Swing Sideways Read online

  He smiled, then held the rag to his nose and sniffed. “Did I also tell you the best raspberries I ever ate grew on McMurtry’s farm?”

  My neck tensed. “Nope.”

  “Huh. Wonder if they’re still there.”

  “Did you know them? The McMurtrys?”

  Dad watched me for a second. “Everyone at the lake knew them.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me that before?”

  “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  “No, I guess not,” I said quickly. I wasn’t ready to reveal my secret about California yet, not even to Dad.

  “Changing the subject here, but you know Mom doesn’t mean to make you crazy, right?”

  I jammed the lid onto the deck. “I’m not going to get fat from one piece of pie, Dad. All that time I couldn’t eat she kept shoving food at me. Now she’s trying to force me the other way around.”

  “She worries when you’re gone during the day and we’re not part of it. We’re used to spending the summers together, as a family, and now you’re off on your adventures by yourself. It’s not easy. We haven’t even been to the beach together. Not once.” He knotted one end of the cloth and swung it in circles. “Cuttin’ the cord, letting the baby bird fly from the nest, it’s really different, but it’s especially hard for Mom.”

  “Why is it harder for her? Why does she have to be all spreadsheet-y all the time?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Pumpkin. Probably has something to do with the way she was raised. I always figured she became a math girl because math is orderly, and her life was so crazy after her dad died. Balance, you know? She wants your life to be more stable than hers.”

  “Dr. Clementi said parents do that. Mess up their kids because they don’t want them to go through what they did, but they end up making different problems. Anyway, we’re supposed to be doing the Freedom Plan, remember? If I want five pieces of pie, I should be able to eat five pieces of pie.”

  “I know. And Mom’s trying. She really is.” He watched her through the glass door, packing her violin into the case. “Sometimes I catch her looking out the window after you’ve gone off for the day, and I know she’s wishing she could be with you, like it was before.”

  “Are you using guilt on me? Dr. Clementi said parents do that, too.”

  “Boy, he isn’t going to let us get away with anything, is he?”

  The light from the living room dimmed.

  “You know Mom’ll never stop trying to control me if you keep fixing things when we argue.”

  “Me? Where’d that come from? Oh, wait, Dr. Clementi again.”

  “He said when I was ready to handle Mom on my own I would have to tell you. He said that was how I’d feel safe, or something like that. I can’t do it when you’re always running around trying to make everyone happy.”

  “Since when is it bad to want everyone happy?”

  I couldn’t answer, so I shrugged, feeling like I’d stabbed him in the gut.

  “Huh.” He turned to watch the light show going on in the yard.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound that way,” I said.

  He handed me the knotted cloth. “Are you ready now? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No. I don’t know. Maybe. Sometimes. Not really.”

  “It’s okay, Pumpkin. I get it.”

  Did he get it? Did I? Was I ready? All I knew was that I’d hurt Dad’s feelings and had to make it better.

  “I have a new friend,” I blurted out.

  “A new friend? What’s his name?”

  “Don’t be dumb, Dad. It’s not a boy.”

  “Oh, okay. Is it a secret?”

  “Kind of.” I lowered my voice. “It’s Mr. McMurtry’s granddaughter.”

  His head jerked, ever so slightly. “Mr. McMurtry’s granddaughter. Who would have thunk it?”

  “Did you know he had a granddaughter?”

  “Nope, I did not know that.”

  “Her name is California—as in the state.”

  “California? That doesn’t surprise me.” He smiled funny, like he was the one with the secret. “Maybe you’ll invite Miss California over for supper sometime?”

  “I don’t know. I just want to keep it to myself for now. You can’t say anything, Dad. Mom might say mean stuff about her grandfather. Promise?”

  “I don’t think—” he started, and then changed his mind. “Of course, top secret.”

  TEN

  Watching California wolf down two pieces of pie the next day confirmed I should not invite her for dinner unless Mom was far, far away. She wiped yellow curd off her face with her forearm and licked the spot like a dog.

  “Who ever figured you could make something so spectacular from eggs and a few lemons.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve never had lemon meringue pie.”

  “Well, I can gar-un-tee you, I’m going to learn how to make it. That was the most deeeelish thing ever.” She spit a lemon seed into the dirt, scooped it up, and stuffed it into her pocket. “Testament to the use of real lemons.”

  “How’s your grandfather feeling?”

  “Fine.”

  “Is he—”

  “Annie, we’re not talking about it.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  She waved her hand. “We can’t get distracted from finding the ponies.”

  I groaned inside. What had started as an adventure a few weeks ago was beginning to feel like a punishing chore. For all the hot days we’d spent tromping through the woods, leaving food everywhere and documenting everything in the notebook, we’d had no luck. We scattered oats; they disappeared. Apples, carrots—same thing. Not one hoofprint, not one trace of pony manure left behind. Only a few mounds of pellet-sized deer droppings.

  “Darn deer turds,” California had grumbled.

  The hotter the days got and the farther we trekked with no sign of anything pony-like, the bossier California became. Some days it felt like I’d traded a controlling mother for an equally pushy friend. It was getting tiresome. I packed the porcelain pie dish into the paper bag.

  “I was thinking,” she said. “Let’s go around the edge of the field today instead of searching the woods. Grandfather wouldn’t plow through snow on the hill all winter to feed a couple of ponies. He’d make them come get it. There’s got to be a path, other than the one we made.”

  She led the way out of the woods and turned left where the tree line met the fields. The grass on the hill swayed in soft, pale-green waves. Down where we walked it was tangled with brush, sticker vines, and three-pointed foliage that looked suspiciously like poison ivy. The ground was cluttered with rocks the perfect size for ankle turning.

  “If we find their trail, we’re gold,” California called over her shoulder.

  We stumbled along for another five minutes. At least, I stumbled. It felt like a boot-camp exercise. Or torture. California marched. Barefoot. Her arms swung back and forth. Her bare calves plowed through anything in her way, whipping thorny branches back at me. The July sun stretched its flames close to the earth. The hair on my arms turned crispy. Crickets chirped nonstop. Sweat dribbled down my neck, soaking my T-shirt, and every chigger in the county was happily sucking fluid out of my ankles. With each swat, I prayed they weren’t creeping into my underwear.

  Apparently, California was immune to sticker burrs, heat, and chiggers. She stormed ahead, oblivious of my agony, yakking away like she always did about how she just knew we would find the ponies soon, and her mother would come and be reunited with her grandfather, and they’d all be so happy, and blah, blah, blah. It’s all she talked about. Ever. I needed a break.

  “Hey! I was thinking,” I shouted.

  She turned, eyebrows arched almost to her hairline, her eyes narrowed and suspicious. “About what?”

  “I dunno. It’s so hot today, and I’m all itchy. Maybe we could search somewhere cooler.”

  “Like where?”

  “Inside the barn, maybe? It’s always
cool in there.”

  “What do you think we would find in the barn we haven’t already discovered?”

  She was irritated by my lack of enthusiasm for traipsing across an open field on the hottest day of the year. The taste of salt from sweat licked off my lips, and the burn on my shoulders only let me think about one thing: a cool, dark space to sit until my head stopped pounding, no matter what excuse I had to invent to make it happen.

  “You found those ribbons and the photographs. There’s got to be more of Piper’s things somewhere. Maybe we’d find clues to something else that would make her want to come home.”

  “What things are you talking about?”

  “You know, like a treasure box. Doesn’t Piper have a treasure box of the pictures you colored when you were little, and report cards, and school pictures? Maybe there’s one here for Piper, from when she was a kid. Maybe we should expand our search.”

  “A treasure box? What are you, five? And I’m homeschooled, remember? School pictures are just plain old pictures.”

  I was too hot, too thirsty, and too cranky to give in. “Wouldn’t it make sense that your grandfather kept Piper’s report cards?”

  California shrugged and turned away, batting at a thin sapling that flipped back and barely missed my sunburned legs.

  “I don’t know where anything’d be, and I don’t know what kind of clues you’d expect to find in a treasure box,” she grumbled, air-quoting the words treasure and box. She marched forward with shoulders flung back, military style. From behind, she looked every bit as pigheaded as Mom, which did nothing to ease my irritation.

  “California!”

  She swung around and glared.

  “I’m too hot,” I said. “This is crazy. We need to go inside.”

  She thrust her fists into her hips. “No! We need to concentrate on finding the ponies. That’s the only thing that’s going to bring her home.” Tears sprouted and dribbled quickly down her nose.

  “I just thought—”

  “Don’t think!” she yelled. “Just do what I say!”

  Another chigger sank its proboscis into my leg. I slapped my calf and scowled at her. “I don’t know what you’re so upset about. I told you I’d help you find those stupid ponies. I just think we should try something else while we cool off. Since I’m helping you, I should have a say in how we do it.”

  “Stupid ponies? Is that what they are?” She flung her arm at me. “If that’s what you think, I don’t need some smart-butt city girl who carries around a notebook like it’s a binky to help me do anything. I was only letting you come along ’cuz I felt sorry for you!”

  The Story Notebook burned in my hand. The paper bag with Grandmother Stockton’s china pie plate shook. My mind went blank, and the back of my knees dropped. When my breath came back, so did my anger.

  “Did it ever occur to you that I might be tired, that I might be hot, that I might need a break? I’m just suggesting that we could discover something new that would bring her home, something besides the ponies. Maybe he sold them, and we’d find out who bought them and could try to get them back. There are a million possibilities, you know. Not just one. But forget it. Forget the whole thing. See if this smart-butt city girl ever brings you lemon meringue pie again.”

  I threw the paper bag to the ground. Hard. Then, to make sure she got the point of how mad I was, I stomped my foot on top of it. Twice. Until I heard a loud crack. I stared at the mauled bag. “See what you’ve done?”

  Her mouth opened so wide I could see all the way to her epiglottis. It was big, and rubbery, and wiggled furiously. Her cheeks puffed out. The whites of her eyes turned red, and dark circles appeared underneath. She clenched her fists, and her face got rounder, and tighter, and redder, until I envisioned steam rushing from her ears and her brains exploding right out of the top of her head.

  I had one foot back to step away when she puckered her lips and let out a long whoosh of air. Her skin faded to pink, and she squeezed her eyes tight. Her shoulders sank, her fists unclenched, and her jaw went slack. When she opened her eyes, they were wet. She spoke in a teeny-tiny whisper.

  “The truth is, Annie-girl, I need you. I need you to be my friend. You don’t understand. . . .”

  My vocal cords were playing Ping-Pong in the back of my throat, so I kept my mouth shut. She wiped her face with the inside of her elbow, picked up the bag, and held it out.

  “I’m sorry, okay? I’m scared. Every day we don’t find the ponies, I get more scared. Sometimes I can’t sleep and think if I ran away, she’d be forced to come back. They’d have to look for me together, but then I’d miss the treatments, and that’s the whole reason I’m here, so I can’t do that—I mean I couldn’t go with Grandfather to his treatments. So I don’t know what to do.”

  I stuffed the bag under my arm. One of the broken edges of the plate ripped through the paper and dug into my side. I needed to get out of the heat, and away from her words that cut sharper than the broken plate.

  “Please, Annie, don’t leave.” Her voice cracked. “Let’s go to the river to cool off. We’ll make a new plan, just like you said. We’ll look for something else.”

  She looked so pathetic standing there with tears staining her face, begging me not to give up. I couldn’t walk away when she needed me like this, not like Jessica had done, no matter how hot it was. I nodded and turned toward our path to the river. This time California followed me.

  We decided to search the rest of the barn, plus the attic and Mr. McMurtry’s bedroom. I gave her my cell number so she could alert me if Mr. McMurtry went somewhere long enough for us to get in and out of the house.

  “Call twice, let it ring once each time,” I said. “That’ll be the signal I should come right away.”

  “Why don’t you just answer the phone?”

  “Um, I don’t want Mom or Dad to ask who’s calling.”

  “Why not? Don’t you want them to know you’re coming here?”

  “Not really, not unless you want me to answer all their questions about Piper, and the ponies, and your grandfather’s cancer—”

  She cut me off. “Okay, okay, I get it. Yeah, you’re right. The code. That’ll be our code. Keep this stuff to ourselves. No one needs to pry into our business. Ever.”

  It was only a tiny, little white lie, but it felt enormous. California was the last person I thought I’d keep a secret from, but I couldn’t tell her how Mom felt about her family. It would hurt California, and embarrass me.

  “I’m really sorry about today, Annie-girl. Sometimes I go a little out of my head, you know?”

  That was the thing. I didn’t know what it was like to be California any more than she knew what it was like to be Annie Stockton. But when we were together, none of that mattered, because that’s when we were We.

  ELEVEN

  A note lay open on the kitchen counter.

  Pumpkin

  We’ll be back from the lake at 6:00. Mom says please take the lobster bisque from the fridge and put it on low heat at 5:45.

  See you soon.

  Love,

  Dad

  It took a minute to sink in that Mom trusted me to do this without hovering. I checked the fridge, found the bisque, and set the alarm on my cell for five thirty. After a shower I let my hair loose and flipped the ends the way she liked, hoping clean shorts, a polo shirt, and a smearing of her beige makeup would distract from my sunburn.

  At dinner I slid into my chair and smiled at both of them. Mom’s mouth flickered a sign of approval. Everyone fell into an awkward silence. Dad studied the pink liquid in his bowl. Mom chewed tiny pieces of lobster. I swirled my spoon around and watched the cream run off.

  “Annabel—”

  I ignored her.

  “I’m sorry. Annie.” She wiggled in her chair like she was shaking off the fact that my name change still bothered her. “The clambake is tomorrow night. It would mean a lot if you came. We haven’t been to the beach together as a family all summer. If
you come, I’ll buy you a new outfit to wear.” She squeezed her napkin so tight it would take an hour to iron out the wrinkles.

  I didn’t want a new outfit, and I didn’t want to go to the clambake. Since the panic attacks started, my social life had ceased to exist. While Jessica was going to boy-girl parties, I’d stayed home, avoiding crowds. Crowds made my throat feel like it was closing. So no, I did not want to go to the clambake.

  But what if, instead of asking me to go to a clambake, what if Mom had announced she had cancer? What if she said it could come back, and there might be limited clambakes in our future? My stomach pitched. Her expression was so hopeful.

  “I don’t want a new outfit, but I’ll go with you.” The last word wasn’t even out of my mouth before my throat tightened.

  Dad patted my arm. “It’ll be fine, Pumpkin. Once you take that first step, it’s going to feel like old times.” He dunked a chunk of French bread into his bisque. Mom smiled and stirred. I put my spoon down and stared at my bowl until dinner was over.

  My mind reeled all night. I dreamed of showing up at school naked and getting stuck in a crowd of people laughing at me. By morning the neck of my T-shirt was damp and bunched, and my fingers didn’t want to uncurl from the fabric. A fast hike through the woods with California would have worn down my nerves, but she was MIA. I hung around the orchard, hiding behind a tree, and waited. She never went to the river without me. Where was she? The gate creaked on the back side of the barn. I turned sharply and fled.

  When I got home, a new sundress was spread out on my bed. White eyelet. Eyelet! Like what six-year-olds wear on Easter. Next to the dress was a pair of white sandals with shiny gold bumblebees in the middle. A piece of Mom’s engraved stationery lay open with a note written in her perfect calligraphic script.

  In case you change your mind about the new outfit

  Love,

  Mom

  At five o’clock I met Mom and Dad at the car. No one said anything about my shorts and flip-flops. Nothing with actual words, anyway.

  The sun inched its way toward the line of trees across the lake. Strings of white lights twinkled along the roof of the boathouse. Two dozen tiki torches rose from the sand around the edge of the small beach, and reflections from the flames spilled across the water like gold coins. Families I’d known my entire life gathered around tables and red-hot charcoal pits. Little kids ran from one side of the beach to the other, their hands clutching flame-spitting sparklers. So many people. I got stuck at the top of the stone steps, gripping the rail, fighting panic.