Tiffany Tumbles: Book One of the Interim Fates (12 page)

“She
subscribed
,” Mom says. “She didn’t pay.”

It takes nearly a half an hour for Mom to explain to me the difference between subscribing and paying. Then she has to take me to the internet to show me how billing works for texting and cell phones and e-mail and stuff. Each minute, each call, each texting thing costs something, except you get some of those things free for being in the network, but you’d use them up pretty fast.

“So we won’t use them up,” I say.

“You’d use them up in an afternoon, and then who is going to pay your phone bill, hmm?” Mom asks. She’s sounding really frustrated. “It won’t be me.”

“Well, it can’t be me,” I say. “I don’t have any money.”

“We’re going to have to change that,” Mom says.

That sounds like a good thing to me, and I say so.

Mom grins. “You’ll have to become a servant.”

“Huh?”

“Work in a coffee shop or in a restaurant or some other menial task. For which they’ll pay you.”

“Okay,” I say, even though I’m not sure I want to do it.

“We’ll talk to Megan,” Mom says, “but I suspect it’s too early for you. There’s so much you don’t know.”

“So?”

“So I don’t want someone else to assume the liability. School is difficult enough at the moment.”

I turn to the computer so she can’t see my face turn red again. I’m feeling like a steam machine, all hot, then cold, then hot again, and just because of embarrassment.

So Mom’s figured out how dumb I really am. Would Crystal think that if I don’t use the iPhone thing? I have no idea, and I don’t know how to tell her either.

“She wants me to use this thing,” I say.

“We can’t pay for it,” Mom says. “We’re not incurring that kind of expense.”

“But Crystal’s mom is,” I say.

“Crystal’s mom is rich,” Mom says. “I’m not.”

“So Crystal’s mom can pay,” I say.

“No.” Mom actually crosses her arms and glares at me.

“No?” I say. “Just like that? I get a gift and you say no?”

“That’s right,” Mom says. “You can’t do everything you want to here.”

“That’s for sure.” I stand up and stomp away from the computer. “I can’t do anything I want. I can’t go where I want and I can’t read what I want and I can’t talk to my family when I want and I can’t even figure out how things work. You just want me to be alone all the time.”

Mom reaches for me. “Honey—”

“Don’t honey me,” I say, staying out of her range. “You don’t know me, and you’re being mean. I miss my sisters. I used to be with them all the time. You know what all the time is, right? Like every minute?”

“I know,” Mom says softly. “We all decided—you and me and Megan and Zeus and your sisters and their mothers—that you girls needed to learn how to be alone. How to be separate. Otherwise you won’t have your own identities.”

“Well, I have one,” I say. “It’s stupid, it’s dweeby, and I hate it. I want to go home.”

Mom’s face goes gray. “You are home.”

“No, I’m not. I’m in some backwards town with stupid servants and I’m supposed to be nice to everyone, and I have to lie to them, and I don’t want to. I just want to be me.”

“And who is that, honey?” Mom asks in the voice she uses when she’s pretending to be Megan.

Who am I? What kind of question is that?

But I don’t have a ready answer.

I glare at her. I remember what it’s like to make your body grow five feet in a second, to make yourself so big you scare the person you’re talking to. I remember how to spit fire out of my eyes, and how to take command of mortals as if they’re flies. I remember all that.

I can’t do it anymore, but I remember it.

That person, the one who could do all those things, that was me.

This person, this one who has to lie and walk everywhere and be alone, this is someone else.

“I’m using that iPhone thing,” I say and stomp to the kitchen. I take the box and the letter, and go to my room.

And, for once, Mom doesn’t follow me at all.

ELEVEN

I LIE ON
my stomach, reading the iPhone instructions. They’re not making a lot of sense, no matter what Crystal said. I stare at the gadget and then at the instructions and try to figure out what to do.

Mom designed this room for me before I even got here. In fact, she says, she had it for me from the time I was born (she’s owned the house a long time). I guess I stayed here as a baby. There’s a smoke stain on the wall that Mom kept to remind herself why she couldn’t raise me without Dad’s help.

But, I guess, she always expected me to move in, or at least stay the summer or something. She says she bought the bed when she redid the house after getting tenure (whatever that is), and the bed does match hers. It’s made of cherry. The headboard is this neat red color. There’s a matching dresser and nightstand.

When I mentioned I wasn’t really into pink, Mom took me to the mall and had me pick out my own lamps and bedspread and sheets and stuff. We got towels too. I bought really tame stuff for the spread—y’know, browns and deep brownish red to go with the cherry—but the sheets are all flamboyant, with
You Go Girl
written across a blue background in bright red.

I bought them thinking I’d get to share them with Brittany and Crystal—that’s how I thought about everything then (and still do when I’m not catching myself)—but now I’m pretty sure they’ll never see this place, with its ballerina lamps and movie-poster walls.

I’d heard Helen tell some of her friends that she has a TV and a computer in her bedroom, even though (she says) that’s becoming redundant.

I just have books in mine. And a clock radio and a CD player and a bunch of CDs that I conjured before I came here. I can’t afford to buy many now, even though they are old technology.

But I opened this phone, and the paper instructions tell me to go online for help, and I
can’t.
The screen’s in Mom’s office, and she actually has spyware on there and key trackers so that she can keep an eye on what I’m doing even when she’s not home.

You’d think, if someone’s going to make a product that needs instructions, they’d give you all the relevant instructions with the package, not tell you to go to some FAQ (it took me weeks to understand that’s a Frequently Asked Question) on some website.

But noooo. You have to go to the stupid website if you can’t figure things out on your own.

Which I can’t. I can’t even type in (with my thumb: whose idea was that?) my name and my address, let alone anything else. I did swipe the screen and get the start-up process started, and I was half-tempted to make the language of the phone Greek, until I remembered that the Greek used in this world wasn’t the Greek I spoke.

Mom hasn’t come to my room at all, which is weird, because the one other time we fought (not nearly so bad as this one) she came right away. Maybe she’s not so afraid of losing me now.

She should be. It’s not all new anymore, and I’m getting so very homesick. I’m beginning to think I made a mistake leaving everything behind.

Megan said if we three girls kept on the path we were on before she met us, we’d be evil someday. Like evil witches or something, because we’d have no sense of other people.

Maybe I’ll risk evil for a chance to be with people who actually care about me.

Mom doesn’t care enough to check to see how I am.

So, I figure I can use this iPhone thing without her permission. Crystal has the subscription, and I’ll ask her to pay for it, even though Mom said no.

If I can get the thing to work and can text her.

I shove the device in its box, put all the papers back in, and clear off my bed. Then I tuck the box under my arm and open my door.

I can hear Mom’s voice, really faint, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. Sounds like she’s talking to someone.

Good. She won’t know that I’m on the computer looking at FAQs until it’s too late.

I sneak down the hall—I’ve already learned where the creaks and groans in the floor are (I had to learn this because Mom has eagle ears—she can hear anything if she wants to, which means I’ve got to be super quiet).

Mom’s voice gets closer. I stop by the fake potted plant near the office door and peek around it. She’s at her desk, clinging to the mobile phone and tapping something on the computer.

I let out a sigh of annoyance—not loud enough for her to hear—and am about to head back to my room when she says,

“I don’t care what she’s doing. This is important. Tell Mrs. Chandler I need to speak to her
now
.”

Mrs. Chandler. Crystal’s mom.

My heart starts beating hard. Why would Mom call? And if she has a beef (is that slang?), how come she doesn’t take it up with Crystal? How come she has to talk to her mom?

“Do I have to use the word ‘emergency’? Because I will,” Mom says, as if an emergency can be decided by just using the word. It doesn’t seem like an emergency to me, but Mom is pretty mad.

After a minute, Mom says, “Get her,” in that tough voice that seems to scare everyone.

Then she bangs on the keys for a minute, the phone cradled between her ear and her shoulder. She’s frowning as she does that too.

I can’t stand it. I’m about to go in when Mom says, “Monique? It’s Serena.”

Then she sits up and grabs the phone, holding it tight.

“Serena VanDerHoven…Tiffany’s mom….. You know, we met at Megan’s in Los Angeles.
When we talked to Zeus
.”

Mom’s cheeks are starting to turn red. Maybe I get this lovely trait from her.

“Your daughter is violating our agreement. We all decided that the girls wouldn’t have contact for the first three months, except on Saturdays….”

Mom explains the whole iPhone thing, but her voice is rising. She’s getting more and more frustrated. It takes her a while to explain exactly what has her undies in a bundle (now that has to be slang) and finally she pauses, which means Mrs. Chandler is saying something.

Then Mom grimaces. It’s an ugly look that would have anyone trembling, except that Mrs. Chandler can’t see her, of course.

“It’s not a matter of money,” Mom says, which is news to me, because she told me it’s a matter of money. “It’s a matter of principle. Tiffany is just starting to get a sense of herself, and if she’s texting your daughter all the time, she’ll lose that….”

My stomach clenches. What does she mean, beginning to get a sense of myself?

“I
do
see this as serious,” Mom says. “I see it as very serious for all three girls.”

I’m getting dizzy. It takes a minute to realize that I’ve been holding my breath.

“I’m not trying to tell you what to do with your daughter,” Mom says. “I’m trying to tell you that your daughter has spent a great deal of your money on something that my daughter and I will have to turn down.”

Mom’s mouth drops open, as if she can’t believe what she’s hearing.

“I do consider this important, and no, I didn’t exaggerate when I said emergency.”

I thought she did too, but what do I know? Apparently Mrs. Chandler’s giving her a bit of a dressing down, though, because Mom looks madder and madder.

“Maybe you don’t care what your daughter does, but I care a great deal for mine. You can tell your daughter that we will be sending her iPhone back. We have no need of it.”

Mom slams the phone down, stares at it, and mutters, “Bitch.”

Now I haven’t heard Mom swear at all before, and I can’t stay out of this any longer.

I move away from the fake plant and come in the door. “So you’re sending this back.”

“We are,” Mom says.

“It’s mine,” I say.

“It’s Crystal’s,” Mom says.

“Her mom didn’t think so,” I say.

“You heard that?” Mom asks.

I nod.

“Then you know that Crystal’s mom is….” Mom stops and shakes her head.

“What?” I ask.

“It’s none of our business,” Mom says, tapping a button on the computer. It makes a bell-like sound, followed by the log-off chords.

“It is too,” I say. “Crystal’s my sister. If something’s wrong, I want to know.”

Mom looks at me, her eyes sad. “It’s just that her mom isn’t as hands-on as I am, that’s all.”

I frown. “What does that mean?”

“She didn’t realize what Crystal had done,” Mom says.

“So?” I say. “I don’t report to you everything I’ve done.”

“You don’t have access to credit cards and all the shopping you want either,” Mom says. “It’s just you and me, not you, me, and the servants.”

“It feels that way,” I say.

“I mean real servants,” Mom says, then rubs her forehead. “I’m confusing you, aren’t I?”

I shrug, which is becoming my default for yes.