “I thought we could get breakfast, but I see I'm too late.”

“Sorry, jet lag. I couldn't sleep,” I lie, and toss my empty latte cup into the trash. My mom frowns, but pulls it up into a smile.

“That's okay, hon. It's your day. What would you like to do? I was thinking mani-pedis?”

I look down at my bitten nails and decide to throw her a bone. “Sure. I know a place at the mall. They give facials too.”

“Terrific,” she says, shuffling the stack of magazines. “I got these for you. I thought you might like them.”

I don't read fashion magazines.

I come up with a smile. “Thanks,” I say, taking a seat at the table across from her. “I spoke to Dr. Bilanjian yesterday.”

The magazines stop moving. “Did you?” My mother tries to watch me without looking directly at me. “What did she have to say?”

“She said you were worried about me and wanted to make sure I was okay.”

My mother crumples with relief. “I am, honey. You're going through a rough time, and we don't ever seem to talk like we used to.” She reaches across the table. “I wanted to make sure you were handling things okay.”

I pull away. “Mom.”

She drops her hands to her lap and takes a breath. “You're still my daughter, even if you aren't a little girl anymore. You just lost your best friend, honey. Don't you want to talk about it?”

I study the sparkle pattern in our old Formica table, a retro constellation of glittering gold. The girl I used to be was close to her mother. The girl I used to be would date a boy like Joey, get her picture taken in the front yard
before prom, and live on the East Coast with a mommy and a daddy and a stack of beauty magazines.

Do I want to talk? “Yes,” I say, and I can feel her expanding with the joy of being useful.

“But not with you.”

Sometimes, you open your mouth, and out comes nothing but knives. It's happening more and more with me these days. I should talk to Dr. B about that. When did my default mode become “bitch”?

Was I this way before Maggie, or only after Roy?

The bubble pops and my mother looks away, blinking damp eyelashes. Maybe Maggie's mom was onto something. Looks like I'm going to Hell, too.

“You're not the first person to lose someone, Jude,” my mother says. “And you won't be the last.”

“Every high school has a body count. Yes, I know. Thank you for telling me. You're the second person today.”

My mother glowers at me. “Why do you have to do that? Can't you see?” She's trembling, red-faced, a matchstick about to catch light. “I'm just glad it wasn't you.”

And there it is. I love my mother. And I kick myself for not being able to show it. Because she still loves me, even if she sucks at it sometimes.

She slaps the tabletop with the palms of her hands and stands up, grabbing her keys in one fluid motion, like a kid
playing jacks. “Now, I'm going to get my nails done. Are you coming?”

• • •

The trip to the nail salon turns into a condolence visit to the Kims when my mother's little tirade reminds her of her neighborly duty to drop by. I take the opportunity to scratch an itch that's been nagging me since Edina cornered me in the john.

When Violetta answers the door, I head around back, to the pool house.

Maggie's pain-in-the-ass brother, Parker, is sitting on the terrace in his high-backed wheelchair, staring at the roses. Behind him, through the French doors, I can see my mother joining a sofa full of mourners. Better her than me.

“Parker's in the hospital again.” Maggie delivered the news in a neutral tone. Like directions to the nearest post office, a common destination devoid of any emotional drama.

“Oh?” We were on the phone, so I couldn't read her face for clues on how to react.

Parker had been in and out of the hospital since he was eight years old, when the tumor squeezing his brain like an accordion was finally big enough to show up on his
pediatrician's radar. Every so many months, he went in for tests. Occasionally it was for longer, more complicated surgeries to shift his skull plates around and make room for his unwanted tenant.

“Mommy Dearest and Father Knows Best are beside themselves again,” she continued, and now I could hear the sigh over the phone.

Maggie didn't hate the disease that was slowly killing her brother—there was no point, it couldn't be changed. And she didn't hate Parker, even though he was the sort of self-centered prick who would merit it. She understood: being a favorite case study of world-renowned surgeons with God complexes can make you a prick from a very young age. She didn't even hate the extra attention Parker got from the 'rents or the medical set.

She was Maggie Kim. She grabbed plenty of attention on her own.

What she
did
hate was how her parents handled everything. They'd go crazy whenever Parker was due for a new test, never mind a new surgery. Relatives came to town. Concerned friends. Her folks milked the overwrought parent act for all it was worth.

“It's like a practice wake over here,” she told me. “You should see the way my mom looks at me, like it's my fault
I'm healthy. I swear, if Parker could've been fixed with a brain donation, my mom would've sliced me up for spare parts ages ago.” She sighed. “I actually offered once.”

“Offered what?”

“To take his place. I was, like, eight. Parker was so scared, and they were all walking around like he was already dead. So I said I'd get the surgery instead.”

I stifle a snort.

“Don't laugh. I meant it at the time. Dumb kid that I was. And you know what she said? ‘I wish you could.'”

We were both silent for a moment. “Well, you did offer,” I said.

“I know. But that's kind of shitty, right?”

“Yeah. But your parents suck. That's nothing new,” I said.

“Oh, you want new?” she laughed morbidly. “This time, my mom's found religion. There's a minister. In my house. When he showed up with his little congregation of professional mourners, that was the last straw. Come over and help me. I'm moving into the pool house.”

I skirt the edge of the swimming pool and raise a hand to block the sun. “Hey, Park and Ride,” I say.

From his spot on the terrace, Parker doesn't bat an eye. “Fuck you, Jude. Good morning.”

I can't help but smile. Maybe it started as jealousy over Maggie, but I've come to enjoy our little sparring sessions. “Did you know every high school has a body count?”

Parker is a sophomore in the world of the homeschooled and tutored. He's a high school on wheels.

“Do tell,” he says, but he's not looking at me. He's staring at the roses, white and frowsy, petals falling to the ground like snow. I've interrupted a private meditation.

“I'd have put my money on you,” I say. But he still doesn't look up. From this angle, even with those black-rimmed glasses in the way, I can see the parts of him that look like Maggie. I clear the sudden catch in my throat and turn away. “Just came to pick something up.”

“And you can see how much I care.”

I almost laugh. His voice sounds as gruff as mine.

I open the pool house door and step inside. Nothing has changed. I go to the bookshelf where Maggie kept a shoe box full of photos, the ones she bothered printing, and the ones so old they were developed at a drugstore a century ago.

I perch on the sofa with the box in my lap and shuffle through the stack inside. Luke Liu would wet his pants
if he knew this was here for the taking. And he can have it, as far as I'm concerned, minus one little photo I don't want Edina's filthy little eyes on again.

What started as a quick shuffle slows down as I flip through Maggie's former life.

There she is in the dress she wore for the spring dance, back when Keith was still her man. And the two of us, punked out for Halloween. This box is like a time machine, drawing me backward. There are pictures from before I ever knew Maggie. One with her whole family on what must be a vacation in Korea, judging from the signage behind them. She's a skinny kid with a glossy bowl cut, standing half hidden by Parker's wheelchair. And an even earlier one, back before the wheelchair and the surgeries, when Parker was just a little boy. Brother and sister huddled on the doorstep of this very house back in its prime, the two of them grinning as the Popsicles in their hands run red and orange onto the ground like finger-painted sunshine. On the back, Mrs. Kim's flowing cursive lists their ages: Maggie, 7, Parker, 5.

I touch the photo. Maggie's brown eyes sparkle back at me. The bowl cuts, the sugar-stained smiles. She and Parker could almost be twins.

I close the box. Whatever Maggie did with my picture,
it isn't here. Just one more mystery she'll take to her grave.

Parker's missing from the terrace when I leave the pool house. I make it back to the car just as my mother opens the Kims' front door.

She shuts it carefully behind her. “That was hard,” she says.

“Tell me about it.”

She gives me a tired smile and climbs into the driver's seat. “There but for the grace of God,” she says.

Translation: Don't kill yourself, Jude.

She doesn't have to worry about that. The two of us have already been plenty of places where angels would fear to tread, and I haven't done it yet.

“Did you know Maggie got into Brown?”

“Yeah, early admission.”

There's a headache starting behind my left eye. I don't want to talk anymore.

“Such a bright girl,” my mother says.

“Like the sun,” I agree.

My mother's lips twist as if she's keeping something clamped down. She thinks I'm being sarcastic, bitter.

Good guesses. But I mean what I say.

I slump in my seat. The pain has moved to both my eyes.

“I saw you outside with Parker,” my mother says. “How's he holding up?”

I shrug. “Parker is Parker.”

“This must be hard for him,” she says. “I know they were close.” Which goes to show how little she actually knows.

Start the car
, I think.
Just start the car.

Instead, she turns and looks at me.

“What about you, hon? How are you feeling?”

I close my eyes against the ache in my brow, my temples, rising up the back of my neck.

“I'm fine,” I say, opening them again. “Let's just go.”

She sighs. One of those deep, loin-girding exhales that I've grown so used to. It's the sound of tolerance. “You don't sound fine.”

“Please,” I say. “I have a headache. Just . . .” I mimic her sigh. Like mother, like daughter.

Another twist of the lips.

She turns the key in the ignition, and pulls out onto the road.